Hi!

[Rosa]

Hi, my name's Rosa and I am an Atheist! (Or maybe I'm a Pantheist?) I don't know, I don't like to box myself in. All I know for sure is that I don't believe in God or a "Higher Power" or any of that. I don't believe that things happen for a reason and I don't believe that we all were "put here" for a reason. I just wanted to introduce my self and ask two questions:
#1. Has anyone heard of Pantheism?
#2. Why does my being an Atheist piss everyone off so much, and have you run into this.

Nice to meet folks with like minds

 

[Aizen-sama]

1) Pantheists are people that apply the term "God" to nature because they believe that nature is sacred and deserves the kind of reverence that theists give to their gods. Pantheists are essentially atheists in that they don't believe in anything supernatural.

2) This is a mystery to me as well. As Richard Dawkins once said, "We are all atheists about most of the gods humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."

 

[Rosa]

What do you think of Pantheism? I sort of looked into it for a minute because I sort of feel the way they do about nature and science (except it seems weird to call anything God) but the site I was looking at kept trying to get groups together to enjoy nature together and go hiking and stuff (plus they didn't say they call nature God). I pretty much don't like to join groups and get together and do things and all that so...do you know, are all the Pantheists like that? Do I have to be into outdoor sports to be a Pantheist?

 

[Fritchard]

Pantheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sounds a bit....strange to me but no stranger than believing in a being in the sky who sent his son who was also himself to earth to be born and die in order to forgive people for something that was his fault...

I don't understand the thought process behind revering something that just "is".

 

[Rosa]

Sounds a bit....strange to me but no stranger than believing in a being in the sky who sent his son who was also himself to earth to be born and die in order to forgive people for something that was his fault...

I don't understand the thought process behind revering something that just "is".

Oh, that's hilarious! I wonder if it would fit on a bumper sticker? And yeah, that's about what I thought of it too, but it's a nice idea.

 

[basic_atheist]

Hi, my name's Rosa and I am an Atheist! (Or maybe I'm a Pantheist?) I don't know, I don't like to box myself in. All I know for sure is that I don't believe in God or a "Higher Power" or any of that. I don't believe that things happen for a reason and I don't believe that we all were "put here" for a reason. I just wanted to introduce my self and ask two questions:
#1. Has anyone heard of Pantheism?
#2. Why does my being an Atheist piss everyone off so much, and have you run into this.

Nice to meet folks with like minds

#1 - I use to think like a Pantheist. Maybe I still do a little bit. I'm probably just borrowing some ideas from them and incorporating them into my own understandings. Rather than making a reference of God to the Natural Universe, I just call it "the source". It's not supernatural, it's a natural machine. It can be hard to admit at times, but we are inferior to Nature. Nature runs our existence and destruction. Without it we are nothing and neither is anything else. I don't have a doctrine for it. I don't pray to it. I don't praise it with any religious sense, but I sure am glad it exists. I wouldn't say Nature is "sacred", it's just common sense to know it is greater than mankind and we shouldn't try to toy with it too much, unless we want disasterous side effects. I know I don't... do you? - It's important to understand Nature as much as you can so you can have knowledge of how we, and everything else, got here. The "god" answer will always be a "non-answer" to me.

#2 - Bigots, haters, common discriminators, and the like will always fear members of society who are different and don't believe what they do. They don't like it when reality slaps them in the face to wake them up from their fantasy. It's as if extra information literally makes their brain hurt and so they don't want to think about it. If they want to believe in a god and life after death, then that's fine. But, it doesn't give them a license to persecute me! I don't care what their fallible book says, "being" and "saying" are 2 different things.

Also, I used to think I came from a good wholesome family capable of unconditional love. But, ever since I announced my atheism that love mysteriously vanished. I'm still trying to make a reconnection with them, but it just doesn't feel the same anymore. There's a certain dark stillness or silence in the air when I'm around them and it feels really awkward. In the past they have resorted to making false accusations and created wild stories against my principles, and I think they've done it just to make themselves feel justified with their christian beliefs. My administrative privileges have been revoked from the will of their estate and I only get $1.00. It's really hard to communicate with them because of this.

They hate, and I mean HATE, democrats, liberals, blacks, mexicans, homosexuals, bisexuals, muslims, Jehovah's, mormons, atheists (which I didn't know about earlier, because it was never discussed), and anybody that has been in prison. They are southern baptist republican conservatives who never go to church, never read the bible, and at the same time they think god is a group of ancient alien astronauts. They believe Jesus (who was created through artificial insemination of Mary done by the aliens) was the only person who knew "what was really going on with god and the universe" and you have to follow him to be a morally upright individual. [I had a hard time typing that without laughing]. When they pray, or say grace, they only make reference to the christian Jesus like you would normally hear. That way everybody else will think they are normal christians, but the other side of the coin says they are twice as insane.

Do you see what I'm up against here?... My hands are tied.

So now, I'm a 40 year old atheist with a wacky family who obviously doesn't want me around anymore to remind them of the cold hard facts of reality.

 

[Rosa]

#1 - I use to think like a Pantheist. Maybe I still do a little bit. I'm probably just borrowing some ideas from them and incorporating them into my own understandings. Rather than making a reference of God to the Natural Universe, I just call it "the source". It's not supernatural, it's a natural machine. It can be hard to admit at times, but we are inferior to Nature. Nature runs our existence and destruction. Without it we are nothing and neither is anything else. I don't have a doctrine for it. I don't pray to it. I don't praise it with any religious sense, but I sure am glad it exists. I wouldn't say Nature is "sacred", it's just common sense to know it is greater than mankind and we shouldn't try to toy with it too much, unless we want disasterous side effects. I know I don't... do you? - It's important to understand Nature as much as you can so you can have knowledge of how we, and everything else, got here. The "god" answer will always be a "non-answer" to me.

Actually, I think Pantheism incorporates humans into it a bit more than that: the emphasis is that we are truly a part of nature; like a rock or a bird or a tree would be, and that we should stop seeing nature and the universe as something separate from us because we are all a part of one working wonder.Hmmm. Sorry about the folks-that sucks! I've been through family junk myself (didn't talk to the folks for 10 years) and finally had to decide for myself if I wanted a relationship despite the fact that they suck or just let it go and move on. It's a liberating idea to embrace the fact that you can choose how you want your life to be. People say that you can't choose your family but I just don't believe that's true - you certainly can choose your family, you can hand-pick them if you like, people do it all the time. But if you want the people who raised you to be your family, you have to accept them as they are -- bigoted racist, whatever. Just remember: You choose it!

 

[SuperTrooper]

Nature is important. There are forces at work in nature that we need to understand. I say this because I consider myself 'Agnostic' and it says so on my Dog Tags. It is slightly different than Athiesm, in that instead of just an absolute refusal of a higher power, I feel that science is sort of like that higher power. No, not like Scientology (insanity), what I mean is that science can and will eventually answer our questions. Granted, it will replace those questions with new ones, but isn't that how technology and civilizations grow?

I guess a better way to put it is that I think religion is there for people to give (false) answers to people when we don't have either the knowledge or definitive proof to explain it any other way. Sort of like how the church denouced Galileo for outwardly supporting the notion that the earth is not the center of the universe and that the earth travels around the sun. He was eventually cleared of any offense but they still argued that his view went against scripture. He was then later forced to live the rest of his life under house arrest for heresy after an inquisition. Yet know and for many years we have known for a fact that what Galileo said was true, so the church and scriptures have adjusted accordingly. Needless to say, the more that is discovered, the fewer answers religion will be able to offer.

 

[basic_atheist]

Nature is important. There are forces at work in nature that we need to understand. I say this because I consider myself 'Agnostic' and it says so on my Dog Tags. It is slightly different than Athiesm, in that instead of just an absolute refusal of a higher power, I feel that science is sort of like that higher power. No, not like Scientology (insanity), what I mean is that science can and will eventually answer our questions. Granted, it will replace those questions with new ones, but isn't that how technology and civilizations grow?

I guess a better way to put it is that I think religion is there for people to give (false) answers to people when we don't have either the knowledge or definitive proof to explain it any other way. Sort of like how the church denouced Galileo for outwardly supporting the notion that the earth is not the center of the universe and that the earth travels around the sun. He was eventually cleared of any offense but they still argued that his view went against scripture. He was then later forced to live the rest of his life under house arrest for heresy after an inquisition. Yet know and for many years we have known for a fact that what Galileo said was true, so the church and scriptures have adjusted accordingly. Needless to say, the more that is discovered, the fewer answers religion will be able to offer.

Hmmm... sounds like something I would say.

By the way... Atheism is NOT "an absolute refusal of a higher power". If you want to round us up into one generalized group with something mostly in common, then Atheism is the lack of belief in any gods... that's it, nothing more, plain and simple.

However, if you want to get into some detail, then you need to know that not all Atheists share the same views. There are different degrees of Atheism, which basically look like this...

Extra Strong = I know for a fact there are no gods!
Strong = I don't believe in any gods and I don't want to believe in any gods either.
Medium = I don't believe in any gods, but if you have proof of one then I want to see it.
Weak = I don't know and you can't possibly know either.
Extra Weak = What's a belief? I was just born yesterday.

Please note that Weak Atheism includes Agnostics. We have both Agnostic and Gnostic Atheists in this world. The rest are just Atheists who don't attach themselves to the knowledge of a god, for them it's just about the belief system... "Believing" and "Knowing" are two separate things.

Today I consider myself as a Strong Atheist - I don't believe in any gods and I don't want to believe in any gods either - and as far as the natural world around us goes, I prefer the scientific explanations. But, sometimes I don't care about science, instead I just want to admire the work of Nature itself without any explanation. Many times I find it to be pure common sense to realize Nature runs the show all the time... always has... always will... no god required.

 

[SuperTrooper]

According to you're little flow chart I would consider myself a 'Strong Athiest' as well. Regardless of truth, gods or lack of gods, one thing we know for certain is that religion or the lack of religion just gives people another reason to hate and kill each other. It is very sad.