An Idea Regarding Atheism

The American government is ture as per the religion is concerned . They are very strict towards such where the Govt. takes care highly. So it is a religion which is very much anti to it and it will not be accepted.


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Oh come on kilgram.... what is wrong with a little sense of humor? It is done quite often from the other side directed toward the Theists.

 

OK. Correct me if I'm wrong but the one item that makes or breaks your recognition of a place a church, at least as far as the administrative portion goes, is fidelity to Jesus?

 

Absolute fidelity. Not to be shared with the state or any other man-made object. Legally speaking, the State is a person, the court is a person, any corporation is a person, any business that is licensed by the state, county, city, municipality is a person. When the administrative part of the church stipulates by agreement that the church will abide by the laws of that other person as opposed to abiding by the laws of Christ, then that administrative part of the church has for all intents and purposes committed adultery.

 

So, when we take into account that the church of freethought not only is one of those tax exempt businesses and never had any relation with Jesus whatsoever, it would appear the purpose from the conception point on was, to borrow your term, whoring and this is clearly something you do not recognize as a church in anything but the name.

Why should I or anyone else?

 

Administratively and legalistically it is a Church. Just like all the others that are administratively and legalistically. In the reality of secular government. Secularism if what some people want, and secularism is what they are getting. So if you don't like what secularism is doing, then don't be a part of the secularist government. The Great Whore. So that group of Atheists in Texas wanting the benefits of secular government, so they got those benefits only by wearing the titles of Religious (by act of the Supreme Court) and Church by signing an agreement with the State. Welcome to the world of Religion in and within a secular government.

You seem satisfied that you can justify this scenario as being only 'in name'. I would ask you: what is a church by any other name but a church; or, what is religion by any other name but religion?

 

Incorporeal,

I don't understand how you got here (and I tried reading back). When I last posted, the issue in question was the claim that atheism is a religon.

All this back-and-forth about some "Freethinking Church" in Texas seems entirely irrelevant to that point. Nobody has said religions need to be theistic - most Pagans, some Bhuddists and Scientiologists follow atheistic religions and there are probably a whole load more (varying depending on the exact definition of deity).

There are also lots of theistic religions of course, but that doesn't mean theism itself is a religion. I'm sure you'd agree that simply believing in the existance of God doesn't make someone a Christian.

The clear conclusion remains that the fundamental concept of atheism is not a religion. What all the different people who are, among lots of other things, atheist do or say doesn't make the blindest bit of difference, to either atheism as a concept or to any of the other people around the world who are atheist.

 

You made a statement at the top showing a confusion as to how my discussion of the church in Texas came into the conversation, then at the bottom you make another statement regarding your clear conclusion. In between those two points, you offer a variety of justifications/rationalizations in an attempt to offset what I have pointed out regarding that church in Texas.

No! The church in Texas does not speak for the entirety of the Atheistic community; nor does the laws in the United States have any force and effect in other countries. But I am in the United States and so is Texas and that church. Therefore, the laws of the United States and specifically the Laws of Texas apply to that church in Texas. The Supreme Court declared Atheism to be a religion for the purpose of the 1st Amendment and in so doing, gave the Atheist community all the rights and privileges as any other religion.... including the right to open their own church.

In the United States, Atheism bears all the rights and privileges of a religion and has been legally recognized as a religion to insure those rights and privileges.

 

I'm not "offsetting" anything about the Texas church - we seem to be in agreement on it's status. My only issue is that the status of that individual church or any like it says absolutely nothing about the status of atheism as a concept, exactly as the status of Christian, Jewish or Muslim religious organisations say nothing about the status of theism. Theism is not a religion, atheism is not a religion.

The US Supreme Court is making practical rulings to try to protect all US citizens from discrimination. It has certainly granted atheists the same protections as people following a religion and has made some statements directly declaring atheism a religion. It can declare anything it wants of course, and that will apply in US law - it can declare whether a foetus is legally a human being or not or if a transsexual is legally a man or a woman. It can't change reality.

Beyond legalistic compromise, national borders and human flaws, atheism still remains a description of a single belief and religion remains a description of sets of beliefs and practices. Legally that doesn't really matter - consistency is the key factor there. Philosophically though, these distinctions are vital.

 

Tell you what. If you are here in the United States, make it a point to go to Washington DC and tell them folks up there at the US Supreme Court building your concerns and tell them that they don't know what they are talking about and tell them especially that Atheism is not a Religion. While you are doing all of this up there in Washington DC, make sure that you don't have anything on you that can in any way be construed as a weapon. Good luck on that one, So until you get those folks up there straightened out, your arguments on this forum in that regard are pointless.

 

So your position is that if the US Supreme Court rules on something, it becomes an undeniable fact and any further questions or discussions are pointless?

I guess I better get off to "church" then.

 

I don't know when you're joking. Normally you say so many barbarities seriously, so I am not able to differenciate the joke from the serious. And more coming from a religious, some kind of style of joke I will take it seriously, so he really believes that.

 

Well, my jokes can be no more or no less 'serious' in nature than the 'barbarities' that some of the non-theists throw on the screen with regard to the Theist beliefs. Tit for Tat.

 

Atheist muslims???????

Sorry but that is incomprehensible to me.

If you are asking whether there are muslims who left Islam, then I suggest typing the word "ex-muslims" in google search, and you'll find that there are plenty. The vast majority do not vocalise it because that would be unhealthy.

 

Many religious people claim that atheism is a religion.....Most athiests say that it is the lack of religion.

 

Well, actually they chant and bleet that it is not a religion, making it sound an awful lot like a religion.

 

Then per the OP question that's been largely ignored, should Atheism be a protected religious freedom? Should it be allowed to establish tax-free churches?

 

Well, seemingly, the individual who filed a suit in Federal Court and took the issue all the way to the Supreme Court of the US, must have believed that such a religious protection was needed for the Atheist community. That individual won the suit and now Atheism shares the burden as well as the privilege of being recognized in the United States as a 'religion' for the purposes of the 1st Amendment. Congratulations to that inmate who fought for and won his right to religious freedom.

 

Is scientology represented in the legislature? OF course not. My view of what you were saying is that religions are given representation in government. They aren't. They are recognized by government, which is a different thing. That is just the case for tax exemption. There are atheist "churches" that get tax exemptions.

 

Not at all. In Origin of Species, Darwin makes note of a Creator.



http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F387&viewtype=text&pageseq=82

 

Yes, indeed he does speak of a creator... of course... not naming that 'creator'. Some would even say that such a 'creator' would be the Big Bang or Nature itself. So, as you can see, his mention of 'a creator' means nothing.

 

My only point being that it wouldn't be a good atheist text. It has nothing to do with being anti-religion.

 

Athiesm is a religion in the sense it is built upon a belief or faith. That belief being 'there is no god'. It is not an organized institution however (with the exception of that one chruch i guess), which is why many people claim it is not a religion due to the confusion between having a religious belief and being bound by a recognized religious instituion.

the following quote is from Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead' when a character is addressing an individual on his lack of faith.

"It doesn't matter if you don't believe in God, Mr. Roark; you are a profoundly religious man, in your own way."

This was of course referring to the fact Roark believed heavily in the ideas of individualism and the human spirit to overcome all obstacles. He is religious in the sense that these are his belief and guidelines on how he lives his life. Not in the sense he belonged to any sort of organized or recognized faith.

 

That truly explains why there are so many atheists that use the works of Darwin as a basis for arguing against the Bible story of the creation of Man. So, contrary to your suggestion, facts are facts and in this case the fact is that a whole heap of atheists use that book and other writings of Darwin as a part of their arsenal for launching attacks against Christianity.

 

Or, more accurately, freedom from religion. Under the loose definition you've used to qualify Atheism as a religion, the belief that the sun is going to rise tomorrow is a religion.

More specifically:

The Court, in this case, properly recognized that Mr. Kaufman's right to form a group with people who shared similar beliefs was a protected right. Unless the prison system had excluded all gatherings with regard to religion, prohibiting a group of atheists to gather is a violation of the Establishment Clause.

As we've seen, and despite the "shock" headlines to the contrary, they didn't declare that atheism was a religion, they declared that atheism was afforded equal protection with religions under the Establishment Clause.

In the end, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law and ensured that Religious Freedom is a concept that applies to everyone equally. Apart from the reference to an atheist "code of ethics", I don't think anyone could reasonably ask for a better decision.

http://www.atheist-community.org/library/articles/read.php?id=742