Is atheism a religion?

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Hopefully you selected the right God to worship. If you're worshipping Allah and the 'real God' is actually Jehovah, then you're in deep ****.

Edit: Or worse, you've selected the right God, but this happens: http://www.weirdcrap.com/chick/scream/scream.htm

 

Count, comparing a nebulous being of unknown nature and origin that may or may not have created the universe to a highly detailed and specific legend from Celtic mythology doesn't work. If you were comparing Leprechauns to Angels, you'd have a point (and I'd agree with it, too). Here, you don't. God is a largely non-specific concept. Even if you were to somehow manage to absolutely and completely disprove every single religion in the world, you would still fail to disprove the existence of God.

Be as skeptical as you want. I have no problem with skepticism, being a rigid agnostic, myself. My problem is with the argument that there is absolutely no God on the basis of there being no evidence supporting its existence. If you were to argue that there is absolutely no Dark Lord Xenu, that Christ absolutely did not return from the dead, or that Moses absolutely never spoke to a burning bush, your argument would be stronger. If you swapped out that "absolutely" for an "almost certainly", I'd even agree with the argument.

 

My atheism goes like this; first of all, I think the notion there's some sort of God is dumb (although, believe it or not, this does not mean I think religious people are stupid. Really). Second of all, if there is a God, he's an evil **** and I wouldn't worship him anyway.

Carl Sagan can go right to hell. I'd be perfectly happy if the religionists provided evidence, full stop. The addition of 'extraordinary' is meaningless; it doesn't become super-duper science if you have super-duper data, it's still just science.

 

Um, no, dont you get it? Theres no central control for athiesm. Theres no book we all read. Theres no minister we all listen to. Theres no 10 commandments we all need to follow. There is nothing that makes me similar to the next athiest other than the fact we both dont believe in religion. That makes us less, not more, susceptible to control.

As for Christians and other religious people, the opposite is true. You all believe in the Bible, and that it is the holy word. You all believe in Jesus and God, you usually go to a church, where you listen to sermons, by just a few people. Its just a few people exerting control over the masses. You think you have the freedom to question, but there are certain things you wouldnt dare to ask. You know that, if you were to think or suggest certain things to your church elders, they might ask you to leave the church or worse.

 

What's the proper 'meaning' of the word religion? Doesn't it require belief in some form of diety? Belief in creationism? Worship?

How does athiesm qualify?

No, it's not a religion.

 

according to Princeton, religion is defined as "a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny" http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=religion

while wikipedia sets four criteria for religion

1. A system of practices which act according to beliefs, including belief in the existence of at least one of the following: a human soul or spirit, a deity or higher being, or self after the death of one’s body.
* He couldn’t abide by any religion that didn’t allow for wrongdoers to be punished after death.
2. A number of customs and rituals associated with such beliefs.
* When it comes to religion, she doesn’t believe, but she loves to attend the ceremonies.
3. Anything that involves the association of people in a manner resembling a religious institution or cult.
* At this point, Star Trek has really become a religion.
4. Any system or institution which one engages with in order to foster a sense of meaning or relevance in relation to something greater than oneself.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/religion

you cant really put atheism into any of them, not even number 4, as there is no set system or any institution that defines atheism. so no, it is not a religion

 

Christians say 'bless you' when somebody sneezes, Atheists say 'when you die, nothing happens'

Atheism is not believing in God but if you believe so strongly that there is no God/religion that you go out shouting about it then you have a focus of belief and therefore a religion

 

Hmmm, I dont agree with that. Call it a belief or faith if you will, but that doesnt make it a religion.

I have faith that, if I wait at the bus stop, the 344 will eventually come to pick me up to take me to the train station, but that doesnt mean I worship at the Church of the 344. It just means I have faith in the 344.

The same is true of athiesm. I dont think it takes faith to believe there is no god, I think it only takes logic. However, even if you call it faith, that doesnt mean athiesm is a religion, because it isnt organised.

 

I believe that Atheism is a religion. Of course my only reason to believe so is that it really annoys the atheists.

 

It is fun to wind up atheists. Believe something long enough and people start worshiping it! lol, look at Bram Stokers Dracula, we know have hundereds of goth wannabes running about dressed in badly dyed black curtains and thinking that they are some kind of dark lord!

 

Ah, but there are certain basic precepts of the idea that you must follow if you want to call yourself an atheist. An atheist can't attribute anything to miracles without changing his entire belief system. An atheist has to believe that everything in the universe happened either by chance or by natural laws, no matter how contrary the evidence is. To do otherwise means you aren't an atheist any more. Atheists have to believe there is no soul and that, when a person dies, they just stop. Of course, that leads to the view of people as just fancy machines and then to the devaluation of human life, but that's a bit of a slippery slope.

Really? Care to try some guesses on those? I can pretty much promise you I've asked them all and the reason I still believe is because I've gotten answers. You're right about it being a system of control, among other things, but you seem to see that as a bad thing. Let me suggest you look at the few atheist cultures that have existed in history and see exactly what mankind becomes without control. Hell, I'd rather have a false religion than that hellhole.

 

I think it is possible to define reliigion in such a way so that it exludes atheism - as Equester does quite well above. However, I also think it is possible to define religion (without stretching the word beyond it's assumed meaning) to include atheism as well. For example what if religion is defined simply as a worldview or belief system by which you live your life. I think that can be applied to atheism.

That's why I have a hard time buying lines like:

Note: I'm not picking on these people in particular - those are just the ones I found when I did a quick scan - they probably aren't even in the same order that they appeared in the posts.

The problem I have with all of them is if I accept those definitions, then I see very little to differentiate atheism with agnosticism, despite the fact that I view the terms as being very different. I view myself as an agnostic because I typically don't spend a minute a day thinking about the existence or non-existence of god. I have no idea about it, I have no control over it, I cannot change it either way, and my opinion largely does not matter to anyone else. Perhaps most importantly, since it really won't change how I live my life, I don't think it even particularly matters if God exists.

And yet - I meet most of the criteria described by self-proclaimed atheists: I do reject any type of belief system - yet offer nothing to replace it, I do think people who believe in things without proof are stupid, I don't follow any particular creed or philosophy defined by someone else, and I certainly do not believe in any theistic viewpoint, be it worship, creation, etc.

So I guess my point is either I'm really an atheist, but I'm too lazy to get around to going full stop with it, or I need a better definition of atheism to prove to me that it isn't a belief system/worldview and therefore a type of religion. It has to be somehow differentiated from agnosticism, and I think once you start to expand upon it, that can be tricky to still exclude belief. Finally, unless you craft very specifc criteria as Equester does to specifically exclude it from religion a lot of the arguements I've seen here do not sound particuarly convincing to me. (Not that I think you have to convince me - I've already said I don't think it really matters one way or the other.) Taking a very literal view of the two words, agnosticism can be seen as less "religiony" (and yes, I know that's not a real word) than atheism.

 

Like what? Try me.

 

How about if you wanted to bring your gay lover to Church?

 

I don't have one. But you would be afraid to bring yours? I don't think that would be a big deal.

 

I dont have one either, it was a hypothetical question, since you asked.

I know many Christians that are explicitly against homosexuality, and thus someone wanting to bring their partner into Church would likely not be happily accepted. System of control....

Really? I dont know of any. Adolf Hitler's Nazism encouraged fanatical devotion to himself, and worship of his book, Mein Kampf, so thats hardly a-religious (maybe thats a better term than Athiesm?). Stalin may not have run a Christian state, but the lives of his subjects was also ruthlessly controlled.

What about the United States? Or Europe? Neither country/state has any state sponsored religion, and religious interference is kept to a minimum. Do you see that as a bad thing? Religious dominance has, invariably, let to intolerance and suffering. Look at the Middle East even now - a woman can be punished - punished - for being raped. Punished. Because of their fanatical devotion to their religion. Look at what happened when Europe was Christian controlled - some of the brightest minds were executed for being heretical. Apparently a lot of Leonardo Da Vinci's dairies, probably one of the most brilliant men to ever live, were destroyed by the Church. For being heretical. Many Christian organisations attempt to restrict the teaching of evolution in US schools, despite the fact that few other country have a problem with it (well, few or no Western secular nations) (also, despite the fact that its pretty much universally accepted as true outside the States, and is the foundation for much of modern biology apparently).

What harm as athiesm/a-religiousness ever done?

 

Well, I'm not gay either. But it's not my place to judge how other people wish to live their lives, and as long as they are not doing harm to anyone else, it's none of my business. But all churches are different. My church has 14000 members, so no one would even notice. That's the thing, everyone has to find a church that they feel comfortable going to. Even though I'm not gay, it would bother me if my church excluded gays. I might make an issue of the church's lack of democratic principles, or I may choose a different church, depends on the bigger picture.

 

But you admit that the majority of churches are against homosexuality, and do attempt to judge how people live their lives? You may not be comfortable in such a church, but you do admit that they exist, and not only that, they are in the majority?

 

I admit that society is generally anti-gay. I think it's a majority position (anti-gay) in many areas of society, religion included, and other institutions.