QUOTE 3- Because it's not actually a religion? Me and Truefusion agree that Atheism IS a religion. Religion is a set of beliefs. I bet me and you are both religious on murder. So, in this case, Atheism is a religion. If you have your own definition then i dont know. Some poeple mistake religion as a belief in a higher power. This is true, but it is not only this. Just as Albert Einstein used it. And people actually thought he was a believer in a higher power haha. Awesome. The world would be a better place based on the votes from the 101 people so far. It came back! It was worse for awhile.

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As we all know what atheism is, atheism, it is only by semantic wrangling and hair splitting over "personal" definitions that anyone can come out saying atheism is a religion. I looked at dictionary.com and wikipedia. And google has this wonderful tool that scours for definitions all over the internet. Check it out. What do you notice about every single definition of religion, virtually without exception? There is the element of supernatural, god, of a deity. Of worship or faith in some sort of metaphysical phenomena. What is the god of atheism? Can that question be answered without saying something subjective and disputable like "belief"or "truth" or "science"? Any of those answers would be deeply subjective and fundamentally different, throwing up red flags by the dozens for how different such a "god" would be from a religious god. There is no holy prophet, no founding book, no supernatural creator, of atheism and in those respects (the only ones that seem to matter) and perhaps a small collection of others, atheism is distinguished from anything you or I would recognize as an actual religion (i.e. Judaism, Buddhism, etc.).

The definitions on the google link (which I strongly recommend anyone viewing takes a look at) represent what respected institutions have to say on this. Here is another resource for definitions from credible encyclopedias.

Also, no actual atheist would agree with this (and their voice, of all voices, in this particular discussion ought to have a significant amount of weight). Only religious people want to call atheism a religion, for various reasons, mostly to be able to say atheism has the same faults it accuses religion of having or to throw some other jab at it, for the larger purpose of reinforcing some religious stance.

Semantic disputes and personal, narrow interpretations only serve the purpose of evading the undeniable backdrop of common sense that tells us atheism is not a religion. If a belief is a religion global warming is a religion and trust in the earnestness of firefighters is a religion and the term religion loses any useful meaning.

If you redefine religion to be simply a "belief", that is, anything at all that anyone in existence beliefs about anything, that is one of the most radical revolutionary departures from any accepted definition I've ever heard of, and it probably disagrees with the accepted definitions used by most atheists, scientists, linguists, and religious people alike. For me, the merits of atheism matter more than whether, in the context of a certain debate when you look at things a certain way it can be classified as a religion. And once you get into those merits, it is opposed to conventional religions on every possible subject. Which kind of implies that it ought to be distinguished from religion.

Note: Calling religion a "set" of beliefs rather than a belief would run into the same issues raised above. There are many "sets" of beliefs (examples: How to define Southeast Asia, what it takes to be a better country singer etc. etc. etc.) and none of those are like religion either. If any set of beliefs is a religion, the term is so drastically expanded as to have no meaning, and if that umbrella happened to include atheism along with millions of other things, it wouldn't signify much.

 

 

 

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Very interesting topic...I voted Yes it would be a better place. If you look back at history, a lot of wars have been fought over religion and belief (The Crusades, Gaza and all that). Religion tends to cuase hatred and corruption between people. You should never mix religion and politics.

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Interesting that a user with the name red flag posts right after I used the word. Or at least I thought so. One of those coincidences...

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The most widely used definitions are placed on top. But to deny the other definitions and just consider the ones that mention the words "god" or "supernatural being", etc, is to be biased. And, in reality, everything comes down to belief. This may also come down to choice, 'cause we choose to believe things as a fact or not by what is presented to us.

Let's say a person is ignorant of all continents, countries, etc. You hand over a map that has names of countries that are not on the most widely used map of today, but does portray the world geographically correct. The person studies it and remembers everything on it. Because of what was presented to them the person will believe that this country is named [this] and that country [that], while disagreeing with everyone else.

I can make plenty of scenarios relative to what i have just mentioned.

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Yeah, it's biased, but I don't always think bias is a bad or unimportant thing. Bias can reinforce the more significant points of consideration, or operate in the name of virtue in various other ways. Similarly with widely used definitions. You are right that belief is important, and widely used definitions are like a measurement on what people believe, and perhaps also a rough measurement of the critical reflection of our culture (or whatever forces) that lead for such a distinguishment to exist. Which, though imperfect, I think is significant. (EDIT: I would also add that the "other definition" you talk about was never mentioned at all in most every source listed, and when it is, it is rare and less emphasized for a reason. It is that much more biased to favor the obscure definition over the accepted one.)

And on your map example, I think I actually agree with you there. The person who made the map would use a different word but would be describing the same thing even if he believed he should call its contents different things. Which is why I think the words don't matter as much as the subject. That is, the names on the map aren't as important as the actual geography.

So, for my position, I don't think whether or not atheism is called a religion matters. Keeping with the map metaphor, I don't think it's a case of just referring to the same landmarks on a map by different names. That person who memorized the obscure map wouldn't disagree with anyone if they were discussing substance of the map, i.e., what country is what shape or how many miles from one country is from the next. They would agree on those things.

I think what I'm saying, is that you gave this guy a map with a land mark named "atheism" on it. I don't disagree with the title (or if I do it's not an important disagreement), but I disagree with the shape of the drawing. Atheism would be drawn one way, Religion would be drawn another. And they are actually totally different countries.

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This is true. I would have to agree. It would be like the word dude. Most people agree that it is a friend or fellow person. Now if you made a topic and were to say "This one dude loves going fishing in his backyard because he lives in the forest" and i were to go, "How is this possible if a dude is someone who is a person reared in a large city?" It just makes things harder for people to understand and is not something which is unnecessary.

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I think that, well yeah, there may be less wars, but, I believe that everyone needs something to believe in, why should it matter what that belief, whether its one all true mighty, or its eight, everyone has the right to believe in something.

-unknown

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The Golden Rule
A World Without A Religion?

The Golden Rule could replace all religions. Think about it. Tolerance. Tolerance is all we need. If people were tolerant towards beliefs and choices there would'nt be a problem. Racism, Nationalish, and all the ism could be eliminated by the use of tolerance. Do to others what you would want them to do you. You would'nt want people to argue over petty beliefs so why argue with them or kill you because you made a different choice than they did.Imagine if that was taught to everyone from when they were little, all the murderes, rapists, and terrorist would'nt want other people to do that upon them. Were all humans, just imagine if everyone realized that. "You have to sell it like soap until the housewife thinks, Oh there is only two products peace or war" John Lennon. Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven is within all of us. Maybe everyone is God. Maybe everyone could believe in everyone.

-reply by J Wilson

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i perfectly agree with you in what you said. I am a man with same thoughts as yours.
I feel crazy that people fight for religion and all that sort. I belive we all human's r one and same. Its better we learn to live together and save this earth or else it would be truly distroyed in the name of god and religion.
We need to be the model for the future generations so that they learn from out mistake and they could live a world where all religion are one and we al live like brothers and sisters.

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