Do people really run into proselytizing atheists?

Oh, absolutely. Disdain, vocal disdain, for religion as well as an intent to disassemble other people's faith--does that count?

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I'd classify myself as agnostic as well. I was raised Catholic, which really turned me off to religion in general. I've not heard of/found a religion that quite fits my belief system. The notion that you must be "good" so that God will let you into heaven irks me. I think it's a truer person that is "good" because it's the right thing to do.

Note: I do not believe that these are mutually exclusive. Of course there are religious people that fit the right thing to do model as well.

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Oh, absolutely. Disdain, vocal disdain, for religion as well as an intent to disassemble other people's faith--does that count?

Oh, well, I've certainly run into that. I think I was interpreting it more along the lines of what brenda mentions, with that magazine, though.

I mean, can you believe in God and be absolutely sure other portions of the supernatural don't exist?

I suppose you can, but that seems illogical to me, somehow. I wonder if there is any religion with a deity, that otherwise rules out the supernatural.

Ehhhhhh. You can believe that ghosts are the residual energy left behind by someone without believing in a soul. Or at least I can.

At what point are you just choosing not to call it a soul?

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Do people really run into proselytizing atheists?

Yup. There are some scampering around DailyKos and the LTE columns of Salon.com. They're the most perfect parallel imaginable to those evangelizers who occasionally pester you while you were minding your own business on the bus or at the ATM or whatnot; they'll bust into any conversation, any thread on almost any topic with a rant about how anyone who believes in any kind of mythic sky daddy is deluded and dangerous and probably clinically insane, and the US will never become a truly progressive nation until we are all militant atheists.

Blessedly, even most of the other atheists @@ at them when they go on like this, but they do exist.

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I suppose you can, but that seems illogical to me, somehow

I don't see why the existence of God should imply, say, that the river over there has a soul, or that fairies exist, or that I can cast spells, or any of a number of other supernatural concepts. Accepting God doesn't, to me, even have to open the door to things like that.

At what point are you just choosing not to call it a soul?

How do you define a soul? That's a good place to start.

I think I was interpreting it more along the lines of what brenda mentions, with that magazine, though.

A proselytising Christian is one that tries to convert me to their faith. I flip that to define a proselytising atheist as someone who tries to convert a religious person to atheism.

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Yeah, well, JZ, cut me a break. I was eighteen. ;) Ah, to know so much about so little with such certainty. I also didn't write it down.

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How do you define a soul? That's a good place to start.

Well, let's take Whedon's definition of a soul and go from there.

I'M JUST KIDDING.

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Well, let's take Whedon's definition of a soul and go from there.

::laughs hysterically forever::

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I don't see why the existence of God should imply, say, that the river over there has a soul, or that fairies exist, or that I can cast spells, or any of a number of other supernatural concepts. Accepting God doesn't, to me, even have to open the door to things like that.

Was your original question meant regarding particular supernatural things, or any supernatural thing? Accepting that a deity exists, means accepting that which is beyond the material world, which I think makes it illogical to rule out everything except that one deity of your choice. It doesn't have to follow that you'd care about the other supernatural entities, worship them, or even know about them, or believe in every single supernatural entity that has occured to humanity at one time or another, but I don't see how you'd rule out the existence of all other supernatural things except for your deity.

At what point are you just choosing not to call it a soul?

How do you define a soul? That's a good place to start.

That's what I was asking--how a soul differs from the energy?

Well, let's take Whedon's definition of a soul and go from there.

Odd days of the week, or even?

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Also, erika, youth always gets a pass. The ones who get up my nose are the people who are purportedly seriously, deeply grown-up and still go on like that. Dudes, when the people who agree with you are telling you to STFU, it's time to carefully ponder how you're saying what you're saying.

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