What being an atheist means in practical terms

I've heard the words 'atheism is a religion' and 'If you don't know if there is a God, you are agnostic. There is no agnostic-atheist' Disclaimer: I'm not an atheist, but I spent a few years as one so I know my own thought processes.

For the sake of argument, let's say I don't challenge either assertion. What would living life as an atheist or an agnostic be like in practical terms?

Say someone says: I don't know if god exists, but I'm going to live my life assuming there is none. What does that mean? It does not strictly mean they will lose a sense of a moral code and become a terrorist or a serial killer. It does not mean they will lose any sense of empathy and stop giving to charity. It does not even mean they will lose any health and modesty codes. It just means they will leave it to themselves to put together such a code as opposed to consulting an 'ordained' person or one single book for a code.

And a lack of belief in a deity does not even mean they are not vulnerable to destructive ideas (racism and homophobia) although I must admit it does help is rejecting many of them.

What it does mean is that if they were formerly of the of the Abrahamic tradition, they will not spend hours looking for hidden meanings in the words of in old books. It means such a person will not hand out magazines, tracts or free Bibles. It means they will not gather into groups in buildings to worship a deity and perform elaborate rituals on weekends or on specific days of the year.

It does also mean that (I'm very sad to say) that if you were to leave your religion, you could descend into an existential crisis knowing there is no ultimate purpose, hereafter or knowing that your parents lied to you. It also means you could lose your sense of community (church). But these things can be overcome over time. You could find a new community of friends within a secular hobby for example instead of within a religion.

So the next time somebody says "Atheism is a religion" ask them what that means in practical day to day living.

 

Why would an atheist waste their time asking that question? People can think what they want to think even if what they are thinking is false or inaccurate.

Further, there is no point in getting into that conversation with theists. They get kinda worked about that topic and some of us don't want to be trapped listening to their self-righteousness and condemnations to hell. If their imaginary Sky Daddy does exist and they are all going to heaven, hell would be paradise without the constant yapping.

 

Atheism is not a irreligion.It is a belief system that does not include a deity. Humanitarian principles are usually the core of their belief system./ philosophy As is science and logic.every day life is like anyone else.........just minus the deity structure and all that goes with it.

 

Atheism isn't a belief system at all, no more than theism is a belief system either. They are direct opposites after all. Atheism will form just one tiny aspect of an individuals characteristics and any other characteristic remains entirely open.

I'd suggest that, regardless of belief in gods or not, most people follow largely humanist, scientific and logical principles (even if they don't realise it). We all have a lot more in common with each other than we often realise or are willing to admit.

 

Well said Joe. Atheism means not having God belief. That leaves everything else about any given atheist unstated. Some atheists still believe in the supernatural, for example, in things like ghosts, etc. Technically an atheist could even believe in a soul, karma, etc, so long as they don't believe in Gods.

 

I think I'm with MJ on this one. People have different understandings of what the word religion means. I could try to figure out what they mean by religion, whether atheism fits into that, whether it should fit into that and what the implications of that is, but I'd rather go into what they think is a justifiable epistemology and how it applies to what they claim to believe in terms of the existence of God. "Atheism is a religion" is at worst a word game that I can't fault them for playing.

 

Atheism isn't a religion, just like theism isn't a religion. Atheism isn't a worldview, just as theism isn't. There are theistic worldviews. There are atheistic worldviews. There are theistic religions. And, yes, I'd argue that there are atheistic religions.

 

atheism is incontrovertibly a religion. It has all the same characteristics of a religion with exception to the acceptance of anything supernatural. Atheists take a 'religious' and most often go into denial about it and many of them as you see here laughably evangelize that disinformation.

Its all propaganda and debate trickery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_religion

 

ah so the ONLY things atheists believe (worldview) is that there is no God, nothing more? What a silly thing to claim.

Just look what the bird claims and atheist can believe!

Hell they can be theists and atheists at the same time if you get on board with the birds religion!

Hell thats a not only atheist dogma its also theist all under the same umbrella!

 

There he is. Making up his very own definitions. Trying to start an argument. You need some new material.

 

False, They are not direct 'opposites' with respect to religion, only to what is believed in their chosen religion.

As I have shown in the post above religion has no requirement to include the supernatural.

That is an atheist evangelistic invention and red herring to snag the unwitting to increase the numbers of atheist believers.

None of that changes the philosophy or where the lines in the sand are drawn,

 

try putting a leash on your keyboard and reading the link.
you people post political atheist propaganda and then blame me for starting a controversy over it, oh boo hoo
refrain from posting atheist propaganda and I will refrain from taking issue with it
This is a repeat of my thread where it has been proven in 86 pages of debate that atheism is a religion. (among other things)

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/is-neo-atheism-a-rational-religion.564784/page-86

and we also proved in that thread that its not me who made up definitions but the atheists, and that of course did not stop them from falsely accusing me, like you just did.

You need new material, not me, mine works great since it disposes of all the nonsense atheists put out here.

As usual that was entertaining projectionism though.

 

Very well said!

I only have one issue with it, like many religions, their core is only their 'stated (idealistic) ideology', which sadly is not remotely close to what they exercise in life in the real world. We can easily see that by the way they conduct themselves on this board.

 

No, lets see if we can drill this in to your skull one last time.

Atheism doesn't define an entire individual, any more than things like "tall", "blond", "doctor" or "student" does. It is a singular characteristic, describing one small aspect of whatever "worldview" that person might hold. Whether someone believes in gods or not is a simple binary statement. There will be countless thousands of other things each and every one of those people also believe, combining in each to result in billions of entirely unique individuals.

 

Correct, but with a small point of clarification: I'd say atheism includes ANY belief system that doesn't include a deity, but that it is not, in itself a belief system. Just like theism. Your sentence could be read either way, so just adding my POV.

 

and your claim it must define the 'ENTIRE' individual is based on what exactly?

Its a comprehensive reduction of many things joe, just like capitalism for instance.

it describes a world view joe and a world view is a religion since there is no requirement for how much world view its all in the imagination of atheists say what you just said.

 

I would say an easiest someone who doesn't believe in God. As far as day-to-day life just like everyone else just that you don't believe in God.

I would consider agnostics to be atheists since they don't believe in God. All agnostics are atheist but not all atheists are agnostic

 

WTH?
Theism has a plethora of attached beliefs, hence so do atheism.
words have meanings
you could say that if you can prove atheists have one and only one belief, but we all know that is total nonsense.

 

but atheists hold that no G/god exists, and agnostics hold no such belief, your claim does not fit the characteristics of an agnostic.

 

Who cares none of them believe in God that's atheism.

Unless you are suggesting there is some form of theism involved in agnosticism.

 

very simple, a theist does not disbelieve in G/god so they are not defined as atheists, well guess what, neither do agnostics! So why do you insist on mischaracterizing them and claiming they are atheists?

 

Because they don't believe in God.

I'm not sure it's mischaracterizing either it seems exactly characteristic of agnostics not to believe in God.

 

agnostics do not disbelieve in God, to be an atheist you must disbelieve in god, check my other thread proving the point in spades.

Huxley created the word agnostic. Can you cite 'HIS' definition? Since its the only valid definition out there since atheists tried to steal it and the majority of citations from others are garbage because they never bothered to learn.

 

"not disbelieve" means they believe.

That's a weird way to say it just say they believe in God it means the same thing but less clunky verbage.

I disagree agnostics do disbelieve.

same with agnostics. I'm not checking other threads if what you say is it's an important enough to say here it doesn't matter

I don't care

 

you should, claiming agnostics are atheist is 100% incorrect and you lose instant credibility with agnostics.

Its just a way of saying agnostics agree with neither position

you are confusing logic with grammar used to describe a condition that is 100% logical.

Agnostics take neither position.

Therefore they do not believe God exists and they do not believe God does not exist,

That would be the long grammatic version which as I said is 100% logical.