Atheism IS a Religion.

[mega_man_aXe]

All I know is that I came to "not believe in a god" by my own terms.  My mind simply won't allow it!  Why...I do not know entirely, but I'm guessing its because of everything that has been presented to me as proven fact or not.  As I see it, the earth turns because the earth turns and that is how it is, not because a divine being said it would be so.  Evolution seems most logical to me because of what I see and read.  So much information is presented to us that we almost have to believe what we read and choose something as a true fact.  I mean...how many people here have actually experienced the Aurora Borealis?  I haven't, but I've seen it on T.V. and read about it in books, but I have not seen it with my own eyes...therefor making it a belief!  But a mind with reason obviously puts two and two together and realized that yes it is true even without having to go see it.  Where am I going with this?  I do not know...just my two cents

 

[Caesis]

I'm not gonna drag this on and on and throw in a bunch of long words. It'll be short and sweet so yah all can understand it =p

Aeithism is the belief in no superrior(sp) beings. They believe what they can see, and what has been proven.

They have an opinoin on the supernatural, therefore, its a religon.

 

[iceplosion]

How has this gone on for three pages?

Atheism = nontheism

nontheism = the opposite of religion

When someone chooses not to believe in any religion that means not having a religion (which is described as atheism aka nontheism, a lack of belief)
If I choose not to believe in God or any other religion because lack of evidence (other than people telling me it's true) I will go back to my "default" position of not believing in anything, this is known as atheism and is not a belief or a religion, it is the word used to describe having no religious beliefs at all.

 

[Bankbezel757]

Atheism Is not a religion. On the contrary it is actually the absence of one belief. Atheism addresses one question and provides an answer. The question is your personal belief in a deity. My atheism is considered weak atheism. I do not say "There is no god" I just do not believe in a god personally because of the lack of evidence.

I am also what you would call a "militant atheist" because I do see religion as a scourge and a very irrational one at that. I enjoy debating the subject and I look forward to a day when the homo sapien species will abandon such nonsense.

To the OP, you are an atheist. You do not personally have a belief in a deity..That qualifies you as an atheist.

 

[Legendary]

No, what is described there is agnosticism, which is a statement that no one can know and that time shouldn't be wasted speculating. Atheism is when a person states that there is no intelligence in control of the universe.


Personally, I think there are effectively two forms of atheism. One, Bankbezel's, based on lack of evidence, which is NOT a religion, and another, a sort of "God wouldn't let THIS happen if he were real" atheism that is more anger at God than true disbelief, and is a sort of quasi-religion.

Neither, however, are proper religions in the terms meant.

 

[___]

I think we're stuck in a loop here.  To summarize the two camps:

Camp A: Atheism IS a religion, because if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it might as well be called a duck.

Camp B: The definition of religion is bla bla bla.  Atheism doesn't meet my definition of religion, therefore it cannot be called a religion.

Essentially camp A is arguing on the behavior of atheists, camp B is arguing on the definition of religion.  There is no common set of assumptions or a common ground to debate about, thus there is no debate going on here; just two groups of people agreeing with their own members and agreeing that they should disagree with the other group.

You're going to need to sit down and figure out what to argue about and stick to that topic.

 

[Mascarpone]

i dont see why this even needs to be debated.

Monotheism, a belife in one god,

Polytheism, a belife in multiple gods,

Mono, one.. Poly, Many... the etimology of the word Athiesm kind of speaks for itself.

It is -not- a religion in a traditional sense, religion as we have come to understand it with the pomp and the ritual etc, but it is a fundamental set of belifes focused around the idea that there is no supernatural supreme being guiding the ways of the cosmos.

Maybe its not so much a religion as a faith (similar but not the 100% the same) in that regard.

 

[Cardinal Ximenez]

I think you are confusing atheism as a philosophical position with an ideological block of New New Leftists who choose to define themselves through their lack of religious affiliation.

If I had to choose some sort of label, I would go for "empiricist", which is much less culturally biased towards Western religion, and a more accurate description of my supposed metaphysical principles.

 

[Cpt. Dane Elkard]

I love this topic!

I'm not going to propose a conclusion to all of this because, well...there really isn't one. I mean one that we can all agree on. But the debate is very interesting and it got me doin' a little research into this.

Wikipedia has a very thought provoking entry on atheism (I'm a Wikipedia junkie, I'm sorry. I know there's probably a better source but it's just...so...easy...to...navigate...)

Just for giggles, I want to point out that there definitely are many different atheist beliefs. It seems the belief itself is struggling to be defined by it's own followers. SOUNDS LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE! They have different denominations! A church split! It's a religion, people. But wait--the complete and utter disbelief in gods means no religion! It's not a religion...

The only conclusion is no conclusion, it seems. Look forward to hearing the rest!

And please pardon the mild sarcasm! It couldn't be helped!  :fap:

Actually I do have a legitimate question for you all. About the real heart of the issue.

This little smiley --> :fap:...um, is it shaking it's fist at me? Or...what? I'm feeling violated with no logical explanation, it must be subconscious.

 

[So fist]

Hey guys, this is the symposium.  If you feel like spamming go to NFG.

 

[Gilleece]

Atheism in its purest form is the lack or a Religious belief, but saying that it may be classed as a religion as it is generally followed and believed strictly enough to be classed as religiously followed, in a manner of speaking.

Agnostic Atheism I believe cannot be classed as a religion as it is too broad.

Personally, I think atheism is the the lack of religious beliefs thus it not being a religion but really it boils own to what way you interpret it.

 

[Cpt. Dane Elkard]

Sorry about the spam, honestly!

I think that it isn't correct to say that a belief system and a religion are one and the same. I mean it goes one way but not both. Religion IS a belief system, but so are morals, theories in every form, and our physical perceptions of the world (e.g. I believe that things fall to the ground because of gravity). And we don't call all of those religions.

Morals aren't limited to religion, theories definitely aren't, and the last one is just something that exists whether religion does or not. They are all belief systems.

I think that religion is a belief system that the followers decide to call a religion. There isn't any hard definition other than that. If somebody feels strongly about a belief system and want to call it a religion, it's defined that way as far as the government is concerned. I haven't heard of atheists calling themselves a religious organization, so I don't believe they define themselves as one.

EDIT:

@ Gilleece: What you said about interpreting, that's totally what I said after yours except I made it way more complicated lol but that's my point in a nutshell.

@Nphyx: You are definitely right on the money. We can't define religion, thus we can't prove that atheism is or is not a religion because nobody knows how to define it correctly on common ground. I thought I had a clever solution but sometimes there just is no solution.

 

[rexxzecutioner]

Atheism is not a religion.

 

[Cardinal Ximenez]

Atheism is not a religion.

I hate to bring up Monty Python sketches, but...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=k3HaRFBSq9k

seems extremely relevant to this statement.

 

[So fist]

Cardinal Ximenez, don't spam please.  This is a place for well thought out debate.  If you're clip is meant to do anything than merely make mockery that this a pointless argument then please make your point, clearly.

 

[Cardinal Ximenez]

I was mocking a very specific quote without any sort of backing proposition or real content. Real debate consists of more than just saying a statement or negating it, and the post previous to mine was not following that standard.

I apologize if I was misinterpreted.

 

[Dissonance]

Atheism is not a religion.

I completely agree in the same way that black is not a colour, just an absence of colour.  :3

 

[iceplosion]

Atheism is not a religion.

I completely agree in the same way that black is not a colour, just an absence of colour.  :3

No, an absence of colour would be clear/transparent.

Is the air around you black? If not then what colour is it?

Black is not an absence of colour, it's a colour. If something is clear or transparent then there is an absence of colour.

 

[Legendary]

Um, they both are. Color is determined by the frequency of the photons bounced back at us, instead of being absorbed by objects. Black is what happens when there is absorption but no reflection, transparency is a lack of absorption.

The trick is that black is far closer to a color than transparency is, having the absorption feature. You can have black paint, but there's no such thing as transparent paint.

 

[Clockwise]

I can't remember if I posted on this topic before or not =P.
Personally I can't see what difference it would make if atheism is a religion, as it doesn't really change anything.
And fitting into the religion category is probably highly dependent on the definitions one chooses to use for both atheism and religion.
Either way though it will atleast be similar to other belief systems in the fact that atheism is still a belief that one has decided to hold that will effect the way they see the world around.