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Originally posted by venomX Well now you've spiked my interest. If I am correct, satanism is a derivative of catholicism, where satan was 'created'. In order for 'satan' to exist, god would have to exist, because satan is one of god's angels that was exiled from heaven. Now how can you reconcile that with satanism being the epitome of atheism? Because it is the ultimate denial of god? Or what? Creating another god in order to deny 'God' is still theism. I'm talking out of curiosity, might you expand on this point?

Well, that's the theist or Judeo-Chrisitian-Islamic definition of Satanism what you're describing right there and not necessarily how Satanists would describe satanism.

Acutally, you misquoted my there, I never said Satanism is the epitome of atheism, I said atheism is the apitome of Satanism. One shade of what that means is that most hardcore Satanist with a serious interest in Satanism don't believe in God or "the Devil."

I apologize if any of my previous posts in this thread rubbeded you the wrong way btw.

___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

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Originally posted by shaolin_Z Well, that's the theist or Judeo-Chrisitian-Islamic definition of Satanism what you're describing right there and not necessarily how Satanists would describe satanism. Acutally, you misquoted my there, I never said Satanism is the epitome of atheism, I said atheism is the apitome of Satanism. One shade of what that means is that most hardcore Satanist with a serious interest in Satanism don't believe in God or "the Devil." I apologize if any of my previous posts in this thread rubbeded you the wrong way btw.

Not really, it takes more than that to bother me. It may have seen that I didn't know of the contributions made by religious people, but I do. Regardless of that I still insist on my point.

Regarding Satanism though, I did read up a bit on it when I was in high school. Being a catholic school it was a bit of a taboo subject so I went ahead and read up on it like any good theism opposer immersed in theist environment. Anyways, didn't read that much on it. I only got to the Judeo-Christian definition of it. I guess the just kept the name Satan for lack of a better one in other 'flavours' of it. Interesting though. So would they worship evil, do they believe in hedonism? How do they define their beliefs sans 'the Devil'?

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Poetry>Byron//Blog>TheMean

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Orbax At that point you kind of crossed the rubicon and you might as well lay siege to Rome

Well, this isn't entirely accurate or all encompassing, but Satanism could be loosely descriped as a philosophy that revolves largely around and obsessions with power, manipulation of the weak and others, pacification of the ego, hedonism and sadism. It does involve ritualistic practices that most of us would find rather bizarre, questionable, and even quite deplorable. But that one of the many reasons why it's an esoteric philosophy and an occult practice.

___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

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Originally posted by shaolin_Z I'm not saying things magically "sprank" out of religion. The fact of the matter is, with the exception of the modern world and developments in the science in the post industrial age, for the most part atleast, major advances in the sciences, arts, and philosophy (and the foundational material) were layed down in heavily religious societies and you can pretty much trace modern instituions back to religious institutions, and I'm not refering to a freaking church here.

yes, but i see that as more closely related to religions power and popularity in the superstitious times of yore im sure we could connect loads of things (both positive and negative) to religion in this way. correlation does not mean causation, which is basically my central thesis.

and your central problem here is, even if your argument is sound and supported by the evidence, the opposite is certainly true in modernity. praising religion for its apparent social successes 1000 years ago is a little irrelevant when compared to the stagnation that (in the western cultures at least) christianity (for instance) generates currently.

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My theory is that religion, and this is an obsense over simplification of it, is that many religious doctrines provided the social stability and cohesion, and dare I say intellectual curiously, or in more modest terms, the sense of wonder and explorations, also affected by social stability, necessary for such developments and advances to take place to begin with.

im not sure about this. did religion act as a form of stability? a form of social control no doubt, perhaps they are the same thing

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Does that clarify what I was trying to say? Does that necessarily imply God exists or religion x/religions are the truth? Hell no! But it certainly underlines their impact and importance on the development "civilization" and more complex social structures and institutional structures. You can always write it off as an evolutionary step ofcourse based on the assumption that the existance of God or Gods is a ludicrous concept.

i knew pretty much what you were saying. mostly coz we've had this argument before!

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Pardon the pun, by Jesus Christ PKC ! No need to get so defensive about your world view, I wasn't trying to imply the validity of religious inquiry over other forms of inquiry. My point was that atheist have a fair degree of anti-religion bias which is mostly deritvitve from their distaste for religion. Am I generalizing that to all athiest? No, but certainly a good number of them. Similarly, I generalize quite a bit of negativity to theists to but I certainly don't generalize it to all theists. The only reason I don't voice the latter much is that there's already an over abundance of criticism, not even all of it necessarily legitimate or fair (intellectually), directed toward "religion" all the time. So I don't really feel the need to. [EDIT] Does that make more sense ?

agreed. i am completely unable to divest myself of my bias in this regard. but at least im honest about it

edit: my other thesis is that all religions spent more time enforcing/spreading their viewpoints and getting the populace to worship than any of them ever did to further something like scientific inquiry.

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Last edited by pkcRAISTLIN on Aug-16-2007 at 00:42

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN edit: my other thesis is that all religions spent more time enforcing/spreading their viewpoints and getting the populace to worship than any of them ever did to further something like scientific inquiry.

Thats quite an interesting point. I do agree there is much time spent in self advertising and trying to keep people involved. I'm not sure they do so little in ways of furthering useful things though. Many christian churches and organizations are actively involved in educating and securing funds for people in needs for example. I agree partially with your criticism in that in light of the power churches wield over masses they do little to further noble causes. But I do believe that they at least contribute in some way.

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Poetry>Byron//Blog>TheMean

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Orbax At that point you kind of crossed the rubicon and you might as well lay siege to Rome

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Originally posted by venomX Thats quite an interesting point. I do agree there is much time spent in self advertising and trying to keep people involved. I'm not sure they do so little in ways of furthering useful things though. Many christian churches and organizations are actively involved in educating and securing funds for people in needs for example. I agree partially with your criticism in that in light of the power churches wield over masses they do little to further noble causes. But I do believe that they at least contribute in some way.

oh yeah, i agree too. there is no doubt that modern churches do a lot to help some people. but historically, the church has placed a far greater emphasis on its influence (and perpetuating it) than anything else. note, im speaking purely of christianity here, its what im most familiar with.

today, i would be surprised though if church groups gave more (in a dollar value) to the "poor" than the modern philanthropists.

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I share much of my athiests friends' distaste for one major aspect of many "organized religions." The Vatican is fucking loaded but the pope/church preaches charity and generosity? Just like many major Mullahs foster vengful sentiment and suicidal kamakazi style violence yet talk about peace and mercy? What a load of cock. Practice what you preach. Ofcourse, their actions reflects that they clearly don't believe in the principles or values they profess to believe in.

___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

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Originally posted by venomX What kind of argument is that? Just because you feel you have to worship something does not entail that it is inherently human to do so. Christ, it's hard enough to prove that things like propensity to learn a language are inherent in humans, and here you are claiming that the need to believe is inherent in all humans. Empty rhetoric if you ask me. Answering the question "who created the universe" is inconsequential to a humans life. Most people don't use up even 2 seconds of the day to think about god or the universe or why we are here. Most people are caught up in their daily lives, having to cook or tend to their kids. What is consequential about believing in a god is the dogmas and attitudes that come with that belief. If religion were just a private belief that did not influence people's interactions with others or affected behaviour it wouldnt matter. The bottom line is, the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours that tend to come with religion, inasmuch as they affect others, tend to be negative. History is full of those examples. Recent ones, suicide bombers, the picketing of funerals, the irrational banning of things such as abortion and stem cell research.

Lol, because I feel I have to worship something? I don't feel I have to worship anything. People choose to. Worship is inherent in humans, not because of the airy fairy feelings you think its full of, but because, as I said, you believe the first assumption that I discussed in my previous post. I never said, "The need to believe is inherent in all humans." I said, "The need to worship is inherent in all humans." I am not just talking about a god. Again, I said, it could be anything. Reread my freaking post.

Most people are too busy with their lives? WHat?? What kind of BS arguement is that? Billions of people have obviously found the time to think at least a LITTLE bit about their greater existance. Listen, just because you don't worship a divine being, doesn't mean you don't worship anything at all. And don't think of worship as singing to the choir holding your hands, and chanting whatever songs. Whatever one devotes himself to, is what he worships. Simple as that.

What would you say about the wars of the 20th century, most of which were NOT religious. More people died in these wars than all 'religious' wars in history. Most suicide bombers in war zones and conflict areas are people with little to lose. The crazy Christain picketers at military funerals are by NO MEANS the representative voice of the Christian Right. It is the right-wingers who tend to be the nationalists.

Do you think abortion is a good thing? I sure don't, and a lot of other people do too, but I agree that the government should not have a say on the issue. Stem cell research is not just tied to human embryos. That is the issue people have with stem cells. It is only ethical to not use human fetuses to farm body parts from. Havn't you been keeping up on this issue? Stem cells can be taken from many other tissues, not just embryos.

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I'm going to leave this argument here. Truth is, believers are the ones that have that need you are talking about. And in the end it is nothing more than a psychological need for comfort. Logic will not prevail in this discussion, because the act of believing itself defies logic. My point still stands until proven otherwise, religion merely serves as a social support resource, providing comfort, companionship and filling other such social needs.

I'll disregard most of this rant. My point was not to say religion is the answer to everything. My point was to explain the reasoning behind religion and secularism. Then I posted the fundamental assumptions that give reason to both sides. I also asking you to think outside your point of view to see the reasons people are so adamately religious(god-worship). They believe in an assumption. But like the worshippers of the divine, secularists are not apart from their own assumption, and are not outside their own worship of what they devote themselves to.

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Originally posted by Krypton "The need to worship is inherent in all humans."

eh? what on earth do you mean by this? id like to see some semblance of an argument or some evidence please.

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There are two ways of looking at the world – through faith and superstition or through the rigours of logic, observation and evidence – in other words, through reason.

Nah, these are two ways of looking at the world, but there are other ways as well, many of which we don't even conceive of yet.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN eh? what on earth do you mean by this? id like to see some semblance of an argument or some evidence please.

The need to devote oneself to something is inherent in all humans. Better?

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Originally posted by shaolin_Z I'm not saying things magically "sprank" out of religion.

I just want to know what "sprank" is

___________________
"...End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path...one that we all must take.
The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it...
...white shores...and beyond...the far green country under a swift sunrise."