My New Sig

[sanosuke]

heck, i live in belfast, religion mixes and im not even sure what the fuck happens, but basically people die, well used to, a lot!

[israfel]

atheism is a religion because it still has a belief system, but it is just the other side of it. you say you do not believe in a god, you have faith that there is no god, even though there still could be a god. just as i believe that thier is a god i have faith he does exist, but there is the possibility there isn't. even though you don't conform to any organized religion, you are still part of one.
the u.s govenment doesn't force religion one any one, actually it falls all over itself to make religions, other than christian, happy. if you vandalize a mosque its a hate crime, but if you vandalize a church its not a hate crime. our government has become too politically correct and hypocritical.

[rav96]

thats true for most western governments!

suppose its just one of those things

[Vile]

israfel, i could not have explained athiest any better, you hit it right on the money. and i agree with you about the government overcompensating when avoiding favoring certain religions.

-Vile

[Elcoholic]

Looked in the dictionary:

"Atheist: One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods."

"Religion: a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship."

Looking at these explanations I can't agree with you. You see belief and religion as the same thing. Religion for me is a belief in "something" supernatural or godly, atheist is NOT believing in something others do believe in. Not believing isn't a belief.

I do however feel more comfortable with your explanation where you say there "could be a god". True atheists wil never agree but I'm the kind of person that will have to see it to believe it. As long as the excistence of God hasn't been proven nor proven He doesn't exsist I try to stay openminded. But then I still think that God would want nothing to do with organized religion practised in His name. I wonder if there's a word for my beliefs to express my adversity (is this a word, looking for a softer word than hate) for organized religion and the people leading them(especially the religions who try to get souls through fear of going to hell). I hope I'm not stepping on anyones toes with this since that's not my intention at all.

[Zagatto]

I think a lot of people get the terms Atheist and Agnostic mixed up.

Agnostic: a person who believes that, at our present level of knowledge, we cannot know whether or not a God exists

Atheist: someone who denies the existence of god

I know many people who go to church out of duty that are actually Agnostic. They're actually hedging their bets on the afterlife by saying at least they go to church.

There was an interesting discussion on the radio the other day between two Rabbi's, a priest, and a Wiccan minister. One topic they covered was people who go to church out of duty vs. people who discuss religious texts but don't go to church and which could be considered more devout.

All four religious figures agreed that someone with strong beliefs but doesn't go to religious services is probably the more spiritual of the two. What it boils down to isn't whether or not you go to any formal church but how much thought and belief a person has for their particular religion.

I'm somewhere just to the left of agnostic personally but that's a topic for over drinks with friends.

[Batz Kage]

Elcoholic, your last parafgraph is basicly the soul reason I decided to call myself Cathanic even though it's not a true religion. See I beleive just about everything you do, only I pray to God, but I'll also admit that he may really not exsist, this is not the beliefs of any religion to my knowledge, so I said I'd make my own, then I kinda turned it into a real big joke about drinking the cool-aid .

[Zagatto]

Israfel, I disagree with what you've said about church vandalism being a hate crime and vandalism of a mosque automatically being a hate crime.

Vandalism is merely destruction or damage of property plain and simple.
It becomes a hate crime when the nature of the vandalism contains some form of hate message.

If a holy symbol is broken during the vandalism, that doesn't make it a hate crime. A hate crime requires some form of message to be included directed at an individual or group. Usually, this is some form of graphiti or specific arrangement of the damaged property.

While I do remember a case or two of churches being vandalized, I don't remember any of them saying "Christians Go Home" or similar message.

Thinking on this, I'm not sure if someone writing satanic messages in a church would be considered a hate crime or merely the presentation of a different religion. I guess it would have to depend on the content of the messages left behind.