ALL,

From time to time atheists will argue with Christians, Jews, Muslims etc. Most often around here its with Christians.

So I have a question. If atheism a religion? Stated differently is atheism a form of a religious belief system?

I have my view which I will post, but I would like to hear some of your views on this question.

IMO, a religion consists of people who agree on a bunch of things (whether theological, philosophical, etc.), and share a bunch of common practices (rituals, ethics, etc.).

The only thing atheists necessarily have in common in order to be atheists is a lack of belief in theism of any kind; they can differ in anything else and still qualify as atheist.

Therefore it isn't a religion.

Oh, it's useful as a category when asking somebody what their religion is, but that's not the same question.

Henry

Glenn,

According to this article in Wikipedia, atheists themselves don't know what they are! LOL

However, if we divide the people of this world into two categories, religious and non-religious, then atheists would belong under the category "non-religious". Thus, they are not a religion, they are fools.

Tomorrow is a good day for them to celebrate. LOL

Sela

Henry and Sela,

We agree on some things. This is a matter of how one defines a “religion” in the first place. Henry you said,

quote:

a religion consists of people who agree on a bunch of things.

Well, that can be said of science. Most people agree that in the non-relativistic case, force = mass times acceleration. Etc.

Point being that you can verify that. You can set up an experiment and see if F=MA. In any ordinary environment, it does. But religion is a different matter.

"Jesus died (on a Wednesday or Friday) and came back to life on Saturday or Sunday of that same week."

Well, you can make a case for that statement, but proving it by an experiment is not possible. One must make a judgment. Some believe it and some don’t. So religion takes ideas that cannot be proven and believes them or rejects them.

Having made various statements, one can then reason from those statements. If Jesus died and came back to life, perhaps we can also.

I say then that atheists make the statement that God does not exist that can be neither proven nor disproven. Then they reason from that statement. Life necessarily had to come to existence by purely natural means devoid of a creator for example.

By that definition, atheism is a religion. Comments welcome.

Glenn,

No, that definition doesn't make atheism a religion. A religion is basically a more or less unified group that shares a set of beliefs. The only thing shared by atheists as a group is the lack of belief in any theism.

As to whether life arose using only the mechanisms that are known presently, well, from what I've read, there's no evidence that it couldn't have done so.

But, science isn't a set of beliefs; it's a set of inferences from consistently observed patterns in the relevant evidence. As those patterns can be observed over and over again, and the inferences drawn up all over again, the only belief required there is the assumption that the universe isn't lying to us.

Henry

As for Sela's comment about atheists not knowing what they are - aside from the unnecessary derogatory spin that she added to it, it pretty much agrees with what I said.

quote:

Originally posted by Henry J:
As for Sela's comment about atheists not knowing what they are - aside from the unnecessary derogatory spin that she added to it, it pretty much agrees with what I said.

Henry,

Actually, it was necessary to prove a point. We can agree to disagree in some issues, and yet agree to agree in others.

Sela

Henry, you make a point made by many in the past,

quote:

The only thing shared by atheists as a group is the lack of belief in any theism.

Depends on how you want to phrase it. I would phrase it as a “dogmatic belief that there is no God.”

The more basic point is that a person can believe they have a personal fairy out in the garden and they can go there and talk to that person. Or they can believe that Jesus was crucified on Wednesday (or Friday) and he came back to life. Or that Jesus never really existed in the first place. Or in fact there is no God at all. The real question is how this affects one’s life?

If the fairy tells you to take your neighbor some food because he is in need it is one thing. To tell you to kill your neighbor because he is an awful person is something else.

So perhaps a better question than whether atheism is a religion is to ask how being an atheist would affect a person’s life as opposed, to say, being a Bible believing Christian?

Those categories don't give enough detail to answer that.

Henry

Henry,

I will take another look at the question and maybe I can rephrase it.

     Once, when I listened very carefully, I heard one of my lymphocytes tell a neuron I did not exist.
Seán

Iow, you're saying life is a gamble?

Sela

I'm saying perception depends on perspective.
Seán

quote:

I would phrase it as a “dogmatic belief that there is no God.”

No one can disprove the existence of a god or gods with 100% certainty any more than anyone can disprove the existence of the invisible green fairy sitting on my shoulder at the moment. (He's invisible to everyone else, but he's green to me. Go figure.)

So technically I suppose I'm an agnostic, since there is a very faint possibility that there is a God.

But, to me, an agnostic is simply a cowardly atheistic. There is no more chance of the existence of a god or gods than there is for that green invisible fairy on my shoulder. To talk about such infinitesimal possibilities weakens any discussions or arguments. It's the deists who are dogmatic, not the atheists. It is far more dogmatic to BELIEVE in something that has such a tiny chance of existing than it is to disbelieve in it.

Jeff

On top of that, there is the insistent belief by some that God did things in a certain way, or in a certain time frame. Belief in God's existence doesn't depend on believing a certain set of details of that sort, but some people seem to think it does.

Henry

Nor does being a theist mean believing in a single god. Many different cultures believe in multiple gods, including Hindis, Native Americans, the ancient Greeks and Norse, and so forth.

Jeff

My Random House version of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary says:
     Religion—a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. (Strike-through is mine)
     Note that a religion needs not have a deity.
Seán

Here's what Jeff said post before last:

quote:

Nor does being a theist mean believing in a single god. Many different cultures believe in multiple gods, including Hindis, Native Americans, the ancient Greeks and Norse, and so forth.

Jeff

Thank you, Henry. As you already know I sometimes confuse my Edit and Reply buttons when fatigue makes me careless. I used your post to restore Jeff's entry.
Seán

quote:

Religion—a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe

That's the definition Sean quotes, and by that definition atheism is clearly NOT a religion.

I'm an atheist. I have no belief about the purpose of the universe. I don't even think it's meaningful to talk about the purpose of the universe. The nature of the universe, of course, is a matter for scientific investigation. As for the cause of the universe, I don't know if it's meaningful to talk about a cause either.

I've never understood how theists ignore the usual point made about the first cause argument. You know--everything must have a cause. Therefore the universe has a cause, and that cause is God. The usual point--if everything has a cause, what is the cause of God? And what is the cause of the cause of God? And so forth. And if God has no cause, why suppose God's existence. Apply Occam's Razor and simply say the universe has no cause instead. Saves a step and is much more logical.

Jeff

Aye, Jeff—
     The craving for a cause and the imposition of belief. Mankind's primal sins, I ween: Never yet repented, so no
hope for a redemption.
Seán, soliloquizing.

quote:

The usual point -- if everything has a cause, what is the cause of God?

That seems to depend on which self-appointed spokes-person for God that one listens to.

Henry

ALL,

You know, letting my hair down, I have given this a lot of thought. God is ultimately one’s “I don’t know file.”

The big questions remain,

“How did we get here?”

“Why are we here?”

“What happens to us when we die?”

Religion exists to answer (or attempt to answer) those three questions.

“In the beginning ELOHEIM (‘God’ and note that the word is in the plural) created the heavens and the earth.” When? Well a casual reading of Genesis would lead one to believe it was a few thousand years ago.

(WHEEW just a few thousand years ago at that!! And who made God?)

Try this one: At some point the earth was a sterile body of rock going around a thermonuclear furnace with water that sloshed about. Then this one cell formed out of nothing and evolved into all we know today as life. “Most scientists now accept and believe life as we know it evolved from this beginning.”

(WHEEW! But how did the whole thing get started in the first place? How did the laws of interaction come about?)

Is atheism a religion? Well, it attempts to answer those big three questions cited above. Another facet of religion is that people can really get into it and firmly believe it.

I therefore maintain that atheism is a religion.

Glenn,

Re "Is atheism a religion? Well, it attempts to answer those big three questions cited above."

I have to disagree. Atheism doesn't in itself propose any particular answer to any of those questions. It merely rejects (or disagrees with) one proposed category of answers.

Henry

Henry, you said,

quote:

It (atheism) merely rejects (or disagrees with) one proposed category of answers.

That is correct in principle. Most atheists I know, however, then by necessity concoct the notion that life then had to come about through purely impersonal natural causes.

This simply substitutes one "I don't know" (who made God?) for another (how did the universe come about and its laws of interaction?) That is, how did the big bang come about?

So I don't see a lot of difference in the thinking process, only the initial assumptions. I see religion as being that combination of assumptions and reasoning leading to various conclusions. Point is that the initial assumptions are either in the "I don't know" category or simply a dogmatic assertion.