Do you think atheism is a religion in itself?
If you really think about it there are fanatics on both sides. Religion is really only
a group of people believing in a certain way. Atheism to me is the same way
my beliefs and the right to them. I like to live my life with my own beliefs
so I do not begrudge anyone else in their beliefs.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Don on -
Alan, this is sometimes a problem, I agree--the co-option of perfectly good words like "belief" and "faith." But that doesn't mean we atheists cannot still use them with care. We can, as long as we are scrupulous in explaining ourselves.
As I have written earlier in this thread, true and valid beliefs arise only from knowledge. There's no other trustworthy place to find them. When theists use "beliefs" to refer to things that they insist can be known without any evidence, and when they insist that wishful thinking is knowledge, they have righteously and arrogantly corrupted the essential meanings of both words, "belief" and "knowledge."
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Permalink Reply by Luka Rek on -
The Greek skepticists were those whose only rule of conduct was to refrain from making any kind of claims. But people realized very early on what I have written in my post: that the position of refraining from making claims is a result of a belief that nothing we believe in can be absolutely validated. That kind of a position is absurd and does not improve us as human beings. You also have solipsists who believe the only thing that really exist is them. However, a large percentage of humankind functions on the precepts of certain beliefs which cannot truly be verified, yet it would be hard to even imagine living without them. For example, you must believe that you exist, that other things beside you exist, and that there is something you can know with a relatively high chance of probability about yourself and the world around you. I think there is no one (or almost no one) who does not believe these, so therefore you are not a theist or anything of the kind. Generally speaking, you can talk about religious and/or superstitious people as postulating entities for whose existence there is no viable proof in order to ascribe meaning to otherwise unexplained things or events. This is the role that in today`s society science is assigned to and has, up until now, refuted many religious and superstitious beliefs. But somehow the things created for the sake of explanation got a life of their own and now, after they have been found inadequate, redundant, or even absurd, those people refuse to give up on them and accept a validated scientific explanation. If any of your beliefs concern entities which are not or cannot be validated by any scientific method then you are a part of this group. If they are not, you are not
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Permalink Reply by You should worship me on -
Religions tend to worship a deity. Atheists tend to shun that which is not tangible nor proven. Case closed.
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Permalink Reply by Wesley on -
An atheist is simply someone who doesn't give any creedence to any of the god proposals or definitions.
It is similar to those who don't think there's enough evidence to believe in fairies.. Just because I don't believe in fairies doesn't make my non-fairy-acceptance into a religion. I don't feel the need to start the First United Church of Non-Fairieism'. There's just too many things I don't accept the validity of because there's not enough evidence to support the proposal or definition in the first place.
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Permalink Reply by Don on
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No, Jared, atheism cannot be said to be a religion, not with any justice, not even when some atheists assert a kind of dogma or certainty. The attributes of religion are simply nowhere evident in atheism. Atheists have no belief in gods. That's it.
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Permalink Reply by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on -
Theism isn't a religion, so a-theism isn't either.
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Permalink Reply by Don on
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Most theists profess to subscribe to one system of belief or another, while most atheists do not.
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Permalink Reply by Shawn Murphy on
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Atheism to me is a descriptive term that merely describes a belief in self-determinism. I had to think twice about even joining this group, as it did seem a bit like giving in to Atheism being a belief. A great portion of my disgust with religion, is the immense waste of time that a good portion of it involves. Although there are good deeds performed by religious groups, by and large a great percentage of time given to religion is pure waste. Who knows what good could have been done for society using that time, but then who knows what good I could be doing instead of posting here. If that makes any sense.
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Permalink Reply by Rob on -
What disturbs me more about religion than the time wasted is the money wasted on trappings, edifices and the enrichment of cult leaders that could be used to help cure some of society's many ills such as hunger and disease.
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Permalink Reply by Don on
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I have posted these links elsewhere in this discussion, but they are worth offering again.
Please see this, by Greta Christina: "Is Atheism a Belief?"
And this: "Do You Care Whether the Things You Believe in Are True?"
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