Talk Elections

I put this poll here, because there is Jmfcst-Miamiu-God-fight going on in 2004 presidential topic.

It will be fun to see the votes for Lucifer dropping in... :D

I don't.  

For once, we agree :)
80% of athiests voted Gore in 2000...not many Bushies among us atheists.

Belief in atheism increased by 25% in the last year!  Atheist majority!

If you're an atheist Miami, at least spell it right :)

i before e except after C?  Maybe not

I believe in God but Im not very religious.

I believe in God.

The "i before e" rule can be a little confusing for people who aren't sticklers for grammar, like myself. It's essentially the "when you want to say -ee-, it's i before e except after c" but there are exceptions to the rule. Also fits in with words that sound like "ay" like neighbor and weigh.

Oh, and I definitely believe in God. One of the few devout liberal Christians you'll come across, at least on Atlas.

i am agnostic, as I said before.....

-ist is a noun suffix, therefore it has NOTHING to do with "i before e" rule.

This is your first post outside the 2004 board! And what a post... ;)

I believe in God

and I'm pretty religous

yeah, rather profound, wasn't it?  I thought about explaining that if the e had been silent it could have been dropped...as in "true" + "ism" = "truism".

But, then I would ruin my native-houstonian-christian-fundamentalist-know-nothing image.  

Yes, good choice. I don't want my sterotypes to be questioned... ;)

Short answer: No.

Long answer: other than hearsay there is no concrete physical proof for a God, and therefore until such evidence manifests there is no reason to conclude that such a thing exists.

However, simply because I have not seen said evidence does not mean that it isn't there; hence I am open to the possibility of the existence of God, which ultimately makes me an agnostic rather than an atheist.

There's still no Lucifer vote... :( Where are you????? :(

Opebo?

j/k... ;)

What kind of "physical proof" are you expecting from a God who is an invisible spirit?

Man created the image of god when man lacked answers.

I believe in God.....but I'm not religious.

You forgot to give us the most honest options..."Yes, I believe in Lucifer, or No I believe in Jesus."

Atheist here.

hmmm, does that also make you religious?

How do you figure?

I'm asking the questions! ;)

Then how come my response had a question mark, and yours had an exclamation point?  ;)

You must worship the exclamation point, and I must worship the question mark...make sense?

Not really, but thats ok.

i put im not sure

I do believe in God, but I'm not overly religious.

Yes, definitely.

I believe in G-d, and a basic good and evil in the world. Moral relativism was proved to be a lie that masks great horrors by the holocaust, if no where wlse, and modern third world totalitarianism continues to prove the existence of evil in the world. And where there is evil, there must be good, or evil is meaningless. I.e., Hitler is w/o question evil. So Churchill, for all his flaws, is good.

Never fear my brother, the time will come when every single one of those cursed moral relativists burn slowly in the hottest parts hell!

I should certainly hope that there is no ambiguity as to where I stand on the subject.

never fear my brother....all you need is love!

I completely agree with you on moral relativism.  There is a clear right and wrong.  This has nothing to do with any gods for me though.

Isn't the question more like: Do you believe in God, and if so, the God religions boast and assert or the undefinable, indescribable, unimaginable, can't begin to speak for Him because we can't begin to comprehend His Being let alone His Full Meaning Omnipotent one?

You don't have to be religous to believe in god. I believe

religious- belief in divine being or beings. To devoutly practice one's faith. Strict in performance; conscientious.

I agree completely, the reality is that most people don't really practice what they preach! In other words, they are not religious...just frauds.

damn, I completely forgot about noun suffixes.

ignoring the i before e rule applies to any affix (prefix or suffix), not just to noun suffix

Here is a cute little poem:

"I" Before "E" Except After "C"

By Duncan McKenzie
 
It's a rule that is simple, concise and efficeint.
For all speceis of spelling it's more than sufficeint.
Against words wild and wierd, it's one law that shines bright
Blazing out like a beacon upon a great hieght,

It gives guidance impartial, sceintific and fair
In this language, this tongue to which we are all hier.
'Gainst the glaceirs of ignorance that icily frown,
This great precept gives warmth, like a thick iederdown.

Now, a few in soceity choose to deride,
To cast DOUBT on this anceint and venerable guide;
They unwittingly follow a foriegn agenda,
A plot hatched, I am sure, in some vile haceinda.

In our work and our liesure, our homes and our schools,
Let us follow our consceince, sieze proudly our rules!
Will I dilute my standards, make them vaguer and blither?
I say NO, I will not! I trust you will not iether.

Lol, good one...I wasn't aware of this rule actually...I will add a little poem of my own, I don't remember who wrote it, as soon as I can find it. I remember the beginning though...it was written by an English teacer in Holland, I believe, and it illustrates the problems with learning English...

'Dearest creature in creation,
Studying English pronounciation,
I will teach you in my verse,
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.
Tears in eye, your dress you'll tear,
So shall I, oh hear my prayer!'

To be continued... :)

I personally find moral determinsim far more dangerous. Good and Evil are human constructs; the majority of humanity believes that Hitler was an evil man due to the process of socialisation which teaches us that certain things are bad and certain things are evil. Does this mean that morality is a worthless concept? Of course not. It is only in our interest to define Good and Evil, otherwise we cannot possibly hope to co-exist with each other. Morality is the code that makes life bearable. But it would be foolish to suggest that morality is anything other than a social construct.

Besides, there is a danger. What if one person or group, say, I dunno, the Nazis, state their subjective belief that it's good to, say, murder people based on race? What if they impose it on the rest of the population with the claim that that group's subjective beliefs hold a universal truth? It's precisely such a scenario where moral determinism (the belief that Good and Evil are God-given concepts that cannot be altered, as opposed to relativism) can prove extremely dangerous. Thus, paradoxically, moral relativism works precisely to stop people like Hitler, or at least that's what it's designed for.

It all depends on who determines morality...your argument only works for moral relativists, so it doesn't really make a lot of sense... ;)

Not necessarily, since all moral relativists really do is acknowledge that good and evil are subjective (Hitler thought he was a good guy, QED) whereas determinists believe that the concept of morality is universal.

My point was that a moral determinist will wimply say that Hitler was evil and that his understanding of morality is irrelevant, PRECISELY b/c morals are determined...

I don't understand how someone could not know if he/she believes something.

Because there is really no way to know if there is a god.  I can understand why someone would be indecisive.

Someone could reasonably be indecisive IF they expected more info to be forthcoming.  So, until the expected info arrives, the decision is "null".

But, once it becomes clear that all the available info has ALREADY been given - as it is in this case - anything other than "I do believe" is exactly the same as not believing.

Also, if we look at this in terms of a logical switch either being on or off, there is no intermediate state.  In other words, a person starts off as an unbeliever and remains an unbeliever until such time they choose to believe.

Why can't he expect more info? Like a revelation or something...

True (and a pretty good catch).  But he is still an unbeliever until he becomes a believer.

In other words,  the question was "Do you believe in God" or to put in another way: "Is your belief state 'on'?"  

If only the 2 options 'believe' and 'don't believe' had been given, I'd agree with you, but now I would interpret the 'don't believe' option as having made up one's mind never to believe, rather than waiting for more info. Though you're obviously right that someone who doesn't yet believe would be an unbeliever.

I do believe in God. I believe that Jesus Christ was His son and our savior. However, I know that my beliefs are just that--beliefs. I do not profess to have knowledge which I do not have.

Until I was 19 years old, I did not believe in God, as I am very scientific and logical and thus felt that I needed proof of His existence. I had always been open minded to the possibility. As a result I can completely understand why others would not believe in God without proof, and I cannot bring myself to believe that God would punish people for failing to believe in something without proof. However, I feel that such proof was revealed to me at that time. It was not physical proof, but I feel that He instilled me with faith that He exists.

(edited in case offensive)

i am agnostic

Phew, it's a relief to know that moral relativism successfully restrained Hitler. Just imagine how bad he would have been without moral relativism!

I did not say moral relativism restrained Hitler. I said moral determinism made him worse. Besides, moral relativism as many would interpret it did not take shape until the 1950s and therefore takes a wholly retrospective view of the Nazi regime. You're free to disagree with my viewpoint, but acknowledging my basic argument would help before making sarcastic remarks.

God is the only point where i am not as far to the right as is possible.

In the absence of proof, I do not believe that there is a god.

Devout Pre-Vatican II, Latin Mass, old school Catholic here.

Lol...I didn't know that there was more than one person who actaully called it Vatican II...

Who's the one person?

Tom Lehrer. :)

I love Tom Lehrer. Elements song, the Harvard fight song...

"Fight for dear old Harvard, fight fight fight!
Won't it be peachy if we win the game?!?"

Well, thats what everyone I know calls it

So do I. :) I hold your hand in mine, Lobachevsky, the Irish ballad...and of course the Vatican Rag, who prompted bringing him into the discussion.

I don't think god created man.  I think man created god.

I grew up catholic but I never really bought any of it.  I never could get around the fact that there are hundreds of different religions that each believe there's is the one true God.  Someones got to be wrong.  

Of course I don't care what anyone else believes.  To each his own.  But I do believe VERY strongly in the separation of Church and State.  My opinion is anyone can believe what they want in a dogmatic way if they want but I don't think these bible belt preachers should be allowed to ban abortion or deny gay people from getting married just because THEIR God told them it was the right thing to do.

Quite honestly, I think it's only possible that God exists, because of time. Time involves being created, gaining age, and eventually leaving existence. Our universe had to have been created- the Big Bang is the most popular theory, but who set the big bang? Our existence couldn't have simply appeared- this is contray to physics. What is the possible answer? Something, created us. Since that something is in a period of non-time, it never had a beginning, end, et cetera. It always was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever, as the prayer goes. So basically, the thing that set the big bang is still around because there's no time with that figure.

That's what I said, man created god because of the absence of answers.

That's a logical fallacy... simply because there's no evidence for something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. :)

You're agnostic, is what you mean ;)


Sedevecantist? Lefievrite?

I believe in God, and I also believe that his son, Jesus Christ, came down to earth and sacrified himself on the cross so that whoever believes in him and accepts him as savior and Lord shall be forgiven for their sins and have everlasting life.

Sincerely,

Kevin Lamoreau

I am an atheist. I find religion too crazy, even for me. I beleive there was a man named Jesus of Nazereth, and he was an excellent Philosopher, but outside of that, I don't know.

Siege40

Thats pretty rare. An atheist from SC!

As for me I don't believe in religion.

Ahem, I am NOT from South Carolina, as stated in the line below my name. My Avatar is SC because that was beneficial to the Fantasy voting system, which has few registered Southerners.

Siege40

you can belive in god or some divine spirit without religion

I believe in neither however. lol.

Siege40

I'm anti religious, and believe that without the world would be a better place.

This is why we should either do the fantasy vote by popular vote or distribute the electoral votes based on the FORUM population, not the general population. Otherwise the avatars will just become completely meaningless. They're already getting there...

Really? Have you thought about morality and stuff like that?

Morality would still succees. You don't need religion to achieve morality. If religion were condensed to the 10 commandments, the world would be stronger.

It's true that you don't have to, but I think a lot of people do need it anyway. And it has helped further a lot of ideas that are essential to modern Wesern society.

I think believing in religion is the last insanity that society tolerates.

I probably shouldn't say that because I will get numerous complaints.

That's not unlikely, no. :P

Non-believers are almost within the margin of error for this poll. We need to get out the vote.

An atheist membership drive?

For the poll on this thread.

I just watched the CNN Dean special. I really like the guy even more now. He would have been my president of choice.

CNN did a good job with that show.  
Maybe Gov. Dean will run for Senate.

I think that he could probably easily transition to a Senator or a Congressmen. I watched the CNN presentation as well. Dean has a good message, and it was cause he came out first that was his downfall, not a cheer at a convention. I hope to see great things from him in the future.

Siege40

Nah, I am an atheist.

Tweed was an atheist?  Who knew!

Also, why is this in Individual Politics?

Why are we commenting on a nine year old thread?

I've been everything at least once.

I'm a devout Catholic.

When has Tweed ever not been an atheist? Besides the brief Mormon period.

Holy necro, Batman. As for the OP, I've always been a devout believer in God.

I assumed he was a lefty Christian, but perhaps I assumed wrong.

I didn't realize God was outofbox6.

Nope.

Lets just put it this way - I'm not convinced. I'm in the middle between an atheist and a believer.

God has many names,  There is no reason why outofbox6 could not be one of them, tho I am fairly certain outofbox666 is not.

I have my doubts, (there is no way in hell I believe what my parents believe), but I consider myself a Catholic.

Catholic, but secular and not devout.

You weren't protestant? Cool to see the Catholic Church can attract new members!