Is atheism a religion

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by ronthepon

I believe in no god....

Originally Posted by C1ay

The "belief in no God" vs "a lack of belief in any God(s)" is the root of the false claim that atheism is a religion....

Originally Posted by Southtown

What is the difference, would you say? Atheism is a subjective belief system, and a non-empirical one at that. Isn't that kinda what the word "religion" describes, or no?

Atheism is not a "belief system". Atheism is a lack of belief. If someone says the sky is is purple and I say, "I don't believe you, prove it", then I am stating a lack of belief. The same is true when someone claims there is a God, I don't believe you, prove it.

Religion is, as you say, a belief system, a set of beliefs, values, and practices. IMO, atheism is not a religion.

[ughaibu]

At present I'm not suffering from toothache, so I have no reason to believe that I have toothache but I wouldn't say "I believe that I haven't got toothache". For an atheist, god is a bit like this, there is nothing to not believe in.

[Tormod]

I can only agree. I have an opinion (or rather several, as it happens) as to how the world came about, but I have no beliefs that needs to draw on supernatural, all-knowing beings.

[Pyrotex]

The [bogus] argument that atheism is "just another religion" is actually an adolescent exercise in name-calling. There is no logic behind it at all.

[hallenrm]

Originally Posted by C1ay

Atheism is not a "belief system". Atheism is a lack of belief. If someone says the sky is is purple and I say, "I don't believe you, prove it", then I am stating a lack of belief. The same is true when someone claims there is a God, I don't believe you, prove it.

Religion is, as you say, a belief system, a set of beliefs, values, and practices. IMO, atheism is not a religion.

A belief is not limited to a statement alone, it can also be in a system of present beliefs of a segment of people. Statistics are ample proof that a (large) number of people believe in theism, so if someone says that I does not believes in their beliefs it is a counter belief. A counter belief is still a belief!

Ateist often cling together just as religious people, want a proof, just search this forum with the word religion and one can easily find it!

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by hallenrm

A counter belief is still a belief!

So, it is your claim then that the statements, "I do not believe in Tinkerbell" and "I believe there is no Tinkerbell" are philosophically and/or logically the same? That there is no "lack of belief"?

[hallenrm]

What I was wondering is why this thread does not find place in the recent posts? Is it a new administrative policy of Hypography science forums? But that can't be true there is a thread with the word religion in its title that is appearing at the moment in the recent posts.

I will respond to the point raised by Clay in a moment!

[hallenrm]

Well here is my reply to your recent post Clay, you said

So, it is your claim then that the statements, "I do not believe in Tinkerbell" and "I believe there is no Tinkerbell" are philosophically and/or logically the same? That there is no "lack of belief"?

Well let me claim at the outset that I am not a theist, I do not believe in any form of God purported by any religion I am aware of. But still I would say that I am not totally averse to the concept of God. To me the concept of God means an all pervasive entity that helps me to survive and be happy. I would classify science in this category. To me religion is a belief that I share with people I respect and love, religious practices are the practices that I engage in to interact with such people. Posting threads on Hypography science forum is one such practice.

Let me now come down to the beliefs, I am presently engaged in reading a very interesting book by Bill Bryson, it is titled A short history of nearly everything I was reading the chapter titled Getting the Lead out I was indeed surprised to read that as late as in the second decade of the last century people believed that it is safe to eat food canned in containers sealed with Lead, though it was widely known that lead can be dangerous. In fact much of the chemical industry in USA thrived on producing tetraethyl lead, ignoring the vast observations that it was leading to many health disorders. To plug a long story short, I mean to say that almost all human beliefs (and counter beliefs too) at a particular time have certain bias built in, that is shared by a group of people, whether very large of very small. It does not serve any purpose to counter statements of a particular belief with counter statements of another belief. People will believe in what they want to and what they have learnt to during their education. Life is the greatest teacher which teaches people the truth (?) or falsehood of certain beliefs. (And here I am not referring to the life of an individual)

[ughaibu]

Hallenrm: But the question posed by this thread is whether or not atheism, in itself, is a religion. As atheism is not a belief, but a lack of belief, it can not, on it's own, serve as the basis of a religion, and as atheism has no body of belief, it has no attendent dogma or rituals.
Imagine a person who has never encountered the idea of god, such a person would have no reason to imagine a god and cant be said to hold any belief concerning god, neither can they be said to be practicing any religion merely by being ignorant of various concepts of god held by other people.

[hallenrm]

Dear Ugaibhu, before proceeding with further discussion let us first understand what is a religion, to me religion is a concept that is not bounded by its current usage. The problem arises mainly when we try to bind the words religion and God with the current popular usage. But a concept need not be bound or remain unchanging, it can change. What prevents me or you to say that science is a kind of God and engaging in scholarly discussions regularly is a religion.

I hope you know what my response to your following statements would be

Imagine a person who has never encountered the idea of god, such a person would have no reason to imagine a god and cant be said to hold any belief concerning god, neither can they be said to be practicing any religion merely by being ignorant of various concepts of god held by other people.

We are most often ignorant of the various concepts held by various people, whether we like it or not, simply bacause there is in fact no objective reality common to all people!