Gender: Male Location: The Proud Nation of Kekistan
Well I think there is a distinction because a religious person can argue in a secular way to engage with someone else on grounds they can agree to.
For example, if I'm talking to an atheist about morality and wisdom, my views are rooted in my faith, however I'm not going to make an appeal to authority an atheist doesn't ascribe to. Instead I am going to speak to some of the values my belief in God leads to because I might actually be able to find some common ground there. One example of that would be that my beliefs in "love thy neighbor as thyself" and that each person is made in the image of God implicate the value of the moral worth of the individual, which is something you could find to be a presupposition many atheists also hold even though they don't believe in God and you could engage them in a moral conversation on those grounds because it is a common ground that could hopefully be reached.
Same with someone like Ben Shapiro who has made it a point to say that he doesn't cite God in political debate on things like abortion because it would be a citation to an authority his opponent doesn't accept so instead he approaches it on different grounds.
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Like I said, to be atheist is to lack belief in the divine, and to be secular is to make decisions without consideration for the divine. Of course, someone who lacks belief in the divine would not consider the divine when making decisions. An atheist will naturally practice secularism.
However, theists sometimes practice secularism too, in order to coexist with those with different belief systems. This is especially true with regards to government. For example, Christians and Muslims have different ideas about the divine; as the divine is not measurable, there is no way of determining who is right or who is wrong, but each side is passionate about their beliefs nonetheless. Were a government to sponsor one side's ideas about divinity over the other, it would almost certainly lead to religious conflict and/or persecution. Secularism is practiced to avoid this, because by disregarding the divine when making policy decisions, we are forced to then make decisions based on things that are measurable. As things that are measurable are neutral, this is thought to be fairest to all parties involved.
Not necessarily. There's no reason a god couldn't exist, but rather that we no reason to assume that one does. We don't really have to assert anything, because not believing in (or devoting our lives to) something we can't observe or measure is self-evident.
Lol, no, I'm pretty sure I understand the question... Unless there's some nuance to your post that I didn't pick up.
Secularism can be argued to be the achievement of Christianity, or at least, Christianity can be said to lay the foundation for secular politics. Thus, I am not sure if Atheism and Secularism are more closely tied than Christianity and Secularism.
Also, if you don’t mind, can you tell me what you think about this definition of a Theist.
"Theists believe in God" and "Theists have a believe in God."
Can you tell me how do you consider these statements and their meaning?
Sure. But I am not convinced it is impossible to determine who is right, though (obviously taking into the account the limits of human reason)
This is actually a slippery slope in my estimation, given that we constantly make decisions of things that cannot be measured, e g. justice.
There are many things that are either impossible to measure or abstract, yet they exist in the cultural matrix. Not sure why the idea of God would be different.
So you can posit your beliefs in relation to the concept of God, correct?
Last edited by Stigma on Apr 21st, 2018 at 08:52 PM
I'm an atheist, but it's not that I don't believe in the metaphysical. I just don't believe one omnipotent being exists who created everything.
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"a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God"
I definitely do not believe in any deity. So I don't think it would apply.
__________________ Chicken Boo, what's the matter with you? You don't act like the other chickens do. You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you're not a man you're a Chicken Boo.
Yeah, I think Fly is right, Surt. Given that you leave an open door for the possiblility of the metaphysical realm, somewhere down the road it implies the possibility of deity.
Well I definitely do not believe in an omnipotent being. So I don't know.
__________________ Chicken Boo, what's the matter with you? You don't act like the other chickens do. You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you're not a man you're a Chicken Boo.
I don't even know if there is a word for what I am lol. I notice most atheists do not believe in things like spirits. I do. I just don't think there is a heaven or hell.
__________________ Chicken Boo, what's the matter with you? You don't act like the other chickens do. You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you're not a man you're a Chicken Boo.