Atheism is/is not a religion

Contrarianism is going against popular opinion simply because it's popular. If there's some other reason, then it's not really contrarianism, although it might appear the same to someone who doesn't know the person's actual motivation.

In this case, I'm motivated by dislike for double standards (no pun intended). You are saying that theism has standards by proxy - so why not accept that atheism has standards by the same means? Your standards are not those of Hindus or scientologists, and my standards are not those of the Council for Secular Humanism. But atheist standards exist, just like theist standards exist - it's just that, to coin a phrase, "the good thing about standards is that theres so many to choose from".

You can't have it both ways.

 

I don't know about other atheists, but I tend to live my life pretty close to the Christian ideal, I simply do it without believing there's a man up there that's going to sentence me to torment for all eternity if I don't. Is the problem that you can't imagine how a person could live what you consider to be a moral life without the threat of eternal (*)(*)(*)(*)ation hanging over them in the back of their minds? Do you live your life close to the Christian ideal because you're scared of Hell, or does it appeal to you in some way other than that? Having standards is a personal thing, it's not a group thing, and it's certainly not an enforced group thing within religion.

You say you've "acknowledged" that the crusades were bad, but so what? You and everyone else alive today had absolutely nothing to do with that, just like pretty much every atheist alive today had nothing to do with any of the atrocities that you claim were a direct result of atheism. What I'm saying here is, it's meaningless to disavow the actions of Christians alive hundreds of years ago who fought the Crusades as a direct result of religion. It's even more meaningless for an atheist to disavow Stalin who committed these acts not because of atheism, but because they were authoritarian mass murderers drunk on power. Does the religion of the person committing the act really matter? I don't think so, because if it did, Christians would have a HELL of a lot to apologize for considering that 2.3 billion of the people in the world identify as Christian, and I'm willing to bet a fair amount of them have committed crimes, even rape and murder. Are you responsible for them too? Or, is it just possible that the religious affiliation, or lack of religion, of the person committing a crime or horrible act is irrelevant, unless said act or crime is a DIRECT result of that religion or lack thereof, as the crusades were, or the inquisition?

You're asking people to take responsibility for the actions of people they have no logical responsibility for, and for what?

 

Just a quick google found me these.

http://www.atheistcentre.in/HistoryAtheistCeremonies.html
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2010/06/29/atheist-wedding-vows/
http://atheism.about.com/od/advicef...arriage_Family_Children_Religion_and_More.htm
http://www.atheistalliance.org/component/jcollection/item/294

I could go on. No doubt you'll tell me why they don't meet your standards, but atheists DO offer some guidance regarding marriage. And anyway, if they didn't, so what? Atheism alone only says one thing about how to live your life: don't believe in a God while you live it. Some atheists don't even see the point in marriage.

You already know I don't like the general tone of most atheist websites, but even then, some of them do talk about how to be moral without a god.

 

That atheism is considered a religion by the Supreme court of America does not actually make it a religion any more than the fact that they consider corporations people, actually makes a corporation a person.

Atheism is not a religion.

No, it's important to you, that's not the same thing. "Faith" is not at all important to me, nor many other people.

It's God that can't be disproved, not Atheism. Unless you're telling us that your Omnipotent god can't stretch to disproving atheism.

Don't know what your problem with Nihilism is either.

 

Because we don't have standards by proxy, they are specifically spelled out for us. That doesn't mean we always follow them perfectly, but when comparing ourselves to these OBJECTIVE, not standards by proxy, standards, we can, when honest, acknowledge our shortcoming, repent, apologize, and work to get ourselves back on standard. It is the entire basis of the Christian concept of atonement.

That is not standards by proxy. And the real danger of 'standards by proxy' is the singular lack of objectivity. Instead of comparing oneself to a set of objective standards recognized by a community, the tempation and indeed practice, it to drift into rationalization in which you never do anything wrong ...

Again, not saying all atheists do this, but it is THE weakness of not having a doctrine. Indeed, it would seem to be a rather simple explanation as to how more than a few of your peers can twist someone else's faith to deride it as ... vile, including entirely the generalization that both you and I eschew, not too mention the deliberate and dishonest scoping of an ideology to focus on a twisted out of context verse to justify what is little more than being a jerk. Yet when confronted, any silly excuse will do.

Tell me, objectively, in terms of civility, is there much gained by taking a major religion and discarding it as vile?

 

It makes it a more logical conclusion and basis of evidence than faith based denial sand any evidence or explanation whatsoever.

Additionally, in case you missed it, and as much as every enjoys having to repeatedly rebut repetitious propoganda, atheism does not rest on evidence, it rests on a leap of faith - which is what happens when various indoctrinated atheists keep denying it is faith .... but cannot garner the definitive evidence required for their faith not to rest on faith.

So, again, appreciate the propoganda, but would would appreciate cogent analysis and explainable concepts in a debate forum far more.

 

I've just glimpsed through the thread but let me add my short points, though they may already be mentioned:

As far as I know there's three positions you could take, from one extreme to the other: theism (I know there are gods), agnosticism (I don't know wheter there are gods or not), and atheism (I know there are no gods). ultimately you can only pick the one in the middle since absolute certainty is not aviable to either side. So atheism is just as faith based as theism, which could perhaps make it classify as a religion. So no more "reason, science, and logic supports atheism" please, because it only supports agnosticism. hihi, sticking it to both sides, because really, militant atheists are just as annoying (I've been one myslef though, but not on these fora [plural of forum] though) as say creationists.

But I'm willing to admit that the above may be irrelevant considering that the colliqual use of atheism is pretty much synonymous with agnosticism, no?

I'm also willing to say that while I'm agnostic I think the chance of a god existing, other than a deistic god, is very small indeed. I'm equally agnostic about santa claus for example. Atheistic agnosticism might be a fitting term.

 

Are you arguing that a corporation, is in reality, a person, because the supreme court defines it that way for the purpose of interpreting the constitution? I hope not.

Evidence is only relevant to a positive position. You can't prove atheism, aka as disproving God. You can only prove the existence of God. Atheism is an absence of belief in deities, that's it. It's no different (I imagine) to your absence of belief in every single other deity or supernatural being other than the Christian God. Absence of belief because there is no evidence is the opposite of faith.

 

I am not argueing that at all. In case you missed it, and as I have explained several times in this thread, there are several ways to seek legal standing for a case. One of which is as a corporation. However, the specific case, as your peers have pointed out, involved a couple of atheism who wanted to forum a discussion group ... apparently to discuss nothing, and have no opinion about anything, and talking in circles about how they aren't really a belief at all, and the prison wardon, agreeing with you that atheism was merely an ideology, an opinion or non-opinion, and decided that he could block the expression in prison, because safety of prisoners and other concerns trump free expression in a priosn (you cannot, for example call a priosn guard a pig, or organize to have an 'opinion' about how best to break out - which is what you are saying atheism is).

So warden agrees and enforces standards as signed up for by the majority of atheists on this forum.

What happened next? Wll, atheists pursued their favorit past time and sued the pants off the prison, claiming that it was INDEED a religion, and as such was protected religious speech which the warden was unconstitutionally blocking.

The SCOTUS found the position far more valid that atheism was a religion than not.

But what would they know right? When they over turn Creationism being taught in science classrooms (which most Christians support), thet are the pinnacle of secular knowledge and wisdom. When they allow faith based initiatives, finding that a groups faith orientation cannot be the sole factor in granting or denying funds, and find that your precious faith is a religion? As you asked it to be? Only now you do not want it to be a religion?

Well, apparently the problem here is the arguementation that went before the SCOTUS, rather than the ever changing standards of atheism.

 

This was excellent, thanks for sharing this. *No sarcasm intended*

Well, I think you may find people ignorant of atheistic Gods and writers simply because atheism is not a faith that people really study. Some do, sure, but not everyone. I don't. I'm aware of Nietzsche, but I can't say that I have any knowledge of Gora of India. Might be worth taking a look at.


Atheism as a concept cannot be disprven and desreves toleranec and respect, the nihilistic dickery that has infected atheism and driven it to the bottom of the respectability list, should be rejected by everyone ... including atheists.[/QUOTE]

I completely agree, as long as you would be willing to equally condemn the arrogance and self-righteous obnoxiousness of some on your side who attack atheists. In my opinion, the way to reject and condemn something is to not engage in it yourself or praise those who do. I think saying "I condemn those atheists" is an empty meaningless gesture, though I would be happy to say that I don't agree with the rude methods they choose to use because they are completely counter-productive.

 

Why do you think any of this matters? A corporation for the purpose of interpreting the constitution, is a "person". A corporation is not a "person" in reality. Same applies to Atheism and its interpretation.

What is so difficult to understand?

Non-religion is given equal status as any religion. So if there are religious study groups, there should also be non-religious study groups. -Surely- that is bloody obvious.

Atheism is not a religion. And an "absence of faith" is not the same thing as "faith".

 

This was excellent, thanks for sharing this. *No sarcasm intended*

Well, I think you may find people ignorant of atheistic Gods and writers simply because atheism is not a faith that people really study. Some do, sure, but not everyone. I don't. I'm aware of Nietzsche, but I can't say that I have any knowledge of Gora of India. Might be worth taking a look at.

I completely agree, as long as you would be willing to equally condemn the arrogance and self-righteous obnoxiousness of some on your side who attack atheists. In my opinion, the way to reject and condemn something is to not engage in it yourself or praise those who do. I think saying "I condemn those atheists" is an empty meaningless gesture, though I would be happy to say that I don't agree with the rude methods they choose to use because they are completely counter-productive.

 

Atheistic Gods, what on earth are you talking about? That is a contradiction in terms.

And atheism is not a faith at all.

 

Haha I suppose you're right. That goes back to how I don't really know who Gora of India is. Dumb mistake on my part.

It is in a certain sense, on the level that any belief in anything that cannot be proven is "faith". The minute you decided that you didn't believe in a God, you still made a choice to believe there is not a God, even if it is not an active belief and active faith in the sense that a religion is. In that sense, it's really just semantics, but it was a fair point that Neutral made and I'm willing to concede it because it still does not make atheism a religion or a faith like a real religion is.

 

Have you ever met anyone who has told you that they absolutely certainly, 100%, believe that there is absolutely no possibility that any deity or supernatural being could exist? I certainly never have. So if you're going on the assumption that that's what the general understanding of Atheism is then that's fine.

But otherwise, you cannot possibly say that an absence of faith, is the same as having faith. That makes no sense. I don't believe something for which there is no evidence. I don't believe something because there is no evidence. It's not the same thing at all.

 

Again, you're talking about Christianity, not theism in general. One theist of a certain faith has their standards; yours are different. One atheist may stick to the standards of secular humanism; I have other standards. It is not theism or atheism that supply the standards, it is Christianity or secular humanism or whatever other belief system we also happen to use. That's what's being pointed out, I believe.

Well, if it were true, then no. Today's major religions are not, but hey, if scientology ever makes it into the big time...

 

By the same token, huge numbers of Christians have their doubts from time to time: their belief is (even if only slightly) below 100%. Does that mean they do not have faith?

It's not black and white, there are degrees of faith. Also, I think you may have it the wrong way round. If I had to put a figure on it I'd say I'm 99% sure there's no god. That remaining 1% of doubt - THATS the gap that is filled by just having faith that I came to the right conclusion.

 

When they doubt the existence of God then they do not have faith in the existence of God.

Either you have faith or you don't. You can't simultaneously accept something as true, and not accept it as true. If you're skeptical, if you leave room for doubt, you have no accepted something as true without any evidence, have you? You've said, there's a possibility it's true, which is not the same thing.

 

Absolutely, though they didn't use that many adjectives.

It's not the same as having a faith in God. But if you're going to call yourself an atheist, it means you've at least considered the question of whether there is a deity and decided that you don't believe there is. As I said, it's semantics, but if you have a belief that there is no god, if you have any sort of confidence in that belief, you have a faith. It's the same thing as believing the sun will rise in the morning. It's not based on a faith in that which you cannot substantiate, it's the opposite. It's a faith that what cannot be substantiated is likely not real, in this case, the existence of a higher power.

But, in any case, I used the wrong word in my original post that you replied to, so we're really just splitting hairs here. What's sad is that post was double posted, meaning my mistakes get twice the exposure(it was also the post I used the term atheist gods). I didn't really intend to call atheism a faith itself, but to point out that it's not something that as many people would likely study in the way that they would Christianity or Islam.

 

Once again, an absence of belief is not the same thing as believing it doesn't exist. "Do invisible and completely undetectable flying elephants exist?" I have absolutely no idea at all, but it's completely impossible to prove and there's no reason to think that they do exist. But does that mean I believe they don't exist? No.

I don't have a belief that there isn't a God, and I don't have a belief that there is a God.

I still have yet to meet anyone, who believes that there is zero possibility that any deity could possibly exist, even on this forum. There are probably a few out there, I think they should be referred to as "Strong Atheists" as some others call them, to avoid confusion, because really it's a completely different position.

 

Then you're not an atheist, you're more of an agnostic, so what I was saying really doesn't apply to you anyway. The way I see it, it's atheism on one end, theism on the other, and agnosticism as the peanut butter and jelly in the middle.

Well, I've spoken with people who've said that, but whether they actually believed it is something I can't vouch for.

 

*Sigh*

Agnosticism deals with knowledge, atheism with belief. They aren't mutually exclusive.

 

Yes, they are, because they both deal with evidence ... and from that evidence, belief.

An agnostic looks at an inconclusive evidential record and takes the cowards route, he makes no decision at all, fearing to be wrong and not wanting to put his faith in preponderance.

An atheist? Well, an inconclusive evidential rcord is ignored entirely and a leap pf faith is made to simply deny God at all costs. The name of the game at that point is zero standards. Zero accountability. No matter is said, well, just come up with something ... be a contrarian and your faith can never be challenged.

Well, given that so many atheists are so bad at studying other religions, its little wonder that they confuse agnosticism and atheism as well.

 

Well, thanks for the dogma, but people who see what organized atheism is doing, and which your are patently ignoring, disagree.

And yes, when you conclude something without evidence, even in defiance of evidence, you are taking a leap of faith.

Only because most atheists have defined themselves by bashing religion, when the same standards are applied to their faith? Well ... why do you think so many atheist sblow their stacks down here and come up with one silly excuse after another.

Either you have a perfectly evidenced case that disproves God (which we all know you do not), or your atheism is faith.

It really is that simple. Deny it all you want, but the rules of logic apply to your silly faith just like they do everyone else's.

 

Yes, every atheist on the forum who claims that there is no faith involved in their faith choice, who then through out preponderance, which is what you are doing - only without the preponderance of the evidence case in support. So it ONLY a small leap in faith, thus not a faith at all?

You drank the cool aid friend.