The World Beyond BetterMost > Anything Goes
Atheists: Come out, come out, wherever you are
Impish:
--- Quote from: mvansand76 on July 13, 2006, 11:20:24 am ---Atheist here!
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Hooray! ;D
isabelle:
--- Quote from: Impish on July 13, 2006, 09:36:17 am ---
I remain confused about TexRob's message tho'... I wonder what he meant when he said (paraphrasing) "not all existentialists are atheists" ?
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Yeah, confusing! According to Sartre, an existentialist can only be an atheist. Was he thinking of Buddhists? Because I've taken an interest in Buddhism, and I said to a friend lately that they were real existentialists, so it seems to me!
ednbarby:
Well, I sure had it wrong. I think I missed the target AND the tree...
In that case, I *am* an existentialist (as well as a bonehead). Determinism doesn't apply to me - if it did I'd most likely be locked up somewhere by now. I see myself as wholly responsible for my own actions. I not only don't believe in God; I don't believe in fate. I believe we all make our own destinies. In a less eloquent way, life may throw some shit our way, but we can either let it hit us head on - even try to (as I think professional victims do) or we can dodge it/go around it/get beyond it - it's up to us.
Thanks, Isabelle and Impish. And I'll check out that web site. :)
mvansand76:
--- Quote from: Impish on July 13, 2006, 11:36:20 am ---Hooray! ;D
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;D
TexRob:
--- Quote from: Impish on July 11, 2006, 10:00:51 am ---I'm fascinated. Could you give a brief summary of the beliefs of religious existentialists? Are these people who believe in a god but don't believe in an afterlife?
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Religious existentialists look at religion more as a leap of faith than something based on observed evidence of a god. For us secularists, an "existential crisis" can call upon us to make decisions about our lives which we cannot escape and for which we are solely accountable. Similarly, a religious existentialist doesn't "experience" God so much as he "encounters" God, and that encounter comes in the form of a question which the believer must answer for himself -- thus, the religious version of an existential crisis.
Both versions of existentialism uphold man as an agent acting with total freedom combined with total responsibility for his free choices. Kirkegaard laid out this stance for believers, and Sartre laid it out for those of us who don't believe. Both versions start with reality itself as the basis of all further development (as opposed to a "consiousness" of some sort). Hence, both kinds of existentialism subscribe to the statement: Existence precedes Essence.
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