@Kokomojojo , can you please let us know ANY belief that an atheist must hold that is in incongruity with what any theist believes? Aside from just the existence or non-existence of gods?
I can give a tutorial if you want, but I don't honestly understand how you could have been more wrong about the supposed "fallacy" that you mentioned, and I didn't mischaracterize anything. If theism and atheism are mutually exclusive worldviews, you'd be able to answer this question easily. You can't. And we both know why. I will try to type slower. Read. If. You. Were. Right. About. Theism. And. Atheism. Being. WORLDVIEWS. You. Would. Easily. Be. Able. To. Answer. My. Question.
This is false. the short version religion is a belief or beliefs that you act upon, usually for self governance. If you say to yourself I am not going to bully anyone today and you refrain from bullying anyone today (even if they truly deserved it) that would be one of your 'personal' religious tenets, no G/god needed, no spirituality needed, no need to communicate it to anyone else. The rest that you added is just fluff.
Yet you seem to be the only person on the forum who defines religion this way. It is a definition entirely unique to you that you are demanding everyone else use, for no reason. I believe that there will be another 6:00am tomorrow morning, and I set my alarm accordingly. I'm acting upon my beliefs. According to you, by your own definition, that makes "6amism" a religion. Which you have to acknowledge is completely insane.
I define religion as follows, for those that understand it great! Religion is best characterized as the non-empirical homologue of ideological beliefs, by contrast with science or philosophy the cognitive interest is no longer primary, but gives way to the evaluative interest. Acceptance of a religious belief is then commitment to its implementation in action in a sense in which acceptance of a philosophical belief is not. Or, to put it more accurately a philosophical belief becomes a religious belief insofar as it is made the basis of a commitment in action. Religious ideas may be speculative in philosophical sense, but the attitude toward them is not speculative in the sense that well "I wonder if it would make sense to look at it this way?" Religious ideas then may be conceived as answers to the 'problems of meaning' in both senses discussed above. On the one hand they concern the cognitive definition of the situation for action as a whole, including the cathetic and evaluative levels of interest in the situation. This they share with ideological beliefs. On the other hand, however, they also must include the problems of 'meaning' in the larger philosophical sense of the meaning of the objects of empirical cognition, of nature, human nature, so the vicissitudes of human life etc from their point of view. ~Emile Durkheim's work. For those who do not understand it, I suggest due diligence and google is your best friend.
According to the definition that YOU just provided, atheism is not a religion. I suggest your due diligence is severely lacking here.
The problem with your view is that makes everyone religious. I'm not sure it's a viewpoint a bonofide atheist would like to claim.
The definition of religion is difficult to nail down. Personally, I think it includes some or all of the following: a belief in the afterlife or other supernatural ideas. It has ritual practices like prayer It has a cultural component; Art, literature, music, holidays etc It has a code about how to behave or how to achieve the best life: morality, ethics It has a leader who communicates or exemplifies the tenets of the religion A religion doesn’t need all of these things but if it doesn’t have at least two of them, it’s probably not a religion. The other interesting thing about religions is that there tends to be two versions of a religion: the religion as idealized by its followers and the religion as it is real life. For example Christians think of their religion as the fulfillment of Jewish scripture but close examination of scripture shows that it really isn’t. Many think of Jewish religion as monotheistic but it evolved from polytheism to Henotheism.
False, like I said for those who don't understand it they should just simply do their own diligence Google is your friend.
Well what they like is irrelevant it's what it is, the thing in itself that counts. Many religions do have an afterlife as part of their beliefs it's not required however. That's the judeo/Christian version that carried down through time. Again the judeo/christian version that was carried down through time because it was forced on people by the rulers of their country. It's simply not required. Another judeo-christian tradition that came down through time and not required. Sure when one person comes up with a philosophical hypothesis (belief) that is a value call and then acts upon that hypothesis and does it repeatedly and other people agree with the hypothesis and the actions then it becomes a culture, so while it does have a cultural component after it catches on and goes viral, a single person can have a religion all by themselves with no association to any cultural influences. Not necessarily because it's a valuation call, which is why 95% of all religious dogma can't be proven scientifically. Yes morality is the easiest one to wrap your mind around, it has little to do with ethics ethics is the study of morality or the philosophy of morality if you will. Everyone claims to have morality (which is a value call), including atheists despite the fact that atheists want/demand to be exempt from being classified as possessing a religion. Rather than looking at the whole scope of what religion is they narrow it down to God worship, despite the fact that that can also be science! If by leader you mean leading yourself then yes it would have a leader otherwise it's not required to have a leader in a group though it often ends up that way because that's just the nature of man. Sure if somebody feels they have a good thing they're going to pass it on typically anyway if they're altruistic in any way and if it comes down to something like murder then they're most definitely going to exemplify certain tenants or morals and in many cases even impose them on their fellow man. That's right a religion does not need all those things like I said in the short version all it needs is a value belief and an associated action based on that valuation. Actually that was the original definition of religion that dates back to the beginning of time.
