Originally Posted by ermitonto
"Ermitonto, how can u be an ahtiest an beleive in sumthin, even if it iznt an actual religion, at the same time? athiestz not only dont beleive in any "real" religion, they beleive in NOTHING, no supreme being, an that the reason were here is completely scientifical."
I would agree completely with that. I don't believe there is anything above the physical manifestation of molecules, energies and so forth, and if there was it would be completely irrelevant to us since we can't observe it. There is nothing in that statement which contradicts any aspect of Daoist philosophy. There is no supreme being in Daoism, no metaphysical souls, no concept of an afterlife...the Daoist is not required to believe in any of that. I see no evidence for a God or gods anywhere, so I don't believe in any of them; therefore I fit the dictionary definition of an atheist, albeit an atheist who incorporates Daoist thought into his life.
"an agnostic belivez that there iz a sumpreme being ov sum sort, but since there is no certainty, they choose not 2 follow a religion."
No, that is not agnostic. Agnostic means somebody is not sure whether or not there are any deities and thinks that no solution to the issue can be reached given the evidence. There certainly is a big difference. I am not agnostic. I don't see the popular Judeo-Christian "God" as a very likely being; I would go so far as to say that such a being is logically impossible: I do not see a possible way for a being to be omniscient and omnipotent and yet give humans "free will" and coexist with it, for example.
"an fer those ov u who say religion iz controlling er wutever, well u must not kno anythin bout religion."
Yes, but they didn't come to that conclusion themselves, they were obviously coaxed by someone who is already a member. People don't just stop in the street and say "Aha! I get it! There is no God but Allah! I guess I'm a Muslim, huh?"
"ppl dunt choose a religon becuz ov the rulez that religion entailz, they join a religion bcuz they truly beleive that that iz how the earth wuz created an such."
Most people don't "choose" their religion. For most people, it is as accidental as what language they happen to speak. Again, to clear up, Daoism does not claim to know how the universe was formed. As far as I'm concerned, the Big Bang Theory looks like how it really happened. Laozi and Zhuangzi and the other founders of Daoism did not claim any supernatural or divine inspiration for their writings. They wrote as mortal, fallible men and acknowledged this. They wrote about life and good ways of living based on what they experienced in their lives.
"if yer in a religion an feel like it iz too controlling, maybe u shoood think bout yer beleifz on how we came to be, maybe yer current religion iz not wut u true heartedly beleive in."
This does not apply to Daoism, which does not portray a story on how the world came to be.
"i juss dunt understand how anyone can go around sayin that christianity er jewish ppl beelive in sumthin that iz rapin them ov their freedom. this iz y i say u must kno nuttin bout religion, becuz religion GIVEZ u freedom, it duznt rape u ov it. an like i said b4, if u honestly feel like yer religion iz interfering in a way that makez u uncomfortable, maybe u dunt truly beleive in that religion."
I say to each his own. If you want to believe something and it isn't hurting me, go ahead. It's unfortunate that those people believe those religions to be true, but there's nothing I can do about it and I'm not going to make fun of someone for their religious beliefs. I am not uncomfortable with my Daoist philosophy, since it deals with lots of things that can be relevant to anyone's life, atheist or otherwise, like self-sufficiency, simplicity and the importance of the natural world.
I'm not saying people with religion are any less free (or any more free). I'm just saying that many people in Christianity, Islam etc. have worldviews in which certain things are "moral" and others are "immoral", for example giving selflessly is "moral" and killing senselessly is "immoral", whereas Daoism does not draw that (sometimes fine) distinction, focusing on the consequences of the act itself rather than trying to categorize it on a black-and-white good-versus-bad scale.
"an like i said b4, if u honestly feel like yer religion iz interfering in a way that makez u uncomfortable, maybe u dunt truly beleive in that religion."
I don't believe in a religion. I have a philosophy, a Weltanschauung, like everybody else does. I consider myself a Daoist because I agree with most of the philosophy in the Daoist texts and it has partially shaped my Weltanschauung, the same way that I have been influenced by more modern authors' philosophies. Daoism is not "interfering" with my atheism in any way that would make me uncomfortable; if it did I would not be a Daoist.
