Jun 7, 17 / Can 18, 01 14:48 UTC

Re: Atheists in Asgardia  

I would not say that our biological drive to survive is necessarily a bad thing and automatically leads to selfishness.

First off, the biological survival instinct might be felt the most pressing on a personal level, but it actually works on a wider level and always has. In many species, being tend to care for their family. They might support siblings even though it would not help spread the individuals genes, but still the family's ones, which are similar enough. The desire to spread ones genes has been a successful goal for biological evolution, since it automatically helped those spread, that are particularly good at that.

However, humanity has long since transcended past that. We moved from biological evolution to a technological one. It does not matter who is the strongest, it barely even matters who reproduces. Spreading knowledge and tools has become the much more important factor in ensuring the survival of the species as a whole. And this still gives us purpose, no matter how the universe was created and no matter if there was a 'gardener' involved or not. While each individual can always find their own purpose, we can always offer the purpose of trying to advance our horizon, expanding our knowledge for those, that do not believe yet seek a purpose.

And this is why I am agnostic. I do not think it matters whether you have a given faith or not, you can still have your own purpose, ethics and work with others for a common goal.

Jun 9, 17 / Can 20, 01 04:12 UTC

@Andazeus  +1

Jul 14, 17 / Leo 27, 01 19:19 UTC

Greatings, I'm not an atheist (though at times I do question the existence of deity), but have much respect for everyones beliefs and non-beliefs.  It's what makes this world so damn interesting, the differing ideas.  

Jul 17, 17 / Vir 02, 01 03:38 UTC

To me, its all about the definitions of things.

I'm an atheist in certain contexts. One can be a atheist, supernaturalist which I am not in any case. One can be a theist, naturalist which I could be if it were only true. If I were going to find theism, I'd be a deist based on my observations. At this point, it seems any form of theism would be a cruel hoax if the so called "creator" had any choice in the matter. I think we all hallucinate and god emerges from that. I could be wrong. We could be the subjects of some strange deception to test a design flaw we are supposed to believe we chose. 

I saw someone use the term "gnostic." This term has been claimed. There is only one kind of "gnostic" and that is the sect of Christianity which is referred to as "Gnosticism." One cannot otherwise be a "gnostic" as any other claim to "knowledge" would fundamentally rely on naturalistic evidence (supernatralistic evidence cannot constitute proof as it is not provable and therefore not knowable) which, at this point, is specious at best. Gnosticism is quite different from most other religions and spiritualities....so if someone wants to claim to be a "gnostic" they are claiming some version of gnosticism (there are several).

Search Results

Gnos·ti·cism

ˈnästəˌsizəm/

noun

noun: Gnosticism

  1. a  prominent heretical movement of the 2nd-century Christian Church,  partly of pre-Christian origin. Gnostic doctrine taught that the world  was created and ruled by a lesser divinity, the demiurge, and that Christ was an emissary of the remote supreme divine being, esoteric knowledge (gnosis) of whom enabled the redemption of the human spirit.


Jul 17, 17 / Vir 02, 01 14:10 UTC

Just to say that, at page 1, only 1 of 12 occourrences of "gnostic" was made, while 11 of 12 was about "agnostic", which is completely different matter.
In this second page, and apart my post, 1 of 10 occourrences is still about "agnostic" and the remaining 9 are made by you. That should tell you something.

Jul 19, 17 / Vir 04, 01 16:13 UTC

@Jason Rainbow
 According to Huxley, agnosticism was not a creed but a method of skeptical and evidence-based inquiry.

Completely agree to... Huxley. ;-)
From my (agnostic) point of view, "atheists" and "religious" ones are exactly of the same kind: they believe into "something" they've absolutely no proof of existence/non-existance at all.

As "faith" is, by definition, exactly the contrary than "having proofs", I can't say they're "wrong" at all: proofs could only destroy every faith at all (as faith + proofs = certainity). That's why me, as an agnostic, lives very well in between of faithful and atheists ones, as soon as they keep their respective "faiths" for themselves. ;-)

Jul 19, 17 / Vir 04, 01 17:04 UTC

As you noticed, I "like it", at the point I can call that "loose following", but that have more to do with "fantasy" and "virtuality" than to "faith". Not that, having some faith, is a bad thing at all, obviously, as I stated before.
As you don't know me, I can see how you can misunderstand my statement. As I wrote "I'm feeling some celts' blood is into me also", that's nearly the same as stating that "we're all made of stardust", which can be considerably more true.