Atheist Ron Paul supporters

I'm wearing a Ron Paul shirt as we speak, on a Ron Paul forum, trying to find out how many like minded supporters are around.

There have been several demographic polls done over the years.
They are searchable, I believe.
 
yeah, it's also not necessarily true that you're a RP supporter. maybe you're just building confidence to betray people? it's possible. it happened before.

seriously, why not give a little more benefit of the doubt to someone who created a perfectly reasonable thread for off topic. reminder of the OP:

Is there a "girls for ron paul" thread? I want to go in and say "girls are stupid"
 
There have been several demographic polls done over the years.
They are searchable, I believe.

Then you really had no reason to come in the thread and complain, did you? You knew the answer and that it was searchable, but still came in and created some straw man hullabaloo.
 
yeah, it's also not necessarily true that you're a RP supporter. maybe you're just building confidence to betray people? it's possible. it happened before.

seriously, why not give a little more benefit of the doubt to someone who created a perfectly reasonable thread for off topic. reminder of the OP:
:confused:
I posted in this thread on the subject of Belief..
And was verbally insulted.
I have remained polite.

And yes, I suppose I could be a carefully crafted digital fake.
My personal information is posted online and Intelius or other search can verify my History. Some here already know it.
There is a digital trail that leads to my front door if you ever want to follow it.
 
:confused:
I posted in this thread on the subject of Belief..
And was verbally insulted.
I have remained polite.

And yes, I suppose I could be a carefully crafted digital fake.
My personal information is posted online and Intelius or other search can verify my History. Some here already know it.
There is a digital trail that leads to my front door if you ever want to follow it.

Where were you insulted?
 
Where were you insulted?

You really want to push? I made a statement, Having that questioned is a bit annoying.
There's nothing to get. You disbelieve in infinite amounts of things that have never even been told to you, yet you'll claim to just believe they aren't true. You're using semantics at an elementary level and I actually feel a little embarrassed i'm even having to say that to you.

This condescending bullshit was insulting. And antagonistic.
Your tone is Trollish.

Adjust yourself.
:(
 
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From the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy:


Oxford English Dictionary:

2 can play that game.
Princeton.edu Dictionary said:
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=atheism

a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods

Wiktionary said:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atheist&rct=j&sa=X&ei=gYkGTtWSKcS2tgfyje2JDg&ved=0CD0QngkwAQ&q=atheism&usg=AFQjCNHLcQi0gx-quz8_WL7kmQQv3e7LLg

A person without a belief in, or one who lacks belief in the existence of a god or gods; A person who believes that no gods or deities exist

Also, notice how the 2nd definition you provided uses the operator "or", in the same way the wiktionary definition uses a semi-colon. ;)

Oxford said:
atheism - Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a God.

The definition you're using is one that has only recently started to become popular, and that's entirely due to self-proclaimed atheists who don't want to take on any burden of proof.


Moral = With concern for morality
Amoral = Without concern for morality

Sexual = With sex
ASexual = Without sex

Gnostic = With Knowledge
Agnostic = Without Knowledge

Archy = Ruler
Anarchy = Without Ruler

Theism = Belief in one or more "Gods"
Atheism = Without belief in a "God"

Explain to me what the A/An does to terms when it is applied. Does it describe the presence or lack of something?
 
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Yeah, Atheism is a religion. Black is also white, up is down, gravity is anti-gravity, and libertarianism is statism.
 
Put me in the "I don't give a shit category." I guess I can't answer whether or not there is a greater being, but I live my life as if there were no god. So I don't go searching for a religion to believe in, or reading religious scriptures.
 
2 can play that game.




Also, notice how the 2nd definition you provided uses the operator "or", in the same way the wiktionary definition uses a semi-colon. ;)






Moral = With concern for morality
Amoral = Without concern for morality

Sexual = With sex
ASexual = Without sex

Gnostic = With Knowledge
Agnostic = Without Knowledge

Archy = Ruler
Anarchy = Without Ruler

Theism = Belief in one or more "Gods"
Atheism = Without belief in a "God"

Explain to me what the A/An does to terms when it is applied. Does it describe the presence or lack of something?

The "a" is from the alpha privitive in Greek. It negates the word it's attached to. This can mean a simple lack of something as in some of the examples you gave. But in the case of "atheism" the explanation you gave doesn't work, as the definitions I provided showed. If you were writing a paper, would you cite wiktionary, or the Oxford English Dictionary? If you think I cherry picked sources (like I'm pretty sure you did), feel free to survey as many authoritative sources as you want, particularly standard reference works in philosophy, and see if you still think that. The "or" in the OED doesn't matter since disbelief doesn't mean "lack of belief" it means a positive rejection of belief.

One problem with the line of argument you gave is that it insists that the prefix "a-" in atheism has to modify the whole word with the suffix "-ism" already included. This suffix is one that we in modern English use to refer to a belief system (among other things), and that is it's function in the words "Judaism," "theism," "Pythagoreanism," "atheism," etc. The original Greek suffix -ismos didn't have that meaning. Ancient Greek didn't have the abstract noun atheismos, though it did have the adjective atheos, meaning without a god, or denying the gods, and other cognates.

So if you take the root, "-the-," from the Greek theos, meaning "god," and add to it the alpha privitive "a-," which negates things in English, as it did in Greek, and the suffix "-ism," which makes an abstract noun for a belief system in English, but not in ancient Greek, then if you combine the root and the suffix first "theism," and then negate it with the prefix, you get "not theism," which would be a lack of a belief in a god. That seems to be what you were trying to do. But if you combine the prefix and the root first "athe-," meaning "no god," and then add the suffix "-ism," to make an abstract noun for the belief system, you get what the word really means (or at least always meant until some atheists very recently started trying to cook up a new definition), which is a belief system based on the lack of a god.

Edit: Notice that the examples you gave didn't include any words with the suffix "-ism." But we could make such a word from one of your examples, "anarchism." Anarchism does not mean simply the mere lack of a belief in any given ruler. It means an ideology that positively asserts that there is or ought to be no ruler.
 
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The "a" is from the alpha privitive in Greek. It negates the word it's attached to. This can mean a simple lack of something as in some of the examples you gave.

Explain to me, as short and concise as you possibly can... Why atheism can not mean a simple lack of belief in a god, if theism means belief in a god?

But in the case of "atheism" the explanation you gave doesn't work, as the definitions I provided showed. If you were writing a paper, would you cite wiktionary, or the Oxford English Dictionary?

In this case, it doesn't really matter. They both are essentially saying the exact same thing.

Oxford said:
atheism - Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a God. Also, Disregard of duty to God, godlessness (practical atheism).
Wiktionary said:
A person without a belief in, or one who lacks belief in the existence of a god or gods; A person who believes that no gods or deities exist

Merriam Websters also makes room for both interpretations.

Websters said:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheism

a : a disbelief in the existence of deity
b : the doctrine that there is no deity
 
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A conversation is on a quick road to nowhere, when we can't even agree on terms. :)

The problem with our conversation, as I see it, is that when I use the term atheism, I use it to explain a lack of belief in a god. When you use the term atheism you seem to use it to explain a belief there is no god.

These are 2 very different things, and this is our problem. This is Why I feel that Qualifying an atheist/theist position with Agnosticisim/Gnosticism is important to get the full picture of what someone believes with regards to a "God".
 
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I already hashed out my religious beliefs, opinions and remarks a few years ago on this site so I am pretty good on it. I am happy to see so many new and older religious and in general christian members around here. What I love about ron paul however is unlike 99.9% of the christians I personally know, grew up with and helped teach sunday and missionary classes to younger kids with HE will not be a president ran by HIS god but rather by our constitution.

Many christian politicians will SAY they will do one thing but that belief whether wrong right or indifferent is much stronger and I personally do not believe our president should lead our nation simply based off of his prayers and the bible because it DOES NOT APPLY to all of us.

I grew up in the church, most people I know still bible thump and more power to them BUT one thing they learned is I have been there and done that and it's not for me and if they are true believers they will leave it at that.

In the same breath it depends on if someone feels bad making fun of someones religion, color, accent, ANYTHING and to some ANY crack at ANYTHING is ok and to others they are only pissed off if you joke about their god, their kids, their wife etc....

This is a touchy subject that people take too damn personal and is why it shouldn't be in politics. No ONE religion applies to an entire nation so let's stop pretending like the bible would actually run this place like clockwork because TRUST ME I know what they used to do in bible times and America today wouldn't vote for MOST if not ALL of the b.s. they did back then.

if you can't take a joke about religion, politics and anything else then seriously RELAX and realize this is INTERNET DEBATING....

your god is real to you
he isn't real to me

not too hard to grasp

BUT

we all love the shit out of Ron Paul and that is one thing we can agree on.
 
Explain to me, as short and concise as you possibly can... Why atheism can not mean a simple lack of belief in a god, if theism means belief in a god?

It isn't a matter of what it can mean. It is a matter of what it does mean. It's meaning, denial of the existence of any gods, has been constructed through centuries of usage.

I am aware of how atheist apologists in recent years have tried to give the word a new meaning, and that's what you're using. Since people do use this meaning now, it is a definition of the word as well, also determined by usage. But if anyone wants to use that definition, they should at least own up to the fact that they're using a recent idiosyncratic definition, and not pretend that that's somehow the "real" definition of the word, and that all the standard authoritative sources are just wrong.
 
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