Hey, you can look at it anyway you you want really. All I know is that I'm an atheist who actually believes there is no God and I think it's just as valid for someone to call themselves an atheist when they simply lack a belief in God.

Yeah, but then her dude-lookin-like-a-lady dad would come along and boat her away to some island of immortality and you'd be all like hey, come back here, all I get is this lousy pin from the Franklin Mint?

i can't fathom being 100% athiest because everything had to come from something.

but i can fathom believing god snapped his fingers billions of years ago and made all the elements and put them in motion and then that was the last thing he did.

So if everything had to come from something, where did God come from?

And if God didn't need to come from something, why does anything else?

It's an old argument.

I second this. Not because it's a cliche, but because it's egotistical. There's so much religious writing/thought/philosophy out there. To me, saying that you're spiritual but not religious, is essentially saying that there is a god or at least a supernatural aspect to life but that everyone else on Earth got it wrong and you were the one to finally get it right. Usually, people who say this have never even thought much about religion or philosophy. They just reject the religion they were raised in for cultural/social reasons and are too lazy or afraid to question there beliefs. Or they just smoke a lot of ganja.

Yeah, the true philosophical shitstorm--the one that can't be solved even if you're religious-- is why is there something instead of nothing.

When I start thinking about this I get a little depressed, and then I listen to Iron Maiden's "Infinite Dreams" and the world makes sense again.

<------ We've even got our own magazines 'n shit.

I suspect a lot of people are secular humanists and don't know it.

Check out secularhumanism.org.

Now pardon me while I proselytize:

The Affirmations of Humanism:
A Statement of Principles

* We are committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems.
* We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, and to look outside nature for salvation.
* We believe that scientific discovery and technology can contribute to the betterment of human life.
* We believe in an open and pluralistic society and that democracy is the best guarantee of protecting human rights from authoritarian elites and repressive majorities.
* We are committed to the principle of the separation of church and state.
* We cultivate the arts of negotiation and compromise as a means of resolving differences and achieving mutual understanding.
* We are concerned with securing justice and fairness in society and with eliminating discrimination and intolerance.
* We believe in supporting the disadvantaged and the handicapped so that they will be able to help themselves.
* We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, and strive to work together for the common good of humanity.
* We want to protect and enhance the earth, to preserve it for future generations, and to avoid inflicting needless suffering on other species.
* We believe in enjoying life here and now and in developing our creative talents to their fullest.
* We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence.
* We respect the right to privacy. Mature adults should be allowed to fulfill their aspirations, to express their sexual preferences, to exercise reproductive freedom, to have access to comprehensive and informed health-care, and to die with dignity.
* We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist ethics is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative standards that we discover together. Moral principles are tested by their consequences.
* We are deeply concerned with the moral education of our children. We want to nourish reason and compassion.
* We are engaged by the arts no less than by the sciences.
* We are citizens of the universe and are excited by discoveries still to be made in the cosmos.
* We are skeptical of untested claims to knowledge, and we are open to novel ideas and seek new departures in our thinking.
* We affirm humanism as a realistic alternative to theologies of despair and ideologies of violence and as a source of rich personal significance and genuine satisfaction in the service to others.
* We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality.
* We believe in the fullest realization of the best and noblest that we are capable of as human beings.
* We like long, meandering lists.

see. that's a whole other debate. From my knowledge of history, this "principle" is something currently taken out of context, not from the constitution of the United States, but a letter from James Madison to Jasper Adams and/or Robert Walsh on the liklihood of the government usurping rights of those who want to freely practice religion. It was all about not establishing a government mandated religion, like there was in England for centuries. From my understanding, it was not to imply that individuals suffer from having religious beliefs and instruction. This is clear in most of Madison's letters.

sorry for the digression.

I can't believe I've never heard of this philosophy, Lumpy. Thanks for posting that. I think Cemetery was intrigued, as well.

My name is blacklakebeauty and I'm a secular humanist.

Yeah, works for me.

Who is suffering?

and

Even if the Founders did not desire the wall commonly defined as Church & State, does that necessarily make it a bad thing? I mean, the Founders also didn't exactly intend to allow women suffrage.

I usually say "I believe in God, but I'm not very interested in ritual."

Buying into religion is like buying the extended warranty on electronics.

Its an insurance policy - just in case.

no. it does not "necessarily" make it a bad thing. However, the more power the Federal government continues to sneak its way in to, the more likely things will be "progressive" to the point of persecution--and before I get crucified for saying persecution, let me make it clear that I am NOT referring nor am I limiting my term to the confines of religious perssecution. It could slowly and gradually formulate a government that becomes totalitarian. It's the backdoor man. Like FDR. Backdoor politics. So, when education and medicine and taxing and multuple other arenas of everyday life become more and more controlled by the Federal government, is it that hard to imagine that religion will be slow to follow? They may not ever mandate a "state religion" but they may outlaw religion. who knows. it's just dangerous ground to tread on, at least in a hypothetical sense.

No, it's not faith. It's lack of a belief -- the two are completely different.

It's like this: do you believe that below our earth's core, there is a giant chocolate chip with a caramel center? No, you don't. Is it a matter of faith that you don't believe it, or does it not even cross your mind? (Other than now that I brought it up.) That's what lack of faith is.

Quit telling me what you think my inner thoughts are -- you're just plain simply wrong about them. Accept -- not on faith, but on face value, I.E. my telling you -- that what I say is as it is. Do not think that because you think you know everything that you know me. Do not insult my intelligence so. Do not think I have not thought about this extensively -- I was baptized and raised religious.

You have a theory, it falls apart. It's not the end of the world, just come up with a new one.Nope, atheist. Not sure if I'm soft or hard, but I suspect it depends on the company with which I am speaking. I'm sure I could be made hard.

google search shows atheism can be defined as both a belief and a lack of belief. though the former seems to be more popular. its an old argument that never goes anywhere anyway

I'm a Christian, always have been and always will be and make no apologies about it. There are a lot of things people (some Christians included) don't understand about Christianity and Christ's teachings and it causes a skewed view of the whole faith.

I've always had a hard time with the number of denominations within Protestantism. I understand why they are there and how they got there but it seems like the differences in belief about (what should be) minor issues have caused a lot of tension between denominations. I think that reflects poorly on those who aren't Christians and gives a bad impression of what "Christianity" is. For example, when Jerry Fallwell opens his mouth about something, people outside of the Protestant camp see him as a sort of spokesperson for the whole faith. In reality, most Christians are pretty embarrassed by nearly everything he says.

I'm one of the more conservative thinking people on this board, but this is just some paranoid Bill O'Reilly-styled generalized rambling. Of course it's possible that someday, somehow the federal government could become an all-encompassing totalitarian regime. But it's also possible that using that argument they could outlaw puppies and jellybeans.

But, your original post stated that the concept of Church & State was taken out of context from some letters written by James Madison and would make the assumption that the concept is erroneously applied to the Constitution.

Given the assumption that there is no Separation of Church & State in the Constitution and couple it with the history of established religion on this very continent, and I have a hard time seeing how that is less likely to persecute or outlaw religion, even without federal government intervention.

The Protestants of New England weren't exactly a real tolerant bunch, and in 1649 the colonial assembly of Maryland passed An Act Concerning Religion, more commonly known as The Act of Toleration Act. It claimed that "no person in this province professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall be in any ways troubled, molested, or discountenanced for his or her religion." If limiting the scope to just Christian religions weren't enough, it became more apparent later that the entire point of the Act was to make sure the Catholic Calvert family and the Catholic minority ruling class didn't lose their hold on the land.

Though I don't believe we have it down perfect, I think the Constitution does do a pretty damn good job. I also think that having at least some semblance of a wall between the government and the church is much better than the alternative. That's not to say I advocate a ban on religion. It means that jockeying and lobbying by religions to get their doctrine intertwined in the federal code is not only much more impractical than the jockeying and lobbying of the millions of special political interests that already exist, but it also dilutes and pollutes the integrity and the aims of the religions themselves.

The Separation of Chuch & State benefits both religion and government.

And in the interest of fueling fire of taking Madison out of context, I'll provide another quote:

Madison, in his letter to Rev. Jasper Adams:
"I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions & doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst by an entire abstinence of: the Govt from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, & protecting each sect agst trespasses on its legal rights by others."

I was raised as a Christian, but I wandered off from that a number of years ago. However, I agree with what you just said here, especially as a non-Christian. Most of my family is still very firmly and openly Christian, but share very little in common with Mr. Falwell or his stump speeches. That is where my idea of Christianity comes from, and that is why I don't feel so threatened by it.

haha. yes I know it is rather outlandish and silly on many levels. I am not saying I believe that this is the case or that this is going to happen. Let me try and explain. The reason I brought up the issue of Separation of Church and State was not to imply that there should be no separation. Trust me, I don't want Al Gore or George Bush telling me what to believe. The separation is necessary and I did not mean to make it sound that it shouldn't exist. My issue is that religion/spirituality and government, although separate, are not and should not be in competition with each other. The way that it seems many interpret the Separation of Church and State is in this manner. That religion will destroy government therefore making a belief in a religion, particularly Christianity, a bad thing for many in this country. It's like people view it like this, "we have to keep them church folk out of politics and decision making for this country because they are just doing things for their agenda and their beliefs and we can't have them making decisions and forcing their beliefs on us". However, wether you are secular humanist, christian, buddhist, hindu, atheist, agnostic, or satanic, no matter what you are influenced by your beliefs and your moral code is what dictates what you think is right. Therefore, no one can separate their beliefs and their morality from government. There is limited "objectivity" in law because at some point it is based on a morality--someone or multiple someones deciding that someone elses actions are right or wrong. So, why then, is it better or rather why does it make more sense for a secular humanist[insert any other type of workldview], who is not guided by contemporary christian doctrine, to make laws? They are guided by their own faith and are not necessarily keeping their beliefs and "church" separate from policy-making.

Basically, my issue is that it seems that many take this "separation of church and state" idea to mean "keep the christians out of government. That is incorrect, against the constitution, and in that case it does make it a bad thing to interpret and misuse what I think Madison's intended idea of separating church and state was.

You argue like a five year old.

Let me clarify.

IIRC, you claim not to believe in god, but you also claim do do not believe there is no god. Am I mistaken here?

Unless this is not what your inner thoughts are (at least as you've communicated them so far), please let me know. I'm not telling you what you think, I'm trying to clarify what you've said.

If these are your inner thoughts, you are not an atheist. You can label yourself whatever you want, but your beliefs are most closely alligned with what most others identify as agnostic.

Atheism is a faith, even your chocolate chip example is faith. In the absence of proof, we are left with theory and conjecture--"faith" for lack of a better term.

To believe there is no god (atheism) is a belief, i.e. faith. Agnostics posit that this is something one cannot "know". They claim neither the existence nor the non-existence of a god. Atheists recognize that this is something that cannot be "known", however they choose to believe in the non-existence of a god.

As for the relationship between being baptized and raised in a religious household and thinking extensively on the matter, I generally find the two to be mutually exclusive.

you just prove the argument.
thanks.

Fuck you.Yes, you are mistaken. I do not believe there is a god. I do not believe in god.Look, you can keep repeating yourself that atheism is a faith like a religion, but that doesn't make it so.

I can see this is going nowhere.

I'm sorry, make that a two year old.

not sticking up for anyone in particular, but to be quite honest i didn't know how to say fuck you when i was two or five. i learned it when i was seven.

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Slow learner ;)