What Are Your Religious Beliefs?

[General Mung Beans]

This does not ask what religious body you belong to but what your personal, de facto beliefs are.

[adam_grif]

Agnosticism is not an alternative to many of the other things there. Agnosticism is an epistomological statement about whether you have "knowledge" of something, or how certain you are about it. The majority of both Theists and Atheists are also agnostics.

The other concern with this poll is that many Buddhists are also atheists, becacuse it's only some kinds of Buddhism that have any theistic beliefs at all. This is in spite of it being a religion. So Atheism and religiousity are not mutually exclusive either.

I am an irreligious agnostic atheist, but I selected "athteist" on your poll.

[SCRawl]

Ordinarily my answer to this sort of question -- which doesn't come up often -- is "what's it to you?" If religion was a purely personal matter, as it should be, then it wouldn't be a problem in the world.

But yeah, I marked "Atheist".

[Temujin]

Atheist and anti-theist. While I don't have a problem with certain religious beliefs in general, even if i think them irrational, I am opposed to beliefs that appeal to and reinforce a socially conservative mindset as well as encourage tribalistic thought and behavior.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Militant atheist and philosophical naturalist. Religion is at best an evolutionarily interesting by-product of adaptive cognitive processes. At worst it is a mind-parasite and cancer on humanity.

[Bluewolf]

Atheist. Though I would not call myself a militant one.

[loomer]

No Jedi comedy option?

Personally, I'm an atheist. I'm not entirely hostile to the notion that there may be some manner of deity out there, but until we find some proof, I'm not going to sweat it. Plus it's nice to having something to curse on a bad day.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

"New Age" is a religion now? My gods, what an insultingly simplistic poll. I'm not certain what you hope to accomplish with a drive-by poll like this. There are, for example, many beliefs under the "Christian" brand, from the worst of the Southern Baptists, to the Catholics, all the way to the Episcopal and the Universal Unitarian churches. There are Muslims from the Shi'ites, the Shia, to the Sufis. As has been mentioned, many Buddhists also fall under the atheist umbrella, since theirs is as much a philosophical system as it is a system of religious belief. As others have mentioned, agnosticism is a philosophical position; as it's possible to be either a gnostic theist (you have religious beliefs, and you know them/can prove them to be the truth,) an agnostic theist (you have religious beliefs, but you can't necessarily prove them to be true,) a gnostic atheist (there are no gods, motherfucker,) and an agnostic atheist (I can't prove the existence of gods one way or the other, so I'll default to not believing.)

You may want to put a just little more thought into asking questions like this. Or, in the very least, include a comedy option to facilitate mocking.

[SCRawl]

"New Age" is a religion now? My gods, what an insultingly simplistic poll. I'm not certain what you hope to accomplish with a drive-by poll like this. There are, for example, many beliefs under the "Christian" brand, from the worst of the Southern Baptists, to the Catholics, all the way to the Episcopal and the Universal Unitarian churches. There are Muslims from the Shi'ites, the Shia, to the Sufis. As has been mentioned, many Buddhists also fall under the atheist umbrella, since theirs is as much a philosophical system as it is a system of religious belief. As others have mentioned, agnosticism is a philosophical position; as it's possible to be either a gnostic theist (you have religious beliefs, and you know them/can prove them to be the truth,) an agnostic theist (you have religious beliefs, but you can't necessarily prove them to be true,) a gnostic atheist (there are no gods, motherfucker,) and an agnostic atheist (I can't prove the existence of gods one way or the other, so I'll default to not believing.)

You may want to put a just little more thought into asking questions like this. Or, in the very least, include a comedy option to facilitate mocking.

Don't be such a party pooper. I'll give you that "New Age" is a silly option, but not having all of the 31 flavours of each major religion is hardly evidence of a flawed question. It is sufficient to get an impression.

[General Mung Beans]

"New Age" is a religion now? My gods, what an insultingly simplistic poll. I'm not certain what you hope to accomplish with a drive-by poll like this. There are, for example, many beliefs under the "Christian" brand, from the worst of the Southern Baptists, to the Catholics, all the way to the Episcopal and the Universal Unitarian churches. There are Muslims from the Shi'ites, the Shia, to the Sufis. As has been mentioned, many Buddhists also fall under the atheist umbrella, since theirs is as much a philosophical system as it is a system of religious belief. As others have mentioned, agnosticism is a philosophical position; as it's possible to be either a gnostic theist (you have religious beliefs, and you know them/can prove them to be the truth,) an agnostic theist (you have religious beliefs, but you can't necessarily prove them to be true,) a gnostic atheist (there are no gods, motherfucker,) and an agnostic atheist (I can't prove the existence of gods one way or the other, so I'll default to not believing.)

You may want to put a just little more thought into asking questions like this. Or, in the very least, include a comedy option to facilitate mocking.

They only allow up to ten options in this poll. If it had allowed say twenty I would have been more specific.

[Ghost Rider]

"New Age" is a religion now? My gods, what an insultingly simplistic poll. I'm not certain what you hope to accomplish with a drive-by poll like this. There are, for example, many beliefs under the "Christian" brand, from the worst of the Southern Baptists, to the Catholics, all the way to the Episcopal and the Universal Unitarian churches. There are Muslims from the Shi'ites, the Shia, to the Sufis. As has been mentioned, many Buddhists also fall under the atheist umbrella, since theirs is as much a philosophical system as it is a system of religious belief. As others have mentioned, agnosticism is a philosophical position; as it's possible to be either a gnostic theist (you have religious beliefs, and you know them/can prove them to be the truth,) an agnostic theist (you have religious beliefs, but you can't necessarily prove them to be true,) a gnostic atheist (there are no gods, motherfucker,) and an agnostic atheist (I can't prove the existence of gods one way or the other, so I'll default to not believing.)

You may want to put a just little more thought into asking questions like this. Or, in the very least, include a comedy option to facilitate mocking.

Don't be such a party pooper. I'll give you that "New Age" is a silly option, but not having all of the 31 flavours of each major religion is hardly evidence of a flawed question. It is sufficient to get an impression.

I agree with you, but if you can't fit as many as you 'd want or should? Don't make the poll option.

Anyways, this is yet another post count thread because the idjit in question is literally...trawling for answers.

[Iosef Cross]

Whoa, 80% of atheists. That's worse than in Sweden. (I am atheist, by they way, so that's not a criticism)

[Ryan Thunder]

I'm surprised it isn't higher... Also, we have buddhists here? That's interesting.

[Iosef Cross]

Militant atheist and philosophical naturalist. Religion is at best an evolutionarily interesting by-product of adaptive cognitive processes. At worst it is a mind-parasite and cancer on humanity.

I think of religion like I think about rock bands.

People always have their "religion" in the sense that these things are what they value and give cognitive focus. Religion is a hobby.

[eion]

I once described myself to a couple of evangelists who cornered me outside a movie theater as a "Secular Buddhist". That confused them to no end, and pleased me to no end.

[Ziggy Stardust]

At worst it is a mind-parasite and cancer on humanity.

Because most people with religious belief are dangerous fundamentalists.

[SilverWingedSeraph]

Because most people with religious belief are dangerous fundamentalists.

Nice straw-man. Classy.

Anyway, throw another one down in the atheist, anti-theist, philosophical naturalist crowd.

[PaperJack]

Why is pastafarianism not in the list ?

[Singular Intellect]

Why is pastafarianism not in the list ?

Because that's just silly; a burning bush, walking on water and raising someone from the dead is proof of more realistic interpretations of omnipotent power!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to a discussion about how the Death Star as a planet buster just doesn't cut it on the list of truly impressive non omnipotent intergalactic superpower civilization matchups.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Why is pastafarianism not in the list ?

It is. Just choose "other". The lack of a comedy option, however, has already been noted twice.

[Coyote]

Jewish, although it is worth noting that in Judaism, "atheist" is not necessarily out of bounds... oddly enough.

[Ryan Thunder]

Why is pastafarianism not in the list ?

Because you touch yourself at night.

[Guardsman Bass]

Atheist, although I go beyond that and reject Supernaturalism as well.

[Alyrium Denryle]

At worst it is a mind-parasite and cancer on humanity.

Because most people with religious belief are dangerous fundamentalists.

No. They just enable them by providing a smokescreen of moderation and being a block of people that constrain our options in political discourse by being a group that is too important politically to offend. I cannot open up with both barrels on fundies for fear of alienating moderates and thus the fundies who have no such constraints are able to gain ground. Because of the moderates, Atheists like me who have the stomach for debate are marginalized in our own god damn community.

They also make decisions on the basis of their religious beliefs. Moderates vote against gay marriage just as much as the fundies do, they are more passive about it but they oppose abortion and population control as often as support either. They often take the "why not teach both?" approach to the subject of evolution and creationism in our public schools. They are the religious equivalent to the Mindless Middle.

[adam_grif]

I agree with the sentament Alyrium, but openly insulting them in public and saying shit like 'relgion must be eliminated! moderates are just as bad as fundamentalists RAR!" just makes them feel persecuted. Our best bet is to just keep doing what we're doing, because Atheism seems to be on the rise. The game isn't about being right, or winning arguments, it's about overcoming people's inherent biases and getting people to listen. Nothing closes people's minds to alternatives quite like telling them that everything they know is wrong and that they're stupid for believing it.

In my experience (yeah yeah, anecdotal evidence and crap), the best way to make headroom is to respectfully educate people as best you can, and try to create cognitive dissonance that they will resolve by questioning their faith instead of ignoring evidence. This will only work on those who are already reasonably open minded and willing to talk, but the stuborn ones will eventually die of old age