If Atheism is a religion...

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greenblue
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28 Mar 2009, 9:42 pm

ruveyn wrote:

A negation is not a positive. A refusal to believe is not a faith.

well, the question is, is a negation a neutral position?
if that isn't so, how that cannot be a form of faith?

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twoshots
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28 Mar 2009, 10:58 pm

Of course, if we were to play with this statement a bit more we could find thus:
let p=>q <=> ~pVq
Let ~p
Then the statement is true irrespective.

Hence, if atheism is a religion then...
The moon is made of green cheese.
I have a duck on my head.
Freedom Tower - er, 1 World Trade Center - will be built at some point in the future.

etc.

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phil777
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28 Mar 2009, 11:05 pm

I should also point out atheism does not have a "holy" (o.O ) book or teachings, so it is therefore disqualified as a religion.

claire-333
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28 Mar 2009, 11:45 pm

greenblue wrote:

well, the real question to be made is: "Is atheism dogmatic?" I would say it can be, as with everything else.

Good point. Perhaps I should have left off the 'tic' and stuck with dogma?

Henriksson
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29 Mar 2009, 5:19 am

greenblue wrote:

claire333 wrote:

I would have to agree with you that atheism is not a religion, due to it being lacking in dogmatic foundation.

well, the real question to be made is: "Is atheism dogmatic?" I would say it can be, as with everything else.

Any dogma hasn't anything to do with atheism, only what the individual, for example Buddhism is a religion, even though buddhists don't believe in god.

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makuranososhi
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29 Mar 2009, 5:47 am

ruveyn wrote:

NobelCynic wrote:

Henriksson wrote:

Atheism is the lack of belief.

Agnosticism is the lack of knowledge.

I don't claim to be absolutely knowing of all things in the world, so I'm an agnostic. And I don't believe in god so I'm atheistic.

No! An atheist is not one who doesn't believe in God. An Atheist is one who believes there is no God. Subtle difference perhaps.

Two flavors of atheism. Flavor 1 -- does not believe God exist. Flavor 2 -- denies that God exists. The Agnostic says he does not know one way or the other. He claims not to have knowledge of either alternative.

ruveyn

So would that be passive and active forms of atheism, then? I think that's a rather good way of putting it, ruveyn - nicely done.

M.

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29 Mar 2009, 6:24 am

Henriksson wrote:

Buddhism is a religion, even though buddhists don't believe in god.

Loosely speaking I'm Buddhist. I'm not atheist, agnostic or believer! The labels fail.

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Henriksson
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29 Mar 2009, 6:30 am

TallyMan wrote:

Henriksson wrote:

Buddhism is a religion, even though buddhists don't believe in god.

Loosely speaking I'm Buddhist. I'm not atheist, agnostic or believer! The labels fail.

"Once you label me, you negate me." - Soren Kierkegaard

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history_of_psychiatry
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29 Mar 2009, 7:39 am

Atheism, monotheism, polytheism and pantheism are not religions. They are belief TYPES. There are religions that fit each of those theism types.

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NobelCynic
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29 Mar 2009, 8:02 am

makuranososhi wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

So would that be passive and active forms of atheism, then? I think that's a rather good way of putting it, ruveyn - nicely done.

M.

If you put it that way, there are many theists that are not religious because they hold the opinion that there is a God but are rather passive about it.

Perhaps the question should not be is atheism a religion, rather, can an atheist be religious?

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anna-banana
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29 Mar 2009, 10:00 am

zerooftheday wrote:

Here's the thing. Even if God had made this world and then left us completely alone in it, I still think He was required to start it all up. At the very beginning the universe had zero energy and zero matter, or it was not actually the beginning. Then suddenly we have this big bang, and you've got a metric S***-ton of matter *and* energy. Where did it all come from?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_law_ ... modynamics

And if there always was matter and energy in the universe, how is that scientific? People criticize "infinite regression" all the time as religious BS, how does that work for a scientist? Saying there has always been matter/energy is just as evasive as me claiming that it's "Turtles all the way down".

actually, most scientists support the theory that all matter in the universe is counterbalanced by equal measure of antimatter, and all energy has it's equivalent in anti-energy. therefore, it all comes down to 0. nothing. zero. nada.

so the argument of "all this must have come from somewhere/someone" is not a very good support for religious belief. I would wonder how did nothing split into those two parts, but I still wouldn't fill this gap with a guy in a white robe surrounded by angels with harps.

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Sand
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29 Mar 2009, 10:22 am

anna-banana wrote:

zerooftheday wrote:

If you look into the situation you will discover that there is quite a discussion currently going on as to why the universe has so much matter and so little anti-matter.

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29 Mar 2009, 10:41 am

Sand wrote:

anna-banana wrote:

zerooftheday wrote:

If you look into the situation you will discover that there is quite a discussion currently going on as to why the universe has so much matter and so little anti-matter.

yeah i'm trying to follow that one, of course it's still just a theory but IIRC the question of matter to anti-matter ratio is still unsolved.

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