[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
You realize, of course, that someone telling you they are Christian/Jewish/Buddhist/Wiccan doesn’t really answer these questions any better, right?
[QUOTE=Lord Ashtar]
You realize, of course, that someone telling you they are Christian/Jewish/Buddhist/Wiccan doesn’t really answer these questions any better, right?
[/QUOTE]
Yes, I realize that, but then again I’m not the one that claimed that atheists had a “worldview”.
[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
Yes, I realize that, but then again I’m not the one that claimed that atheists had a “worldview”.
[/QUOTE]
Fair enough.
[QUOTE=JThunder]
Exactly right. Quite the contrary; I’ve emphasized that there are significant disagreements, but that none of these are inherent to the nature of theism.
No offense, Voyager, but in light of your caustic remark, I think you should be more cautious about telling people to “Get your story straight, okay?”
[/QUOTE]
Let me try to define terms better. There are Theists, who believe that god exists, but not much else about him. Then there are theists, who believe that god exists, and lots more - each to his or her own religion. (Except for the small subset of theists who are Theists.)
Theists probably don’t disagree with each other much, and, assuming they are of reasonable logical acuity, may disagree with atheists but wouldn’t criticize them. theists disagree among themselves all the time, and some reasonably large subset criticize atheists also.
Alas the title of this thread uses a capital T for theist, but I suspect small t theists are meant. The issue can’t be how Theists shouldn’t criticize atheists, since they don’t, but why theists shouldn’t. And those theists who don’t are not the subject of the thread.
Once we get this straightened out we can go back to why disagreeing theists shouldn’t criticize, but one thing at a time.
[QUOTE=JThunder]
Not even remotely similar. The situation you cited is a matter of simple disagreement between you and me. This is vastly different from Voyager’s allegation that I said theists “agree on everything.” Not only is this unsubstantiated, it’s also directly contradicted by a great many of my statements in this thread.
[/QUOTE]
I thought you were defining a class of theist who only had basic god beliefs, and were saying that they agreed - which they pretty much would. I certainly wasn’t implying that you were the one saying that Jews and Christians agreed on the basic things. Some people in this thread seem to be saying that, though.
[QUOTE=Meatros]
I disagree. Even with general belief/disbelief, I don’t see it as necessitating much ‘color’ to one’s values or decisions in life. I can’t see how Deism would effect a person’s worldview more then believing in bigfoot - which says nothing about religions that go further then deism.
So, for some religions (is Deism a religion?) belief isn’t much of a factor in regards to one’s worldview - but I’d say that the major religions do effect a person’s worldview. They generally touch on morality, epistemology, history, etc, etc. Atheism doesn’t touch on these points though.
[/QUOTE]
Here’s another way to look at it. If a person is an atheist, you can be pretty sure he doesn’t go to church to worship, but you can’t say a lot else about his behavior and opinions based on his atheism. (You might read surveys of atheists, collect common characteristics, and say things based on that.) However you can usually say things about a theist based on his particular theism. An Orthodox Jew won’t be eating pork nor a Muslim.) A Mormon won’t have a fridge full of coke. These and others like them are worldview items not directly having anything to do with god. You can’t say anything about dietary habits, or political habits, or much else about atheists.
I’m not saying that theism determines a worldview, but it affects it far more than does atheism.
I wouldn’t put it in those terms, but essentially, yes. I believe that human beings mess up when we begin to describe too many of the details about Jehovah or Allah.
Forty-five ago none of my friends thought that. Now many of them do. I spoke with one of them about this strange shift in openness to other teachings just last Sunday. We were both Christian education majors in the early 1960’s. When we renewed our friendship late last year and she came to visit, I hid my Buddhist books from her. It didn’t take long to discover an article on Buddhists in the magazine she edits. We had a good laugh at my assumptions.
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
No, though it could be, it doesn’t have to be. It was more of a point to the OP that theists beleive in ‘God’ or ‘gods’ and it doesn’t matter if they don’t beleive in a particular ‘god’
Lets just say I disagree totally and completely your statement. I am unable to prove it to your satisfaction, that is reserved for God.
[/QUOTE]
That is correct, but it is still just faith based,not knowledge. One can believe the writings of humans or not,but in the end it is strictly a human idea of God or Jesus or what they said or did.
Monavis
[QUOTE=Valteron]
Of course, there is the third theory that God does not exist at all and that all of this stuff is bullshit thought up by religious charlatans 2000 and 1400 years ago. 
[/QUOTE]
I fully agree with what you say here except for the implication in the “third theory” that they would have to be charlatans. Which seems to be your conclusion; correct me if I’m wrong.
It took me a long time to realize this, but there is a tremendous power of religious “sincerity” which can manufacture all sorts of dogma, and also the illusion that such dogma is historically rooted, even historically “proven.” This can happen, IMO, with few or even none of the people originally involved fitting the definition of “charlatan.”
Of course, sometimes there is plenty of evidence that a particular religious figure was a charlatan.
True Blue Jack