To atheists/agnostics, I've a question.

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13 May 2014, 8:25 am

Thank you for your responses it has been a tremendous help. First of all, me saying that atheist/agnostics were " against " was a poor choice of words on my part, I meant to say opposed to instead. Second the reason I had this question is because I wanted to know to why this was this case. Originally in my World religion class in college, I thought the reason was because of how some but not all religions have gone out of their way to influence decisions in the world past and present and how they went going about it. * I'm referencing Christianity and Islam by the way * A few responses seem to correspond to that idea. There are some religions Buddhism for example who have not gone out of their way to influence other people in their decision making. I just wanted to know if there was a distinction of why atheists/agnostics were opposed to the idea of religion, or if it was just a specific religion which many were opposed to.

@seaturtleisland: I didn't mean to group all native Americans into shamanism, but I do know that some did practice Henetheism. the belief of many gods, but one chief god above them all.

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kraftiekortie
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13 May 2014, 9:55 am

I'm not "opposed' to the Abrahamic religions; I just don't believe in them in reference to a belief in their Gods.

Within their "sacred books" are lots of common-sense wisdom, nice songs, and some good history, too.

I'm an agnostic who believes in the possibility of a "superior force," unconscious of its own existence, which controls either directly or indirectly interactions within the Universe (or Universes).

seaturtleisland
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13 May 2014, 11:30 am

DentArthurDent wrote:

Firstly atheism is a non belief in the supernatural, it does not denote a persons opposition to religion. Some of us are anti-theistic, and anti-super naturalistic. For me, personally I am opposed to any form of supernatural belief which criticizes or attempts to change behaviors of non believers based solely on supernatural reasons. I am also opposed to super-naturalists who prey on the vulnerable, this includes but is not restricted to clairvoyants, ghost whisperers, homeopaths and other nonsense healing modalities.

Also I am virulently opposed to the falsification of knowledge by religious devotee's and I see lying to children about science as a form of abuse.

I thought atheism was a lack of belief in God(s). You're telling me that someone who believes in ghosts but doesn't believe in any deities whatsoever is still a theist? That's news to me.

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13 May 2014, 12:13 pm

Im an Athiest because there is no real proof of god and the Bible is primitive and since the majority of Christians in the country I live are creationists it makes it even more ridiculous when we actually have proof via scientific proof that contradicts everything in the bible.

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Basso53
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13 May 2014, 2:04 pm

buffinator wrote:

I'm not opposed to the belief in a divine, but the institution of religion is too easily corrupted and manipulated and succumbs to patterns of institutional evil too easily. Much of religious belief revolves around viewing "the other" as less than and by creating divisions among people for the sole purpose of exploiting the confusion and hatred that naturally evolves from that separation.

Take, for example, the catholic prohibition on bodily function. Many Catholics are taught that deification is a sin against god. In order to rectify this sin, they must pay money to the church. So, in essence, the church has picked a natural human condition and defined it as evil, and threatened it's own members with expulsion from their hypothetical heaven.... unless they pay a fine and re-pledge loyalty to the church.

Do you mean defecation? Taking a crap? If so, I have to tell you, that I was raised Catholic, attended Catholic schools, and have a degree in Humanities from a Catholic college where theology was part of my core requirements, and I have never heard any priest say anything about crapping being a sin, or read any element of Catholic teaching that could support that idea.

I'm no longer Catholic, but I can't imagine that since I stopped paying attention to what they teach, any notion arose that something that Jesus probably did every day of his life is somehow sinful. Catholics do believe that Jesus was fully human, after all, which means he peed and crapped regularly.

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13 May 2014, 4:37 pm

I am not against religion but I do fight religious hatred, bullying and religious psychosis (if there is danger involved.)

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13 May 2014, 7:29 pm

Brainfre3ze_93 wrote:

This has been on my mind for a while, and I could use some feedback on it. Are you against the idea of all forms of religions? For example, what many early native Americans would practice Shaminism/Henetheism to Buddishm/Shinto in India and Japan. Or are you mostly against the Abrahamic religions? Judaism/Islam/Christianity

I'm against all religions.

I see the whole hierarchy and ritual/worship/obedience demanding of religions as absurdly hypocritical and wrong.

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13 May 2014, 8:01 pm

From and old RUSH song called Tom Sawyer:

".......his mind is not for rent, to any God or Government......"

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14 May 2014, 5:36 am

I'm not against religion. If people want to spend 6 hours a day praying privately, I don't care. I don't care if they're an Orthodox Jew or a Southern Baptist or a Jihadist, or a Zen Buddhist or Taoists.

I am against:
1) Using religion to justify hatred (from religious wars to street corner homophobia).
2) Using religion to suppress knowledge (the best example is evolution, but also things like vaccines, contraception, and blood donation)

I don't care whether it comes from Abrahamic religions or Eastern mysticism or tribal religions.

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14 May 2014, 12:09 pm

Basso53 wrote:

buffinator wrote:

I believe "deification" means to imbue items with godlike qualities. Prob. against many religions.

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15 May 2014, 4:22 am

seaturtleisland wrote:

DentArthurDent wrote:

I thought atheism was a lack of belief in God(s). You're telling me that someone who believes in ghosts but doesn't believe in any deities whatsoever is still a theist? That's news to me.

My bad. Maybe I stretched the truth a little, oops. I suspect though that the vast majority of atheists are also disbelieving of the supernatural.

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15 May 2014, 5:02 am

DentArthurDent wrote:

I suspect though that the vast majority of atheists are also disbelieving of the supernatural.

Quite likely. Science has pretty much debunked supernatural phenomenon as well as the existence of any gods; or to be more precise, no so called supernatural phenomenon has ever been duplicated in the controlled laboratory environment of a reputable scientific institution. Similarly there is no scientific evidence supporting the existence of any gods. The two (supernatural and gods) tend to go together.

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