Buffman

Though your questions are fair, they do seem to smack of presuppositional answers. However, I do not believe this surveyist to be just one more Christian "Save the souls of the Atheists" troll...even though I sensed a certain level of disengenuousness in his OP. Just his board nickname would appear to reveal an insight into his survey motive. If I had to make a guess, I could visualize a former Christian who became unsatisfied with the dogma of that cult, but not with the concept of a human faith spirituality, and sought other religious cult spiritual methodologies with which he could better harmonize. He would appear to still be in a state of spiritual flux even after finding a cult belief more to his satisfaction and is merely attempting to validate it by entering the Atheist's lion den and challenging them to eat him.

newtype_alpha

You know, someone compiled a book kinda like this a few years ago, touching on the different manifestations of religion and spirituality in America. It was an interesting read... profiled everything from Sunni Islam to swing jazz and the people who found religious signifigance in each

Anyhoo...

<puts on fireproof jacket>
Not that you'd get many here to admit this, but there is a signifigant number of atheists on this board who do have a very large chip on their shoulder regarding all things religious. Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes not so subtle.

There are those whose faith is in naturalism and/or the scientific method; that all questions concerning the human existence will be answered in a scholarly fashion by intellectuals.
There are those whose faith is in humanity and the ability of rational people to work out their differences intelligently and peacefully.
There are those whose faith is in nature itself, that the processes that shape our world and our existence have provided us with everything we need for a full and satisfying life.
There ar those whose faith is in a higher power that they can feel but not see, something expressed to them through ancient books or the traditions of some religious faction somewhere.
There are those whose faith is in pleasure and sensation, and believe the best things in life are the things that please them and satisfy their desires.
There are those whose faith is in imagination and creativity, and who believe all of their problems and goals can be reached through ingenuity and imaginationl; they create new tools and new devices to solve old problems in amazing new ways.
There are those whose faith is in money and capital, as if all of the world's problems can be solved by having enough financial resources to purchase a solution.
There are those whose faith is in themselves, their own competance and their own ability, the power to live life in whatever way they see fit and their ability to get what they want, when they want it.

Depending on the person, you might find alot of animosity from a person of one faith against a person of any other. Occasionally, one may even see this behavior from atheists, whose faith in whatever is deemed superior and more desireable for some reason than someone else's faith in whateverelse. They're more agressive in this behavior at II than they would be otherwise, for the same reason Christian/Islamic/whatever fundamentalists are more agressive on their own message boards than they would be here. And the fact that you do not accept their faith as better than yours is deeply offensive to some atheists, and thus subject to ridicule and criticism. It doesn't matter what you have faith in or why you have faith in it--the important thing for such individuals is that you eventually abandon your faith to more closely approximate theirs.

Mind you, you will only encounter this from a minority of atheists. Most of them could care less what you believe so long as you don't come knocking on their door trying to sell that belief to them. The only time you will see this is from a person who has a such great faith in his concept-of-choice that he believes you, too, should have faith in his concept-of-choice.

Meanwhile, there are those who sit and wonder whether fundamentalism is a purely religious phenomenon....:devil3:

newtype_alpha

Do you mean "religion?" Wicca at the moment, though lately I've considered a change of alignment on account of some local differences of opinion.

Fundamentally, I'm a pantheist.

To be extremely brief: All things in nature are connected to one another, and that all things in nature depend on one another. Everything interacts with everything else according to its own nature and serves a purpose in relation to everything else, so the best a human being can do is to create his own sense of purpose and hope to enrich the world around him in his own way.

In a manner of speaking, yes.

Two things:
1) An archetype within the human psyche, representing the principles of causality that drive our existence.
2) A representation of a human being, again nested in the human psyche, represnting where and how a person relates to the universe and the forces that govern his life.

Personal experience. I cannot recal a time in my life when I was not aware of some presence in my life that could not adequately be explained. Since my parents were (at the time) Christians, their natural assumption was that I had some kind of relationship with Jesus, but by the time I was old enough to understand what Christianity was it became apparent to me that this was not the case.

Spirit: the nature of any object, or more accurately, the set of all behaviors an object can and will perform under any given circuimstances.

Soul: basically, the "bedrock" of the subconscious, the part of a human personality that is directly connected with the universe around him and the collective forces that unite all other minds in existence.

Ego: basicaly, the "cieling" of the conscious, the part of a human personality that is directly concerned with external reality and the physical, mundane world around him.

Partly. To some extent, the Soul is one manifestation of God, and vice versa. As are the spirit, as well as the ego.

That depends on the nature of a person. Some people are more soulful, more empathic to other people and situations and are already close enough to one aspect of God. This can sometimes lead to an unbalanced personality, and the best way to get "closer" to god would be to stop spending so much time in dreamland and worry about the material world a little bit more (some people find that aspect of their lives rather boring so they don't bother getting closer to god in that way). Others are way too extroverted and are completely out of touch with their own feelings, innate desires and fears, not to mention the desires and fears of anyone around them.

Yes. For exactly the same reasons we do.

One of the hallmarks of personhood is the ability to form value judgements. Since God is, on at least one level, a manifestation of human existence, god's value judgements are either directly caused by our judgements, or the direct cause of our judgements (sometimes both at the same time).

Many reasons, really. Some look deep into themselves for answers, and in that bottomless pit that is the human sub-conscious they find more than they bargain for: themselves. Religion teaches them to put a face on that reflection of themselves, give a name and a face and build patterns around it.

Of course, some people find it and they never learn to call it a god, other people never find it but come to believe in some such god our of fear of punishment of alienation from their peers.

Probably the same reason some people don't believe in love. They've never seen or felt it, and if they have, they didn't recognize it.

In some ways, I believe that god is as people do. There are many different gods and many different types of gods, and they seem to have fairly predictable patterns even though the names and the religions change over time.

In a way. Heaven can be seen as something to aspire to, some lofty realm that every wants but nobody can reach. Hell is a 'hell' of a lot more real; it's a condition of self-torture in where a person plays the prisoner, the warden, and the tormentor all at the same time. If you've ever been consumed by guilt over something you did wrong and cannot undo what was done, you have been to hell.

I don't think it's a very important concept, just something that most people would be better off avoiding.

Where god acts as a reflection of the human psyche, it is god who is metting out the punishments of hell. You know what you have done wrong, and you know you cannot undo what was done; guilt comes with a feeling of seperation or alienation from the rest of the collective universe which a person is a part and dependent on, and in order to end that despair, the person is commanded (by his god) to make ammends for it and reconnect with his world in a positive way.

Death is neccesary for life. Everything that dies becomes food for something that lives.

Rigormortis

Lately I'm of the opinion that the definition of "life" is somewhat arbitrary. I would consider "life" as "something that can move according to its own nature, without the influence of something else outside itself."

Nothing comes to mind at the moment, although I think that for boards like this you should probably add ten or so questions that would be more inviting to atheists/agnostics.

Marching Folly

1) What is your faith?

N/A

2) What are its basic principles?

N/A

3) Do you believe in God?

No.

4) What is God to you?

It depends on what other people mean by the word. "God" doesn't seem to me to have a very clear definition. But in most social groups, it seems to denote a non-physical "creator of the universe" who operates behind the scenes. So that's what I tend to take as the default definition unless someone indicates otherwise.

5) Why do you believe God exists or doesn’t exist?

For all God's that I don't think exist, I don't think that they exist because there is no reason/evidence indicating the existence of that particular God defined in that particular way. I do believe in some definitions of God, however. For instance, if you define "God" as this post, then I believe that "God" exists, because there is evidence that this post exists.

6) What do the following words mean to you: spirit, soul, and ego?

The same thing as with "God." Definition varies depending on context/who you are talking to, but there are the obvious commonly assumed definitions which I won't bother to enumerate.

7) According to you, do the aforementionned words relate to God?

That seems to be what most people say when they talk about "spirits," "Gods," etc. So yes, I would assume that unless someone indicates otherwise.

8) What do you think has to be personally done in order to feel closer to God?

Assuming the ordinary definition of "God," someone must hallucinate in order to feel closer to the alleged God.

9) Do you think that God may disapprove of some things we do?

No, because God does not exist.

10) Why do you think it may be so?

Non-existent entities do not have states of approval/disapproval.

11) Why do you think people believe in God?

It seems to depend on the person, the "God" that they believe in, and what they mean by "believe."

12) Why do you think some people don’t believe in God?

Most people here seem not to believe in God because there is no evidence for the ordinary God-concept. Seeming logical contradictions don't help either.

13) What evidence do you see that proves God’s existence?

N/A

14) Does your conception of God include notions such as heaven and hell?

In my understanding of the ordinary "God-concept," those are alleged to be different sorts of things (places), rather than objects/beings (which exist in places).

15) In this case, what is their link with God?

N/A

16) What is your view on death?

Other people have died before. I have not died. Being dead is the same way that it was before I was born.

17) According to you, what happens after death?

There is no after death for the dead person, because there is no more person to have anything. There is life, and that lasts for all the time which you/I will experience. There is only after death for the people who exist, surviving the former (ie dead) person, who no longer exists.

18) What is your personal definition of life?

The standard biological one, unless context/someone else indicates otherwise.