This thought came across me, while I was looking at some history documentaries. Most non-christian historians use the acronym "CE (for Common Era)" and "BCE(for Before Common Era)". Even though they are talking about the same exact time frames as if they would have used the Christian influenced "BC" or "AD". But I can't honestly think of any secular or scientific reason to avoid using those acronyms.

Trying to deny that religion had a massive influence on science does no one any good.

Denying religious influence on science is to deny the influence it had on modern culture. Denying religious influence on modern culture is to deny modern culture altogether. Denying modern culture is to deny any other culture. Denying culture is to deny one's own humanity.

It doesn't matter if you're Atheist, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Pagan, or hold any other religious belief, or combination thereof. You need to acknowledge and embrace the language, idioms, and mannerisms that religion has wrought in humanity.

As an apatheist, I don't much care to differentiate religious/non-religious figures of speech, and use whatever sounds appropriate, relevant or funny at the time. I give no fucks about god, but if the most convenient expression of my feelings is "oh god", ain't no reason for me to abstain from saying it.

I think it should be common courtesy to use whatever vocabulary is appropriate and accessible to whoever is being addressed. Tip-toeing around the words you don't believe in like is the kind of bullshit that would lead to such gems as "by science!"

2029866

What the world needs to understand is two things:

1. Science may not have all the answers, we cannot completely say that the big bang happened because we did not say it, we cannot say something is completely certain if it happened before or will never happen again. However that doesn't mean it is obsolete, Science is our closest, most accurate and heavily tested answer to the universe and it changes every single day. Years ago we thought the earth was flat, that was their knowledge, now we know its round.

2.Religion and faith cannot and should not be explained, the point of faith is that you don't explain it. You aren't a fool for doing so because faith is what carried the human race forward in times that the world seemed bleak. Faith cannot be explained, faith is belief, it's blind hope. But that's what makes it so powerful. To explain faith destroys the purpose of faith itself.

2029866
I see no problem with and still use those terms; they are used to refer to periods of time.

I don't know any atheist who denies that religion has had an influence on science and culture, it has obviously had an effect, but just because one embraces what religion has wrought does not mean one needs to embrace the religion.

2030023
That definition of faith is an excuse to believe in absolutely nonsensical things, and that is why I have a problem with 'faith' in general. Religion is far more ridiculous than any of us can actually comprehend, as it has been in our culture for millenia. We've grown up with it, may be a part of it, or, as in my case, may have left it, and that makes us believe, even if we don't believe in the religion itself, that it is a commonplace thing and thus we give it extra credence. If someone comes up to you and tells you that they believe Elvis is still alive – a notion far less common and not deeply ingrained in society and culture – and that they don't have any evidence but it simply gives them hope (they also tell you that their beliefs cannot and should not be explained, for some reason that they can't justify), you'd laugh at them. Comparatively, religion is worse in the sense that we do not even have a coherent definition of what the word 'God' means – at least we actually knew who Elvis was. When I am asked, "Do you believe in God?" I reply with, "What's a God?"

If something cannot be explained, then we must endeavor and work tirelessly to try and explain, which is what Science does and continues to do, (to use your example of the Big Bang for instance). Science's job is to form explanations and make predictions about the nature of the universe, which includes everything on our Earth. To say 'Science can't explain everything' implies that there must be an alternative method for explaining things, which, as far as I know, there isn't. If you are referring to the supposed 'metaphysical world' (which is another concept that isn't logically meaningful), then the discovery of such a world would become science, and will be discovered by the methods of science. On the other hand, saying that something shouldn't be explained is simply willful ignorance, which is not a virtue and should be opposed at every turn.

2030069

No I say science can't explain everything because it's impossible, yes the facts line up yes it makes sense and yes many intelligent beings agree about it. But if we never saw it or properly document it. We can never 100% say that it happened. Because we can't. we can 99% say it happened because everything lines up but never 100%

My point about faith is not wilful ignorance. I'm not saying "God works in mysterious ways" I'm saying taking a leap of faith or placing faith or trust in another in hopes that something good comes of it. Of course this isn't a "tell me to jump off a cliff and I'll do it" But rather a "I will vote for this politician because I believe that he can make this country great" But we can NEVER know if he will or will not because everything and everyone changes with time. We can make our assumptions based of the knowledge we have but we can never know for sure. Which is why we should never get worked up about Heath Ledger being Joker or Ben Affleck as Batman. Because until it happens, we just don't know.

2029866
It really makes no difference. Both forms are valid, I'm sure both are used by both Christians and non-christians.

In Portuguese, we only have the religious version and that is fine too. As far as I'm concerned this is a non-issue.

2030075

No I say science can't explain everything because it's impossible, yes the facts line up yes it makes sense and yes many intelligent beings agree about it. But if we never saw it or properly document it. We can never 100% say that it happened. Because we can't. we can 99% say it happened because everything lines up but never 100%

You say this almost as if our eyes are the most reliable sources of information and knowledge; they're not. We cannot see atoms, yet they exist, this is a fact that has been proven beyond reasonable doubt. On the other hand, many people have claimed to have seen ghosts or spirits, which are not facts. The mere fact that you may have seen something doesn't make it true; our experiences are fallible, but what you are saying is not an argument that undermines science in the slightest, as science collates evidence to determine facts. A fact is something that has a plethora of evidence to support it and has held up to rigorous testing. The Big Bang is simply the prevailing scientific theory of the day, it could be totally disproven tomorrow. But all the evidence that we have in support of it, even though it happened before anything that ever lived could witness it, is a good reason to believe it happened.

My point about faith is not wilful ignorance. I'm not saying "God works in mysterious ways" I'm saying taking a leap of faith or placing faith or trust in another in hopes that something good comes of it. Of course this isn't a "tell me to jump off a cliff and I'll do it" But rather a "I will vote for this politician because I believe that he can make this country great" But we can NEVER know if he will or will not because everything and everyone changes with time.

This is a fairly common argument that I have encountered many times before. It stems from a simple confusion of what the word 'faith' actually means. Now, you might say "I have faith in my wife", but when you say that, I don't think you mean "I have absolutely nothing to back up my belief in the fact that my wife wife is a good woman, I just believe", no, you know many things about your wife. You can tell by the way she acts and the things she says that she loves you, and with that, you have gathered evidence to support your conclusion that your wife is a good woman. That is not faith, that is trust justified through experience. The same goes with the politician, you vote for them based off what they have done in the past and determine if they are trustworthy enough to uphold their claims. If they have a history of lying or passing laws contrary to what they promise now, you wouldn't vote for them. If you did, you would be an idiot.

We can make our assumptions based of the knowledge we have but we can never know for sure. Which is why we should never get worked up about Heath Ledger being Joker or Ben Affleck as Batman. Because until it happens, we just don't know.

I don't know much about Ben Afleck, but I'm guessing that the reason people don't want him to be Batman is because he doesn't have the personality for the role? If that is the case, it is once again an observation that is justified through experience: eg. I know Ben Affleck is an xyz type of actor because I have watched other movies featuring him, therefore he is not suited for the role of Batman.

That is not faith, that is not something that cannot be explained.

2030116>>2030075

I kinda think the both of y'all can agree to disagree. LunarLover has his belief, you have yours, how in the world does it affect you what does or doesn't believe? Whatever, I can see where you're coming from. For me, I just believe that there's something out there. For there to be a watch, there must be a watch maker.

I already get the feeling you'll get a counter arguement to that.

But quite honestly, I don't care. You have your opinion, I have mine. If anythin', I would like to discuss social science with ya.

2030476
Agreeing to disagree is overrated and boring. This is a group where the whole point is to argue after all, right?

I don't consider opinions sacred, we all have them, and I will fight to the death to allow us all to keep them (seriously, if there is one thing I'd never wish on my worst enemy, it would be to censor them), but I won't hesitate to pick apart opinions I disagree with. All in the pursuit of the truth my friend.
I don't care about what he believes, I'm just trying to express my opinion on the subject, which you are also free to pick apart as you wish, just expect a rebuttal.

As for the watchmaker argument, it is a fairly old case of the of the argument from design, I'm surprised to still see it around. It basically states that objects that are clearly very complex must be designed, but by what standard of complexity? When is it 'complex' enough? What evidence is there of this 'designer'? I won't go into more detail, too tired, and need to write sadfics .

You can believe that there's something out there, but until it can be demonstrated that there actually is a God(whatever that is)/Ancient Aliens etc. that started everything, I see no reason to believe any of it.

2029866

1. No, they should not use religious figures of speech because the phrases can be viewed as endorsements of one religion over another.

2. That's inconvenient as hell. Fuck it, use religious figures of speech.

2030075 With enough information science can explain anything and everything.

2031825

You fail to see the point. You can't explain something that never happens again. it's IMPOSSIBLE unless you have some sort of god powers (Which we don't) It can't happen because you don't witness it first hand. I am all for science but it does not and cannot have all the answers. it can have 99.999% of the answers but never 100% (As said before) However science is the closest thing we have to a accurate 'correct' answer in comparison to other theories on how the world works so we choose it as the answer

2032633

You can't explain something that never happens again. it's IMPOSSIBLE unless you have some sort of god powers (Which we don't) It can't happen because you don't witness it first hand.

That is nonsense

You don't need to witness something to understand what and how it happened. Often that is not even the best way to understand it.

2029866 Nice well put speech my friend.

To address the posts title; my answer would be...

It's not as if an atheist's intelligence is being drained by using "BC" instead of the "CE".

2032633 I'm sorry but that was a ridiculous statement. Just because you didn't witness it doesn't mean you can't prove it's existence.

2030023
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of science... But other people seem to already by addressing your points, and they're probably doing a better job than I ever could, so I'll just leave it at that.

As for the original topic 2029866:
I see no issue with atheists using religious figures of speech. As an atheist myself, I use plenty of religious figures of speech, probably even more than I am aware of. If you truly tried to not use any figures of speech and such that had religious origins... you are probably going to find your vocabulary much more limited than you would expect. Furthermore, I don't see any issue with using those phrases and such as long as everyone knows what you are talking about. I mean... they're just words. Words are used to convey meaning, and as long as the intended meaning is conveyed what is the problem?

Somewhat related: The people at Conservapedia despise Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Why? Because they claim that it is a trick to get people to believe in moral relativism. I think we can agree that's crazy talk. Likewise, I would consider it crazy-talk to actively try to avoid any and all figures of speech with religious origins.