We can't be sure of that until we conduct double-blind randomized tests. Who will volunteer to have their cancer treated by Lord Siphonophore?
It's conceivable that an animal that bonds to others of the same species would glean some compound or knowledge useful in limb regeneration/reattachment.
Religious symbols in clock-wise order: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Bahá'í Faith, Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Slavic neopaganism, Celtic polytheism, Heathenism (German paganism), Semitic neopaganism, Wicca, Kemetism (Egyptian pagan Hellenism, Italo-Roman neopaganism. So make your choice, they all 'claim' to be the one true faith and they'll all go to war to prove it. Some of them will even claim to have had meaningful conversations with their brand of "god". God said to me! They even made him in their image. When someone close is stuck by lightning, then god was angry or god called him to his bosom. (Choose a or b) Or when the lottery is won....or a goal scored. It was god rewarding them so they wave their fingers up to the heavens......Seriously. And people really have the gall to think that Atheists are the odd ones...!!!
What sort of church do atheists want. Speaking for myself I wouldn't want build anything that makes religious people want to kill me or my friends and family. (Yeah, it happens) Last week I got as close to feeling I was in a church, or cathedral, as I'll ever need. It was older than just about all religions except perhaps those who worshiped Ra! I was alone and surrounded by these monsters, the only human around. Just a real feeling of peace and awe that something 2,300 years old can inspire.
The question "What do atheists believe?" Is interesting. Religious "people" trying to pigeon hole individual (unbrainwashed) free thinkers. The only way they can do it is to try and lump them all together as another form of religion. The religion of "Atheism." And fundamental atheists I was a choirboy in the Church of England loved to sing as a soloist boy soprano. But that involved listening to the dogma of the organized church. Even in my young mind I couldn't believe how people could swallow the crap that was spoon fed them without even questioning it. I keep seeing references to the treaty of Nicea. Like that that is the definitive word. Constantine got all his bishops together to decide how to standardize the the word to keep the masses under control. That's where Jesus became the Son of god. Where they invented this entity called the Holy Ghost. I'm para phrasing of course I'm not that old and it was some 600 years after the "Event" The biggest one of course and controversial even at that time among his own bishops yet is still today a huge part of of the church dogma. That man is born in sin!! Powerful innit? From that time on, (From 600 years after until well, forever) people had to go to church from birth to death to, basically apologise for their sins they committed before they were born.! Baptizing to get permission to live and be absolved as permission to die. Total lifetime control by the church. For just a 10% tithe. Even today these religious er nuts. (Can't think of a nicer word) feel threatened by people who don't fall in line and swallow the whole jugful of coolade. Since man came on earth ( What? 10,000 years ago ) one tribe has fought and killed the neighbours over their form of religion. A religious tradition that continues and thrives right upto the present day. If they can't kill other forms of religion off, they'll go for one who don't believe. Better weapons make it really efficient now! So that what this ONE atheist believes. I can't speak for other free thinkers they don't go to my church or mosque.
Here is a sample of something in which we atheists believe. Now, add math and physics (as we work it out) and you have the holy trinity.
Is this the growing cult of atheism? These psychologists who were researching where various religions came from, also see where they're going. Is religion about to die out? Growing wealth is causing belief in moralising gods to decline - and it could make it vanish entirely Psychologists at École Normale Supérieure in Paris said the need for moralising religions like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and Hinduism is declining with growing affluence. Full Story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ef-moralising-gods-cause-vanish-entirely.html MailOnline
Yet I've seen various other people speculating that it's secularism itself which had fueled religious extremism (or all faiths) as they've felt under attack.
So to folks with that line of thinking, the attacks on one religion by adherents of another did not produce religious extremist in this century or others?
I would guess no, because they weren't from within their own community. Christian fundamentalists, for example, would be more concerned about former Christians rejecting the Christian lifestyle in their country, than they would about people in other countries not being christian. It would threaten them more directly.
Speaking of religious extremism before the 20th century the major driver of extremism was intra-religious not inter-religious. I think a majority of the declared Crusades from the 4th on were between Christians. Of course I am focusing on Europe.
They would also reject those folks as being from their own religion, unbelievers generally being cast as, well, unbelievers rather than "People of the Book" or some such unifying concept.
Yes they would, but a threat to their own numbers, within their community's culture, would be more of a threat, and would be seen as a culture change that needs to be fought.
Not by secularists, but because of growing secularism. I was thinking of Christians too, but if you take the growth of extreme islam, the thought is that secularism is the removal of the instruction of god from law, and from everyday life. The removal of the instruction of god is only desirable if you are against the word of god itself, and to be against the word of god is pretty much akin to - to the mind of some - the will of satan. Secularism, which we see as benign, becomes in their eyes, a battle against the devil himself. If you can make people believe that, it's pretty powerful, especially if you can throw in a lump of xenophobia about foreign cultures "taking over" as well. For Christians it's not quite as extreme, obviously, but christian fundamentalism has also been said to have grown in popularity as a reaction to an increasingly permissive society.
I can only speak for myself, of course, but there are many "brands" of atheism, from what I would categorize as "radical" or "aggressove" atheism, which seems to seek to eradicate all forms on theocentirc pracitice, to what I would term "passive" atheism, which seems to have no particular stake in changing anybody's mind about any kind of worldview. Most Christians with whom I have spoken find "aggressive" atheism to be tantamount to a religion, based on the belief that the is/are no god(s), much less the God of the Bible. Both theocentric worldviews and atheistic worldviews operate on a presupposition, namely that their system of logic that is employed to evaluate the opinions held regarding the existence of a deity is valid. What makes this an interesting phenomenon is that human "reason" is the basis for such evaluation, and atheists in particular cannot substantiate why their "reason" is more sound than that of anyone else. Presumably, we are all seeing the same set of "facts", so it is the interpretation of those facts that leads to the particular worldview we hold. If you don't accept the reasonableness of supernatural phenomena, which is a presupposition, obviously you would come to the conclusion that all observable phenomena have naturalistic causes. But there is no way to substantiate such a view. It is not more "reasonable" than the idea that some observable phenomena have a supernatural cause, to wit, The Big Bang. Currently, neither science nor theology can explain the "why" of The Big Bang in demonstrable terms. And the best guess of most reasonable persons is that such an absence of a conclusive explanation will obtain. Bad people will use their interpretation of whatever writing seems to support their agenda to do bad things. For example, the Bible does not specifically advocate slavery. Slavery existed during biblical times and that fact is spoken of. The Bible tells slaves to obey their masters, as if they were obeying Christ, and tells masters to treat their slaves properly, not to threaten them. Yet I am sure it is true that many Christian slave owners abused their slaves. OTOH, as you well know, it was largely Christians who put an end to the slave trade. No identifiable group of people is uniformly good or bad. I will readily acknowledge that there are thousands, milliions, perhaps billions of atheists whose lifetime of behavior is morally superior to mine. If that were the be-all and the end-all, it would be a simple question of totting up the counts on the ledger and that would be that. But Jesus says differently, and, for all we know, his position may be the authoritative one.
of course, but please go on for half a page very poorly describing others you don't understand anyway.
I really, as I mentioned, can't speak for anyone else. I'm not part of some atheist club or group. I don't go to atheist meetings and discuss my beliefs, or none, with others. But you seem to feel the need to characterize to make some sort of order out of it. This whole religion thing, TO ME, gives a sense of ridiculessness. In it's simplest form it's always been a method of control right through the ages. Reguardless of what form, sect, cartel, name it takes. Hard for me to describe but for Christianity Monty Python does a pretty good job at it. Most other forms of religion except perhaps Bhudism follow the same path of control. Follow what I say and teach or you're damned. Never dare to Question it. Well I do, question it, so I guess I'm damned. "Most Christians with whom I have spoken find "aggressive" atheism to be tantamount to a religion, based on the belief that the is/are no god(s), much less the God of the Bible." Come on, seriously. Because "Most christians etc. say so...then it's true???? Your hypothesis falls apart and makes me smile as soon as I read christ said or I spoke to god, god told us, the bible/koran says. What Jesus really meant was.... It's all so Pythonesque. Atheism is a literal term. Just look up the root.