So Neo, did you know that Atheism is a religion?

[Seth]

Ok Seth, here is the problem with your reasoning. You are saying that we have a philosophy with regards to the existence of gods. Sure, I'll give you that. I believe that gods do not exist.

So far so good. You have admitted to a belief system.

That alone however is the only thing that makes me an atheist.

So?

Anything else that I attach to that is my own personal philosophy. Atheism alone is not my personal philosophy.

So? Nothing in religion requires that a religion be based only on one belief. You may add any beliefs you like to your belief/practice set and configure your observance in any way you like. It's still religion.

I do however consider myself a Secular Humanist and don't particularly care if you call that a religion. I would agree with you on that.

Great, glad to hear it. Your attitude is remarkable in its uniqueness.

It's not that I despise the idea of having a religion per se. I just despise the glorified ignorance associated with faith based religions.

That's fine with me. You have every right to feel that way. But, people who adhere to faith-based religions have a right to be ignorant, and to glorify ignorance if that's what makes them happy. Moreover, since you cannot prove, using critically robust scientific evidence, that their assertions about God are wrong, your criticism of their beliefs is no more or less valid than their beliefs are. It is one of the fallacious conceits of Atheism that just because the theist cannot prove his claim using objective scientific evidence that this is somehow proof that the claim is false.

The absence of evidence, however, is not evidence of absence.

Now, what exactly is the point to all of this.

Vigorous discussion and debate, of course. What other point is required?

[charlou]

Atheism is a belief that gods do not exist.

Not for most atheists.

I completely disagree. I think it's perfectly obvious that almost all atheists have made a conscious decision to reject theistic god-claims, sometimes in virulent and confrontational way. The obfuscatory resort to the textbook definition is merely a common ploy by atheists to deflect any association with religion. I maintain that it is sophistry for anyone who argues against religion/theism, particularly those with obvious and well-known political, social or religious opinions regarding theistic claims to honestly try to maintain that they have a simple "absence of belief in gods."

Today certainly, as in the past, atheism has a significantly militant branch, including this forum, Ratskep and RDF, where the battle lines of opposing atheism actively are quite clearly drawn and anything but a simplistic "lack of belief."

Re the bolded parts ... rejecting theistic god claims is not the same as "belief that gods do not exist". Lack of evidence for gods is a good reason to reject theistic god claims.

Seth, from what I gather you've been around forums for some time, arguing this point ... Have you really not registered the difference between "belief that no gods exist", and "lack of belief that gods exist" (often described as atheistic agnosticism)? I am in the former camp, yet I acknowledge and appreciate the position of the latter.

[charlou]

Please don't let the following questions deter you from responding to my previous one ....

Today certainly, as in the past, atheism has a significantly militant branch, including this forum, Ratskep and RDF, where the battle lines of opposing atheism actively are quite clearly drawn and anything but a simplistic "lack of belief."

Presumably you meant opposing theism there ...


What is militant about discussion? And how does this support your notion that atheism is a religion?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

If atheism is a religion, wouldn't the priests and priestesses necessarily have to be naked?

I might attend services in that case.

[Feck]

Bullshit , That's like saying Germ theory is a religion or physics .It's also typical of theists who are ,almost without doubt, a waste of oxygen .

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Bullshit , That's like saying Germ theory is a religion or physics .It's also typical of theists who are ,almost without doubt, a waste of oxygen .

It's nice to have a half-mad Glenbeckistani around to help us remember why we fight, however.

[Svartalf]

If atheism is a religion, wouldn't the priests and priestesses necessarily have to be naked?

I might attend services in that case.

You could as well turn wiccan

[Gawdzilla Sama]

If atheism is a religion, wouldn't the priests and priestesses necessarily have to be naked?

I might attend services in that case.

You could as well turn wiccan

"Something Wiccan This Way Comes"?

[amused]

I reject *organized* religion because each one invariably has a list of "what we believe" that you have to accept to be a member. That list usually includes some very specific details about how their god supposedly operates. Those are truth claims about the reality of the universe and are made without any supporting evidence. It's a leap of faith.

I don't know if there is an intelligence at work across the universe or not. I'm pretty sure that all organized religions are wrong, because they make claims to knowing things that just aren't knowable. So when I reject organized religion, and their gods, it's a position that I've come to by considering the evidence and then rejecting religion's claims to truth.

After that, I don't see that I have a religion because I don't make any truth claims about the existence of an all encompassing intelligence in the universe nor how that intelligence might operate. There may or may not be one, that's a matter of scientific discovery. I think claims that atheism is a religion are an attempt to drag skepticism and inquiry down to the level of faith.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

If people want to use religion to feel better, it's cheaper than drugs I guess. However, when they try to make other people follow their own little fantasy, that's when the fighting starts.

[Coito ergo sum]

Ok Seth, here is the problem with your reasoning. You are saying that we have a philosophy with regards to the existence of gods. Sure, I'll give you that. I believe that gods do not exist.

So far so good. You have admitted to a belief system.

No, you assume too much. A belief is a belief, not a system. Atheism is one single belief - there are no gods. It is NOTHING ELSE. Atheists may hold other beliefs too, but those other beliefs are not atheism.

That alone however is the only thing that makes me an atheist.

So?

So, it's not a belief system, religion, or philosophy. It's a belief (or nonbelief).

Anything else that I attach to that is my own personal philosophy. Atheism alone is not my personal philosophy.

So? Nothing in religion requires that a religion be based only on one belief. You may add any beliefs you like to your belief/practice set and configure your observance in any way you like. It's still religion.

Not believing in gods, or believing there are no gods, is not a religion. A religion is "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs." Atheism is not a set of beliefs. It's a belief, or nonbelief.

It's not that I despise the idea of having a religion per se. I just despise the glorified ignorance associated with faith based religions.

That's fine with me. You have every right to feel that way. But, people who adhere to faith-based religions have a right to be ignorant, and to glorify ignorance if that's what makes them happy. Moreover, since you cannot prove, using critically robust scientific evidence, that their assertions about God are wrong, your criticism of their beliefs is no more or less valid than their beliefs are. It is one of the fallacious conceits of Atheism that just because the theist cannot prove his claim using objective scientific evidence that this is somehow proof that the claim is false.

It doesn't prove the claim is false, but it does prove that there is no proof for the claim.

Moreover atheists CAN have religions (like atheistic religions), but they don't have to be. Atheism qua atheism is not a religion, in and of itself.

The absence of evidence, however, is not evidence of absence.

It quite often is. If there is an absence of evidence where one would expect to have evidence, then it is evidence of absence. A person claims he threw a rock straight up in the air, and I have no evidence of it, but I wait a few seconds and no rock descends back to Earth, the absence of the evidence of the appearance of a rock is evidence of the absence of that rock. Even if a rock does descend, it may not be absolute proof that the person threw the rock in the air, of course. It may have been coincidentally dropped by a large bird. However, the fact that no rock descends is evidence that no rock was thrown up, because we would expect that evidence to be there.

That's pretty much how science generally works. A theory posits a prediction - that prediction is a prediction of what evidence we expect to find. When we don't find the expected evidence, it is evidence of absence (the incorrectness of the theory).

[camoguard]

Your full post with my original comment as well

Thank you for your insightful reply, something that is relatively unusual.

Unfortunately, while "atheism" as a pure philosophical concept (lack of belief in gods), in the "implicit atheism" sense advances no position, all forms of explicit atheism do in fact advance a position; that gods do not exist. This is a natural function of the examination of the evidence presented by theistic claims and the active rejection of the truth of those claims. By levying a negative truth-value judgment upon a theistic claim, one necessarily advances the claim that the claim is invalid. That in and of itself does not a religious act make, but that is the foundational belief upon which an edifice of religion may be constructed.

How is deconstructionism, which is what you're claiming about atheism, any different than any other religious dogma? Undoing a change is change. A philosophy of change, whatever it might be, becomes religious practice when it meets the standard of being followed "devotedly" as a "matter of ethics or conscience."

If we're going to say what atheism correlates with or what atheism can be then we've got a speculative conversation that spins in circles. Do we want atheism to qualify for a religion is probably a good question to determine some biases. And the reason that's relevant is that if I can show that atheism is possible to have without a religion, I think I've won the point that atheism isn't sufficient to determine if a religion is being used. But then I expect you'll make the point that atheism can be used as a religion. I think that's also true. There are two kinds of atheism at minimum now and they relate at the no gods point but I think one of them is not a religion. I'm going to focus on the kind of atheism that I think would not count as a religion.

"Undoing a change is a change." True. At that granularity, I'm in agreement. When we talk about the belief in no gods, I'm guilty of a lack of precision. What if I said my belief is in the material world. It sounds like a belief but I think it plays differently and closer to what I'm attempting to say. If I walk into a room and list the contents of the room, it won't include a god. And if I do include a god, you can ask "where" and I won't be able to demonstrate it. I think that's a fair assumption. But for you to say I am committed to the idea that something I can't perceive isn't present, then I would like to object.

Things that I can't perceive can exist. However, on the basis of what I think is good logic, I cannot operate as if I know the things I can't perceive do exist. What I intend when I slap the atheist adjective on myself is that a Christian will ask me why atheists gather because atheists don't have prayer, rituals et cetera. They are thus acknowledging the asymmetry which uncovers that there is something categorically different in the quality of what we would collectively agree are beliefs. Atheists gather as atheists but then act as people. It's like there's no gay marriage unless you'd like to discuss a special category of marriage that only includes same sex coupling. To me "atheism" is a retronym that I use as a shorthand because I'm lazy. I don't have a religion. I have a passionate belief that people can operate without guessing that there is a god. I wouldn't at all be an atheist if one were spotted. I'm not really holding a belief that there is no god so much as a belief that the current religions are mistaken by virtue of faulty principles.

You used the word deconstruction and I think that nearly hits the nail on the head. A lack of beliefs may seem like a belief but dropping traditions isn't a tradition. You may see it as the belief analogy. I see it as the tradition analogy.

[Seth]

Atheism is a belief that gods do not exist.

Not for most atheists.

I completely disagree. I think it's perfectly obvious that almost all atheists have made a conscious decision to reject theistic god-claims, sometimes in virulent and confrontational way. The obfuscatory resort to the textbook definition is merely a common ploy by atheists to deflect any association with religion. I maintain that it is sophistry for anyone who argues against religion/theism, particularly those with obvious and well-known political, social or religious opinions regarding theistic claims to honestly try to maintain that they have a simple "absence of belief in gods."

Today certainly, as in the past, atheism has a significantly militant branch, including this forum, Ratskep and RDF, where the battle lines of opposing atheism actively are quite clearly drawn and anything but a simplistic "lack of belief."

Re the bolded parts ... rejecting theistic god claims is not the same as "belief that gods do not exist". Lack of evidence for gods is a good reason to reject theistic god claims.

Seth, from what I gather you've been around forums for some time, arguing this point ... Have you really not registered the difference between "belief that no gods exist", and "lack of belief that gods exist" (often described as atheistic agnosticism)? I am in the former camp, yet I acknowledge and appreciate the position of the latter.

The problem is that the latter is a semantic pettifoggery used by some atheists to evade the necessary implication of having formed a belief about god-claims. I see it often in these sorts of debates from those who are uncomfortable with the idea that they could be dabbling in religion as a result of being a militant or radical Atheist. Few and far between are the individuals who are simply so ignorant of the controversy between atheism and religion that they can genuinely claim to have no opinion one way or the other. And once you state an opinion on the subject of atheism, or theism for that matter, you're basing that opinion on a belief, the belief that the god-claims of theists are insufficient to be rationally supportable. That is not a "lack of belief," that is a firm belief in the error of the theistic claims and an active rejection of those claim.

Combine that belief with others regarding Atheism's place in society, law and culture, and you have the basis for the Atheist religion.

[Coito ergo sum]

Atheism is a belief that gods do not exist.

Not for most atheists.

I completely disagree. I think it's perfectly obvious that almost all atheists have made a conscious decision to reject theistic god-claims, sometimes in virulent and confrontational way. The obfuscatory resort to the textbook definition is merely a common ploy by atheists to deflect any association with religion. I maintain that it is sophistry for anyone who argues against religion/theism, particularly those with obvious and well-known political, social or religious opinions regarding theistic claims to honestly try to maintain that they have a simple "absence of belief in gods."

Today certainly, as in the past, atheism has a significantly militant branch, including this forum, Ratskep and RDF, where the battle lines of opposing atheism actively are quite clearly drawn and anything but a simplistic "lack of belief."

Re the bolded parts ... rejecting theistic god claims is not the same as "belief that gods do not exist". Lack of evidence for gods is a good reason to reject theistic god claims.

Seth, from what I gather you've been around forums for some time, arguing this point ... Have you really not registered the difference between "belief that no gods exist", and "lack of belief that gods exist" (often described as atheistic agnosticism)? I am in the former camp, yet I acknowledge and appreciate the position of the latter.

The problem is that the latter is a semantic pettifoggery used by some atheists to evade the necessary implication of having formed a belief about god-claims. I see it often in these sorts of debates from those who are uncomfortable with the idea that they could be dabbling in religion as a result of being a militant or radical Atheist. Few and far between are the individuals who are simply so ignorant of the controversy between atheism and religion that they can genuinely claim to have no opinion one way or the other. And once you state an opinion on the subject of atheism, or theism for that matter, you're basing that opinion on a belief, the belief that the god-claims of theists are insufficient to be rationally supportable. That is not a "lack of belief," that is a firm belief in the error of the theistic claims and an active rejection of those claim.

Combine that belief with others regarding Atheism's place in society, law and culture, and you have the basis for the Atheist religion.

Active rejection of a religion or a god is not a religion or a god.

This "atheist religion" nonsense is just the manufacturing of a term in which to lump all atheists, whether they like it or not, into the same camp. In other words, you may be an atheist, but accept none of the principles of this "atheist religion" you're clamoring about, but you still label the atheist part of that atheist religion. You extend the disbelief in god to these other "beliefs regarding atheism's place in society, law and culture..."

I know some atheists who think that Christianity is good and that most people need to believe in religions because those people are stupid and need a crutch. Is that part of the atheist religion?

If your argument is that some individuals have sets of beliefs which they follow as unthinkingly as religion, then sure, that's true. But that doesn't make atheism a religion. That makes whatever those people believe religions.

[Svartalf]

Actually, it is in the interest of organized religion to falsely and artificially classify atheists as members of an atheist religion, just so they can lump them together and think of them as just a rival religion, which obviates the need to think about their actual views, or to rethink their own world view in the face of this "abnormal" attitude.