The Difference Between Atheism And Religion

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Oh, OK. Are you the same guy using a different user name?

Yes, RIS. See my profile status.

I see. Back to this again. Why did you change your user name?

My website is called Revelation In Space. It's a science fiction story about a lifetime atheist who makes an android in his own image and post mortem, has it go out and investigate spirituality. I was looking for a new forum and this one came up in a Google search. Waaaaay down. Like 20+ pages. I came here. The name was familiar but my memory is fucked. I looked down the list of posters and saw my (RIS) avatar.

View attachment 49524

I couldn't remember what password I used so I requested a reset using my revelationinspace@gmail. I got nothing. So I put in my personal email, dhenson2011@live, and I got a password reset for a DLH which I don't remember having posted as. That has happened to me before. I had only posted very briefly as RIS but had posted for a little longer as DLH. I contacted the administration in the private feedback forum informing them of this, announced it on my status, posted a message to that effect on the RIS status, put AKA RIS under my avatar (custom title) and they merged the two accounts. RIS no longer exists but the posts I made in that name are merged into this one.

Does that quell your nuroses?

So instead of concluding that after you were laughed off the forum, you came back with a new username to give old arguments with a new face, you were extremely forgetful and irrational multiple times within one scenario. I don't think that's a good starting point for conclusions from an objective observer, but since you are putting it out there, we can say okay, maybe all those crazy things happened. That's fine and dandy, but it in no way absolves you of posting the same ridiculous argument over and over, newly obfuscated and disguised as something else.

 

[DLH]

The following are replies to posts on page 2. The last time I was here.
But then on pages 3 & 4 your identity as a trickster came to light, making some of this irrelevant.
I'm gonna post it anyway.

Great. I'm excited.

Well if we can't agree on what god means, why bother.

Why bother what?

I was gonna say "then calling yourself a 'bible beleaver' makes you a fucking idiot"

NO! I won't have it! My being a Bible believer is just a coincidence. I was a fucking idiot when I was an atheist.

Right. And for believers it's a duty, which makes it worse.

I don't. Jesus didn't. His disciples didn't. Biblically it isn't a duty.

No. It's about the existence. (or non). Zues and Oden are considered gods even tho no one worships them anymore.

They were Gods. If no one worships them anymore, which I find unlikely, they are Gods in the past tense.

Yeah, we're wasting our time here.

Of course. Like watching television, playing video games, or voting.

Reality is not up for a vote,
Reality is not a popularity contest,

Yes it is. It's a fabricated crutch.

Reality does not give a fuck what we believe or worship.

Yes it does. It's a tool.

(and a true all powerful god wouldn't either)

What makes you think he does? And all powerful? What does that mean and where did you pick up on that idea?

In some sects FEAR of god is considered worship.

Sure. And some it isn't. Fear like that of falling off a cliff, or electricity. It's a form of respect. One has to fear or respect nature or electricity.

 

[DLH]

So instead of concluding that after you were laughed off the forum, you came back with a new username to give old arguments with a new face, you were extremely forgetful and irrational multiple times within one scenario. I don't think that's a good starting point for conclusions from an objective observer, but since you are putting it out there, we can say okay, maybe all those crazy things happened. That's fine and dandy, but it in no way absolves you of posting the same ridiculous argument over and over, newly obfuscated and disguised as something else.

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Then shut up. Don't encourage me. Change the channel. Or, counter the argument for a change.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

To be more precise I am an anti-theist.
I know gods do not exist. That makes me atheist.
I oppose cults and the supernatural. That makes me an anti-theist. (ALL religions are cults)

Perhaps the question could have been phrased more like why there is such animosity between atheists and theists or do you think that is the case?

Because cultists feel threatened by people who know they are full of shit. (and unafraid to say so.) Believers started it.
The cults mandate that believers recruit. That makes them an actual threat to non-members.

Do not atheists have practices that are useful as a consequence of their disbelief?

I am generally more skeptical than most people. And act accordingly. Is this cause or effect of my religious disbelief? I don't know.

A stamp collector might join a discussion group of stamp collectors but a non-stamp collector isn't likely to join a group of non-stamp collectors.

That would depend on whether stamp collectors were in the habit of imposing their hobby on him, despite his lack of interest.

If such imposition were common in his community, he might well join a non-stanp collector group to discuss ways they can defend themselves against this.

I wanted to say this.

They actually think the atheists online who do this sort of thing are worse than religious.

And we think online believers are worse. It's just an effect of the conflict. Offline I just never talk about religion. And avoid sheeple.

If it were not for the actions of Christians in this country none of us atheists would likerly care what they believe.

As I said. Believers started it.

Tens of millions of votes were not necessarily cast for Harris, but against Trump.

As with Biden, people were voting against Rump.
Rump only got elected because both times, too many people wouldn't vote for a woman.

Hillary got 3 million more votes than Trump did. Obama won two straight and would've wiped the floor with Trump's makeup sponge were he allowed to run for a third term.

Saying disprovably wrong things while at the same time attacking huge swaths of voting demographics is one of the reasons we're in the mess that we're in.

I'll never pull the lever for any Republican ever, but I've now come to the conclusion I won't pull it for the Dems either because I don't feel represented by them anymore. One of the reason for that is because of statements like yours. White male hetero hunting season is a losing position, but the Dems have not just allowed it, but embraced it enough to the point where that attitude got out of far left wing bubbles and into the public sphere.

Of course I blame the tens of millions of idiots who voted for Trump more than anything else, but because of the electoral college, small states must be catered to. Why the hell was I seeing so many ads for Harris being run here in SoCal?

 

[Jarhyn]

OK, so let’s be charitable. You’ve “established” that a Hershey bar is, or can be, god. Does something follow from this?

Nothing that I can think of. It just means worshipped. Venerated. Respected. Dicks, vaginas, luck, are common gods. Shit can even be a god. I use that in an illustration, probably in my earlier threads, either as DLH or RIS. Nobody cares so I'm not going to bother to go hunting for it.

The problem with this view is that it is not useful.

Even as the person with probably the (second or third) weirdest set of definitions for 'god', I can say yours pulls too many disparate intents too closely.

It combines 'merely worshipped' false-gods, 'quasi-immortal' pseudo-gods, 'force-like' fixture-gods, 'tzimtzum' creator-gods, and 'ein-sof' unity-gods all into a single blob.

Trump/Kim/Putin/Dog shit all classify as a 'merely worshiped' false-god.

I think the majority of conflict people will find with you is that most people have such distinctions between various god-concepts, and just saying 'god' in conversations with such people is going to be confusing and counterproductive when you really mean (at least here) is a clearly 'false' god who is 'merely worshipped'.

A human can be a false god. A human can implement a quasi-immortal pseudo-god. A human can be a TzimTzum/creator-god (but not of this universe). Arguably the concept of EinSof Unity-God is nonsense, more an ideal of understanding and proving all of math, which is already proven to be impossible.

Arguably a human cannot be a fixture-god and arguably our universe does not have fixture-gods. A fixture-god might be something like The Grand Design of Isthekenous from the series The Wandering Inn ("the system of levels"): an intelligent fixture of a universe serving some role of physical fulfillment of some outcome, while not having directly created it.

I would encourage you, if you stay this path, to be precise... Otherwise people will get angry with you for shitting on the floor and calling it 'god', since doing so is disrespectful both to the idea, and our intellects, as we know the difference between a turd on the floor and a sysadmin.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

So instead of concluding that after you were laughed off the forum, you came back with a new username to give old arguments with a new face, you were extremely forgetful and irrational multiple times within one scenario. I don't think that's a good starting point for conclusions from an objective observer, but since you are putting it out there, we can say okay, maybe all those crazy things happened. That's fine and dandy, but it in no way absolves you of posting the same ridiculous argument over and over, newly obfuscated and disguised as something else.

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Then shut up. Don't encourage me. Change the channel. Or, counter the argument for a change.

As stated already, it was already countered last time. You ran and came back. Your argument that everyone is a god and therefore atheists are theists is just STUPID and INCORRECT. You can't assert a non-truth into being true.

 

[DLH]

As stated already, it was already countered last time.

Ah, but you see, it wasn't.

You ran and came back.

I didn't run, I got bored and left. Like I will do again if I don't get banned.

Your argument that everyone is a god and therefore atheists are theists is just STUPID and INCORRECT.

And not what I said. Your ideological fixation only makes you think that. Your us vs. them mentality acts as blinders.

You can't assert a non-truth into being true.

Nor truth into being non-truth. Which explains why you think the argument was countered.

 

[Jarhyn]

As stated already, it was already countered last time.

Ah, but you see, it wasn't.

You ran and came back.

I didn't run, I got bored and left. Like I will do again if I don't get banned.

Your argument that everyone is a god and therefore atheists are theists is just STUPID and INCORRECT.

And not what I said. Your ideological fixation only makes you think that. Your us vs. them mentality acts as blinders.

You can't assert a non-truth into being true.

Nor truth into being non-truth. Which explains why you think the argument was countered.

The argument wasn't countered so much as entirely thrown away as under/un-cooked.

I explained exactly how and why. The people here aren't unaware of or even inexperienced at this game.

Maybe instead of trying to confuse what others are saying, you could try to pay attention and know that we are already beyond such absurd reductions of category.

If you were to actually differentiate these concepts, you would find that while various people DO dispute everything from an EinSof to a pseudo-god, people simply don't give a shit about false gods because they aren't really anything but a label, empowered momentarily by the consent and complicity of those they have social power over. We have words for this besides 'god': controller, manipulator, authority figure, King, President, emperor, etc. based specifically on the exact nature of their power structure and authority as well understood in political science.

Please quit shitting in the middle of the floor this way.

 

[DLH]

The problem with this view is that it is not useful.

It doesn't matter if it's useful or not. Like evolution.

Even as the person with probably the (second or third) weirdest set of definitions for 'god', I can say yours pulls too many disparate intents too closely.

My definition is in line the Oxford, Wikipedia, Christian, Pagan, Muslim, Shinto, Hindu, and every other god ever in recorded history.

It combines 'merely worshipped' false-gods, 'quasi-immortal' pseudo-gods, 'force-like' fixture-gods, 'tzimtzum' creator-gods, and 'ein-sof' unity-gods all into a single blob.

A god can be anything and anyone. Real or imagined. Supernatural or natural. A god can be anything and everything because anything and everything can be worshipped. Anything and everything can be loved or hated, that doesn't negate love or hatred.

All you need to do is be more specific. It isn't that I've combined all gods into one blob, you have.

Trump/Kim/Putin/Dog shit all classify as a 'merely worshiped' false-god.

A god means worshipped. From the Hebrew el meaning mighty and the English god meaning libate. It really isn't complicated.

I think the majority of conflict people will find with you is that most people have such distinctions between various god-concepts, and just saying 'god' in conversations with such people is going to be confusing and counterproductive when you really mean (at least here) is a clearly 'false' god who is 'merely worshipped'.

The word god doesn't imply any subjective connotation of "true" or "false." A god is a god.

A human can be a false god.

The Bible says the judges of Israel were gods. It says Jehovah made Moses God to Aaron and Pharaoh. That simply means that Jehovah, who is mighty, venerated, who made himself God to Israel, the word Israel means to wrestle, grapple, struggle or contend with God, made Moses mighty to Aaron and Pharaoh.

You don't get it.

 

[Jarhyn]

It doesn't matter if it's useful or not

On a discussion board, having useful discussion matters.

My definition is in line the Oxford, Wikipedia, Christian, Pagan, Muslim, Shinto, Hindu, and every other god ever in recorded history

As I said, it's not a definition. It's a conflation of like, five different definitions.

Christianity is about and targets TzimTzum and EinSof, distinctly treating what it declares (inaccurately) as fixture entities as 'angels' and 'demons'.

The Muslim religion instead looks ONLY at EinSof gods and declares that calling any other thing a 'god', even a TzimTzum creator-god, is heresy.

Shinto is largely a collection of worship around something of a mashup between pseudo-gods and fixture-gods; I'm not sure it even endorses a belief in an EinSof? Then, I haven't studied Shinto intensively. Maybe @Politesse has?

These are clearly differing definitions meant to handle different things, and treating them as if they are not distinct is, as I said, unproductive.

A god can be anything and anyone

It *shouldn't* because this causes the language to become less useful.

The rest is just your attempt at defending your clearly intentionally-broken usage.

It's childish and immature, and if you carry on shitting in the middle of the floor in this way by petulantly re-combining the colors of clay we took so long to separate, we will get cross with you and you will be ejected from this place eventually.

 

[Shadowy Man]

I was a just responding to your post as written:

“an atheist doesn't believe in gods just as an apolitical person such as myself doesn't believe in politicians”

This is the parallel construction that doesn’t work if you conflate the terms “believe” and “trust”. The first “believe” in that sentence doesn’t mean the same thing as the second “believe” in that sentence according to your own definitions.

Right. I think. That was my point. Believing in the existence of something, like I do politicians and atheists don't gods isn't necessarily the same as believing i.e. trusting in something like I don't politicians and atheists don't in gods.

Was this even a point of contention?

Was there anybody who thought that the following sentence:

“Atheists don’t believe in gods.”

Was going to be confused with:

“Atheists don’t trust gods.”

??

Not sure why you were clarifying something that would never be in doubt here.

 

[steve_bank]

One way Christians derive an identity and meaning is to do battle with atheists on the net in the name of a god.

My personal opinion, which I've held for about 15 years now, is that I argue with atheists because I'm an asshole. It has little to do with God. I think the atheists argue back because they are assholes. Thankfully, or I would be an asshole all alone. Actually that doesn't sound too bad and would explain my coming and going.

All that time as a Christian and DLH does not seem to be able to say what 'believing in the bible' means.

I'm not a Christian. I've never been a Christian. I would never be a Christian. I think Christians are stupid and fake. But I think that about atheists as well. I think that about everybody, actually.

Many Christians don't know what they believe or what god is, all they know is they believe it and god. It stimulates the feel good bran endorphins. A dopamine high.

That's an unsophisticated projection. Most Christians are motivated by traditional, cultural, social, political, familial and even financial attraction to "Christianity." They don't care about God or the Bible enough to even give it a cursory glance.

Dopamine Drives motivation and reward, Reinforces behaviors that feel pleasurable, Effects tend to last longer than endorphins, and Involved in the brain's reward circuit.

In a sense Chrtianity is an addiction, it has to constantly be reinforced to maintain the effect.

Christians come here to reinforce the feeling of a reward.

Do they come here? It has been my experience that the majority of atheists are apathetic and wouldn't come here if you paid them. The atheists I've encountered online are militant (meaning outspoken). The Christians I've encountered online are also a minority. On the fringe. Not regular church goers, also militant (meaning assholes like me) who loath organized religion.

Atheists are a convenient foil for Christians, all cults need something to ficus hate. Theyneed an enemy.

Out in the world I do not care what your beliefs are, Christians on the other hand do.

They have a gospel passage they think empowers them to proselytize. On the streets, at work, around the world.

We oppose religion because Christians in the USA constantly try to impulse religion through politics.

American Jews and Muslims I knew do not proselytize. They live within their beliefs without getting in your face. I have had concertinas with Mulls, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, and others. Jerrican Christians are particularly virulent. Just look at the RCC.

Catholic American politicians have been threatened with excommunication if they dd not vote the Vatican line. In fighting in Southern Baptist Convention is legendary. There are Charlatans who do not accept other Christians.

And so on and so forth.

As Jesus said in the gospels, pray in private and do not wear your faith on your sleeves for show as do the hypocrites.

Christians are obsessed with letting you know they are Christian and drawing you in in

I identify as atheist when needed because it is convenient. My identity is not atheist. Neither an atheist nor an theist be, I con doer the debate inherent ridiculous.

Given the cultural and political power of Chrtianity and its hysterical abuses the debate is important for us non believers.

Consider in a Christian ruled USA you might be on the enemy list.

 

[pood]

Yeah they do, it's all mostly about control.

No, they don’t. Checkmate, theist.

It’s the usual abrahamic god bs. Everyone believes in god, only atheists believe that they themselves are gods. And not a word of it is true.

But have fun with whatever you’re on about.

Argument to Oxford dictionary remains silly and tedious.

Pesky definitions.

Yes, those pesky definitions. Words have multiple meanings. Note that definitions one and two of God in Oxford are not the same as definitions three and four. The latter two are metaphorical..

 

[ideologyhunter]

So I tried worshipping a Hershey bar this morning. With almonds. After an hour, I realized it was like the Christian god, it was not going to give me a goddamned pony. So a moment of Eucharist happened. If memory serves, it was a lot better than those damned Jesus crackers.

 

[Shadowy Man]

A good approach for an atheist to take when confronted with “does (a) god exist?” Is to ask “which god?” If the questioner says “Jimi Hendrix, the guitar god” then the correct is yes, Jimi Hendrix did exist.

 

[steve_bank]

Once when someday said 'god bless you' Is aid 'which one?'.

 

[bilby]

I was a fucking idiot when I was an atheist.

I see no evidence that this has changed, nor that it has anything to do with your atheism.

Back on ignore you go. I wouldn't have engaged with you at all had I known you were a sock of RIS.

 

[pood]

Since DLH claims the leader of North Korea is god because some people venerate him (which is true — North Korean soldiers captured or killed in Ukraine carried written hymns of praise to their great god, and the North Korean public has been informed that Dear Leader does not defecate because he is supernatural), does he think this means he is LITERALLY a god — that he does not defecate? Does he think that the Japanese emperor was a god before the end of World War II, and then ceased to be a god because the American military forced him to go on radio and tell his people that he was not a god?

Because he has indeed used the word “literally” to describe the putative godhood of such characters.

There are a class of words called metonyms, which are words that serve as placeholders for other words or ideas. Frequently one hears in news broadcasts, “The White House said today that …” Here, White House is functioning as a metonym. By DHL’s method of “argument,” it would appear he believes that when this phrase appears, it means that the actual White House has physically grown a brain and a mouth and is speaking.

What about contronyms? This is a delightful class of words that contain their meanings and their opposite meanings. There arén’t too many of them, as far as I know. Some of them are sanction, cleave, dust, and fast. Think about how they can contain opposite meanings, depending on context — sometimes whether used as a verb or noun, or sometimes when used in differing expressions.

I guess DHL must think these words have contradicted themselves out of logical existence because they both mean, and do not mean, the same thing at the same time.

 

[DBT]

The following are replies to posts on page 2. The last time I was here.
But then on pages 3 & 4 your identity as a trickster came to light, making some of this irrelevant.
I'm gonna post it anyway.

Great. I'm excited.

Well if we can't agree on what god means, why bother.

Why bother what?

I was gonna say "then calling yourself a 'bible beleaver' makes you a fucking idiot"

NO! I won't have it! My being a Bible believer is just a coincidence. I was a fucking idiot when I was an atheist.

Right. And for believers it's a duty, which makes it worse.

I don't. Jesus didn't. His disciples didn't. Biblically it isn't a duty.

No. It's about the existence. (or non). Zues and Oden are considered gods even tho no one worships them anymore.

They were Gods. If no one worships them anymore, which I find unlikely, they are Gods in the past tense.

Yeah, we're wasting our time here.

Of course. Like watching television, playing video games, or voting.

Reality is not up for a vote,
Reality is not a popularity contest,

Yes it is. It's a fabricated crutch.

Reality does not give a fuck what we believe or worship.

Yes it does. It's a tool.

(and a true all powerful god wouldn't either)

What makes you think he does? And all powerful? What does that mean and where did you pick up on that idea?

In some sects FEAR of god is considered worship.

Sure. And some it isn't. Fear like that of falling off a cliff, or electricity. It's a form of respect. One has to fear or respect nature or electricity.

How is reality a tool?

 

[Jarhyn]

How is reality a tool?

Parts of reality are tools. So are general aspects of it. Having something there to be itself has all kinds of benefits.

All of the very idea of reality is a tool, namely *for creating realities*. A template is a tool.

Things represent themselves. Representations are tools. All things, even reality itself, is representable as a tool, and useful as one, especially when taken in abstract.

I see reality as a platform to "exist" in.

"Reality is a tool, sayeth the wizard", and all that shit.

Keep in mind this is unrelated to the post you were responding to. There's some diving off the deep end going on there.