So, you think atheism is a religion?

Since this keeps popping up, and keeps proving itself an impediment to productive conversation, I think it's time to settle this.

I've seen a couple of posts trying to tackle it and getting nowhere. It seems the parties most interested in this won't budge on either side.

I'm going to offer a compromise, of sorts. If you don't like it, well, we can work on it. Something is better than nothing, after all.

I, being an atheist, have wondered numerous times why this handful of religious minded people keep insisting on atheism being a religion in the first place. It makes atheists a unified group. It gives us political clout and a presence we didn't have without this distinction. In my opinion, this is like Christian groups deciding they were no longer under the same umbrella of Christianity, each bringing their individual groups back down to size; the Baptists, the Mormons, the Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc, all on their own as individual groups without the collective size of Christianity behind them. Why would they do such a thing?

After having had a lengthy tug of war with someone on a thread about their use of the term extremist, it dawned on me that this use of relegating atheism to a religion might have very similar purposes. In making all us separate parties into one collective, it becomes easier to blame all atheists for what some of the worst do; and the feeling would be justified, at least somewhat, by having had it done to them, without a doubt.

So, keeping that in mind, let's see how we can make atheism fit under the designation of a religion. A bunch of us keep waiting for the noisiest people who do this to explain themselves, but they never seem to do so, although some will swear up and down that they have. You noisy ones are why this post is being written.

So, what is atheism? Just like theism, it is the answer to the question of whether or not an individual believes in the existence of God or gods. That's it. It doesn't make comment on whether or not God or gods exist, or how deeply that person feels or cares about the subject, and their politics or ethics may or may not be affected by that answer, but that answer, whichever way it goes, does not automatically make the politics or ethics follow any particular path.

So, what is religion? It can be the belief in and worship of a higher power, which may or may not be a deity, or a pantheon of them, or the universe itself, or some other philosophical construct. It can also describe a belief system, which could again be centered around a higher power, or might be grounded in an earthly philosophy. Now, why you people demanding that atheism is a religion are getting so much resistance from atheists on this is because those definitions don't fit. Not believing in a god or gods, is not any form of worship or belief system. It's the answer to one question, and that's it.

Atheists need to brace yourself at this point, because there's this other usage. The hyperbole laden one. And this is: an interest, a belief, or an activity that is very important to a person or group.

This is why the label has been pinned.

And there are atheists, that each of us is more than likely aware of, even if it's just here on PF, who take their lack of god belief very seriously. As seriously as the most devout person we could also find here. And those individuals deserve to be called religious. Pardon the phrasing, but you have my blessing to do this with any individual you feel deserves it.

But this does not describe all of us. I don't think it describes a majority of us. It does not describe me. I have no religion. I have interests and beliefs and activities, and none are so important to me as to be labeled a religion; certainly not this lack of belief in god thing. That is no more important than my lack of belief in Santa, or lack of faith in the Republicans or Democrats.

So, here's my proposed solution.

If you insist on atheism being a religion, then what that says to me, and should to everyone who reads this, is that it is a religion to you, and not to me. You are a part of the congregation, because this interest, and the belief system you set up around it, is a religion to you. While you wanted to have an easy way to demagogue and demonize atheists at your leisure, you will simply be incriminating yourself from now on.This atheist religion is not a group of atheists. No no no. It's the people who are fanatics about us. If you insist that atheism is a religion, now we will know you are a member of that religion, and why.

Discuss.

 

its a fact that atheism is a religion

yep theres the first problem, you are an atheist and the thought of being religious eats gaping holes in your world view. Additionally, you think anyone who would dare inform atheists that they too have a religion must be their bias not the atheists bias of pretension that they have to be 'different'. Nothing like a vested interest in atheism not being a religion. Sure to be an open minded debate

and atheists have decided that they arent under the umbrella as the rest of humanity. Jainism has no deity but its a religion. All I have seen is a lot of atheists are special soapbox rhetoric that no one including the op has been able to put up any reasonable argument to defend their special status.

yeh thats the Achilles heel, when you have stalin and mao murdering well over 100's of millions for the sake of power and greed which pales all Christian conflicts combined. I would not want to stand on a soapbox either and chant how great atheism is with that kind of track record.

Without question the practice of morals and matters of conscience fall under religion regardless of any 'ism' label you want to hang on it.

Yeh sure thats one of many versions, specifically the version that applies to deity based religions but it is not the version that applies to the non-deity religions, ie Buddhism Jainism etc

NO, its because atheists insist on applying the wrong definition so they can scream not me!

 

I have never heard of this hyperbole laden definition by which every passionately held belief is religious and any group of same is a 'religion'. I don't concede its validity and give it no quarter. I am agnostic. I am an atheist. I do not know if there is a God. I do not think we can know if God exists. I do not believe God exists either.

But I passionately believe that people who are cheery and perky in the morning are more annoying than mosquitos in the evening. But I am not religious and this fierce belief that I describe, does not make me religious. If I founded a club of perky morning people haters, this would not constitute a religion even in the likely event that more of us would meet in our clubhouse Saturday afternoon, than would Baptists on Sunday Morning.

 

Bottom line atheists have a huge problem.

They 'believe' they are not a religion because they have no deity, and it does not matter that Buddhists and Jainists have NO deities (because they too 'lack belief' in deities) and they are religions.

So what I want atheists to rationally explain starts with why atheists think they are not a religion despite everyone else in an identical situation is a religion?

 

You missed one.

1) I do not know if there is a God.
2) I do not think we can know if God exists.
3) I do not believe God exists either.
4) I believe God exists too.

I'm everything to everyone! beat that!

I'm an atheistic agnostic theist!



Did I miss any?

 

You are correct that the definition of religion is broader that a group unified by the belief in a God or several Gods. All religion's are defined by a belief in an after life. Both Buddists and Jainists have fairly specific sets of belief in a structured series of afterlife experiences to one's soul, just as the traditional theist religions do. Atheists do not believe in any afterlife, any reincarnation or any post or pre mortality 'souls, whether they reach a heaven, a hell or anything in between.

 

3 and 4 are directly contradictory unless you add a different tense to the verb in one of them.

 

so is 2 and 3 but I dont care if you dont, I just want to get in on this cool fad.

 

I dont recall any of that being a requirement. May want to review my first post where I stated the requirement

 

2) I do not think we can know if God exists.
3) I do not believe God exists either

They are not contradictory. You can claim that the existence of God is unknowable and still believe in God personally. Believing via faith can be measured as distinct from clinical rational knowledge . You can also claim that the existence of God can be known, that the proof may be out there somewhere that we might discover scientifically, and still not believe in him right now without out that proof.

As for me. I don't think we will ever know or be able to discover God as a fact, and I do not believe as a matter of faith.

 

oh?

Ok so you know for an absolute FACT that God does 'not' exist.

 

LOL, 'the requirement' does not exist in your post. All I see is a reference to 'morals and matters of conscience' whatever that is. In short anyone who is not a sociopath is by definition religious. Every private group that writes down an ethics clause in their bio or drafts rules on personal conduct becomes a religion. That will be a surprise to corporate boards, to the AMA, to Kiwanis club, and every PTA in America!

Everybody loves to draft rules of conduct and statements to bind members to a code of behavior. Once you decide to lose any sense of a God or a afterlife, or any sense of spirituality, in what a religion is, you are left with virtually nothing but a group who writes down some social expectations for what is or is not appropriate behavior .

I will next refer you to the 10 rules sitting in my kids first grade class. I guess that makes the class a religion and Mrs. Thompson the priest.

 

ethics does not become a religion, how does the study of morals become religion? thats impossible

Yeh thats the requirement, and every person with a brain has it, including the sociopath.

 

So now every philosophy class represents a religion. Every conversation in a grade school about when its ok to lie or what makes tattling right or wrong is religious study? Every argument between two people about who is behaving more or less morally or right is actually a religious dispute.

Your definition demeans what it means to believe in one. Its like defining 'art' to be anything that anyone thinks is visually pleasing.

 

demeans?
are you kidding?
not me, you are trying to define art by studying a brush and type of paint.
brush and pain does not make art a person does, likewise many people sith sumilar beliefs jon together to become a collective religion.

Do you really think that anything starts at the collective level to the individual. like rights they start with the individual who joins together to create a corporation nation.

 

Its always tempting to broaden the definition of a concept, large enough that everyone who is at the table gets to be happy and no one is left out. Its a very 'pc' process if you think about it and defining religion so everyone who ponders morality and expresses himself is now part of a religion stretches the elastic so much it barely holds anything together anymore.

Once you take any God, any everlasting soul, any afterlife or anything immortal, out of the definition of religion, and turn it into a morality discussion so you can try to drag atheism into its umbrella, it smacks of a huge concession I would never want to make. Morality is always an intergral part of any religion, but religion is more than a bunch of morality conversations that come to a conclusion.

Some beliefs are religious, some are political, some are personal, some are ideological. lets not morph it all into one just for the convenience.

 

No need to compromise. Kokomojo is wrong about atheism being a religion. As wrong as he is wrong about 9/11. No religious scholar calls atheism a religion. Pew Research Center does not claim atheism is a religion. So despite all of Kokomojo's semantic wranglings and philosophical smoke screens, atheism is not a religion.

 

so as far as you are concerned nontheist religions do not exist. last time I checked atheists were nontheist.

 

not at all.everyone has their own person religion.

see if you can find any 2 people on the planet that have the same religion line item for line item, you cant they do not exist, religion is personal and singular, which leads to birds of a feather just like atheists starting their own churches.

The way I look at it if the new fad is to have coins that land and stay on two sides at once I can go one better and a coin that lands and stays on all 3 sides at once.

The problem here is that you are the one who is morphing things that cant be morphed into one not me.

 

The fact that Buddhism and Jainism are not just called atheism should tell you something.

 

they do not have a deity (just like atheists) and they are a religion, that should tell you something

 

You have turned one's religion into a synonym for ones belief, or view or opinion. Its watered down Kool-Aid with exactly the same attraction and value. If you want cheapen it like that, I don't see why I should care.

As for me, spirtuality must have some sense of the otherworldly existence or immortality beyond our physical senses and a sense of order or purpose to that existence after life. Religion is an organized social structure or institution that celebrates and defines a set of those spiritual beliefs.

 

That there is a difference between a religion that doesn't have a deity and just not believing in God.

 

but religions that have no deity do not believe in any gods so what is the difference?

 

Then why is Buddhism called Buddhism and not atheism then or why isn't atheism not called Buddhism? There is a difference between them. What is it?