Nope, I don’t believe he ever wrote a book with that title. Haha, cute try though.
You do know he was a frequent National Public Radio contributor, right? I only mention that because I get the impression that you are young and hear “P.J. O’Rourke” and assume “old conservative fart.”
Anyway, enough with the callow young thing.
I have never heard that “Christian” means specifically “Christ-like” and not all that other bible-labeling stuff, but you could do worse as a hypothetical role model. But then anyone, biblically-Christian or not, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, Wiccan, who was a generally good person adhering to general “good person” principles could call themselves Christian aka “Christ-like” under your definition, right? Which is fine, but kinda dilutes the “Christian” label, no?
The whole thing hinges on how you define “God”. I certainly don’t believe in the Christian God, or any other personal gods for that matter.
But take naturalistic pantheists, for example. Are they atheists? When “God” becomes so abstract that it converges with the universe, does it lose its meaning?
Anyway, as a naturalistic pantheist myself, I chose “other”.
Because it’s pretty much true. The only reason people lean towards “agnostic” over “atheist” isn’t one of a substantive difference between the positions, but rather they’re afraid to associate with the straw man that believers claim atheists are (“I know 100% for sure God doesn’t exist!”), and because you sound less scary to religious people in a social setting if you say agnostic. It’s a less aggressive way of saying the same thing, simply because atheist is a word that, by itself, gets the religious worked into a frenzy.
I sort of do this myself, among my very religious family, when they ask me about their beliefs. I’m concerned that if I say atheist they’re going to give me the “why do you hate god?!?!” type stupid shit, so what I say instead is “I don’t believe in anything supernatural”, which is a much broader and less targetted way of rejecting their religion.
I would say that, as an atheist, I model my own values on principles of hedonism, utilitarianism, and humanitarianism. Which respectively means that I’m an Epicurian Benthamian Hume-an. It’s pronounced human! >:[
I’m being more than a bit tongue-in-cheek with the last one, but I tried googling and couldn’t find anyone listed as the founder of humanitarianism, so I went for the cheap pun. nyah
No kidding. I probably see him more often on Bill Maher than anywhere else, and I have to wonder if he’s an alcoholic. And if he is, he’s not a funny one.
It was an article, not a book. I recall reading it in when it first came out in 1979 in National Lampoon. According to Wikipedia it was included in Republican Party Reptile and Driving Like Crazy for you youngsters.
Callow young thing indeed. I think you have me confused with someone else.
Still sounds like a source of scripture-like guidance to me, especially
"Most people like to drive on speed or cocaine with plenty of whiskey mixed in. This gives you the confidence you want and need for plowing through red lights and passing trucks on the right. But don’t neglect downs and 'ludes and codeine cough syrup either. It’s hard to beat the heavy depressants for high-speed spin-outs, backing into trees, and a general feeling of not giving two fucks about man and his universe. "
Well, it would help if people would stop claiming that atheism means the belief that gods don’t exist. However, I prefer to ask them which gods they believe in rather than telling them that they don’t believe in any. Of course, if the answer is “none of them” then that’s pretty much the definition of atheism anyway.
Atheist. I used to call myself agnostic because atheist sounded harsh and negative. However, I am of the opinion now that the term agnostic is used so we don’t sound so bad to believers. Since I no longer care what believers think I proudly say I am an atheist.
There are a lot of reasons someone could call themselves agnostic. Some agnostics fall under Dawkins 7 point scale as a number 6. Even Dawkins himself is a 6. So those people I consider atheists.
The trouble with this is that if you say you are agnostic, you still haven’t really answered the question as to whether you believe God exists or not.
You could be a fideist; that is to say (essentially) an agnostic theist. You could say, you know what, I don’t know whether God exists or not, but I’m going to believe God does anyway.
You could also be an agnostic atheist and say that you don’t know whether God exists or not, and not believe in God.
Then again, I no longer care what someone claims they are - generally it tells me very little about their beliefs anyway so there are follow up questions.
What’s the meaningful decision they’re trying to convey?
Agnostics as I understand it believe that it isn’t within the human capability to be able to ascertain or understand the nature of god/gods, and so we have no knowledge of them. The rational conclusion of that position is not to believe in any particular god or gods, because you can’t know about them even if they existed. And not believing in any particular god or gods is the exact definition of atheism.
Yes but there’s a difference in saying “I don’t personally believe in deities” and saying “I know without a shred of doubt that deities don’t exist because there’s irrefutable proof.” I’m not that smart. There might, in fact, be a god or gods out there and I just don’t know it.
I’m between 5 and 6 on Dawkin’s scale. Call me an atheist if you want, but I’m going to keep calling myself an agnostic.
