(May 24, 2013 at 11:48 am)ideologue08 Wrote: Thanks for that. The Piraha people seem to be people who do not believe in God nor any particular religion, but they do call upon spirits and they believe that these spirits gives them instructions. The act of invoking a spirit for help is a type of worship in its absolute sense in my humble opinion, it is not correct to say that they don't have religious-types beliefs, in fact they are probably atheists since they believe in a plethora of spirits that look after them in the jungles.

You're welcome.

Although the Piraha believe spirits exist, I could find nothing on them 'calling on' the spirits or spirits looking after them. They do make amulets to protect them from spirits. They seem to interpret some of the natural things they see as being manifestations of spirits. Although they accept the existence of spirits, they don't seem to worship them. The absolute sense of worship is to show reverent love and devotion.

However, the Piraha are certainly not free of superstition, despite their built-in skepticism in not believing stories about something that the tellers haven't seen for themselves.

(May 24, 2013 at 11:48 am)ideologue08 Wrote:

(May 24, 2013 at 11:38 am)pocaracas Wrote: Regardless of any teaching either way, atheists get there by themselves.... i.e. no indoctrination, as opposed to religions, where indoctrination rules.

Definition of indoctrination: 1. To instruct in a body of doctrine or principles. 2. To imbue with a partisan or ideological point of view.

Thanks for strengthening my point... -.-'

(May 24, 2013 at 11:40 am)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote: everyone is born on a natural innate human disposition that is compatible with Islam.

Then xtianity DOES have a purpose. At least it deflects some people from the barbarism of the pedo-prophet and his scumbag of a god.

Meet me at this gloryhole so you suck on it bitch.

I have a deep dislike for the atrocities perpetrated by any religion, christianity included

(May 24, 2013 at 11:39 am)goodnews Wrote: Is Dawkins not your teacher/Grand Master/Pope of sorts, why have some attained levels on this Dawkins scale etc etc

Haven't you been here long enough to actually understand the atheist position? Rhetorical question, no need to answer.

Atheists don't have Grand Masters or Popes, in any way. Please don't project your need for an authority figure on atheists.

Dawkins could announce tomorrow that he has converted to Islam or Christianity and I'd go "hmmm... What horrible reasons could have for that moronic decision?".

Atheists don't follow people, it is their ideas, words, concepts, arguments, etc that we care about.

I understand perfectly, any atheist that discusses and is taught theorys associated with atheism is according to the dictionary a person of religion. and therefore religious.

The latter part of your response eradicates the claim made in the former. To really bring this home, to take such a conception of what is or is not religious removes all meaning from the word "religion" - and you wouldn't want to do that, now would you....seeing as how religions are entirely and exclusively composed of words and meanings sans any god to provide?

Festive Wrote:It's called the Council of Nicea. Let's assume the books of the Bible were devinely inspired by god. The Council of Nicea decided which books would be included in the bible. This happened in the 7th century. There were many books that didn't make the cut. How do we know the entire Council was devinely inspired? What if they chose the wrong books? Were the books they left out devinely inspired? If so, isn't that bad? If not, how did they differentiate between which books were Devine and which were not? Then the Church decided to destroy all the other books that didn't make the cut... Why? If they weren't Devine, how would they pose a threat. This is, in part, why the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls was so important, they are parts of one of these books that didn't make the cut. Furthermore, this was for the original Church, which split into Catholic and Orthodox, many Protestant sects deny the "Christian-ness" of these churches, yet they are the ones who chose which books all those Protestant sects were eventually based on. That's just problematic.

Makes alot of sense but i've been told they had a process to determining the books that got in called canonization. It's something i was told about a while ago but one of the rules i remember was that for the new testament a book had to be written by someone who had seen jesus = the disciples + paul for the new testament.. this is with the exception of mark and luke who never saw jesus at all however that pointed to the second rule which was correspondance that it would agree with the other books however im not to familiar with the process so i'll have to recheck it but i think the first point makes sense cause imagine some guy who was'nt even there to see jesus writes an alterrnate story to talk about his life yet it totally contradicts what the people who were actually there saw.. i think those would be fair grounds for removal...But one thing i'm extremely curious about is that everyone iv'e met complaining about the "missing" books havent even read all the ones that are there.So why does it bug them soo much? infact most christians i know rarely if never mention
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi
if i removed these books from the bible i don't know how many people will even realize there missing...if anything fewer books makes our work easier. kinda makes it more effecient in a way. unless you want a religion with 900000books of which can be (possibly) summarized in 66books..even catholics have more books than protestants but from what i hear there's not really anything that would warrent a paradigm shift in christianity

Which begs the question- how did they determine that.....

A: jesus should be the metric
B: any of the people who claimed to have seen any jesus actually saw any jesus?

(this is laying aside that the story told of why any given book was included or not included does not line up to the reality of the situation)

Credulity and convenience seeking. They built a religion, plain and simple, no matter how you choose to interpret it (not that they seem to have built a very sturdy one...tons of fun shit would creep in before what we would call "modern christianity" took shape).

Fucking pagans, every one. If I removed the entire bible, I doubt that anyone would realize that it's missing. Catholics and protestants clearly felt that the differences warranted paradigm shifts (and plenty more than that, as well). You're not a monolithic bloc, It's only through the success of recent PR that we call you all "christians". PR that you continually assault - never content to let it be, you're all very fond of reminding us just how "less christian" one group is from another.

(May 24, 2013 at 11:39 am)goodnews Wrote: Discussing = 1. exchange opinions about 2. debate / atheist forum's

As Mister Agenda pointed out, the discussions are mostly about other topics and not atheism. The only examples I can think of when atheism itself is actually talked about is when a young person ponders upon telling his/her parents and the consequences of it and whether other philosophies, ideas and dogma should or shouldn't be added to atheism, such as the work of A plussers.

Quote:Taught = 1. instruct 2. educate 3. train 4. impart knowledge of / evolution theory

Is Dawkins not your teacher/Grand Master/Pope of sorts, why have some attained levels on this Dawkins scale etc etc

No. The only instance I see professor Dawkins as a teacher is in the biology classroom. And just because he's name is on the scale doesn't make him any more influential. And what on earth has evolution theory to do with atheism?!