Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Arcus on May 7, 2011 at 8:10pm

"Say Atheism WAS a religion in of itself"

We shouldn't progress down this path of argumentation because it's defeataism at its utmost. You are saying that "say there's something which is real which isn't really real". It's like you don't want to admit that you truly are an atheist. That must necessitate something else than reality having an impact, which necessitates the study of something else than realism. Realism is a belief in what we can observe (science). Insanity is a belief in what we cannot observe (pseudoscience). Let's not legitimize the latter by tarnishing the former, we don't need to needlessly defend it.

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Permalink Reply by Nate Bauder on May 7, 2011 at 8:30pm

Ah I see your point. To be honest, I was refering to a comic I had read earlier today which made a good point (and a slight chuckle)

http://unfollowingjesus.com/pictures/polyatheism/

 

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Permalink Reply by Arcus on May 8, 2011 at 3:14am

That's pretty hilarious, nothing like comedy pointing out hypocrisy.

Defending religion is a bit of a Sisyphean task - I just want to make sure you actually want it. ;)

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Permalink Reply by Mo Trauen on May 8, 2011 at 1:11pm

I think your reply was a good one.  Calling atheism a religion is just another way of claiming that we have the burden of proving god doesn't exist.  Pointing out that the religious can't prove that other people's gods don't exist is a good way to de-bunk that idea.

 

(Though I should add with regard to the cartoon that the Muslims believe that their god is the same as the Christian god--they just believe different things about Jesus and Mohammed.  It is good to know this beforehand in case some educated Christian happens to bring it up.  Though in my experience even the educated ones seem totally unaware of this.)

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Permalink Reply by Ron on May 8, 2011 at 12:13pm

If the lack of belief in something is a belief system or religion, then I have a lot of religions. I have the I don't believe in leprechauns religion, the I don't believe in the greek gods (sheesh, that's a bunch of religions right there), the I don't believe Obama is a foreigner religion..... If atheism is a religion, then the term religion has no meaning at all.

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Permalink Reply by Boomzy on May 8, 2011 at 12:25pm

I would say that it is not so much a religion as just an epistemology. It is just another idea of what exists.

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Permalink Reply by Rob on May 8, 2011 at 1:22pm

I don't think of Atheism as a religion.  I think of it as a non-belief in a supreme spiritual being, or any spiritual being for that matter.  If I categorized every belief I have as a religion, my belief that the Earth is round, that my saxophone is made of brass, or that when I die there nothing after that moment for me as an individual, and all similar beliefs would become religions, and I don't think that's very rational.  I prefer to answer "none" when asked which religion I follow.  In fact, I'm anti-religion in so many ways, why would I want someone to tag me as being religious because I don't believe in something?

 

Just my two cents...

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Permalink Reply by Al Stefanelli on May 8, 2011 at 2:13pm

Here's some of my take on it:

It is suggested by many people that atheism is a religion.  Before we can examine why atheism is sometimes defined as a belief, it is important to understand who defines it as such.  Rarely, if ever, will you find another atheist, agnostic, freethinker, humanist, secularist, etc., putting the definition of religion in the context of atheism.  Almost without exception, it is the religious who do so.  The reason is simple.  The religious are are so caught up in their own beliefs that imagining another person without having any religious beliefs is largely incomprehensible. Those who claim that atheism is a religion do not only lack a clear understanding of what atheism is, they also tend to use religious terms to describe atheism.

You can read the rest of my article here..

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Permalink Reply by Rob on May 8, 2011 at 2:34pm

From your article, I take it you are the originator of, "Atheism is a religion like off is a television channel."  A lovely analogy. 

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Permalink Reply by Dale Headley on May 8, 2011 at 3:35pm

It is of no concern to me if people want to call atheism a religion, just so long as it's understood that it not a theistic religion.  And if they understand that it is a set of beliefs based on observable, demonstrable, provable, empirical, scientific evidence, while theirs is based on nothing but wishful thinking.

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Permalink Reply by Terry Wittek on May 8, 2011 at 3:41pm

family guy did an episode with peter creating his own religion centering around "the fonz" from happy days. hilarious. anyway, i agree with the definition from the dictionary. a religion must have a supernatural element so atheism is not a religion. this can be explained with one of newton's laws, action/reaction: we are simply a group of people forced to label ourselves because another group labeled themselves. seriously though, we should create a religion like scientology and profit from it. let's do a scientific/psychological experiment, and see how many christians we can convert :)

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Permalink Reply by Skycomet the Fallen Angel on May 8, 2011 at 4:11pm

No atheism is not a religion.

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