Andy Andersen
United States
Newark
Delaware
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I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up - they have no holidays.
Henny Youngman
US (English-born) comedian (1906 - 1998)
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Jon
United States
Vancouver
WA
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New Year's Day
President's Day
Mother's Day
Memorial Day
Flag Day
Father's Day
Independence Day
Labor Day
Columbus Day
Veteran's Day
Thanksgiving
Kwanzaa
any others?
(Bolded holidays submitted by others.)
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Patrick OLeary
United States
Roosevelt
New Jersey
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I would argue you could include Christmas and Valentine's day.
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Jon
United States
Vancouver
WA
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Proleary wrote: I would argue you could include Christmas and Valentine's day.
We don't like to argue in RSP.
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Learn to swim, learn to swim, learn to swim, learn to swim..
United States
Cleveland Heights
Ohio
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I believe Kwanzaa is secular.
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Gary Selkirk
Canada
Truro
Nova Scotia
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Smart man. Choose a religion or carrer that offers the most holidays.
My wife, after successfully raising our boys, took on the carrer of a TA (teachers assistant), or in other words, teaching underdeveloped children, like me.
Now - she chose this aformentioned profession for several reasons that follow:
1) she would make a good steady wage and be able to dress nicely,
2) she works a 5 hour day,
3) she gets all holidays, weekends, storm days and the summer off,
4) I paid for her 2 year night school education in order to gain these adbvantages - man..... she's got it sorted out.
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Andy Andersen
United States
Newark
Delaware
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Orangemoose wrote: I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up - they have no holidays.
Henny Youngman
US (English-born) comedian (1906 - 1998)
Note: comedian. Maybe I should have explained it after all. 'sigh'
There's no crying in baseball and no humor in RSP. 
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Jon
United States
Vancouver
WA
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Orangemoose wrote: Note: comedian.
Thanks. I try.
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David Debien
United States
Round Rock
Texas
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We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever belived in. Some of us just go one god further.
-Richard Dawkins
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Jon
United States
Vancouver
WA
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casualgod wrote: We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever belived in. Some of us just go one god further.
-Richard Dawkins
Poor Dawkins. Wrong again.
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Morgan Dontanville
United States
Brooklyn
New York
Plate of Shrimp.
Here we are folks, the dream we all dream of.
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Actually, you can celebrate all of them.
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King Ævil
South Euclid
Ohio
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sisteray wrote: Actually, you can celebrate all of them.
Yes—we're militant agnostics, but we celebrate Christmas.
By the way, it isn't the case that non-religious holidays are "atheist." This way lies the madness of claiming that American public schools are atheist because they're secular.
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King Ævil
South Euclid
Ohio
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MyTwoCents wrote: Orangemoose wrote: I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up - they have no holidays.
Henny Youngman
US (English-born) comedian (1906 - 1998)
Also, the days you get off work don't actually vary with your personal religious beliefs. Atheists get Christmas off.
Atheists may be more likely to work on Christmas anyway, because the overtime pay is so good some places.
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[wailing winter winds]
United States
Hillsboro
Oregon
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We have very small traditions we have on select holidays, but in general we don't really celebrate holidays at all. Instead, we try to celebrate every day for whatever special qualities we can find. I suspect this contributes to making me less productive than most outside of work.
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Bojan Ramadanovic
Canada
Vancouver
BC
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quozl wrote: casualgod wrote: We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever belived in. Some of us just go one god further.
-Richard Dawkins Poor Dawkins. Wrong again.
In the context in which he wrote it - and in which most people understand it, he was absolutely right.
You claim that you believe in many (all ?) gods - but your definition of "belief" in this context is very very unusual.
I do not wish to make a claim as to what you believe in or not - but you certainly are not a believer/worshiper or Thor, or Astarte or Poseidon in a way most people would understand a term.
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Jon
United States
Vancouver
WA
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bramadan wrote: quozl wrote: casualgod wrote: We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever belived in. Some of us just go one god further.
-Richard Dawkins Poor Dawkins. Wrong again. In the context in which he wrote it - and in which most people understand it, he was absolutely right. You claim that you believe in many (all ?) gods - but your definition of "belief" in this context is very very unusual. I do not wish to make a claim as to what you believe in or not - but you certainly are not a believer/worshiper or Thor, or Astarte or Poseidon in a way most people would understand a term.
That's because you think belief and worship are synonymous. I can do either without the other.
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Bojan Ramadanovic
Canada
Vancouver
BC
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quozl wrote: bramadan wrote: quozl wrote: casualgod wrote: We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever belived in. Some of us just go one god further.
-Richard Dawkins Poor Dawkins. Wrong again. In the context in which he wrote it - and in which most people understand it, he was absolutely right. You claim that you believe in many (all ?) gods - but your definition of "belief" in this context is very very unusual. I do not wish to make a claim as to what you believe in or not - but you certainly are not a believer/worshiper or Thor, or Astarte or Poseidon in a way most people would understand a term. That's because you think belief and worship are synonymous. I can do either without the other.
I find this discussion fascinating - but do not want to make you uncomfortable so if I am let me know and I will stop.
My issue is that when it gets to gods - if you believe they exist in a way they are conventionally depicted it seems to me to be act of lunacy not to worship them in some sort (at least not to fear them greatly).
If I actually truly believed that Christian God (as described in, say, Bible) existed - it is possible I would be able to muster courage not to worship him (due to seeing him as morally despicable) but, boy would I not be terrified for not doing so.
Now you may say you believe in sundry Gods - but you also believe that one of those Gods (one you actually do worship) renders the rest impotent to do you harm and therefore you do not need to worship them. This is a valid position, but if you do that - your belief in those other gods is so very different from what "belief in god X" means to most people using that term that it is almost incomprehensible.
If I tell you that I believe in Jesus but that I do not think he was able to save humanity because he was tricked by Loki into getting crucified, you (or at least almost any imaginable Christian if not you explicitly) would (rightly) tell me that simply saying "I believe in Jesus" does not quite convey what I may or may not actually believe in because my belief is so very different from what almost everyone else means when they say "I believe in Jesus".
As much as Jesus who can not save is essentially (in technical sense) different from Jesus most people believe in so is the Poseidon who can not drown you for your insolence essentially different from Poseidon whom most people who ever believed in Poseidon would recognize.
Now alternative thing you may say is that you perceive some underlying allegorical truths in various god-stories and therefore believe in those gods allegorically (this incidentally is my position on a whole bunch of Gods) but that is not what Dawkins had in mind. He actually talked about literal belief in a supernatural entity with personality who can causally influence our physical world.
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Andy Andersen
United States
Newark
Delaware
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bramadan wrote:
I find this discussion fascinating - but do not want to make you uncomfortable so if I am let me know and I will stop.
What started out as a Henny Youngman joke..........................
Keep going
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Jon
United States
Vancouver
WA
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Yet there are many who believe in "historical Jesus" or a non-divine Jesus. Do they still believe in Jesus? Yes, but they just do not believe some aspects of his character that others believe in.
I am unfamiliar with much of Dawkins' work so if Dawkins is saying that not believing in all aspects of a god that others believe in is atheism in respect to that God, I guess he's right because I do not think there is any god that any person believe in all aspects that all people have believed about that god. I mean, that's just silly! And I'm not even getting into literal, allegorical, or metaphorical belief yet.
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Bojan Ramadanovic
Canada
Vancouver
BC
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quozl wrote: Yet there are many who believe in "historical Jesus" or a non-divine Jesus. Do they still believe in Jesus? Yes, but they just do not believe some aspects of his character that others believe in.
I am unfamiliar with much of Dawkins' work so if Dawkins is saying that not believing in all aspects of a god that others believe in is atheism in respect to that God, I guess he's right because I do not think there is any god that any person believe in all aspects that all people have believed about that god. I mean, that's just silly! And I'm not even getting into literal, allegorical, or metaphorical belief yet.
I think that belief in non-divine Jesus is a very very different belief then belief in Jesus - The Word - Son of one God. If anything they are rather fundamentally opposed explanation of the same (broadly defined) set of historic phenomena. One could go so far as to say that belief in non-divine Jesus is equivalent of the statement of *lack of belief* in divine Jesus.
There are small quibbles one can have about incidental aspects of Gods while still talking broadly about the same entity, but once you start adding or subtracting their fundamental properties you really are constructing different entities. In that light, I would argue that purely mortal Jesus *is* a fundamentally different entity from divine Jesus and that the commonality of the name simply confuses the issue.
(In a same way that me saying "I believe in Jon" would mean different things depending in whether I mean I believe in Jon, the guy who dislikes mainstream politics and posts on RSP or "I believe in Jon, avatar of madness whose presence announces the end times").
What Dawkins talks about is that we no longer believe in reality of what were considered fundamental properties of old gods. We can believe in Poseidon while disagreeing on whether or not he preferred Amymeone to Tiro but once we no longer believe that Poseidon rules the oceans we are - effectively - atheists with regard to Poseidon, even if we still like some of the stories he features in.
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x-mas is a great secular holiday .. the irony being the more secular it become the more certain religious groups are determined for everyone, including atheists, to call it x-mas , maintain "merry x-mas" as a greeting etc .. they're partially contributing to the meaning being stripped of religious significance...
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Jon
United States
Vancouver
WA
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bramadan wrote: There are small quibbles one can have about incidental aspects of Gods while still talking broadly about the same entity, but once you start adding or subtracting their fundamental properties you really are constructing different entities.
I can get on board with this but it presents a problem when determining what those fundamental properties are. You've just said that the actual person of Jesus isn't a fundamental property but his divinity (or lack of it) is. Who determines the fundamental properties?
Frankly, I don't see the point. It just divides people and there's already enough division in this world. Does it really do any good to divide people more based on criteria they don't even hold as fundamental, just because you, the outside observer, think it's fundamental? It seems arrogant to me and filled with condescension. I'd rather look for commonalities than differences. Someone calls their creator god Allah? Sure, we could focus on the differences and conclude we worship different gods. Or we could look at the commonalities and conclude we may be worshiping the same god but just believe different aspects about that entity. That's what I do and I guess I just don't understand those that want to focus on differences.
Crap, I'm starting to ramble. I better stop before I sound like Dar.
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Vlad Taltos
United States
Washington
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How about every Sunday?
Or Friday night to Saturday sun down?
Or Friday and five times a day on the other days?
- Depending on your religious affiliation and practices.
Everyday is a holiday for some of us.
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Bojan Ramadanovic
Canada
Vancouver
BC
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quozl wrote: bramadan wrote: There are small quibbles one can have about incidental aspects of Gods while still talking broadly about the same entity, but once you start adding or subtracting their fundamental properties you really are constructing different entities. I can get on board with this but it presents a problem when determining what those fundamental properties are. You've just said that the actual person of Jesus isn't a fundamental property but his divinity (or lack of it) is. Who determines the fundamental properties? Frankly, I don't see the point. It just divides people and there's already enough division in this world. Does it really do any good to divide people more based on criteria they don't even hold as fundamental, just because you, the outside observer, think it's fundamental? It seems arrogant to me and filled with condescension. I'd rather look for commonalities than differences. Someone calls their creator god Allah? Sure, we could focus on the differences and conclude we worship different gods. Or we could look at the commonalities and conclude we may be worshiping the same god but just believe different aspects about that entity. That's what I do and I guess I just don't understand those that want to focus on differences. Crap, I'm starting to ramble. I better stop before I sound like Dar.
When it gets to Jesus both his historical persona *and* his supernatural origin/mission are quite fundamental to most people's understanding of him.
As to which properties are "fundamental" I would say there is a fairly broad consensus of what are principal attributes of entities - particularly when it comes to gods, who are frequently defined by their principal attributes.
Reason I think it is important to pay attention to these fundamental properties is that in neglecting to do so we risk miscommunication at best and being insulting at worst. When you tell me you believe in pagan gods and when Geosphere tells me the same thing you two mean some *very* different things and the common usage of the term is *much* closer to what Paul means then to what you mean. It took us a long discussion and quite a bit of misunderstanding for me to actually even understand what you mean - at least some of which would have been avoided had you not used a phrase which is commonly understood to mean something other then what you intended to say.
Worse case scenario would be taking your position in a discussion with someone who is genuniely emotionally/religiously invested in one of the gods whom you redefine from their traditional role. Most Christians can handle the fact that I do not subscribe to their religion - but if I told them that I believe in Jesus but that I also believe Jesus was evil/impotent/subject to my own "principal" God, but that this Jesus is explicitly "same" Jesus they believe in - they would, rightly in my opinion, be offended at me for redefining their religion into something that is alien and abhorrent to them.
I am all in favour of looking for religious commonalities but I also think it is very important not to go overboard and dismiss the distinctions and differences which are of great importance to people actually practicing specific religions.
As for your Allah example - that one is relatively easy as most Muslims do agree that the God they worship (Allah is just arabic word for "God") is exactly the same person that is written about in Christian (and Jewish) holy texts. Problem is that Christians (generally) believe this God to be a Trinity whereas for Muslims such an idea is the worst possible idolatry and polytheism. Even with all the historical commonality, statement "I believe in the God of Abraham" means two quite different things coming from a Muslim and a Christian - and to ignore those differences is to be wilfully blind to some aspects of their God which are *extremely* important to many Christians and Muslims.
If you want a real-life example of what I am talking about here - just look at how upset Moshe gets sometimes when people quote "Jewish Bible" to him.
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Posted Fri Feb 3, 2012 9:49 pm
