Atheism is/is not a religion

Word games, eh? Is a symbolic leader not a leader?

 

As an Apatheist: definitely NOT a religion...

 

No worries, you still have Dawkins and Harris, Hitchens died ... they are called referrent leaders.

 

It's too late.

Darwinian Evolution has already been proven wrong. That isn't to say that the overarching Theory of Evolution has to be thrown out entirely; it doesn't.

It just has to accept the new information: that Evolution isn't random; it's PROGRAMMED.

Now here's something interesting: Science may have to adjust its own rules, as information like Shapiro is presenting is clearly scientific, but obviously challenges the boundaries of what the Scientific Method has been written to contemplate.

Attempts to deny that manifests confirmation bias from secularists who view Science as their replacement for believing they need any faith at all - while simultaneously employing it in Science itself. You aren't supposed to be resistent to new discoveries - even if they lead you to inescapable conclusions that make you extremely uncomfortable. If Science is your faith, then you will be resistant to attempts to change its core guidance. That has been done before, however: and done to remove consideration of any metaphysics. I submit to you that it was wrong then, and the present time is now providing evidence regarding why it is wrong (even though those of us who have seen Science continually employed as a tool to defeat religion have always known it).

And these discoveries should make atheists/secularists exceedingly uncomfortable. If you resist the knowledge these new discoveries provide, and attempt to suppress the ramifications, you've ceased to make Science an open and wondrous tool through which Man explores, and you've turned it into an agent of propaganda.

Shapiro's own research illustrates the legitimacy of contemplating Intelligent Design, because his research tears down Darwinism, which is the foundation of Secular Science. Shapiro himself has said repeatedly that he is not an "ID proponent" - likely because he has (perhaps intelligently) decided that ID is a political hot potato (due to people like you, and - in addition - due to people who attempted to co-opt ID as a religious venture - it isn't).

Let he who has eyes see, however: it is inevitable that Shapiro's research will grant new credibility to the notion

As he - and others - say, if Science cannot even consider anything metaphysical, that is a shortcoming of Science, whose metrics were intentionally constructed to create a false dichotomy. Science should not preclude Creationism or any other belief, but it has been intentionally constructed to do so, and then elevated to a supposed unassailable platform built to allow people like you to deride any challenges to its stature.

That platform is crumbling. You will be forced to address the obvious shortcoming of building the Scientific Method to disqualify as possible any supernatural source of design or instigation.

I finish my post with your quote, because you just proved my assertion. Evolution does nothing of the sort, and any attempts to contort it into such an attempt is illegitimate. How, exactly is Science supposed to be able to disprove God when you and others insist that it cannot even consider it? What kind of stupid experiment goes about simultaneously proving something doesn't exist when its mission statement declares that it cannot consider it with which to begin?

You've highlighted the flaw in 'Science' as well as it can be illustrated.

 

Perhaps to Atheists, it could be. I, for one, cannot consider a symbol something which would lead me. To Atheists, however - in the absence of anything else concrete - it's the best they can proffer to galvanize and coalesce their movement.

The word games were played by you. You're the one who attempted to separate my statement into isolated words to attempt to draw meaning which changes in so doing.

 

So according to the overall consensus of this thread the theists here are certain that Atheism is a religion.

However theists generally get upset when an Atheist makes the claim that all the most horrible atrocities throughout history are the work of religions.

Theists usually point to Stalin, Mao, or North Korea as a rebuttal to this claim.

But if Atheism is actually a religion then how is that claim false?

 

Interesting, when I rebutted that oft made claim by atheists using the exact same logic you just applied ... the branded me a troll and swamped the mod team with complaints. I wonder what they will do to one of their own making the same case?

Now, as atheists do tend to skip over things, the point that I, and many of my peers make is that any ideology linked to political power can be corrupted, and that atheism is not immune to it - ergo the snide finger pointing is decidedly hypocritical and deliberately scoped to be anti-Christian.

Do you agree or disagree with the later? Noting that your peers called your analysis when it was pesented to them, flame bait?

 

Science does not claim to disprove God, people claim that science does. They are wrong. But, the flipside is people who use faulty logic and say that the fact that Earth exists proves God, or that the bible proves God, or any of the arguments whose conclusion is based on a faulty subjective interpretation of the premise. The reality is, neither side can prove they are right and that the other side is wrong, at least not yet. So when it comes to discussions about the origin of the universe, or the origin of life on Earth, both sides operate on faith, though science tends to want to back up claims with evidence whereas religious folks are happy to take it on faith.

 

I'm not - I brought it up, remember? Do you think I cited a Court case to do anything else but assert that Atheism has legally been called a religion?

WTF else do you think Courts do? I'll reassert: you're attempting to argue a distinction without a difference, because it's the only cubbyhole you have left to argue.

Nuh uh, yours does.

That has nothing to do with the argument. You're throwing up flak to attempt to deflect from the overarching point: those who have taken the side of this argument that asserts that Atheism is a religion have won this debate.

 

Nope junkie, and perhaps this does not apply to you, but plenty of your peers make exactly that claim, including the scion Richard Dawkins, which is why we see the ritualistic denunciation of Creationism as if all religions hinge of a literalist interpretation of Genesis?

We also have atheists who repeatedly claim that atheism is ANYTHING but a faith. Only, as you acknowledge, that is not so.

So, the question is, how did modern atheism become so detached from the reality of logic is claims?

 

So...you as well are going with the "Atheism isn't a religion, but atheists can use it as such - but that doesn't make it a religion" argument?





Here's the facts: you just witnessed a poster doing exactly what you said is wrong. It doesn't matter that you say it's wrong: what matters is that it happens, because to these people, it is their religion. They are stating it as an article of faith. These Atheists have co-opted Science as a wing of their belief system.

Claiming it is wrong is moot - just like claiming that Islamic terrorists are wrong doesn't inoculate Islam from being accused of being a religion of violence.

It's still a religion.

You're conflating people's personal belief systems and expressions with the leading edge of the actual argument itself, which I offered just a glimpse of with Shapiro's work. You may not understand it - Grasping clearly stated that he/she doesn't either - but I do. And what it means to your ideology is monumental. It means that you have to somehow explain how programming arises from accident.

This entire argument comes down to that core question: Accident, or Design? The problem you have is that secularists have hung on the assertion that Evolution is an accidental process that uses statistics to explain advancement. That argument is no longer available to you. So now what can you possibly offer that logically or scientifically explains evolution, if punctuated equilibrium and Random Mutation is no longer available to you?

That's an 'uh oh' of epic proportions to your side. The implications literally destroy your belief system.

But don't worry: I'm sure the lot of you will employ faith to preserve your belief systems as you have before.

While simultaneously claiming that such employment is in no way a manifestation of a religion.

Um...you haven't been paying attention. Your side has been proven wrong. Punctuated Equilibrium and Random Mutation are dead. I think I saw Grasping for Straws claiming that Shapiro is "misrepresenting McClintock's work". Um...the guy/girl who doesn't understand this stuff nonetheless attempts to claim that what they do not understand is being misrepresented??



Shapiro is the cutting edge of molecular genetics & biology. If he was misrepresenting McClintock's work, he wouldn't be.

Um...your statement of admission is enough. Both sides operate on faith. Your claim that 'science tends to back up claims with evidence" is a red herring. There is either scientific proof eliminating the need for faith, or there is going back to the drawing board. Complete fail.

 

Please. Do you or do you not consider the FSM do be any kind of leader of atheists?

Yes? Then you're flat wrong.
No? Then you shouldn't have said that it is.

It's that simple.

 

Atheism is not a religion. Secular humanism and Buddhism are examples of atheistic religions, but atheism itself is not. Just like believing in God does not make you religious, it makes you spiritual. Believing in a certain interpretation and theory on God, especially one that others do, that has history, leaders, and organization, a code of ethics, and laws, is religion, like Christianity or Islam. If I did believe in a god but not in Christ or Mohammad or the prophets of the various religions, would I be religious?

Theism/Atheism describe whether you have a belief in a higher power or not. That's it. Religion is a somewhat coordinated., somewhat predetermined method of HOW you believe what you believe. It's a way of choosing a path. For example, devout Catholics believe in God and Christ in the way that Catholicism says it happened. Same with Islam and Muslims. Atheism itself does not have this, it just describes the presence of a belief or not. If you want to attack atheism as a religion, you have to attack an atheistic religion. A deist and a Christian can be one and the same, but they don't have to be. As I said, you can believe in a higher power but your belief in it does not have to follow the way any of our religions say it should.

Shapiro's work is too young to start tearing down everything. It's very interesting, and could end up changing evolutionary biology as we know it, but it's too early to tell. More research is needed. Now, I'm sure you're going to interpret that as me not wanting to believe it, but then I could just as easily say that you're eager to believe something that validates your own belief system(or at least appears to, because even if evolution is "programmed", it doesn't speak to who or what does the programming).

Random mutation is not dead in the slightest bit, unless you're suggesting that mutations that occur which do not get perpetuated in the species are programmed to manifest just to die out. Seems kind of silly.

Logical fallacy.

It's not a red herring, it's the truth. It's the entire process upon which science is built. You derive your conclusion from the evidence, not your evidence from the conclusion which religion does.

 

I missed this post. You really don't understand the topic, do you? There is much more than I'm about to explain, but I'll give you the basics.

Shapiro's (and McClintock's) research has definitively proven that evolution is not based upon random mutation, but - instead - an internal mechanism that clearly responds intelligently to external stimuli (read: distress) to reorder its genetic structure in such a way as to cope with the challenging environment. As such, it isn't a matter of "if a species encounters a harsh circumstance, only those amongst its species who possess the random mutation necessary survive this environmental challenge, thus ensuring this mutation is passed on to offspring".

Punctuated Equilibrium was a "scientific theory" (insert and here) which was literally fabricated from nothing due to the need to address the challenges from skeptics who posed the following question: if such a mechanism truly exists, why isn't there ample fossil record of these slow transformations, and - instead - only fossil record of the former species, and the 'new' species"?

That was a toughie. So they coined the term 'cladogenesis', which says that there simply weren't many 'challenges', and "statis" explains the long periods between cladogenesis, and the lack of transitionary fossils.

Here's a link that goes into depth - if you're interested.

Here's a @ just exactly the type of atheist faith-based secular scientist I've been talking about, and he most certainly sees Shapiro's research as a threat:

http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2012/05/what-does-james-shapiro-think.html

 

It's a false comparison because my underlying point is not the same as yours, though I am disappointed in their actions as they missed an opportunity.

I don't agree with the idea that Atheism as it is-is a religion or an ideology. Someone like Stalin or even a poster on this forum can turn it into one but therein lies the difference between it and theism. You don't have to take the step of turning say Christianity into a religion or ideology to misuse it, it's already a religion and at its very core an ideology. In fact THIS is one of the main issues Atheists have with religion as a whole. As you have stated ideologies can and have been very dangerous coming from the mind of a man, the danger of religion is that the ideology comes from a divine power that must not be questioned. Stalin may have been able to kill you but God will never stop torturing you for disobeying, not for all eternity.

It seems strange that people who belong to a religion would spend so much time arguing against religion does it not?

Atheism starts from the premise that there is no God; from there an individual can certainly take it to a place of absurdity. The point Atheists make is that an individual doesn't have to take Christianity (as an example) to a place of absurdity, it’s already there and because it cannot be questioned it will and must remain there.

The backfire for theists usually comes from their own lines of reason. They argue that Atheists are without morals or that without religion one could just simply do whatever they wanted. If this is the case why when someone comes to me and says listen I don’t believe God lets go kill some people I don’t like would I choose that path? There is nothing to tie me to they’re point of view, to their vision based solely on their non-belief in God.
Atheism alone is not enough to achieve what Stalin or any other nutjob religious or otherwise have done.

Theism is.

 

FSM is the de facto leading symbol of Atheists. It is your symbolic leader. That you do not like that characterization is no concern of mine. The fact remains that if you see the symbol on the back of a car, you nod as you drive by them in your VW bus, contented that you made yet another connection with a godless sort like yourself.

Leaders tie and bind, and that's what FSM does with Atheists. It is your nasty acknowledgement of common hatred of Christians and the like.

We're done here. I'm not going to change my opinion, and you're going to continue to not like it.

 

As an atheist, I personally don't know much about FSM other than it gets brought up in discussions about atheism. I've never used an FSM analogy, seen an FSM bumper sticker, or even thought about FSM as more than a parody of religion to highlight the absurdity of blind faith.

In fact, before today, I didn't even really know what the abbreviation FSM stood for.

If you want to paint all atheists with the same brush to make them easier for you to attack, by all means, go for it. It's an indictment of the weakness of your argument, not the atheists you're attacking.

 

It's a shame you think we're done here, because you're still wrong. I doubt anybody actually follows the FSM, and if they do, they're following something that is specifically defined as a deity, meaning they're not atheists. It's nothing to do with characterizations. It's clearly an atheist symbol, and a fairly popular one, but if it leads nobody it is not a leader, symbolically or otherwise. And if you really think it leads anyone, then you're not as smart as you sound. (and those pitiable caricatures by which you proudly display your bigotry don't place you in a good starting point in that regard anyway)

 

Atheism is a religion.

Distinction without a difference; no concern of mine. You've sought protection in a court of law to call it a religion, a religion it shall be.

You would not be atheist, which is the point of this thread. Atheism passes Smart's 7 tests, which was designed for this exact purpose. Atheism can both be what you're stating here, and its own religion.

I'll prove it. You attempted to distinguish Spiritualism from Religion, and for you, it may be.

But this isn't about just you. Spiritualism is also a Religion to some people.

No, that's it...to you. This is not about just you. What is taking place is that people are making Atheism their religion. The moment individuals decided to do that - and consciously name atheism as their religion, your own claims about what Atheism is or isn't became moot.

Here's a point for you to chew on: Atheism requires a God for you to not believe in.

Now that isn't the manner of God you'd like to revile, but it is a God, nonetheless. You cannot describe the nature of my God; I cannot describe the nature of yours. Think about that for a moment.

Atheism is a method of choosing a path as well. Your contortions are noted, but not compelling.

"Too young", you say? Huh! It's funny how fast 'science' is to announce the newest latest whatever that denounces God, and yet Shapiro's work is "too young"?

Laughable.

Shapiro's work is an extension of McClintock's work - and that work started in the 1930's. What is 'young' is your exposure to it - and you may want to ask yourself why that is, and question whether your vaunted 'science' (and the secularists who proclaim themselves leading figures in it) hadn't become a propaganda tool decades ago.

Because I believe it did. You should have known about this your entire life. That you haven't, however, is due to the same reason that Shapiro is catching all sorts of flak from the named suspects. Propaganda. Shapiro threatens the paradigm.

It already has. Dead Man Walking.

Sure, sure. Or...more covering up, amirite?

You're absolutely correct that I interpret you as not wanting to believe it; and you're exactly correct that I do. The difference is that I have sound scientific evidence that cannot be countermanded, and you have...

Faith.

Interesting how the roles have suddenly reversed when my faith is being validated by science, using your rules.

Let me be more precise: Random Mutation as PROGENITOR of Evolution is Dead. Mutations still do take place - they're just errors in the system, and not the reason the system evolves.

Claiming such doesn't make it so.

It's the truth in that it is a simple assent to how Modern Science is structured. It doesn't address the premise, however - which is why I called it a Red Herrring. The premise is that how Science is built is...faulty.

And I believe intentionally so.

 

Perhaps not prof, but it does represent a theme within athiesm, a major trend that is worth identifying and analyzing. After all, when some dolt decides to seek legal status for pastafarian faith, so he can wear a strainer on his head for a driver's license photo?

Well, perhaps such antics deserve comment and criticism for the obvious silliness that they are.

 

Well this is going nowhere. In all honesty, it makes no difference to me anyway whether you want to categorize atheism as a religion because I can't really see how it changes the conversation.

I have not, nor do other people who also don't believe in God speak for me or my beliefs. Another thing to consider is that the courts also declare a corporation to be a person able to receive free speech rights like a person. Obviously a corporation is NOT a person. The way things are defined in a court of law do not define them for the rest of the world.

Well of course I wouldn't be an atheist if I believed in a higher power, but I would also not be "religious" unless we now, to make it easier to argue on internet forums, want to call all theists "religious" even if they don't believe in or subscribe to an actual religion. Just seems like a shady way of making the argument simpler for those of you intent on naming atheism as a religion for purposes unknown to me.

No they don't. One person or one group making a claim do not define that thing for everyone else. This is a silly premise, or all I'd have to do is find some Christian cult somewhere and then I could say that Christianity itself is a cult. I doubt you'd like that completely absurd generalization, because it would be completely absurd.

No it doesn't, it just requires the concept of a God. God does not actually have to exist in reality for people to believe or not believe in him. As soon as someone decided to believe in a God, they became a theist and those who did not became atheists(going by the definition of the term).

I have my own theories and feelings about the nature of God as people have claimed him to be, but you're right that I do not get to define how you have to believe in what you believe. Nor do I even want to.

No it's not, because the path of an atheist is not somewhat determined by a tradition, doctrine, and rhetoric. The path of Secular Humanism would fall under that category, but not atheism.

It's not science that does that, it's the media that reports on scientific findings, which usually then neglects to do any followup reporting, or even to report accurately about what the discovery was, it's implications, or the fact that a lot of discoveries aren't solid as cement the minute they are discovered.

Has nothing to do with that. If tomorrow a scientific journal announced that someone had conclusive proof that God does not exist, I would be just as skeptical of that as I am of this until more evidence and verification had been done. I would also want to make sure that the results of the experiments and observations that led to that conclusion weren't being interpreted from a position of bias. That's good science, not headline science.

Faith you say? Faith in what? All I asked was for more time for the evidence to be analyzed.

Your faith is not being validated by science in the slightest bit. All this research proves is that cellular biology may have a different mechanism for evolution than previously thought. It speaks nothing about how it's "programmed" or who or what is doing the programming. In fact, even calling it "programming" is a subjective interpretation.

No it's not, because this research does not in any way prove that random genetic mutation has not contributed to evolution. If this research does pan out, it's more than likely a parallel mechanism that, in addition to random mutations that proved to be beneficial and were continued in the gene pool, contributed to the evolution of the species. We know random mutations exist and we can not objectively claim that they have had no role in the path of evolution(just like we can't claim objectively and conclusively that they have). This research simply adds another mechanism to the equation.

Of course not, claiming such just points it out to you. It's made so simply by the fact of being so. A tree is a tree whether I point it out to you and call it a tree or not.

There is nothing faulty about using logic to reach a conclusion based on the evidence at hand, and not making conclusions that are not supported by the evidence. You can speculate and hypothesize, but if science just started accepting unsubstantiated hypothesis as scientific fact, it would have zero credibility, and we likely would not have achieved the scientific progress that we have. We can leave the unsubstantiated daydreaming to religion and fiction writers, and let science deal with observable and testable information. It's another reason why science and religion are not actually at odds with each other, because one uses faith and pure speculation and the other, when done right, uses objective measurable fact. It's apples and oranges.

 

Again junkie, you are doing what drives discussion about atheism to a halt. Who created the FSM? WHo graces the forum with it continually? Who has the FSM as their icons, identifying themselves as atheists?

And you are not rejecting the FSM, simply using willful ignorance as an excuse. Did that work for Germany, when all the Germans claimed they had no idea what the Nazis were doing? Just though ash rainng down that smelled a lot like death was normal? (Again, a little hyperbolic, but it makes the point).

When antics like the FSM are identified and criticised, your personal ignorance of the COMMON behavior is simply not relevant - nor does it excuse the criticism of the highly fallacious guilt by association fallacy - which is also embodied in Russell's Tea Pot.

"Philosopher Paul Chamberlain says it is logically erroneous to assert that positive truth claims bear a burden of proof while negative truth claims do not.[11] He says that all truth claims bear a burden of proof, and that like Mother Goose and the tooth fairy, the teapot bears the greater burden not because of its negativity but because of its triviality, arguing that "When we substitute normal, serious characters such as Plato, Nero, Winston Churchill, or George Washington in place of these fictional characters, it becomes clear that anyone denying the existence of these figures has a burden of proof equal to, or in some cases greater than, the person claiming they do exist."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot

Only now the same well known fallacy has been further insulticized into invisible pink unicorns and the FSM. Its simply atheists behaving badly, and it exists because the houses of atheism spread the fallacuous BS deliberately - pointed ignoring or 'forgetting' to place the rebuttals in their 'educational' activities. In short, such behavior fundamentally undermines any claim to logic or objectivity is organized atheism ... but, being ignorant of it, well ... now its good? Those of us this garbage is aimed at should simply ognore it and pretend it doesn't exist either?

Now, I wonder where the atheists who so frequently toss these things out, like Panzer, Wolf, et al are now?

 

You have faith that there is no God. Period. Otherwise you are not an atheist.

What you do not have is proof that there is not God, ergom, lacking said proof, the conclusion can ONLY be based on faith .... or simple obstinace.

So atheism is not a faith, it is an opinion held in utter and intrasigent obstinance?

The reason this is 'going no where' is because atheists demand everyone see them the way they see themselves, and they don't want to acknowlegde the things that people see about them.

It basically like saying, You must view all Christians as Jesus!!!! Now, there are at least a couple of Christians out there that do not behave so well, and when that behavior become endemic within the faith community ... it makes little sense to ignore it because it detracts from our ideal of ourselves. ITS THE BEHAVIOR THAT DETRACTS FROM THE IDEAL, and atheists refusing to reign in their peers conduct IS THE PROBLEM.

We condemn the Westboro Baptist Church, and many Christians actively counter-organize against the church.

Atheism? Still trying to get them to acknowledge that there are probematic atheists right there in their midst. Its not someone else. It you. (well, maybe not you junkie, but YOU are a minority). And now that YOU know about the FSM ... what next?

 

Neutral, your inability to accept that some people can lack a belief in a god or gods has no bearing on that fact. Your various arguments all stem from your personal incredulity and all are fatally flawed by that.

 

I don't know about Junkieturtle but I don't definitively state that there is no god, only that I happen not to believe in any specific god or gods. I fully accept that there could be (or could have been) some form of divine intelligence out there but nothing has come close to convincing me that there is one, let alone one with specific identifiable characteristics.

People who definitively state that there are no gods are expressing a specific form of atheism, much like people definitively stating that there is a defined god are expressing a specific form of theism. I think they're both equally flawed positions. You could say they're both working on the basis of faith but that somewhat depends on exactly why they say what they do.

Note that none of this has yet moved in to the scope of religion, which isn't about what we believe (or don't) but what we choose to do about it. This is the discussion about words rather than people, as it should have really been from the start.