(December 27, 2014 at 7:41 am)fr0d0 Wrote: Yay!!

At first I was confused, then I was petrified....

Yeah I get you Lambert. You have the usual batch of misconceptions with some wild sauce thrown in, but I'm warming to you.

"Catholicism" capital "C" is indeed a thing beyond it's original all encompassing meaning (small "c"). The clergy took away that dangerous direct contact with the deity, forced Latin only to keep the riff raff out of the top jobs, and many many other departures from the faith they choose to call " original ". Martin Luther, what a hero! *sigh*.

Still, as a Christian, I regards Catholics as sisters and brothers in Christ (more than "Christian" as my friends here correctly point out encompasses anyone following Jesus yet not necessarily acknowledging his deity).

You seem a fungi and I look forward to seeing more fun posts

Yes I suppose catholic means universal but it became the name of the Church that Peter built on the rock of truth that Peter saw when he first identified this truth in Jesus then. I.e. "thou art the Christ," or how does that go again? I am not sure, but it was Peter's insight that became known as the Christ in us and that transformed the small c to a capital C and has befuddled the reader ever since. So now, the rock is truth that is prior by nature in us, and is for us to find as Catholic so that we can be the Christ as called to be in our own right as Catholic.

So from here I would object to your idea of direct contact with the deity that commonly is known as 'born again' and then have a personal relationship with Jesus, I suppose, is what you might say, and call yourself a Christian.

I see this different and therefore do not agree that Catholics are Christian. Accordingly, Catholics are never urged to become one and if anything they are protected from becoming one inside the fold where indeed the shepherd-sheep relationship is a good example of what Catholics are mean to be. And yes, they used Latin to obscure the flock from the pitfalls of literalism that would draw them in and fornicate their own integrity as Catholic, and now we need that capital C for sure lest they violate themselves as per John 1:13 where only those who are called by God will qualify as worthy to receive, . . . and then will no longer be Catholic but are Jesuit-by-nature called instead.

To be blunt, what identifies Christians most is their personal relationship with Christ, or Jesus, I am not sure, but they sure have the urge to preach and share the special feeling they have as born again. It seems, or so they say, that they are called to share the good news and want others to feel that too.

(December 27, 2014 at 1:07 pm)Lambert Wrote: My point was that a pair of opposites cannot be conceived to exist without the other and so it is not possible to be an atheist without denying to be a theist first.

Non-sequtuir. The existence of opposites doesn't mean one starts at X and then goes to anti-X. Consider the opposites happiness and sadness. One can start of as neither happy or sad but indifferent. Plus, we find opposites in nature like the electron vs the positron. The electron doesn't start as positron the latter becomes an electron. The exist as seperate entities that will annihilate each other when they meet.

(December 27, 2014 at 1:07 pm)Lambert Wrote: And so then you can be a Catholic but you cannot be an acatholic without understanding what it means to be a Catholic. Of course you can be other than Catholic as generic protestant similar to those who walked away from the bread of life in John 6:66 as presented to them in John 6:56.

Of course you can be acatholic without knowing anything about catholicism. Putting an 'a' in front of a word catholic is equavilent to saying not catholic. So a buddhist is an acatholic. A hindu is an acatholic. etc... So if you have some other belief that is not catholic, you are an acatholic. Just like you are an abuddhist, an ahinduist, etc...

(December 27, 2014 at 2:03 pm)Stimbo Wrote: But I'm not an anti-theist; I'm just not a theist. Hence a-theist. By the same token I'm not an anti-female simply because I happen to be male. You're ascribing to me positions I don't claim to hold. That's astonishingly dishonest.

Ok, but does the a- prefix not specifically deny being a theist then?

You can be nothing or anything and everything except a theist when you declare yourself as atheist. And yes you can be a boy, a girl, a male female or anything in between but not a theist when you call yourself an atheist. So already you need to know what a theist is before to deny to be one yourself as atheist.

People are born atheist, babies don't have a belief in a deity. You can't believe in something you've never heard of. The a- means lacking (or something similar) and you start out lacking belief in gods.

All atheist means is that you lack belief in any God, given the claims you have heard and the information you have. It's the default position.

That is how it is commonly used, even though some dictionaries vary slightly. What it does not mean is a positive claim that no gods could ever exist. You can use it how you want, but that is what atheists mean when they describe themselves.

(December 27, 2014 at 3:09 pm)Lambert Wrote: Ok, but does the a- prefix not specifically deny being a theist then?

No, and it never has. "Asymmetry," denotes a lack of symmetry, not a denial of symmetry. "Amoral," denotes a lack of morality, not a denial of morality. "Atheism," denotes a lack of theism, not a denial of theism. That's a non-trivial distinction.

Quote:You can be nothing or anything and everything except a theist when you declare yourself as atheist. And yes you can be a boy, a girl, a male female or anything in between but not a theist when you call yourself an atheist. So already you need to know what a theist is before to deny to be one yourself as atheist.

Not necessarily: you might not have a word to describe atheism without theists, but the actual content of the beliefs would still be definitely atheist, and having a name for a thing is not the sole qualifier for whether or not it exists.

One thing to note is that the church has been very good at spreading a lot of misinformation about atheism. I've heard everything from, "You believe there are no gods" to "You work for Satan".

(December 27, 2014 at 3:08 pm)Surgenator Wrote:

(December 27, 2014 at 1:07 pm)Lambert Wrote: My point was that a pair of opposites cannot be conceived to exist without the other and so it is not possible to be an atheist without denying to be a theist first.

Non-sequtuir. The existence of opposites doesn't mean one starts at X and then goes to anti-X. Consider the opposites happiness and sadness. One can start of as neither happy or sad but indifferent. Plus, we find opposites in nature like the electron vs the positron. The electron doesn't start as positron the latter becomes an electron. The exist as seperate entities that will annihilate each other when they meet.

(December 27, 2014 at 1:07 pm)Lambert Wrote: And so then you can be a Catholic but you cannot be an acatholic without understanding what it means to be a Catholic. Of course you can be other than Catholic as generic protestant similar to those who walked away from the bread of life in John 6:66 as presented to them in John 6:56.

Of course you can be acatholic without knowing anything about catholicism. Putting an 'a' in front of a word catholic is equavilent to saying not catholic. So a buddhist is an acatholic. A hindu is an acatholic. etc... So if you have some other belief that is not catholic, you are an acatholic. Just like you are an abuddhist, an ahinduist, etc...

Ok, so lets call happiness a human invention then, and I suppose pain would be the same? All illusion then, including life to make eternal life real maybe?

(December 27, 2014 at 2:59 pm)Lambert Wrote: To be blunt, what identifies Christians most is their personal relationship with Christ, or Jesus, I am not sure, but they sure have the urge to preach and share the special feeling they have as born again. It seems, or so they say, that they are called to share the good news and want others to feel that too.

Jesus made the bridge so we could have a direct relationship with all three persons of God. Jesus is cool but no more so than the other two.

Hehe luckily God didn't curse me with the shouty bug so you're safe.

I know of a lot of the differing views of Protestants but I have a lot of respect for Catholicism not ignoring it's obvious flaws of course.

(December 27, 2014 at 2:43 pm)whateverist Wrote: And unnecessary. There must be plenty of nits to pick without challenging the label. All any atheist is saying is no, so far as I can tell, I don't believe in whatever it is you're calling gods.

OK, so what I would call God you would call not-god.

To wit: You have three choices, either you know as gnostic, you do not know as agnostic and then there is the believer in between.

From here the believer can be enlightened or impoverished and that would be on a slippery slope somewhere between these opposites.

(December 27, 2014 at 3:09 pm)Lambert Wrote:

(December 27, 2014 at 2:03 pm)Stimbo Wrote: But I'm not an anti-theist; I'm just not a theist. Hence a-theist. By the same token I'm not an anti-female simply because I happen to be male. You're ascribing to me positions I don't claim to hold. That's astonishingly dishonest.

Ok, but does the a- prefix not specifically deny being a theist then?

You can be nothing or anything and everything except a theist when you declare yourself as atheist. And yes you can be a boy, a girl, a male female or anything in between but not a theist when you call yourself an atheist. So already you need to know what a theist is before to deny to be one yourself as atheist.

"Atheist" is a label I accept, not one I tout. It isn't printed on my business cards. It wouldn't be put on my gravestone if I had one. It just doesn't tell you much at all about me.

But as for whether or not the label fits, I say it does. Even though I find the definition of gods so fuzzy as to leave me wondering just what it is we're talking about, I don't harbor any belief in them.

That's it. It doesn't mean much but to the best of my knowledge I am indeed what is known as an atheist. Big woopy doo.

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(December 27, 2014 at 3:43 pm)Lambert Wrote:

(December 27, 2014 at 2:43 pm)whateverist Wrote: And unnecessary. There must be plenty of nits to pick without challenging the label. All any atheist is saying is no, so far as I can tell, I don't believe in whatever it is you're calling gods.

OK, so what I would call God you would call not-god.

To wit: You have three choices, either you know as gnostic, you do not know as agnostic and then there is the believer in between.

From here the believer can be enlightened or impoverished and that would be on a slippery slope somewhere between these opposites.

I think that is a believer-centric conception but hardly surprising given the source. There isn't just one continuum. There is knowledge and lack of it, you're correct. But there is also belief and the lack of it. A person can be agnostic and a believer or agnostic and a nonbeliever (like myself). And there are others who are gnostic nonbelievers or gnostic believers. Your belief position is not a happy medium between extremes.