As an atheist, I find it slightly encouraging that people's beliefs are evolving even if the motivation is probably more about excusing instant gratification and "bad" behavior than it is about opening their minds. I think every step away from fundamentalist beliefs is a step closer to not needing a magic daddy in the sky to get through life.
I think your hypothetical question is probably a little more complex than you intended it to be. It brings about more questions. Why would God take away eternal life? Did we no longer deserve it or was it never really on the table? What do you mean by "no reward"? Surely there are times when He has an influence on you other than the afterlife, miracles of life and such. If He has absolutely no influence on a person in life or in death, what does it mean to believe in Him? That there is a creator? Does this eliminate the overall good feeling you get from giving, sacrifice, and love? Are we reducing the Bible to a history book?
didnt have time to read the article yet, but it's great news since hinduism is the most tolerant religion in the world...
It means that he exists, and if he exists, then Right and Wrong exists because he, by definition, is the ultimate judge of what is right and what is wrong. Except, he has now chosen to judge but not to punish or reward for right and wrong in the afterlife. The goal is to see whether people will still adhere to living a good life when there is nothing to be gained or lost after death. In other words, will people continue to do good simply for the sake of it? Or, ultimately, does there have to be a selfish motivation for it?
There are plenty of intolerant people in India too. I dont really think religious textual support for tolerance really correlates to some unique amount of tolerant people who are Hindu. Hell, even in my family there was a gigantic uproar on my Mom's side when a cousin of mine married a Christian. (My cousin's mom had a heart attack during this whole process and half of my mom's side literally put the blame flat on my cousin) The big difference is instead of citing religious text to justify intolerance, in India most people cite old cultural norms.
the uproar on your mom's side is more personal i think. there are many intolerant people in ALL the religions... but as far as the teachings go, it's the most tolerant. hinduism embraces ALL the religions. Look at India where Hinduism starts, it has a very diverse nationality. Millions of Muslims and Hindus in India live in peace together. A lot of that has to do with the tolerance of Hinduism. There are millions of Christians in south India, and they too live peacefully among Hindus. not to mention Jainism and Sikhism....
That might be relative to other major religions but there have been things like rigid caste and gender roles and sectarian violence that isn't very tolerant.
The "..." makes me think he's being sarcastic. There's an impressive wealth of philosophical thought that forms the substrate of Hinduism, and in theory it should be the most intolerant of religions, but in practice there is a ton of rigidity. There's a heavy emphasis on discipline and not breaking against societal, cultural norms.
Well, I understand that part. I would assume these would be easy questions to answer for anyone who truly believes. There are still many questions left unanswered, though. If there was never any God/man interaction, how do we know the severity of our sins? Aren't we meant to learn from God's wrath and his love? Of course, it's easy to say you would still believe - but HOW you believe might change. What's considered "doing good" is complicated enough in our society. I'd say a major change like this might make it even tougher for us to come to some consensus on it. Maybe I'm over complicating the initial purpose of the question but I was just trying to imagine the world in this hypothetical scenario.
I talked about atheism enough in that big thread... I proclaim myself an atheist/agnostic. Atheism is too miserable. I admittedly was a much happier person when I was into inflexible backward religion. There's no religion-to-atheism transfer programs out there to get you ready. I think thats part of its problem and why religion has the edge for now. Not all truths and facts are equal. Some truths are enlightening, some downright morbid. Atheism says "well thats how it is, deal with it".
I'm always confused over the atheist/agnostic distinction. I think of an atheist as one who doesn't believe in a god, or the supernatural. Wouldn't an agnostic fall in that category as well?
Atheist (no deity) does not believe in god. Agnostic (no knowledge) is a person who claims "I don't know".
Yeah .. but no one "knows". That's like a non-statement. Even a believer doesn't know. His beliefs are rooted in faith, rather than knowledge. It seems to me that "agnostic" is what an atheist who doesn't want to be labeled as close-minded calls himself.
I've seen these arguments before. The counter argument is that the agnostic would never pretend to be arrogant enough to presume an answer for such a non-rational question to begin with. Or, put another way, the agnostic feels that no conclusions can be drawn, and, more importantly, evidence is impossible without a defined "god". The latter is rather unobtainable. Honestly, I see both sides of the argument (yours and the ones I illuminated above) - both are defensible positions IMO.
To me, that's not really a fundamental departure from how atheists view things. It makes more sense to me to consider such a view as one flavor of atheism, rather than being something totally separate from it.
True. I've always thought it a fair argument to consider an atheist the extreme version of the agnostic. They both cannot prove the non-existence of god, one just lives life as if it is true. Practically speaking, it might as well be true, I guess. But there is a distinction nevertheless. A "true" atheist believes there is no god - even without evidence to rationalize that assertion. Of course, there is no wild claim associated with the atheist's version of reality - but I digress.
The problem is "God" can be defined in so many different ways. I think when an atheist says he believes there is no God, he has a particular conception of God (perhaps the Christian one, or the miracle-making variety) in mind. This, then, is akin to someone saying he believes there is no Tooth Fairy or something. Would an agnostic answer "yes" or "no" or "I can't say" to question "Do you believe in the Tooth Fairy?"
Thus the point about "practicality". For the atheist, making the choice to "not believe" in god despite lacking any evidence has as little impact as deciding the tooth fairy does not exist. I think you've rather eloquently captured the issue. If the idea of god being undefinable, and therefore impossible to quantify as existing or not is the motivation for agnosticism - in theory they should give any zany idea a measure of possibility. I think that would be next to impossible for the human mind to comprehend - ergo the agnostic is faking his "rigid rational stance" to avoid making the more "serious" choice. However, I caveat that accusation - I find nothing wrong with the stance of the agnostic in theory, just that the practice is highly subjective, perhaps to the point of contradiction. Anyhow, agnosticism and atheism aren't mutually exclusive. You can be an agnostic atheist (i.e. you don't believe in any god and you claim there is no way to know this for fact) or you can be a gnostic atheist (i.e. you don't believe any god and you claim to know this as fact). Most atheists are agnostic atheists. I find the atheist ideology the rational "default" position - and I view it as distinct from "belief" a la theism. While it's probably not empirical (by a strict definition) - one could argue that lack of evidence that a thing exists is evidence that said thing does not exist!
