Thread: Extended Discussion 2009 Religious Affiliation Census

But what is life? Who's to say that someday there wont be a computer with all of the basic characteristics of life. I dont think there is any real definition of what consciousness is and what types of life posess it annd what types are so unfortunate as to not posess it.

I am "Other".

I am a mess of beliefs, superstitions, worries, instincts, experiences, practices and cultures that originate from Satanism, Evangelical Christianity, Marxism, Discordianism, Buddhism, Thelema, Neopaganism, Hinduism, Baha'i, Anglicanism, Quakerism, The New Age, Atheism and Transhumanism. Frankly, bad habits I have picked up from all of these traditions makes life hard in my head where religion is concerned.

Marxism isn't a religion

Originally Posted by ninja9578

Marxism isn't a religion

We'll have to agree to disagree

Originally Posted by ninja9578

Marxism isn't a religion

It started out as a cult, but it is big enough now to be considered a religion.

hahaha

Atheist here. Is it just me or is there an uncannily high number of us around here?

Voted atheist, but I'm way more lax with the whole religion thing than I used to be.

Originally Posted by KingCarnie

I went ahead and voted atheist, though in reality I'm more of an agnostic nontheist. I don't actively reject the idea that there is some sort of deity, but if there is a deity I believe that it is not a personal one, and thus there is no point in really contemplating about it.

This sums me up rather well.

Yeah... I'm not really agnostic because I do have an opinion, but that opinion is essentially that all religions are most likely wrong, because none of them has any empirical or logical justification. I'm open to the idea that the universe could have been 'created' by a 'conscious' entity or some other such idea, just as I'm open to the idea that it wasn't. At the moment there's no evidence either way (although the former seems far fetched).

Presbyterian Christian (one of the more prominent Protestant sects).

Originally Posted by My Other Brain

I am "Other".

I am a mess of beliefs, superstitions, worries, instincts, experiences, practices and cultures that originate from Satanism, Evangelical Christianity, Marxism, Discordianism, Buddhism, Thelema, Neopaganism, Hinduism, Baha'i, Anglicanism, Quakerism, The New Age, Atheism and Transhumanism. Frankly, bad habits I have picked up from all of these traditions makes life hard in my head where religion is concerned.

Well, at least you've got your bases covered

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

It started out as a cult, but it is big enough now to be considered a religion.

I disagree with both you and Ninja. Marxism started out as a philosophical school of revolutionary socialism. But it grew up. For a lot of people the philosophy basically functioned in people's life in a way that is indistinguishable from a faith.

In the Soviet Union Material Dialecticism became a dogmatic organised philosophy that I would say had the worst qualities of a religion without very many of the good ones.

But no, never really a cult.

It started out as a cult, but it is big enough now to be considered a religion.

:/

Originally Posted by My Other Brain

But no, never really a cult.

Why do you say that exactly? I am not really clear on your explanation.

I was making a joke about the blind and passionate devotion some people develop for Marxism. It is like a cult that became a religion, but technically it was never either. I was just using a metaphor to make fun of Marxism because I think it is such a retarded economic philosophy with so many cult like followers.

I'm an atheist as of a year and a half ago or so. A multitude of reasons, too long to list.

Um, what about agnostic?

I don't really believe in God, but I don't not believe in him.

If you don't believe in god, then you don't believe in him/it/her/them.

You are an atheist then, but you claim agnosticism.

Originally Posted by slayer

Um, what about agnostic?

I don't really believe in God, but I don't not believe in him.

There's really no gray area. It's either you believe in him or you don't.

Originally Posted by A Roxxor

What a boring, unsatisfactory life you must lead, not caring about anything and being completely unsure about everything.

Hehe, that's an awful lot of bold assumptions you're making about my personal life based on the 5 sentences I typed. On the contrary, I forget about that elusive higher nature of reality and indulge myself in the tangible one in front of me. The way I see it, whatever happens to us is going to happen, there's really no point sitting here trying to predict what it is. Just because I don't care about why we exist doesn't mean I don't care about life itself!

I'm an atheist. But I acknowledge that there's still is a small chance that a god may exists.

Originally Posted by Speesh

Hehe, that's an awful lot of bold assumptions you're making about my personal life based on the 5 sentences I typed. On the contrary, I forget about that elusive higher nature of reality and indulge myself in the tangible one in front of me. The way I see it, whatever happens to us is going to happen, there's really no point sitting here trying to predict what it is. Just because I don't care about why we exist doesn't mean I don't care about life itself!

I was just kidding

But the way you worded that made it sound like you go through life like a scared child in the woods or something.

Originally Posted by A Roxxor

I was just kidding

But the way you worded that made it sound like you go through life like a scared child in the woods or something.

Haha not quite the theme I was going for, guess I better watch what I type eh?

Originally Posted by Black_Eagle

There's really no gray area. It's either you believe in him or you don't.

But I don't really know if I don't believe in him or not.

Then you, sir, are indecisive.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Why do you say that exactly? I am not really clear on your explanation.

I was making a joke about the blind and passionate devotion some people develop for Marxism. It is like a cult that became a religion, but technically it was never either. I was just using a metaphor to make fun of Marxism because I think it is such a retarded economic philosophy with so many cult like followers.

Hmm. How to start this?

First, I think a good basic start is to look at how to define religion. I go along with Feuerbach's thesis that religion is a projection of material values and desires onto something transcendental and conceptual. I believe that Marx would go along with this interpretation too. After all, he wrote:

Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man—state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

The problem is, I think that by Marx's own definition, Marxism became a religion. It became a way of expressing a hope for a better world and, in the communist world, a hope for socialism to come even prevented people from attaining true class consciousness.

On a more positive note, the biographies of great Marxists read very similarly to the biographies of saints or religious believers. They have the same conversion experiences, faith communities, surges of hope and spiritual low points. There's also hymns, mythic characters, and no end of pomp and ceremony.

The thing is, Marxism grew out of its cult stage pretty fast. I guess because it grew out of an already very successful left wing movement. By the time it had stabilised into a dogmatic form with its own distinct culture it was already a highly significant world-wide belief system. Therefore, it kind of skipped over the cult stage because it didn't stabilise as a religion until it was too big to be a cult.

That's my flawed interpretation, anyway.