The OP seems to be emotional instead of rational. The question of Gods existence is one of reality not utility. With that said I don't understand where this is supposed to go

I think you want to belong to a religion op, and as a fellow atheist I'm with you. Saying "I'm an atheist" is a statement so void of anything meaningful to me. I wish there were more atheist churches, and more atheist belief systems that I could belong too.

Also, I'm not really so much of an atheist as I am against religion, because all (most) religions support ignorance. I would like to see a "religion" develop that would essentially be like a political party: a collection of moral beliefs; just instead of "I believe stealing is wrong because god said so," I'd just like to belong to a moral system that placed their beliefs in some rational thought process.

Ever thought about joining a secular humanist group?

Atheism certainly doesn't claim to be a belief system in itself. What it does is free you from the shackles of religious thinking so you can go and discover whatever it is you care about. If that is secular humanism then great. If that is scientific naturalism then great. If that means joining a political party then great. If that means going to india and living for a year in a cave meditating with mystics and gurus then great. Atheism is about opening the door to a world of possibilities unencumbered by any dogma outside of the rational pursuit of truth.

I've thought about it but I don't like the name, so I haven't really researched it. Saying "i'm a secular humanist" doesn't really roll of the tongue. But I will. I'm also concerned about getting into anything too culty, or new-agey.

Are you saying it is impossible for one to have morals outside of aligning with a religious denomination?

The stance that just because one belongs to a faith or denomination of any sort lacks an ability to be rational is just weak.

If I say I believe in God. Although I have no evidence to prove that he exists to you. And there is a slight chance that I could be wrong. How am I not being rational?

I don't think Hector said any of the things you're saying he did.

Ahem.

Hey, thanks for the responses.

What I'm looking for in a "church."

*A belief system that I can choose from and agree to. When I say like a political party, I just want to be able to say, "oh, I belong to the church of the flying spaghetti monster," and have that mean that I believe in treating others with respect and dignity (for example), which is something the label "atheist" doesn't come with.

*A nice place that I can go and converse with my neighbors, sit once a week, and have a "preacher" (philosopher, teacher, psychologist) get up and talk about solving lifes problems. A place that I can dress up my daughter, teach her good morals, and help her feel like a part of a community.

I grew up christian, and still go to church on occasion because it sort of serves these purposes. There was a book "Religion for Atheists" that talks about this.

Sounds pretty good honestly. Too bad the name "Scientology" is already taken.

If not, than I completely misread his post. Sorry Hector.

Lol, possible chance, a chance, it is possible I'm wrong, lol which one would you like?

I have often thought that there could be a role for an atheist church, if you will, that gave the sense of community, conversation, singing of silly songs and the like. Personally I alwasy found church as a kid boring. But if people are into it then great. The communities I am part of and the people I like to talk to about morality or politics and the like don't all reside in a weekly building like a church, but they are very real. Seek these out in your life and form these kinds of connections. It is out there.

Word. lol

No. They might well have been "God experiences." I will say more below.

This is what I said:

It's not just that I experienced something, and therefore I'm a Christian. I experienced something, then sought out to determine the nature of that something, and the evaluation has led me to choose Christianity.

There are lots of experiences that people have had. Some would be "God experiences" (I'm not going to define this carefully and just use it as a vague label) and some would be "not God experiences." The experience is separate from the label of the experience. People can have "not God experiences" and label them as "God experiences" and people can have "God experiences" that they label "not God experiences."

So if a Muslim happens to have had a "God experience" but labels it as an "Allah experience," it is still (in reality) a "God experience." It's just that the evaluation ended up with the wrong conclusion.

"Not congruent" means that the two religions do not make the same claims, and then the evaluation of the experiences led me to viewing Christianity as the better interpretation of the experiences than Islam.

Maybe we're looking at this in different ways. Let me explain more fully what I had in my mind:

If the extent of the observations is limited to strictly the knowledge that can be gained from an outside viewer, then yes. So if you watch the entirety of my life from start to finish, and then watch the entirety of a devout Muslim's life from start to finish, you would not be able to determine from that information whether either person's God is real.

I don't think that this is particularly controversial. Do you expect to be able to determine whether God is real strictly on the basis of an external observation of two people?

So there is, in effect, a level of religious pluralism in your view, but only on a very superficial level.

I would ask you to elaborate, but understand if this is outside the scope of this thread.

As an outside observer I would like some way of pushing towards the correct answer, yes. However, I think that may be difficult with the inherent vagueness of "God experiences" and "life experiences".

I have not seen a religious person make the experience/explanation distinction before. I also think that many people have genuine experiences, I just disagree with the explanations given for these experiences. Aaron seems to agree that a Muslim may have an experience and in its evaluation comes to the wrong conclusion. Of course, I think he is also coming to the wrong conclusion, but without more detail on these specific experiences and the resulting analysis it is hard to say.

You should tell me what you mean by religious pluralism. We must have different conceptions of that phrase.

It is a bit outside the scope of this thread. I hope you can at least see that there's at least a distinct thought-framework associated with various religions. They don't all say the same things.

I think that as an outsider observer, you're being particularly narrow in your observations if this is how you're pursuing the question.

I think my responses to Jewbison's questions represent a better starting point.

What is it that makes you so confident that your conclusions are correct, and all of the Muslims' conclusions are incorrect? Do you think it's possible you'd reach different conclusions too if you were born in a Muslim country?

Only that a Muslim can have a *real* God experience, even though he believes it to be Allah.

I don't claim that all of the Muslims' conclusions are incorrect. That's a lot of conclusions that I know basically nothing about. Why would I pass such a judgment on such a diverse and expansive collection of statements?

Yes.

Weaselgirl wasn't referring to all statements, just the biggies.

That's usually not what people mean by "religious pluralism" (equal validity of multiple religions), but okay.

I'm curious... do you think that Christians generally believe that God *only* interacts with them, and that everyone else is "faking it"?

Care to cite a few of the "biggies"?

'Interacts' is obviously a broad term, but when someone religious says "God speaks to me" or something, it would seem strange to call out to Krishna, and get Christ on the line. I think a lot of Christians would reply similarly.

We would go right back to the beginning. To slightly edit weaslegirl:

EDIT: I like uke_master's example better.

That jesus is not the son of god?

Given your belief that Christianity is correct, it necessarily means that the Islamic view on jesus is wrong and that any muslim who believes the islamic view on jesus has reached a faulty conclusion.