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 Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 1:41 pm
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Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 6:06 pm
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Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 1:27 am
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Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 2:42 pm
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Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 7:05 pm
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My screen name is from my favorite movie, Waking Life.
Existentialism at its best.
Watch it, love it.
I am an atheist, an existentialist, a hippy, and a stoner.
Nietzsche is a personal hero of mine, as is Ted Bundy [but that's a different story].
On the other side of the scale, I'm schizophrenic, clinically depressed, ocd, and a hypochondriac.
Peace.
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Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 7:38 pm
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 2:59 am
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Holy s**t. I just read every introduction in this thread. XD
Now, time to respond.
Name: Jamie
Age: 25 (all you people my age add me already! I feel like a fossil, here!)
Location: Oregon
World View: Vehement Atheist
Passions: Drawing, writing, good music, good films, enjoying aesthetic beauty, learning, growing, opening peoples' eyes.
Goals: Become a professional writer, teach English in Japan, move to Canada.
A bit about me: Raised in the Bible Belt as many here, my enlightenment wasn't the result of wicked "Christians" or familial/societal strife (though if I wanted to make a case for that cause, there were certainly adequate grounds), nor was it a bad relationship or matter of convenience.
Raised in faith and very eager to believe, my life took a series of harsh and harsher turns, and each time I clung desperately to my religious upbringing I had to go a little more crazy to keep believing God was there. However, the harder things got, the less my faith consoled me - the more I strove to build a relationship with a present Father God, the more I only heard my own echoing requests and supplications. I remember specifically the very night I addressed the place of faith and realized I was looking into an infinite, bleak abyss. One that was wasting my life and the lives of thousands of poor suckers the world over. All religions were stealing so much progress from humanity, escalating tribal battles into genocide and global extinction campaigns.
So I did the only thing that felt right. I dismissed God, answered to myself in my heart that I'm a valuable person and should feel no shame in doing anything that doesn't hurt others.
The next day I could look at myself in the mirror for the first time without discomfort. I was emboldened and soon announced to my friends my Atheism and my bisexuality. It cost me all but 2 of them. I was also kicked out of my house. It would have been devastating, but I was instead assured of the correctness of my convictions.
Interestingly enough, I picked up and hit the road in a Gonzo Journalism adventure across the country (minus the imbibed chemicals) with no particular destination and came out of it with confidence, satisfaction and nights free of fear and bad dreams.
With the wild, terrified search for meaning in my life now dismissed as a waste of time, I developed in a few short years from an emotionally (and educationally) stunted and clingy person into someone who was strong in their convictions, calm in demeanor and unyielding to the challenges of life. And I've never been happier.
Now that I've made this monumental (read: tl:dr) post, you guys are likely to realize that I'm very actively promotional of humor and fun, an aesthete, hedonist and dreamer to the core. Yay pretend. See below my responses to one of the previous posts.
Thanks for letting me in the guild! I'm terribly happy to be here.
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 3:02 am
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Foetus In Fetu I'm an agnostic but I lean towards atheism. Basically, I don't believe that there is a God but I don't believe that there isn't one, either. I don't feel any "supernatural presence" and the lack of real evidence either way causes me to sit on the fence. I tend to lean towards atheism by default but I suppose if I did feel something I might be a little more mixed up. I don't believe that it is possible to prove that God exists either way so I don't think anyone really has the right to tell another that their beliefs are wrong.
A fantastic quote from Richard Dawkins seems tailor made to address your above statement. It also seems applicable to many posts I've seen.
"Atheism means non-belief in the particular cult that happens to pervade the society under discussion. In America that means the cult of Yahweh, the God of the Jews commandeered by the Christians, Muslims and Mormons. Today, everyone takes it for granted that we are all atheists with respect to Thor and Wotan, Zeus and Poseidon, Mithras and Ammon Ra. If asked why you don't believe in Thor's hammer, you would probably say something like 'Why is the onus on me to justify my nonbelief in Thor, given that there is not the smallest positive reason for belief?' You might go further and add that thunder, which was at one time attributed to Thor's hammer, now has a better explanation in terms of electric charges in the clouds. While technically agnostic about all those ancient gods, and about fairies and leprechauns too (you can't disprove them either), in practice we don't believe in any of them, and we feel no onus to explain why."
I <3 Richard Dawkins. |
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 10:03 pm
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Super Perfundo My screen name is from my favorite movie, Waking Life.
Existentialism at its best.
Watch it, love it.
I am an atheist, an existentialist, a hippy, and a stoner.
Nietzsche is a personal hero of mine, as is Ted Bundy [but that's a different story].
On the other side of the scale, I'm schizophrenic, clinically depressed, ocd, and a hypochondriac.
Peace.
Sup, fellow stoner?
And clinically crazy to boot, although I'm currently medicated. Welcome to the guild. |
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 11:53 pm
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Hello everyone. My name is Joshua (yes, I am named after the famous ethnic cleanser Joshua from "The Bible." You can safely assume I didn't choose my own name razz .)
(Some of the following is copied and pasted from my guild submission form)
I grew up exposed to Christian religion for most of my life. Going to Lutheran schools, churches, youth groups, etc.. Always having people pray for me, only to have all my hard work attributed to god when I was successful and attributing my failure to "not being part of God's plan."
But why am I an Atheist? I am an Atheist for many reasons. But mainly I attribute my Atheism to that fact that I was lucky enough to have a mother that promoted critical thought. While I was sent to a Lutheran school, she would always encourage me to ask questions about the Bible and religion, whether they were positive or negative questions. She never once told me that there was "no such thing as God" or "God does exist," she would just encourage me to seek and find the answers. At the time, I would get frustrated that I would never get a solid answer. But now, I feel privileged that she would afford me such an opportunity. An opportunity afforded to few children in America. I will always respect her for that.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to chat with others on a civil board. Extended Discussion, while good in theory, is rather prone to trolls and people who spout logical fallacies in favor of their self-conceived notion of "god" instead in engaging in actual debate.
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Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 12:55 pm
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Thanks for accepting me in! ProjectOmicron88 here, and I'm proud to be an atheist.
With the negative labels put on atheism by a society that's so widely acceptant of a collection of stories that's about as likely as the so-called "pagan religions", it was a bit difficult for me to give up agnosticism in favor of atheism. At first, I thought nobody could know whether or not there was a higher power, which is pretty much the definition of agnosticism, come to think of it. I decided that there can't possibly be a higher power after George Carlin
Now, I've always thought of comedians as philosophers in their own right, and if that was truly the case, then Carlin was a veritable Socrates. The things he said were some of the first that really made sense to me about life, death, and everything in between. After a while, I adopted a more positive attitude towards life as a result of not worrying about heaven or hell, or where I would go. In particular, I've always loved what Carlin said in When Will Jesus Bring the Porkchops?: "Anyone who sees life as anything other than pure entertainment is missing the point."
My opinion of religion is basically this: it's a nice collection of stories, and it teaches good moral values, such as being kind to your fellow man, and fills in the intimidating blank spots in human knowledge, such as where the universe comes from, or where we go after death. But when people start taking it literally, the original purpose crumbles. For good moral values, I prefer to rely on my judgement. For the scary thought of the unknown, I'm secure in the knowledge that there's always a scientific explanation, and just because we don't know it, that's no reason to try to explain it with mysticism.
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Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 1:00 pm
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 11:43 am
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 11:54 am
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 4:04 pm
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Reply
