What philosophy/religion do you follow?

As the title says!

 

Atheism all the way. Although I disagree with your decision to split it from anti-theism. For all intents and purposes, I agree with Dawkins, though don't shout quite as loudly as him. It's a continuum of non-belief, just as religious belief can be held to different levels or can take a proselytising or a more passive form....

 

I clicked "other". No recognised religion, no rituals, no books or lack of open-mindedness or anything, but both of us are most definitely believers in things that could never be called atheism and Ive never liked agnostic (that kind of implies either abivelance or uncertainty to me, but we do have beliefs) I dont think theres a name for it. Im glad about that, I think thats a natural position to be in

I guess out of all those listed we most closely resemble Buddhism. Still, its miles away really

 

Fair dos, and I missed out paganism, sorry pagans!

Yay for atheism

 

You also missed out "new age", which I suppose comes under "other", that general vague belief in an undefinable something and borrowing of the best bits of various traditions which tends to gain ground when people see through the absurdity of the ancient organised religions. It's very difficult for many to give up this vague "spirituality" because it's such a fundamental part of human nature to be superstitious and to project aspects of our psychology onto the external world...

I think many more people are happy to self-identify as atheists nowadays, something I lay at the door of the "new atheists" (Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, Hitchens etc), a few years ago it was practically a dirty word. Dawkins and Harris have helped to make it a positive term capable of including a sense of awe and wonder and respect for the universe and life...

 

I cant help finding this slightly arrogant. I have beliefs which are not "superstition", or merely "projections of my psychology", theyre spiritual philosophies, often based on my life experience and even science, logic and mathematics which deserve respect

My beliefs are not "vague" and I do not need to "give them up"

Now Ive just woken so I dont mean to sound crabby, but I can say with certainty your words are tinged with arrogance and disrespect, and I think if anyone here is projecting THEIR psyche and splattering it all over other peoples views and the world around them, its you here

 

You know Lithium, he likes projecting things he can splatter over women....

 

My own.

 

More seriously, though, I don't believe Lithium was being arrogant or dogmatic in his atheism. What he has hit upon here is the mechanism by which belief is formed and sustained. In fact it's a highly rational mechanism, which I think was best explained by Horkheimer and Adorno. In the beginning, the earliest stages of human civilisation, mankind was very much competing against the elements for its own survival and very often failing. Storms, for example, were unknown and unpredictable phenomena which were hazards to human life and habitation. Attempting to explain a storm, in this context, is highly rational. The belief in gods, such as Thor god of thunder, not only afforded people an explanation of the storm, but the possibility - or the idea of a possibility - that they could control it. Through prayer and offerings to Thor, people would no longer need to live in constant fear that their village might be wiped out by a random event. Of course, it was the wrong explanation and a futile attempt to control it, but in the context, it was a rational one and a rational projection of human psychology onto the external world....

 

Ah well. Sure

 

Sorry, was in a shit of a mood

 

I had to check other. I subscribe to Hedonism and total self indulgence. It's really the only way to go.

Peace

 

Good move. Sign me up

 

Hinduism.

 

I think personally, that assuming all modern religion is nothing more than an explanation-mechanism is fairly arrogant.

A great many Atheists simply use these things to dismiss religion, without taking the time to find out what people believe and why, which tend to be complex and different for each person, even within organised religion.

If you've ever had someone tell you that your atheism is just your way of dealing with how angry you are at god, you can imagine how a religious person feels when an atheist tells them their complex and rich philosophies are just psychological coping-mechanisms

 

Anti-theist I suppose comes closest.. technically it's nontheism - atheists believe (if that's the right word) in a lack of controlling deity, agnostics don't know one way or the other.. nontheists don't give a fuck. it really doesn't matter to me if there is one or not.. I assume there isn't but if there was incontrovertible proof that there was a god, I wouldn't act any differently.

Ethics != religion.

 

The theory may be offensive to some but I think it's inaccurate to call it "arrogant", it's not associated with any assumption of superiority. It's just a theory which explains the phenomenon of belief and superstition in naturalistic rational terms and in accordance with the evidence we have about the nature and history of religions and how the mind works.

I apologise if my expression seemed arrogant or disrespectful, really it was just a short-hand and somewhat haphazard way of condensing a whole slew of ideas. I respect peoples right to have any belief they wish whether I agree with it or not.

 

Did I ever say that all modern religion is nothing more than an explanation-mechanism? I was simply describing one element of the rationality of belief in early human societies as an example of psychology projected onto the outside world. I never even mentioned the cultural, the philosophical or the social elements of religion and their inherent positives and negatives. You've set up a straw man here, which is of course easy to knock down, but has little relation to my argument. For a more rounded elaboration of this argument, you might find this article quite interesting....

 

Hey does this mean you want to be a Hedonist too ? It's way cool. Plus you never have to feel bad about anything you do. Yay guilt free !

Peace

 

Im sure some would say Ive always been one