Let me rephrase my self "Your Honor I couldn't have groped the girl on that platform in Nagoya because I was in Sapporo"
Origin of Athiesm
- Thread starter Millman
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Let me rephrase my self "Your Honor I couldn't have groped the girl on that platform in Nagoya because I was in Sapporo"
SG-17
Deity
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2006
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- 2,632
There is physical evidence that shows that zebras exist. There is no physical evidence that shows that any sort of god(s) exist.
QED
Perfection
The Great Head.
How does that change anything?
How does that change anything?
In Japan you are guilty until proven innocent
Perfection
The Great Head.
What makes you think that?
Mr. Dictator
A Chain-Smoking Fox
It was here first.
First the egg, then the chickens.
First the egg, then the chickens.
LucyDuke
staring at the clock
Sure. Until then we really just can't say one way or the other.
Perfection
The Great Head.
1. Provide friggin' links when you quote articles: http://www.japantoday.com/category/...o-prison-for-groping-insists-on-his-innocence
2. Use reputable sites
3. One news article does not mean that Japan has a system where innocence is not presumed
Tani Coyote
Son of Huehuecoyotl
- Joined
- May 28, 2007
- Messages
- 15,195
If we're using atheist to mean the assertive belief in God not exisiting, then yes, I most certainly agree. You must back up what you assert.
Now if we use atheist in the textbook sense, then agnostic atheists need not prove anything; they merely have an absence of belief but not a belief in absence.
(Incoming dictionary war)
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
So, until you prove I'm not a trained chimpanzee randomly bashing at the keyboard while still producing these thought provoking posts by mere chance, I'm a chimpanzee?
Peanuts!
I think it happens in childhood, when you start ascribing causes to natural events and not to intention.
To understand the origin of atheism you must start with origin of religion.
I believe humans started ''believing'' as soon as they started thinking. These believes grew as their intelligence and culture got more complex. This started with looking for answers to simple issues such as death, life and natural phenomena. Finally forming religions that had an important social, cultural and scientific role.
At this point, atheism almost certainly did not exist. Humans were not rational enough to state such believes as untrue. At best they came with their own believes to overthrow and/or replace the older believes.
As civilization progressed the power of religion became more institutionalized. Monotheism largely helped in making this possible. At this point religion and it's institutions still filled it's social, cultural and scientific role. Although it obviously also had alot of direct and indirect influence in other areas such as government and justice.
Through science scepticism again these doctrines appeared. Galileo Galilei, one of the earliest known examples, used rationality to discover that certain church doctrine was incorrect (regarding the solar system in his case). The church institutions used their power to counter this, as they feared such scepsis. Overtime other scientists followed the same pattern. Eventually scientific knowledge grew in power and this gave way to the enlightenment and rennaisance era. This also started the decrease of power religious institutions would now face.
These scientists turned away from common theism as was standard untill then and used another explanation, deism. This made it possible for them to keep researching without facing contradiction. This deism can be considered the origin of atheism, although the original origin is religion itself.
From here on out religion started losing first it's scientific function and later on also it's cultural function. Atheism became an option for people now that religion had lost parts of it's function. If we look at the world today we see that religion has entirely lost it's scientific role. It's cultural role has also diminished and it's social role is still partly in place but decreasing. The power of the religious institutes has wained.
In many Western nations agnosticism, combined with a lack of care about religion, has replaced theism as the standard. Atheism has become much more acceptable. Obviously freedom of religion played a major role here.
My prediction is that religion will lose more of it's function overtime. Eventually dissapearing as an integrated part of society to a form of cultism. I'm not sure wheter atheism or simply a lack of caring about religious issues will become the norm. I'm not sure if there is a difference between those.
Wow, huge wall of text. Obiously it's all my opinion, anybody who can add or correct me go ahead. Although I hope we can leave the 'does god exist' discussions outof it.
I believe humans started ''believing'' as soon as they started thinking. These believes grew as their intelligence and culture got more complex. This started with looking for answers to simple issues such as death, life and natural phenomena. Finally forming religions that had an important social, cultural and scientific role.
At this point, atheism almost certainly did not exist. Humans were not rational enough to state such believes as untrue. At best they came with their own believes to overthrow and/or replace the older believes.
As civilization progressed the power of religion became more institutionalized. Monotheism largely helped in making this possible. At this point religion and it's institutions still filled it's social, cultural and scientific role. Although it obviously also had alot of direct and indirect influence in other areas such as government and justice.
Through science scepticism again these doctrines appeared. Galileo Galilei, one of the earliest known examples, used rationality to discover that certain church doctrine was incorrect (regarding the solar system in his case). The church institutions used their power to counter this, as they feared such scepsis. Overtime other scientists followed the same pattern. Eventually scientific knowledge grew in power and this gave way to the enlightenment and rennaisance era. This also started the decrease of power religious institutions would now face.
These scientists turned away from common theism as was standard untill then and used another explanation, deism. This made it possible for them to keep researching without facing contradiction. This deism can be considered the origin of atheism, although the original origin is religion itself.
From here on out religion started losing first it's scientific function and later on also it's cultural function. Atheism became an option for people now that religion had lost parts of it's function. If we look at the world today we see that religion has entirely lost it's scientific role. It's cultural role has also diminished and it's social role is still partly in place but decreasing. The power of the religious institutes has wained.
In many Western nations agnosticism, combined with a lack of care about religion, has replaced theism as the standard. Atheism has become much more acceptable. Obviously freedom of religion played a major role here.
My prediction is that religion will lose more of it's function overtime. Eventually dissapearing as an integrated part of society to a form of cultism. I'm not sure wheter atheism or simply a lack of caring about religious issues will become the norm. I'm not sure if there is a difference between those.
Wow, huge wall of text. Obiously it's all my opinion, anybody who can add or correct me go ahead. Although I hope we can leave the 'does god exist' discussions outof it.
holy king
Deity
i guess the first time some guy declared the sun/the sea/his genitals god and somebody disagreed was the origin of atheism.
As interesting as the Japanese case is, it would be better discussed in a separate thread than here.....
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Same thing about unicorns though.
Gogf
Indescribable
Modern atheism is, historically, derived from when 17th century scientific thought first posited that man's intellect had conquered the known world and stood poised to conquer the rest.
Askthepizzaguy
Know the Dark Side
Atheism certainly did exist. Belief in a God or Gods was not the default state.
Coming up with a "God" to explain things was the start of Theism. Any time before that, and anyone who disagreed with that idea, was an atheist.
Then you factor in, children are not born with beliefs. No one comes out of the womb believing in a god. They don't understand the concept of toes yet, and certainly haven't developed the capacity to wonder who they are, where they are, or why they are.
Lack of belief is the default state. Then people start to propose ideas.
Then, people start to push those ideas onto others.
Eventually, a person or a society gets to the point where they can suggest reasons why an idea is not true. This is called the age of reasoning.
Reasoning is why atheism is able to survive in a world full of beliefs.
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