Welcome, Atheists!

Wow, Rob! Your own site.... But with all of the Christians, Pagans, LOAer's, and Unitarians about, you must feel like "an atheist in church"

Looks good in here. I just hope that the property value doesn't drop before you can get some other atheists to move in.....

I knew you were a rascal

sacrificialgoddess wrote:Um, Do atheists want to talk to me? Or am I a pariah?

This atheist likes pagans, because pagans (the ones I know personally) do not proselytize. Then again, this atheist likes ANY theists who do not proselytize.

HappyKweer wrote:

sacrificialgoddess wrote:Um, Do atheists want to talk to me? Or am I a pariah?

This atheist likes pagans, because pagans (the ones I know personally) do not proselytize. Then again, this atheist likes ANY theists who do not proselytize.

Well Happy. I'm not one of those who try to convert anyone. Yes, I have my own personal Spiritual belief. But as I've said many times over. None of us are really going to know if there's a life after this one or if this is the only life we'll have. Until after we die. So I'm willing to accept anyone as a friend no matter what their belief system or even if like you & others here are atheists. For all I know you could be right. I personally think differently. But that doesn't make my belief right.

I'm a non-theist-- does that count?

No doubt but that you qualify, Metis, especially since the prefix "a" means "not" as does the prefix "non."

You say toe-MAH-toe, they say toe-MAY-toe. Same thing.

Hello. Just a noob here. I clicked on this forum first cuz I'm not exactly sure what the definition of atheist is. I've gotten a lot of people saying that atheists don't believe in any sort of spirituality, and I've gotten some who say that they just don't believe in God, so....? lol, just wondering if someone could answer my question. ^^

The definition I've heard most often from atheists is that they do not believe in gods of any sort. Most I've encountered do not go further and say that no gods can possibly exist; however, a good many of those who do will add that they feel the existence of gods is unlikely since no one has yet produced any credible evidence supporting such existence.

You'll encounter people who break it down further and refer to those who do not believe in gods and say it's highly unlikely any exist as "hardcore atheists."

The majority of such whom I know are nevertheless open to the possibility, remote though it may seem to them personally, that evidence supporting the existence of deities might eventually be discovered.

Hi Firefly! To me, an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in any god or spirituality whatsoever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

I guess it means different things to different people. There are spiritual atheists out there. To me the term strikes a more skeptical tone.

Oh, and somewhat after the fact--welcome to YS forum, Firefly!

Thanks! I asked the same thing on the TAPS website, but the answer I got was a little confusing. I've been generalized as an atheist before, but I haven't ever wanted to call myself that cuz I just never knew the exact definition.

Oh, wow. Checked out the wikipedia page with the atheist definition. I'm amazed at the percentage of atheist/nonreligious/etc people in other countries. It's kind of weird how that works when America is the country where free belief is so important.

I can pretty well relate to your being called one which is part of the reason why I still refer to myself as a Unitarian Universalist even though I've quit associating with them. I was an official one of those for close to 30 years, so I figure it's not cheating too much to claim the label still.

For some people, anyone who isn't of their specific brand of religion is an atheist or might as well be, especially if you don't wear an "I-heart-Jesus, deedy I do" t-shirt. (Okay, that's not nice, I admit, but I've sure met a bunch of such people.)

Yeah, people in the other industrialized countries often think we're pretty peculiar for that reason. Frankly, even I think we're strange in that regard.

Here is how I had it explained.

An atheist is someone who does not have a theology. A-without. Theist-Someone who subscribes to a theology.

Now within that, you can have "hard" atheists that actively don't believe in god/dess/es, and "soft" atheists that don't really care if there is or not.

Now, to muddy the waters even more, there are "agnostics", which is those who claim to have a lack of knowledge about supernatural events. There can be agnostic theists who don't know, but believe anyway, and there can be agnostic atheists who don't know, and for that reason don't believe.

Honestly there are a lot of things here. The pool is deep.

all

Hi Firefly. Welcome to this board & this site. We're a bunch of crazies here. Except that I'm the only sane one. Getting serious. You'll find that we don't care what you believe, spiritually or otherwise. We respect everyones right to what they believe. Don't get me wrong. You'll find many here that'll ask you serious questions. But the one thing you won't find is disrespect or someone making fun of you. ( other that my crazy attempts at humor )

Hi, firefly.

Labels ... who needs them? Just be you, and welcome aboard.

Well, I still think it's confusing, but that's fine. lol I think I get it a little more than I did before. It sounds like there are different types of atheists, and that helps when I understand that much. It's just when someone says they're an atheist, sometimes I wonder what exactly they mean since they don't specify. As for me, I believe in some kind of spirituality, but I'm not really making a big deal out it since I'm not dead yet, lol. It's nice to wonder about it, like you wonder about the universe (I don't know if any of you do that, but I do sometimes)

Oh, and thanks for more welcomes! I forgot to say that. ^^

So why am I the only one to have started a thread in this section? I thought we had atheists on this board?

Come on people, get your atheist friends over here. Have them start threads! We need to get this discussion going!

I tried, but the ones I know appear to have decided to stick with B-net or the Corner. Oh, well...go figger.