«

[plix]

Originally posted by Tulac+Apr 24 2006, 11:31 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Tulac @ Apr 24 2006, 11:31 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Buddhism is a religion, an Atheist religion, which only disproves your facts that atheism as a whole is a religion... Now take differences between Atheism and Buddhism, those are the differences between belief and religion...

So basically you can have Atheism as a belief, or you can have Atheistical religions like Buddhism... [/b]

Buddhism is more agnostic than it is atheistic (Wikipedia's nontheism article is excellent in describing the difference between nontheism and agnostisim), but that's just an interesting comment I wished to make. Either way, lets assume that Buddhism is an Atheistic religion: that could (I'm not going to get definitive here as we're already making some pretty big assumptions) then make Atheism a religion and Buddhism simply a denomination in the same way that Christianity is considered a religion and Roman Catholicism a denomination of Christianity.

<!--QuoteBegin-Tulac
OK me and the aliens again, let's say that there's a religion that worships a future coming of aliens, let's call it paralellism, and let's say you don't believe in that, and you're an Aparallelist, but that is all you do not believe it exist, are you a religious person then?[/quote]
My position is that it depends on how the individual (whose religiousity is in question) views the issue. Does this person doubt-as-in-scientific-theory that aliens don't exist (which hinders their "belief" in non-existence on experimentation and the scientific method; i.e. it roughly equates to Agnosticism) or does this person actively believe-as-in-faith that aliens do not exist (which would equate to Atheism)? This is actually an excellent distingushing factor between Agnosticism and Atheism. Atheism would equate to the active belief that aliens do not exist (i.e. entirely rooted in faith) whereas Agnosticism would be the belief that "it is by definition unknowable if aliens exist or not" (this is less obvious because aliens are observable while "God" is not). Scientific skepticism brings in an entirely new angle to the issue.

[Tulac]

All of that stands, but I'm saying that there is a difference between religion and belief.
Hypothesis: I believe in a God, that is my belief, I am Christian, Jew, whatever, that is my religion...
Basically you can believe in a God without having an actual religion, so your denominations, are basically religions which are built around a certain belief.
The same is with Atheism/Buddhism case, Atheism is a belief that there is no God, Buddhism is a religion...

I guess we could really discuss about this forever, but this my viewpoint, and a clear distinction between a belief and a religion, the problem is that in the whole discipline of Ethics, religion isn't defined, as pretty much anything in Ethics isn't, so I guess you could say we're both right and wrong at the same time :P

[Juni Ori]

Originally posted by plix+Apr 24 2006, 04:29 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (plix @ Apr 24 2006, 04:29 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Juni Ori@Apr 24 2006, 10:49 AM
-buddhism can be considered to be philosophy instead of religion (which was clearly articulated before)
-how can people worship same religion, if there's no organization? wouldn't traditions and rules very soon differ a lot?
-that car/horse comparison is by far worst I've seen in eons
-communism is widely accepted atheistic - though difference between atheist and agnostic is very thin

1. Yes, it can be. I'm not debating that point. I do, however, believe that most people (including most Buddhists I've met) consider Buddhism to be a religion. Wikipedia defines it as both a religion and a philosophy and Merriam Webster defines it only as a religion. Religion and philosophy are not mutually exclusive.
2. It has worked for Jews, Protestants, Islamics, and Catholics (which are all Abrahamic denominations) for some time. They differ, sure, but a majority of their core tennets are the same.
3. It was intended to be; that was the damn point. I created an analogy equivalent to the one made by laiocfar for the explicit purpose of illustrating how little sense it made.
4. Widely accepted? I'm not quite sure how you came to that conclusion. I'm also in strong disagreement with the assessment that Agnosticism and Atheism are so closely related. They are fundamentally very different. The only correlation is in the lack of belief in a deity (though the reasoning behind such a belief is significantly different).

I'm doing my best to reason my points with facts examples, whereas the responses I'm getting are providing little more than "it's so because I say so" (Tulac has been a welcome exception to this). "Because I say so" isn't enough to get me to change my mind and I hope the same is true for others. [/b][/quote]
1: Okay, looks like we're just turning this thing over and over again, but I try to make this clear now: I am very well aware that people (imo wrong) think Buddhism is a religion. Also, there can't be religion without some sort of philosophy.
2: All your examples have written codes, strong organizational levels (or what the heck is pope for example???), so I quite don't understand... However, what I have to underline here, that even still their traditions and rules differed regionally.
3: I thought so... but strongly disagree.
4: Wide acceptance doesn't need your acceptance. Several dictionaries and couple of sources over net claimed communism atheistic. And in practice agnosticism and atheism are close together, though they are two different things.

I still don't get how this has anything to do with Iran, Nuclear Crisis or any sort of their combination... And how much ever you claim to reason your points with "facts examples" etc, I quite disagree and at least I've never said that "Because I say so". And if you're going to keep your head, fine, I don't really care.

[Wolf Thug]

okay

[plix]

Originally posted by Tulac+Apr 24 2006, 12:03 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Tulac @ Apr 24 2006, 12:03 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I guess we could really discuss about this forever, but this my viewpoint, and a clear distinction between a belief and a religion, the problem is that in the whole discipline of Ethics, religion isn't defined, as pretty much anything in Ethics isn't, so I guess you could say we're both right and wrong at the same time :P [/b]

I think we're in agreement over this one :)

<!--QuoteBegin-Juni Ori
1: Okay, looks like we're just turning this thing over and over again, but I try to make this clear now: I am very well aware that people (imo wrong) think Buddhism is a religion. Also, there can't be religion without some sort of philosophy.
2: All your examples have written codes, strong organizational levels (or what the heck is pope for example???), so I quite don't understand... However, what I have to underline here, that even still their traditions and rules differed regionally.
(...)
4: Wide acceptance doesn't need your acceptance. Several dictionaries and couple of sources over net claimed communism atheistic. And in practice agnosticism and atheism are close together, though they are two different things.[/quote]
1. I've added emphasis to point out how your using the same argument in two opposing ways to support your point -- pick one side and stick with it. Fine, you don't believe Buddhism to be a religion; however, you should at least accept that your position differs from dictionary definitions, encyclopedia definitions, and what I've always found to be a fairly popular consensus.
2. They have organization, but the organizations are independent and wildly different. the Baptist Church (a Protestant denomination) has no centralized organization whatsoever, yet some how they remain a religion. You chose the Pope as an example, which illustrates my point: the Pope is the head of the Roman Catholic church and holds no official standing in Protestant denominations, Islam, or Judaism.
4. Where do you see Communism defined as Atheistic? I checked a Merriam-Webster and the New American Heritage Dictionary and neither of them said that, nor did Wikipedia (yes, Wikipedia is not terribly authoritive, but I'm not at home and can't check Brittanica), and the Communist Manifesto (which I can again quote) speaks of religion in an Agnostic way, not an Atheist one, and certainly makes no explicit mention whatsoever of Atheism.

I'm not talking out my behind here, I'm working from several highly reputable sources and haven't been able to find any sort of concrete, authoritive evidence to the contrary. I was originally, and am again, asking for some sort of citation which I can check. I'm not trying to be a dick here, but when you just say things like "a few dictionaries and some sources" it's not terribly different from just saying "I said so." You have to actually mention what dictionaries and [other] sources those were.

[Wolf Thug]

IRAN AND THE SO CALLED NUCLEAR CRISIS

[Juni Ori]

Originally posted by Juni Ori@Apr 24 2006, 06:41 PM
I still don't get how this has anything to do with Iran, Nuclear Crisis or any sort of their combination... And how much ever you claim to reason your points with "facts examples" etc, I quite disagree and at least I've never said that "Because I say so". And if you're going to keep your head, fine, I don't really care.

[/off topic]
Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute (source: BBC):

We need to persuade the Europeans that even if you're the good cop, you have to be prepared to pull the gun and make the arrest

Yeah, right... I just wonder when they will dig their head out of their dark, smelly holes...

There's also interesting scenario building up, as Russia and Iran are strongly continuing their cooperation, no matter what West says. And I have to admit, that Russian point of view is much more practical and reasonable in this case. Here's few points to think:

-So what if Iran builds nuclear power plants? Should they buy all their energy from outside, or concentrate on much more polluting options?
-Let's assume they'd waste effort and resources to build nuclear bomb. What would they gain? Political power in Middle-East? Possibly a little. Very little. Why? Read further. They'd also get bad reputation.
-Let's assume they'd waste effort and time to build ICBMs. What would they gain? Only bad reputation and even larger threat of invasion.
-Let's assume they'd use that ICBM, carrying nuke. What would they gain? Retaliation. Add only pavement and you have largest car parking in the world... And everybody knows this, that's why they couldn't ever even trust to the political power of nuclear weapon. So more traditional weaponry and military is far more better in political means.

True that a single nuclear bomb could be devastating, but would they be that crazy to do it? Hey come on, don't underestimate their intelligence and humanity!

[gregor]

i find it funny how no one mentiones that their neighbour already has these weapons. and not to mention that their government isn't exactly a stable democrycy either. althought much more focused to India there still (theoretically) might be a way to smuggle a warhead or two to Iran. Maybe that's what actually happened.

[Wolf Thug]

I believe Saddam also was said to have Nuclear weapons...HA!