A Theory Of Why People Believe In God
by Madame Quixote 7 Replies latest jw friends
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5go
I prefer the lightning theory.
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Rooster
This is hocus-pocus crap.
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kid-A
This is hocus-pocus crap. Brilliant retort, rooster. When you get to second grade, we'll let you do finger paintings! Seriously though, Berne had some interesting ideas but many of his ideas regarding psychological projection were based on earlier Freudian concepts of father-figure projection. See "Totem and Taboo" or "Civiliization and its Discontents", both by Freud and laid the foundation for many later theorists, including Fromm, Adler and Berne.
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Brother Apostate
A Theory Of Why People do not Believe In God:
http://patriot.net/~bmcgin/atheismisareligion.html
Atheism declared a Religion with First Amendment protection:
http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/court36.htm
American Heritage Dictionary:
re·li·gion (ri-lij'?n)
n.1. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
2. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.BA- Everyone has a religion.
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Mariusuk.
People believe in God because they are afraid of death
that basically sums it up
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Lumptard
Interesting way of looking at it.....makes a bit of sense, but who really knows for sure?
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funkyderek
Brother Apostate:
A Theory Of Why People do not Believe In God:
That link provides nothing of the sort. (I assume you chose the title to mirror that of the thread but it's completely misleading.) It merely defines the word "religion" in such a way as to include atheism. That in itself is no big deal. Words are merely labels and they have some elasticity in their definitions. And as the dictionary definitions you quoted show, the least common accepted definition of the word religion would include atheism as long as it is "pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion." That's fine, of course but I find such definitions muddy the waters as then we would also have to include stamp-collecting, trainspotting, stalking and watching television as religions. The author of that piece, however, obviously has a particular motive when defining atheism as a religion. He wants to use the First Amendment to stop it being taught in schools. I know that seems ludicrous given that atheism is not normally taught in schools, but the author has made a rather clumsy and pitiful attempt at equating atheism with evolution.
Atheism declared a Religion with First Amendment protection:
A much more intelligently-written article! I think many atheists believe that laws protecting freedom of religion should also protect freedom from religion even if most of us wouldn't stretch the word religion to include people who don't fall under the first four of your dictionary definitions. And of course, it seems absurd that an organisation can get tax-free status merely because they profess belief in a supernatural entity.
I've never really understood why some people seem so desperate to define atheism as a religion when by almost every definition of the word it is not (and you really have to stretch the last definition). It seems to be that if they can show it's "just another religion" then their own religious beliefs are less threatened. Perhaps you could shed some light on the matter.