I'm looking for a good article or website that succinctly explains how atheism is not a religion.

Since many atheists have, let's say, a propensity for snark regarding religion (FSM, etc), I'm having a hard time finding something with a neutral, academic tone.

In a conversation about prayer in school (or public functions), I asserted that atheism is not a religion. I kind if get the idea that he won't hear my reasons because it kind of turned into him going into "LALALALA I'm not listing because I'm right and you're wrong" mode. I'd love to be able to revisit the topic though.

Atheism is a religion in the same way abstinence is a sexual position...

That is awesome.

Atheism is a religion in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Right after not making model airplanes (which I absolutely LOVE not doing).

re·li·gion
/riˈlijən/
Noun

The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods.



Definition of ATHEISM


a : a disbelief in the existence of deity

Exactly. It's not an assertion that there's no God; it's simply a lack of belief in God.

I don't know any websites, but saying atheism is a religion is like telling Stephen Hawking (who's in a wheelchair) that just because he is not a football player, he is still an athlete.

Or telling a vegetarian that, even though they won't eat that hamburger, they are still carnivores.

Atheism is a LACK OF BELIEF in a religion. HOW IS THAT A RELIGION?

This is a good place.

http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Atheism

Hope this helps.

I consider atheists religious when I hear them say "There is no God" or "You're an idiot for believing in God", because it sounds exactly the same as the religionists saying "There IS a God" or "You're a heathen for not believing in God!".

Absolutely can no one legitimately say that there is or isn't a god, nor that anyone is an idiot or a sinner based on what they believe, because neither of them actually know. For this very reason however, anybody can legitimately say that a religionist is a sinner for saying that and an atheist is an idiot for saying that.

There does seem to be a certain group think among some of the atheists here that is similar to religious dogma in many ways.

I'd believe in God today if there were any good evidence for her existence.

Someone can be an atheist and also be irrational, or adamant, or make unsupportable faith-based claims. An atheist can even think and behave in very religious ways by claiming to know unknowable things, etc. That does not make atheism a religion. That means a self-proclaimed atheist may also have some religious or faith-based ideas. That is separate from atheism, which is only a lack of belief.

It doesn't help the atheist cause at all. It makes us seem stupid and irate... That's only some of us. I'm trying to be smart. I don't want to act the way I was as a TBM. Individual atheists (not groups) tend to create their own dogmatic ways of living.

"It doesn't help the atheist cause at all"

Can you explain what exactly the athiest cause is? Sounds like an agenda of some sort.

This sentence would make sense if atheism were a religion, but it is not. There is no cause, no organization we are trying to get people to join.

I see this phenomenon a lot. It almost made me afraid of atheism for a long time because I felt that so many of them worshipped science, which is carried out by fallible humans and is always changing, and had basically just replaced God with the worship of their interpretation of fact. I am more comfortable in saying that I don't know. No one can legitimately say they don't know there is a God or there are gods. I think its the absolute nature of "I know" that some atheists use to describe their beliefs that makes it seem like a religion.

Know there isn't a God*

woodsmoke Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I see this phenomenon a lot. It almost made me
> afraid of atheism for a long time because I felt
> that so many of them worshipped science, which is
> carried out by fallible humans and is always
> changing, and had basically just replaced God with
> the worship of their interpretation of fact. I am
> more comfortable in saying that I don't know. No
> one can legitimately say they don't know there is
> a God or there are gods. I think its the absolute
> nature of "I know" that some atheists use to
> describe their beliefs that makes it seem like a
> religion.

You're actually an atheist as regards religions that aren't your own such as Hinduism and Greek/Roman gods/desses. You are no more frightening to them than atheists who reject the Judeo-Christian deity are to Christians.
Where exactly does it say atheists worship science? Has it not been asserted over and over by atheists here, in other forums and in youtube videos that science is the best explanation that we have so far? If not, why keep taking medicines that cure, developing physics and electronics based technology or predicting the weather?
What exactly has god or religion to offer in connection with the above? With human health, safety, comfort, longevity? The bible is full of spurious, superstitious and outright false claims; are you satisfied for example with the explanation that god took mud, played with it a bit and breathed into it life? What does that even mean? And don't get me started with Eve being formed from Adam's side, big eye roll.
Saying "I know the sun will rise in the east tomorrow" is a certainty based on an event that has been consistent for the past couple million years. On the other hand the Bible claims that Joshua made the sun stand still around mid-noon. Do you realize the implications of this IF it were true? FYI, humans are to get credit for these observations. God was of no help.

Now there have been some cult like groups that claimed to be atheist. Certain communist groups come to mind. In those cases, God in heaven has been replaced by god on earth, in the form of a supreme leader who runs everything. Take the North Koreans for example. They even have superstitions about how their leaders were born, and they attribute supernatural powers to them. They are not real atheist, because they have simply replaced one god with another. It doesn't matter that their god has flesh and blood, because he isn't infallible, despite what they may believe.

This has happened in other parts of the world as well. The Cuban press once ran a story about Castro willing a hurricane away from their island.

The point is, most atheist, really are atheist. They don't believe in God. But because religion hates us, it lumps us in with all those poser atheist, so that is how a lot of religious types see us, as believing in irrational belief systems of our own.

Atheism deals with one question and one question only: the positive assertion by theists that a god or gods exist

That's it.

There is no dogma.

There are no secret handshakes.

There is no leadership.

There are no followers.

There are no teachings.

Atheists don't believe in any gods.

After that, they are their own unique persons with unique world views and unique philosophies.

The assertion that atheism is a religion is a propaganda tool used by fundamentalists who think the best defense is a good offense, so they try to direct attention away from themselves by creating strawmen that reasonable people see through immediately.

+1

Perfect response!

HH. =)

This is an area I've thought about as well - for me, it comes down to how we define "religion" ... Is religion something that requires worship of a god-like figure (in which case atheism is obviously different) or is religion what you have when you have a like-minded group of people focused on a topic?

For example, I sometimes refer to the families of serious young atheletes as having a religion -- whether it is high school football players, year round competitive swimmers, whatever. In order to be 15 and competitive, you have to spend an incredible amount of time on your sport plus conditioning. Each sport has its own community - "church" is the Friday night football game ... these families spend so much time together that similar families are their primary social group .... -- how is this not "religion" ?? In my mind, it serves the same function.

I'm still gelling thoughts and haven't researched to see what "the experts" say but it just feels the same to me ....

does that make any sense?

We sometimes make the mistake of thinking that statements such as "X is a Christian" and "Y is an Atheist" are similar statements. Yes, they are grammatically identical, but logically they are very different (aside from being theologically different).

The "a-" prefix in "atheism" and "atheist" is the negative prefix in Greek, and it means simply "non-," "not." Atheist means, then, "not a theist." And that is ALL it means. (A "theist" is one who has some belief in a deity or deities.)

Therefore, to say "So-and-so is an atheist" is not an affirmative statement, but a negative one. It is like saying "So-and-so does not own a Ford." Or "So-and-so does not eat peanut butter." Or "So-and-so is not a Hindu." From these negative statements it is not justifiable to draw any further conclusions about So-and-so; there is no affirmative information in those statements.

To put it another way, such a statement is not saying that so-and-so is a member of the atheist class, because there is no such class. At least, there is no such class about which any meaningful statement or generalization can be made. It is a class only definable in terms of the theist class, and thus it is not a meaningful class. That is, the only thing that atheists (non-theists) have in common is that one characteristic: non-membership in the theist class.

Hitler was not a Hindu. I am not a Hindu. Do you know anything more about me or about Hitler, from those statements? Do those statements imply any further characteristics he and I may have in common? No.

Even the characteristic of non-belief in God can take many forms. Some atheists affirmatively deny God: "There is no God, that's for sure." Others say: "I have no belief in God because the evidence I have seen so far does not, in my view, warrant such a belief." Still others say: "I don't believe in God, because if I did I would have to act differently." And others say: "I don't give a damn, one way or the other."

Since none of these people have a belief in God, they are not theists. Therefore, the term a-theist (non-theist) is appropriate for them, even though the term tells us nothing more about their beliefs, their morals, or their lives than that one bare, negative fact.

So, don't lump atheists together. Atheists are not a group. We have no common beliefs, no scriptures, nothing necessarily in common except the lack of that one belief.

To say that "Z is a Christian," however, provides us with a great deal of information: Z is a theist, a follower of Jesus and the teachings of the New Testament (however they may be interpreted). We can get a general idea of what Z believes by reading those scriptures on which the Christian religion is based (although our idea may be mistaken in some details). Z can theoretically be evaluated as to how "true" a Christian he is by how correctly he interprets his scriptures and by how closely he follows the precepts of his religion. For atheists, however, there is no such standard. It would be ridiculous to say that "X is not a very good atheist" or "Y is a true atheist."

George H. Smith, in his book Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies, a sort of sequel (1991) to his earlier book Atheism: The Case Against God, discusses a number of different kinds or bases for atheism, (pp. 183 ff):

ETHICAL ATHEISM or EXISTENTIAL ATHEISM (Sartre, Camus):
Because life is absurd, there is no god. The idea of god is inconsistent with the idea of freedom.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ATHEISM (Feuerbach):
Ideas of god are simply of psychological origin.
SOCIOLOGICAL ATHEISM (Engels, Bakunin):
Ideas of god are false because they have caused social repression.
PRAGMATIC ATHEISM:
Ideas of god are not useful, therefore they must be false.
METAPHYSICAL ATHEISM (d'Holbach, Marx):
Since only matter exists, god - being immaterial - cannot exist.
EPISTEMOLOGICAL ATHEISM:
Knowledge of god is impossible. There are several subcategories:

SKEPTICAL ATHEISM: (based on Hume, although Hume was not atheist)
Since one cannot be certain of knowing anything, one cannot know of the existence of God.
LOGICAL-POSITIVE ATHEISM (Ayer):
Any statement about a transcendent being is fundamentally meaningless.
LINGUISTIC-ANALYSIS ATHEISM:
Since the term "god" cannot be defined, it cannot have meaning.
OBJECTIVIST ATHEISM (Ayn Rand):
Proof of anything about god has never been satisfactorily given.

Smith discusses each of the above, and points out the problems with each view, except for the last one (Rand). He is obviously a Randian.

"Agnostic" is a term often used for those who say that they "don't know" whether there is a god or gods. The root of this word is the Greek word "gnosis" meaning "knowledge." Thus, this term is also a negative: an agnostic is a "non-knower." Agnostics, then, are a particular kind of atheist, since they also are not theists; i.e., they lack a belief in God. It has become customary for open-minded atheists to call themselves agnostics, to distinguish themselves from those atheists who affirmatively assert the non-existence of god, but I personally don't find the distinction useful or accurate,

Best explanation of the topic I've seen in a long while. Thank you for posting this!

well said, sir..

Getting up in front of the assembly and saying "We are an atheist society" would be an endorsement of atheism. Not praying being an endorsement of atheism is about as silly as saying not mentioning Jews at the beginning of each assembly is an endorsement of anti-semitism. Huh?

And it's not great for the atheist cause.

Too much snark, anger, mocking etc.

Logical atheists should band together and teach snarky, angry atheists how to behave.

That way atheists won't act like religious people, and more people will join their group.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2013 11:09AM by Raptor Jesus.

I just have to laugh when ever someone refers to my "beliefs" as an atheist. It's a huge leap on anyone's part to assume anything about any of the rest of my "beliefs" because I happen to believe in one fewer god than they do.

Not believing in god makes no statement about any other beliefs I may hold.

Also astonished at the recent rash of accusations of "belief in scientism". Wow, I like facts and data, that doesn't mean I _believe_ anything because of it. Science allows me to factually back up many statements and opinions, but I love to be proven wrong. It gives me the opportunity to learn something new.

But to attack my character as a "believer in scientism" is a complete avoidance of whatever other topic may have been being discussed. It de facto demonstrates the emotionality and complete lack of evidence held by whomever I was speaking with.
Might as well give a testimony as accuse me of "believing in scientism", it is such a non sequitur.

FEELING that I am wrong about something means nothing to me. My mother FEELS that I am a bad person, but ask anyone else who actually KNOWS me and they would refute that in an instant. So yeah, I have a bias against anything not based on knowledge. Such a terrible opinion for me to hold...

I think Richard Dawkins said it best-
"We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."

My snarkiness toward religion was born out of the "LALALALA I'm not listening" mentality of my believing friends and family. I tried honest, respectful discourse, and all it yielded me were accusations against my character and lost relationships.

I'll still hold polite conversations with faithful friends and acquaintances as long as they are willing to be civil and respectful.

I'm well-educated on the topic of Mormonism. I know my Bible well. I read apocryphal writings regularly. I peruse the websites of a variety of religions. I do this because I'm genuinely curious what the faithful believe and how they wish to present themselves. I enjoy discussing religion. However, I do not accept that our beliefs are beyond critique, and I don't think dissent is, by its nature, hostile.

That's not to say I'm against being hostile with close-minded people; far from it, I love being able to let loose a torrid of snark and ridicule when I feel like my attempts at being reasonable aren't being met in kind.

I've chosen to speak in first-person for this post, because these are my opinions, not those of a group. My ideologies are my own. I'm not a part of a movement. Hell, I'm not even against religion! I'm pro-education, both religious and secular. I'm anti-dogma. I'm anti-groupthink. I don't tow a party line. I'm an individual capable of thinking and acting for myself.

My advice? Watch porn and masturbate. It's a much more productive use of your time.

The idea that atheism is a belief system comes from the fact that most people just can't imagine the position of not having "beliefs." They want things settled. They want a paradigm to rely on so they can stop thinking about issues.

-I assign levels of certainty to things instead of assigning true or false to them.

-The world is analog, not black-and-white, true-false.

-Any idea or system of ideas can contain elements of truth and falsity at once.

-I must be willing to change my opinion on anything if new evidence comes in that would warrant that.

-I must admit my own biases and how they can lead me away from a balanced way of looking at the world.


-I don't feel discomfort by admitting I don't know the answers to things.

-I don't blindly rely on authority or consensus.

-Thinking and exploring, wondering and studying are much more rewarding than adopting any dogma.

-If someone wants you to pay them money in exchange for some sort of pre-packaged belief system or enlightenment, it's highly probable that the system is fraudulent.

One more cliche: "Atheism is a religion the way baldness is a hair color."



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2013 02:02PM by rationalguy.