Beard Man

ok there are some terrorist who are brain washed by some bad scholars i totally agree with that.. but those brainwashed people are working as a group which is something that governments, armies and policemen can control or fight back.
but when we speak about atheistism and that they will not be questioned after death we are speaking about individual behaviors and thinking which is sometimes more dangrous because it can not be monitored and therefore you can't take actions againest it.

so this is the Catholics believe !!! in Islam faith alone is not enough a muslim will be question after death for everything he did during his life.

to be honest i don't seem like i understand the differences between Atheisim and agnostics

hawkhead

Agnostics believe that they cannot believe in a god for which there is no proof.
Atheists have no belief in any god full stop.

It's often thought as that atheists don't believe and agnostics are not sure, but it's a little bit more complex than that.

You should read The God Delusion by Richard Hawking BM. I think you would find it interesting. You probably can't get it here though.

Grace O Malley

Catholics believe that?

hawkhead

Yep. Please correct me if I'm wrong but my maternal side of the family are/were Catholics and that is what I am told.

Beard Man

why can't people here become as polite as you are.

thanks alot mate

hawkhead

Thank you BM! You know, a while back I nearly stopped posting here because I thought many posters were very aggressive. Guess I've got used to them now....

B Bear

You can look up all the groups you want on google ....

Its like this....The fact is simple. Your daughter is scratched by a bad street cat. You think she has an infection. You take her to hospital. Doctor: "This looks serious, what did this to her? I need to know so I can treat her" you reply "an animal" , "yes, but what sort - this is important!!" says the doctor. Your wife has five lovely cats at home and all the family love them... but it was still a cat that hurt your daughter.......

Beard Man

so my stubborness is now encouraging some to write again lol

Beard Man

i couldn't digest your Analogy

Blue Cat

I wonder why that was then

Hello.Kitty

I think they must be... I mean, so many people are baptised into various forms of Christianity and then never go to church, but they often discribe themselves as CofE/Catholic/Whatever.

I went to school in France and I'd say that in my rural school, I was the only child out of 250 that hadn't been baptised. Some went to Sunday School to do their Confirmation, some went to mass - most didn't, but they'd all discribe themselves as Catholic.

BM, another thing that you may find interesting would be to look into Catholicism and the various branches of Christianity. The idea that you could essentially live a slightly less than moral life, repent on your death-bed and then go to Heaven led to some rather inventive practices - in the Middle Ages, selling Forgiveness was often a nice little earner. It was also the basis for European society and culture at that point too... not too unlike here, now.

Christianity as a family of religions has had (and still has) its fair share of fanatics, exporting the "love thy neighbour" mantra in novel and often horrifically violent ways.

I'm fascinated by the whole business, tbh.

hawkhead

yes...and didn't the heathen rich pay the poor to say their prayers for them? Something along those lines anyway.

I find it really annoying when people who are as essentially non-religious as I am still automatically say CofE or whatever. Ditto people who have a religious ceremony at their wedding/christen their children but don't actually believe in a word of the sermon (if that's what you call the speaking bit at these dos!). Why do they do it? Conforming to the norm? (Although the truth is probably the opposite) Habit? Does 'atheist' seem like a dirty word to some people? I don't know but it really screws the figures when looking at the amount of religious folk. An earlier post said 50% of the UK were atheist/agnostic or non-believers. Well in that case our churches, mosques, synagogues, whatever should be full to the brim with 30million+ ardent believers.....

Sky Blue

HH I think also tradition plays a part in this too... People do it to please and because thats what everyone else has done!

I prefer a nice civil ceremony, takes about 30 mins which is perfect in my opinion and then off to get yer champers filled...

Charismatic

What your describing is existentialism (Which is defined as a philosophical movement which posits that individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives, as opposed to it being created for them by deities or authorities or defined for them by philosophical or theological doctrines). Not all Atheists have existential beliefs, though it does often feature quite strongly (perhaps 70 to 80% of Atheists I've met have existential belief systems).

For my own perspective however existential belief systems suffer from a subtle logic flaw that takes a long time to dawn on people (if ever). As Atheism develops this will probably be one of the biggest changes that will happen and, even now, clearly splits Atheists into two distinct groups.

MataHari

so what would you call a person that doesn't really think about 'the meaning of life, why are we here, what is it all for, is this all there is etc'...but just lives life as it comes from day to day, trying to make the best of it for himself and where possible for the people around him...