Magical thinking.

iolo said:
Except negatively perhaps. There are many things I don't believe in, but I don't define myself by them. There are huge problems with all emotionally-powerful labels. I think, on the whole, that Marx gave the best description of human development so far, but to call oneself a Marxist is to get oneself associated with people who clearly weren't, so I tend not to do it because it isn't worth the fuss, whereas Darwinist, a similar term in many ways, is, outside the US, safe but pointless. I approve highly of most of the non-religious statements reported of Jesus of Nazareth similarly, but simply couldn't face being considered to think as nonsensically as some of the evil persons who use the 'Chrisdtian' label. And as to God, what conceivable point would there be?
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Good points, Iolo.

Although the question of whether or not "atheism" is a "religion" can be avoided by not using the word.

I do not use the words "believe" or "belief" for several reasons...except in sentences like this one. I'll make an exception for this post.

Whether "atheism" is a religion or not depends on what one means by "religion."

If by religion one means something like, "A system of guesses (called beliefs) that arrive at a conclusion about the unknown"...then "atheism" certainly is a religion.

People who use the word "atheist" as a descriptor are kidding themselves if they think they are merely describing a lack of "belief" in a god.

People who use the word "atheist" as a descriptor do it because they are expressing a system of guesses (beliefs) about the unknown.

(The "unknown" is the "true nature of the REALITY of existence"...specifically whether or not there are gods involved in the REALITY.)

EVERY person I've personally known who uses "atheist" as a descriptor...HAS MADE A GUESS. They either guess "There are no gods" or a variation of "it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one."

(There are a few who use, "None of the gods that have been worshiped on planet Earth have existed"...but even those make one of the first two guesses.)

Whether atheism is a religion or not is still up in the air, because of the word religion...BUT FOR CERTAIN every person using the descriptor "atheist" is part of a BELIEF SYSTEM.

Atheists are "believers" every bit as much as are theists. They simply "believe" different things. That is to say...they make different blind guesses about the REALITY from each other.
 
Frank - Yes, good. I reckon, more and more as I get older, that 'think quite possible' is about as near as I get to a statement of 'absolute belief'. The difficulty, always, is the nature of the language we've inherited from our stone-age ancestors: it hasn't changed sufficiently!
 
kudzu said:
Why is it necessary for you to identify atheiism as a religion?
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Anarchon said:
Agreeing with you on that matter is another thing that is not a requirement for being an atheist. You keep making all kinds of claims about atheists that aren't true. Why is that? Are you a habitual liar? That would fit, seeing how you support religion the way you do.
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Anarchon said:
I did prove that no gods can exist.
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You sound autistic.
 
Gnostics, Gnostic Gospels, & Gnosticism

Gnostics, Gnostic Gospels, & Gnosticism. A one-sentence description of Gnosticism: a religion that differentiates the evil god of this world (who is identified with the god of the Old Testament) from a higher more abstract God revealed by Jesus Christ, a religion that regards this world as the creation of a series of evil archons/powers who wish to keep the human soul trapped in an evil ..

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/gnostics.html
 
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