Why do NeoAtheists deny the practice of atheism is a religion?<<MOD WARNING>>

Okay, let's hear your philosophical argumentation then...

This type of argumentation is known as the Appeal to False Authority Fallacy. In this case, you are making [insert "holy dictionary" here] into the false authority. Dictionaries do not define words; people do. The proper authority for defining the word 'religion' is NOT a random dictionary, but instead, philosophy. Philosophical arguments do not make use of any outside sources (such as dictionaries). The only source that philosophical arguments make use of is the reasoning of the argument itself.

To directly address the false authority, the false authority is attempting to make religion into Theism. Religion is NOT equivalent to Theism. The listed "synonyms" for 'religion' are anything BUT synonyms, as none of those things are religion. For example, Buddhism is considered to be a religion, yet Buddhism has no god(s) nor any "superhuman controlling power". Those things aren't requirements of religion in any way. Religion is actually as I defined it earlier.

My definition was crafted around terminology commonly used in logic. The purpose of doing that was to show the precise line of argumentation that religion is making use of and how that argumentation adheres to the foundational axioms of logic.

MAGA is merely a political slogan. "Lock her up" is merely a chant, much like "Orange man bad"...

No circles are being run. Atheism is a religion, as I have showed. MAGA is a political slogan.

Yes, it is. It is the very definition of a circular argument, as it concludes with its initial predicate. It argues A->A.

Semantics.

Atheism lacks faith that god(s) exist, but it HAS faith that god(s) do NOT exist. Please stop ignoring the other half of the reasoning behind Atheism...

Yes, it does. It requires just as much faith as any other religion does. Any circular argument IS an argument of faith; they are synonymous terms.

See above.

See above.

 

One practices Atheism by operating under the belief that Atheism is true. Same way that one practices Christianity, or Buddhism, or Shinto, or Islam, or Evolution, or Big Bang, or Anthropogenic Global Warming...

There is no "not believing" nor "not acting". While Atheists don't believe that god exists, they DO believe that god DOESN'T exist. THAT is a belief. The choice to believe something as a truth IS an action, so Atheists ARE acting; they ARE practicing. Please stop ignoring the other half of Atheistic reasoning.

Yup.

And I have submitted that atheism IS action, as detailed above. Rejecting another's assertion IS ITSELF an action.

You're still ignoring the other half of Atheistic reasoning...

Atheism is NOT non-action, as I have detailed above.

Yes, they have. They have provided counterargument B to it.

Yes, you effectively are. What you are literally doing though is ignoring counterargument B and repeatedly chanting argument A.

Yes, it does. That's how counterarguments work.

 

No matter how badly you wish it, you don’t get to make up definitions to words already defined. Atheism by definition is not a religion

 

I suggest the current evolutionary evidence that places Archaeopteryx in a continuum of dinosaur to bird evolution (150 million years or so ago). Recent discoveries in China of flying "birds" have revealed they existed 115 million years ago and were contemporaries of dinosaurs. Seems your argument here is a tad out of date.

As to your cartilaginous fish argument, its simply not true that many if any evolutionary biologists insist that they must have evolved boney fish. There were two different evolutionary branches for fish evolving at different rates. There is no inconsistency amongst the community, but there are still a lot of questions and holes in the narrative.

Are you actually attempting to argue that the absence of "three cell deep" organisms from billions of years ago should be found in the fossil record or else they never existed? The argument of "holes in the record" being dispositive evidence of evolution is fallacious nonsense.

I could go on, but in the end your argument is revolves around "lack of falsifiability".

Here's a simple refutation of your point.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/15-answers-to-creationist/?redirect=1

 

show me the source of the dogma.

 

I'm sorry there is no belief in atheism. Atheism is a lack of belief.

don't you practice Christianity and Buddhism by worshipping a god? You don't practice evolution or the big bang. Those are theoretical not practices.

there's no, not believing in God then what is an atheist? Why do we call people non-believers?

Of course there is.

to not believe in God is to not believe in something.

no it's not. Not believing in God is not believing there for not a belief.

I'm not your reasoning is poor.

Not believing in something it's not the same as believing in not something.


Yup.

if you reject an assertion that shows no evidence that isn't based on belief. It's based on the lack of evidence.

no I just reject it as poorly reasoned. Your reasoning is that not believing in something is believing in not something and that doesn't make sense.

with regard to belief in God yes it is. They don't believe. Not believing is inaction. I don't buy your argument that believing and not something is reasonable.

counter argument B. States that not believing in something is believing in not something. Just typing that sentence makes me chuckle.

Your counter argument is poorly reasoned

I never heard your counter argument until this post so I couldn't have ignored it. Now that I see it I address it by laughing at you.

Your counter argument is absurd.

No it didn't. Oh you've managed to say is that believing in something is the same as believing in not something, which is absurd.

 

Who knew a dictionary is not to be used for word definitions or usage when discussing philosophy. Dictionaries are false authority?


Philosophically that is probably the stupidest argument I have ever heard.



[quoteMy definition was crafted around terminology commonly used in logic. The purpose of doing that was to show the precise line of argumentation that religion is making use of and how that argumentation adheres to the foundational axioms of logic. [/quote]

Oh? what a crock. your definition was "crafted"? Who knew you were the arbiter of semantics.

And the precise line of argumention that religion makes use of logic. Of course it does but that doesn't mean it isn't fallacious logic, does it?

Oh? MAGA is a "state of mind" amongst its adherents. Lock her up is a ritual chant, much like "amen" in a church service.

No you have shown nothing. Please describe the rituals of atheism.

Nope. Perhaps you should start with the fundamental question - Does god(s) in any of its myriad manifestations exist? You don't start by saying there is no god, you start by asking if a god or gods actually exist. You claim the conclusion is the starting premise, yet you claim you have arrived at your opinion based on logic and "evidence".

DICTIONARIES

So a lack of faith in something indicates a faith in non existence of that thing. Billy Preston would be impressed.

Semantic nuance is not your friend and neither are dictionaries apparently.

 

Cite please.

I haven't found evidence of this. What do your experts believe Archaeopteryx evolved from?

Here's a view on archaeopteryx from 2013.

Again, you should cite your sources.

Obviously, cells live "3 cells deep" today, so you know that's not a problem. Outside of that, not finding a specific cell aggregation from Billions of years ago does not hit me as surprising.

There is a known progression of genetic material. DNA in bacteria is a more primitive form. Earlier, we had RNA. RNA came after even earlier mechanisms.

I think you should challenge your statements here a little, so you know what scientists who study these questions have found - as well as whether they are certain or not, because as more study is done and more evidence is found, some changes do arise - such as the current understanding of the position of archaeopteryx.

 

And yet you are expressing your beliefs, even now...

Christianity involves worship of a God... god worship is not a necessary part of Buddhism, however. Neither is it for Shinto.

One accepts those theories as true, just as one accepts various other religious theories as true, and then one applies those believed truths to their own individual model of the world and how it works.

Anybody who does not believe in any particular religious theory is a "non-believer" of that particular theory. You could even call me a "non-believer", since I do not believe in Atheism, nor Buddhism, nor Shinto... This is not about what one "doesn't believe", but rather about what one DOES believe.

Likewise, to not believe in the absence of god(s) is to not believe in something. Your point??

My point is that a coin has two sides... You are only looking at one side of the coin... If one doesn't believe in a particular theory, then they instead believe in a different theory. In the case of Atheism, they do not believe the theory that god(s) exist, but they DO believe the theory that god(s) do not exist.

It is NOT believing IN the existence of GOD, but it IS believing IN the absence of God. --- There is still belief involved. Denying that belief does not make it go away.

Inversion Fallacy.

Yes, it is based on belief, since accepting that an argument isn't true IS a belief. And no, that's basing your belief on an Argument From Ignorance fallacy.

 

MAGA is a political slogan.

Lock her up is not part of any ritual; it is simply a chant.

'Amen' is not a chant. It is not even a ritual. I suppose that the word is part of a ritual, since a church service would be considered a ritual.

'Amen' is simply a word, meaning "so be it".

 

And what prevents a particular philosopher, or group of philosophers from using an arbitrary definition within any argument? It may make a temporary working model for that particular discussion , but as is too often the case is, a meaning not commonly accepted. What gives it it’s authority? A post grad degree or the number of published tomes indulging in such unique usage?

 

you should really avoid making this personal for the first and foremost reason that I'm not atheist. I am in fact a theist, Christan to be precise.

and what is atheism require the worship of?

no one accepts those theories as theoretical
[/QUOTE]
Just as one accepts various other religious theories as true, and then one applies those believed truths to their own individual model of the world and how it works.[/QUOTE]
Religious theories in the realm of Christianity are created by biblical scholars based on biblical text. There are scientific theories like the theory of evolution. Which is based on observable data, and not biblical text.

The belief that God exists is axiomatic.

not necessarily they were just to be different theologians.

atheism isn't a belief it is non-belief. So a non believer in non belief is a believer. Having a double negative in a sentence is redundant.

to not believe in a god is not the same thing as to believe in the absence of God. You keep trying to make this same argument and it doesn't follow.

To believe in the absence of God you must first believe there was a god present. If you never believed that in the first place then you don't believe in absence.

I'm sorry there is zero evidence to support the existence of God so there for the existence of God is not a theory. It is an axiom.

this is a false equivalence that you continue to make. If you believe God is absent then you must first believe that there is a God to be ident you can't be absent if you never existed.

I'm sorry arguments or not evidence. A fossil record of life from a time before us that is evidence of evolution. That's not believe because it's real it's tangible we can hold it we can see it. Cosmic radiation and universal expansion is evidence of the big bang. We can put our eye in a telescope and actually see it, first hand.

That is evidence.

No such thing exists for religious beliefs.

 

You didn't include the link.

"PBS also cites Archaeopteryx as an alleged transition between dinosaurs and birds. But Archaeopteryx is generally regarded as a true bird, and its alleged dinosaurian ancestors are only known from one locality--the Yixian formation in China--which is "at least 20 Myr younger than Archaeopteryx."5 If Archaeopteryx is the first known true bird, then from what, if anything, did birds evolve? The fossil record does not tell us."

http://www.judgingpbs.com/dfp-slide13.html

 

I don't think you have. You've made a poorly reasoned argument the absence of belief is equal to belief in absence.

When you say that absence of belief equals belief in absence you are saying that there is no such thing as a negative claim. All claims are positive.

That particular thread when pulled will undo all ability to reason.

If I can say there is no observable data that There ever existed a pixie therefore they probably don't exist, you are saying that is equal to believing they do exist. It's not. One view is Rational based on observable data the other isn't.

 

It is a political slogan and a religion by your logic argumentation.
It is shorthand that represents a dog's breakfast of dogmatic "truth".
Its adherents participate in rituals.
It has a supreme leader.
It has a specific existential enemy.
It even has a number of "commandments" that all adherents must conform to in order to be accepted by the group.

Its a ritual at trump rallies, that trump can initiate at any time with but a few words. I guess ritual responses to particular stimuli is beyond your definition of a ritual.

No a church service consists of any number of rituals. Amen is a congregational chant used at appropriate points in ritualistic response within the service itself.

 

Archaeopteryx was a huge find, but it was isolated at the time without any intermediates found. These days however, we have found some of those intermediates. These relatively new finds are more or less conclusive in establishing a clear evolutionary path from dinosaurs to birds.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-birds-evolved-from-dinosaurs-20150602/

 

Sorry for missing my cite.
This one is of a study of brain pans of archaeopteryx and other possible precursors to birds from 2013:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...eopteryxs-evolutionary-humuliation-continues/

This one is of other studies that study bone structure to see if archaeopteryx could fly - if only for short bursts:
https://news.nationalgeographic.com...-flight-dinosaurs-birds-paleontology-science/

Overall, I think this shows the difficulty of positively identifying characteristics and exact lines of descent of ancient animals even when we have a reasonable number of specimens.

As for your cite:
- in evolution EVERY species is either a transition or immediately went extinct. WE are a transitional species unless we manage to go extinct. Over the last 20K years we've developed blue eyes, the ability to digest milk as adults, and smaller brains by about the volume of a tennis ball. (On the positive side, it's believed our brains have developed greater complexity and the smaller volume means they require less energy.)
- archaeopteryx is certainly not the only possible origin of birds as noted in the cites above.
- there is no refutation of the theory of evolution - there isn't even any other scientific contender theory.

 

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But you are perfectly aware that the definition of atheism precludes it from being a religion. You’ve been shown this repeatedly. Making up your own definition doesn’t change the actual definition. Atheism, remains by definition, not a religion.

 

gfm already explained it really well at the top of the page and I gave you a source on the last page, dont you bother to read responses?

 

yeah I don't bother to read bullshit

 

Sorry, this weeks theory is the big bang wasn’t the beginning, it was just one of many similare events stretching back into infinity.
Cosmology on this scale however presents us with a problem of not being able to access sufficient evidence to confirm any particular theory at this point. So, theoretical cosmologists can continue having a lovely time with their imaginations despite any ‘evidence’ in the Bible.

 

Okay so cosmic radiation and expansion is evidence of a big bang.

 

The problem comes with the claim there was neither time nor space before the Big Bang.

 

Neither of those articles provides any fossil link between dinosaurs and birds. The supposed link between therapods and birds is non-existent. They share some characteristics in common, but they lived around the same time or the therapods later than the earliest birds, and there's no fossil record of any intermediate species between one and the other. Everything linking birds to dinosaurs is taken on faith.

It's not true that every species is a transition. Many species emerge, remain the same for millions of years, and then disappear again. The common roach has been the same since before the age of the dinosaurs, varying only in size depending on the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. The crocodilians have remained essentially as you see them today since the earliest days of the dinosaurs. The famously rediscovered coelacanth is the same as it was millions of years ago. All fish having the same basic formation, the fact that the coelacanth could still be identified after millions of years as being the same fish is a remarkable example of evolutionary stability. The so-called Cambrian explosion has very little in the way to explain it and very little in the way of transitional species, but the species that emerged on the scene in the Cambrian period remained unchanged for millions and millions of years afterward. There's no refuting the theory of evolution because no one will accept anything as disproof. There may not be an alternative explanation for evolution, but that doesn't mean it's right.

 

Time and space as we know them are part and parcel of the universe, which began with the Big Bang. We do not know what, if anything, exists outside of the universe, so it is entirely possible neither time nor space existed before the Big Bang, and do not exist outside of the universe now.