Hands up if you are an atheist

Hands up if you are an atheist [+ favourites]

Just wondering how many of us there are here. I know this might not give a representative sample, being that I'm posting in the "Religion" forum. I'm just curious.

Would it also be possible to define individual perspectives of what "atheist" means?

Is an atheist someone who is "anti organized religion" or is an atheist "anti anything other than the physical world" or "anti god"?

"Love everyone, question everything and look up!"

Right sorry I should have defined that better. By atheism I mean someone who does not believe in the existence of a God or indeed any higher being. I am not including agnosticism in the definition. By agnostic I mean those who either refuse to claim or have not yet decided if they believe in a God or the existence of a higher power. One need not be anti-religious to be atheist in my mind, though I myself dislike many if not most aspects of organized religion. An indeed some aspects of non organized religion. But that's just by personal slant. So in this post I'm just defining atheism as the lack of believe in a God, higher power, and spiritualism in general.

Atheism is not "anti-god".

You can't be against something which you don't believe exists.

"puts his hand up"

"Durch Nacht und Blut das Licht"

Right DT... "anti-god" is not properly communicated... "not believing in a god" is what the dictionary says.

"Love everyone, question everything and look up!"

although we may not believe in a god or have any religious (organized) beliefs it does not mean that we do not live by some religious system (a system of belief) .... personally i try to be content knowing that, for the most part, i only have to believe in myself to see success...and not believe in a god to provide me with some guidance i already have due to my own abilitly to reason outcomes and know that i affected them.....

"pick a real vocation"

It sounds like you live by a philosophical rather then religious system.

"Durch Nacht und Blut das Licht"

i would rather be seen as a philosopher than a religious man anyday.....

"pick a real vocation"

I would declare myself an agnostic by Locut0s definition

"In the sea of ilutions and frustations that life is, some swim and some drown"

I'm agnostic, to claim to know something does or doesn't exist tends to equal ignorance of ingnorance which often leads to arrogance or complacency, where as agnostics know they are ignorant, or that they cannot yet know, in case ignorance is too harsh a term for your liking.

"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge. Stephen Hawking"
[  Edited by Ironwood at   ]

DT: Anti-God is indeed not correct, and not what I said. However it is fully possible to be anti-religious. But it is definitely not a requirement of atheism. Like I said there are many aspects of what I think that I would indeed call anti-religious. But like I said that's just my personal slant and in no way should be seen to be part and parcel of atheism in general.

I guess I should clear up what I mean by my own anti-religious feelings. I have no problem with religion as practiced by people as a means of giving meaning to their lives, and as a means to live their lives well. However religion on any level but the personal level all to often takes on other aspects many of which are at the heart of the worlds conflicts and have been for thousands of years. Preaching religion and religion as an organization I see as having caused countless hundreds of years of pain and suffering. One of the big problems I have with many religions is its single minded assuredness that it is the only true and right path, all others being seen as either highly suspicious, dangerous or deviant. Thus the church, mosque, temple, all to often remains the last bastion of intolerance long after society as begun to accept social differences. Thus issues such as race and sexual equality are only now beginning to be fully addressed, and even here still not willingly. Lets not even begin to talk about issues like gay rights. Though it is a sensitive issue and seen as politically incorrect it is nonetheless true than religion is at the heart of, and often the sole cause of suffering in conflicts in the Middle East, Northern Ireland, and many places in Africa to name a few. And that's just counting recent conflicts. Then there's the whole issue of dangerous, and sometimes purposeful, ignorance in the form of pushing for creationism and intelligent design in schools. This is not an attack on peoples personal beliefs in religion. If people find peace and solace in their personal religious beliefs that's great. Though even here I sometimes question the need for such a belief, personally the world seems 10x richer, and more wonderful without the need to invoke a divine power.

Religions have been changed so much by the people who claim to follow them that it seems that religion is the result of people in power using fear of god to do their biding. The first religion must have been similar to the native american belief system. And over time it has evoloved if you will in to what we see today. for example:
judaism-christian-catholicism-mormanism-luthranism=new age christianism-ect..................
according to psy, religion is one of the fundamental building blocks of culture and stability. Without is we as a civilization would revert to our pre-evolutional state, so until we enter a new age of enlightement we should probably stick with it.

Enlightenment comes from learning and accepting, though religion helps to a point, it often then restricts learning and even causes some to regress on the acceptance of others and information, especially information that is contradictory to popular belief or preferrence. Sticking with that is not recommendable, especially when allowing such political power to evangelical and firm believers who affect the laws on these issues highly affecting others ability to practice in acceptance and learning. Such laws as those proposed against abortion, the use of aborted fetusses being thrown away for stem cell research, and gay marriage work to undermine all points of learning and acceptance, of personal rights over romantic theory and religious beliefs, and of treating others with respect and dignity, as equals, as humans with differences of opinion rather than different types of humans with inevitably varying degrees of respect shown to their rights, espescially when these "alternate" life styles, beliefs, and choices are of a minority and hold stigmas from the majority, their rights are easily tossed out the window.

"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge. Stephen Hawking"

i have a friend who claimed to be an atheist for a very long time simply because he had never heard the term "agnostic" ... its a term that i feel describes myself pretty well also, but at the same time i do feel that i know within myself that there is some sort of god... although ive never really liked the stigma attached to the word "god."

maybe this doesnt belong here... but in a sense, i at times consider myself an atheist... there is no "god" but there probably *more than likely* is some sort of higher power/great purpose.

"I am Akba-Atatdia"

Well that's more or less God I would say.

"Durch Nacht und Blut das Licht"