Pinheads are the Enemies of Islam

uscitizen said:
Is republicanism or democratism a religion ?
Or non belief in the tooth fairy ?

Look up the definition of religion in the dictionary folks.
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By training, I'm an anthropologist, us. I'm more familiar with the real meaning of "religion" than the people who compile any online dictionary. Seriously. :)

It's all in how you're using the word. Atheism can be viewed as a religion, though I'm not sure that it's a particularly instructive way to view it. That's particularly true if you're talking about a movement of atheists. Similarly, "Democratism" and "Republicanism" are religions for some people.
 
So can I have a tax exempt Atheist "church" ?
Where we could meet and just diss god ?
BTW I hit Websters Dictionary.....
 
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uscitizen said:
So can I have a tax exempt Atheist "church" ?
Where we could meet and just diss god ?
BTW I hit Websters Dictionary.....
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LOL! Well, you could try. You'd be swimming upstream though. There's what's logically and semantically valid, on the one hand, and what's politically feasible, on the other. The prejudice against atheists in this nation is so strong that I expect you'd have a tough time getting official recognition.

:D
 
Darn I was already laying out the sylibus for an atheist "preaching" curriculim.
I was figuring on some education grants as well....
 
Atheism can be viewed as a religion

Well..... Its an old one, but.. atheism is to religion what bald is to haircolour.

If you don't follow football, are you still a football fan?

Religion doesn't mean belief system, I believe that the sun will rise in the morning and that if I drop a ball it will fall to Earth, but they aren't religious beliefs...

Religious belief is the use of belief in transcendental entities to provide comfort from the nihilistic reality of existence or to explain that that we don't understand. Atheism doesn't provide such transcendental beliefs.

Atheism is akin to not believing in Santa, or unicorns....
 
That's what I meant when I said it took a leap of faith.

Does it take a leap of faith to not believe in fairies or unicorns?

(Classic reductio per absurdum)
 
You cannot prove there is no God. Can't be done. One can conclude there is no God based on the vast compendium of evidence against and the wholesale lack of any evidence whatsoever for, but it's still a belief.

I cannot prove gravity but does that make my belief that if I drop a ball it will be attracted to the Earth a religious belief?

I cannot disprove that the world is held in space by giant invisible turtles, but does the fact that I don't believe it is so make that belief religious?

There might be fairies at the bottom of my garden, but I don't believe there is. Is my disbelief a religious belief?
 
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One cannot be an "evangelist" for the cause without walking into the religious territory. It becomes a big A Atheist... rather than just somebody that doesn't believe in a Deity... or a small a atheist.

So it is the certainty with which atheists proclaim their disbelief?

There might be fairies at the bottom of your garden. There is no evidence to support this assertion, but shouldn't you be agnostic about that?

Should we all be agnostic about Santa, because it is impossible to disprove his existence?
 
Did I not say that the atheists get a pass on the pinhead thing?

Didn't say you did Ornot. It is often accused by some christians on here that atheists are Christo-specific, when this is blatantly not true.... :)
 
On an anthropological level, man uses religion in two ways.

Firstly, god of the gaps, the use of some transcendental entity as the explanation of phenomenon that we don't understand.

Secondly, god the great comforter, provides comfort and support from the nihilistic, cold reality of existence, moral guidelines and an overseer etc....

Atheism doesn't provide either of these.

It takes a leap of faith to do anything, to believe your senses, to drop a ball and understand it will fall to the Earth, to accept that the sun will rise tomorrow.

A leap of faith does not a religion make....
 
#14 Yesterday, 12:28 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by uscitizen
Why would people who don't believe in a diety have other similar cultural, etc similarities ?
Is that like saying all people that dont believe in Santa Claus are the same religion ?

How similar are American Catholics in, say, Mill Valley, CA, to Catholics in a small village in Guatemala? And how similar are the Guatemalan villagers to secular Catholics in Milan, or devout Catholics in Rome? There are threads of commonality that tie all of these various kinds of Catholics together. Similarly, there are points of commonality among atheists too. First and foremost that they actively deny the existance of supernatural forces.

There are points of commonality between Manchester United fans in Surrey, England and in NY, NY.

Points of commonality don't make a religion!
 
Yes Ornot we have it right, Why are some convinced that not believing in god places you in a religion ? I read websters definition and it agrees with you and I on this issue.
 
AnyOldIron said:
One cannot be an "evangelist" for the cause without walking into the religious territory. It becomes a big A Atheist... rather than just somebody that doesn't believe in a Deity... or a small a atheist.

So it is the certainty with which atheists proclaim their disbelief?

There might be fairies at the bottom of your garden. There is no evidence to support this assertion, but shouldn't you be agnostic about that?

Should we all be agnostic about Santa, because it is impossible to disprove his existence?
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No, it is the action... They meet regularly in timely fashion to listen to a message, that does take faith, on how to spread the message is equitable to religion. In your silly, "if you don't follow football" scenario, a more proper way to ask it would be, "If we meet in a stadium to watch people kick a ball around and attempt to get a goal, but don't call it football are we following football?"

To equate this to turtles holding the earth or to unicorns is truly reductio ad absurdam, a logical fallacy and you know it while you make the argument... So the heavier question would be, "Why did you bother?"
 
I am sorry Damo, I am not familiar with that little jig...

I made my points and will sit out this dance.
 
They meet regularly in timely fashion to listen to a message, that does take faith, on how to spread the message is equitable to religion.

Meet regularly to listen to a message on how to spread the message?

Sounds like a political / social reform group to me...

Not believing something takes faith? Does it take faith for you to not believe that there are fairies at the bottom of your garden?

reductio ad absurdam, a logical fallacy

Reductio ad absurdum isn't a logic fallacy..?????
 
Once again the fallacy of reductio ad absurdam....

Faeries at the garden isn't exactly the same thing. Many people have personal experiences of miracles etc that convinces them, faeries do not have any such evidence.

However, if they meet to spread a belief system such as this that takes personal faith to believe in, then yes, they are spreading a religion.

Most atheists are the small "a" type that simply choose not to believe, but some are insistent that their belief is right and insist that others who believe differently are daft in some way, even though they simply chose to believe in something that takes equal faith to believe.

One must discount all of the personal stories, the "miracles", etc. and just assume that they are making crap up. That all who are religious are daft.

I don't assume that.

The honest person who truly is working on evidence of absense would admit that it doesn't prove or disprove a Deity and move on rather than insist that every other person must come to the same conclusion or be daft.

Those that insist on spreading the important message that a religious-free world would be the answer to all the ills of the world are definitely big "A" Atheists, and treat and run it as a religion. You'll never see me on here proselytizing over Buddhism and seeking converts, I do see you the religious Atheist consistently preaching your beliefs to others though.
 
One must discount all of the personal stories, the "miracles", etc. and just assume that they are making crap up. That all who are religious are daft.



I don't discount them. When a religious person finds an image of the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast, or when their husband come out of a coma after twenty years, I truly think that they believe that have witnessed a miracle.

As for me, I tend to believe there are rational, or medical explanations.
 
Cypress said:
One must discount all of the personal stories, the "miracles", etc. and just assume that they are making crap up. That all who are religious are daft.



I don't discount them. When a religious person finds an image of the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast, or when their husband come out of a coma after twenty years, I truly think that they believe that have witnessed a miracle.

As for me, I tend to believe there are rational, or medical explanations.
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Often they have stronger stories than toast. But I get it. However, insisting that a person who has been cured of a cancer with no medical explanation must believe that it was just chance rather than attribute it to a miracle is pretty much an attempt at conversion.

Do you see the difference? I would believe that there is likely some reason a body can heal itself that we don't know yet, but I don't insist that a person who believes it was a miracle believe the same. Those that simply state that others are daft for their beliefs and insist they are right based on the absense of faeries are spreading a belief religiously.
 
However, if they meet to spread a belief system such as this that takes personal faith to believe in, then yes, they are spreading a religion.

It doesn't take faith not to believe something. It doesn't take faith for me to not believe that the world was created by a giant turtle (for example - giant turtle is no more extreme than a giant creature with human attributes).

It takes faith to believe that the turtle did it.

Does it take faith to believe a political message that you might join a club to propogate? Is that a religion?.

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You are right, to be totally correct, we should be agnostic. But as I said, there might be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence to support this, so shouldn't we be agnostic about fairies..?

Are you agnostic about fairies?

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No-one has claimed that a religion-free world would be free from trouble.

It would be a world of people who have come to terms with the cold nihilistic reality of existence and stop hiding behind fictional big brother.

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You claim that I am proselytizing atheism as a religion.

Again, atheism isn't a religion. A group of people who happen to believe the same thing doesn't make a religion. If anything, atheism is a philosophical position.
 
Anyone who takes faith and religen too far and thus gets there life and perspective out of ballance is a pinhead... Any religen can be taken to racidalism, we see it in Christianity and Islam but I am sure it happens in all of them!
 
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