Muso:
Quote:


Rubbish - Atheists don't believe in supernatural beings.

mozzaok wrote on Jul 28^th, 2010 at 9:48pm:

Notwithstanding that it is a very, very, very small step from belief in supernatural beings to belief in god... if it's a step at all.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Jul 28^th, 2010 at 9:29pm:


My mother is Roman Catholic. She was born into the faith. When her mother died when she was a child, she was put into boarding school... a convent. She attended mass morning and night. She would meditate. She was deeply religious and had a profound belief in god. She even told the nuns that she wanted to join an order, but mother superior advised her to try the real world first and then after 12 months if she still had the calling she could return to become a novice.

Well, it turned out that the calling was not as strong as she thought. She was still deeply religious and attended church, not just when she had to, but often just to pray or talk with god.

Through out this whole time however, she was at odds with certain aspects of the religion... nothing serious though... nothing to turn her away.

Then it happened that a dear friend of her's died, in child birth, as was foretold by the doctor. Her friend had sort permission from the church to use contraceptives, but was denied as it was against the religion. Mum was devastated. She still attended church, but began to seriously question her religion... not her faith in god... but her religion that she felt was supposed to celebrate and mentor her faith.

The final straw was when she was refused the right to marry in her church because she dared to fall in love with a non catholic who was also divorced. She gave up her religion, but she did not give up her god belief. From her perspective he is as real as you and I.

She opted not to introduce her children to religion and gave us free reign to learn about god belief, with an emphasis on her's of course. We were not baptized. We have no religion. And because she was so liberal in her new approach... we have no god belief.

And today, in her eighties, she believes in her god as ever she had done, but still denies, completely, the religion from which her faith was derived. She doesn't even watch religious services on TV.

So yes... it really can happen that a person can believe in god and not be religious.

Nail - people should just believe in themselves - that's all.

Sappho wrote on Jul 28^th, 2010 at 10:46pm:

Without the benefit of discussing it with her directly, I would question whether she is not religious (assuming that she is not in fact a closet atheist). She may be angry with church dogmatism and has rejected its authority, but that doesn’t make her necessarily non-religious any more than it made Martin Luther the same.

Does she still believe in Jesus and the authority of the New Testament?  If not and she has rejected all Christian dogma and has not adopted any other, what exactly is this god she believes in, devoid of any prescription?

To say "I believe god exists" and maintain that this does not necessarily lead to a prescriptive theology, is, essentially, to say nothing at all, least of all that one is a theist in any meaningful sense.

muso wrote on Jul 28^th, 2010 at 5:30pm:

Yes I'm sure there are, but that wasn't my point. But in fact, that is exactly what atheists are saying in essence to theists... It's just that its not a judgement on the honesty of the theists' state of belief per se.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Jul 29^th, 2010 at 5:36am:


Theology is not Religion. Look again at the commonly accepted qualities of a religion Helian.

Belief in the supernatural/ metaphysical (yes, my mother does)
A definition of the sacred and profane (no, not in any religious sense, her god has become a personal entity.)
Ritual (no, no rituals that I remember)
Morality (yes, but not catholic morality but rather humanism which is based on christianity)
Spirituality (yes, but not a catholic spirituality. her god is more personal now)
Prayer/ Mantra or some other means of communication with the sacred. (yes, but she doesn't pray anymore, do the rosemary or that kind of thing... she talks to god)
Social bonds such as study groups/ prayer groups/ church attendance etc... (no, she does not share her believe with any other)

She hasn't rejected the philosophy of Jesus, but would argue that the church has. She views Jesus as god. She understands that god as a concept is beyond our knowing and that her belief is merely a reflection of a greater image. She believes that there are many ways to know god... that other belief systems are simply explaining the same god using different reflections of that greater image. She would argue that she has purified her belief and personalized her god, so that her relationship is between god and herself alone. She lives her life according to her concept of god.

When I think about it... it's no surprise that I'm agnostic/ atheistic. Her god cannot be shared so easily with others.

Sappho wrote on Jul 29^th, 2010 at 11:06am:

Overall maybe she is still religious, she's just defined it in terms of a personal god and a personal relationship to god... Something akin to what the protestant reformers such as Luther advocated.