Linked to the title to this post is an interesting article from a Canadian Humanist regarding those who keep claiming that freethinking atheists are really a religion and those who of us who scream back, we are not.Some very good arguments are presented in the article for both sides of the debate, but leaves out one key point about religion that certainly differentiates religion from humanism. The difference is that there has never been a sectarian war between different kinds of freethinkers. The overbearing and holier than thou Humanists have never picked up arms and fought against the true Atheists. The Christian wannabe Unitarians have never declared hostilities against those whiny crybaby Ethical Unionists. Got any other differences you would like to share?
Peter Nuhn
One point I was arguing at a different forum is that Atheism is a belief system, calling it religious belief would be incorrect. Yet belief system perfectly fits the profile.
According to FringeWisdom.com a belief system is, “Your belief system is the actual set of precepts from which you live your daily life, those which govern your thoughts, words, and actions.” I completely agree.
I’m an atheist and my belief system (atheism) defines my daily life (i do not pray, i do not talk to God, I don’t go to church, etc), it governs my thoughts and words (i speak for atheism, i write for atheism, i think atheism), and it governs my actions (i join atheist organizations, atheist activism, i am not afraid to do things that God would punish me for). This is what I am, and atheism made me this way. As for reason and science, they are the ones that helped me become atheist and help me promote atheism.
Faith is not a requirement for something to be considered a belief system. However, it is a requirement for religion.
v1ktor
i coulden`t agree more yet I get the feeling that people look at me as less of a person ehat should i do
What is most interesting is that all you atheists really fear the presence of God, religion and spirituality and decide you must fight it…
There is much bad religion in the world, granted, but that has no bearing on the fact that God is real and spiritually takes place in spite of religion or atheism…
You even get offended by displays of religious nature in public… rather than embracing all religions and say every man to his faith and that is great!
Oneness with God is a process… Spirituality is as real as day and today it is being proven left and right… for ex. by Gary Schwartz.
One day you find yourselves wondering… your pride, your ego-centered atheism is a cause with an end.
No way is atheism a religion, but it would make a great political party.
I recently had this debate on another
atheist blog. If I leave the window open, as inconclusive, whether some force of nature has a personality and was instrumental in the occurrance of nature as we know it, that is not the same as being a creationist nor lending any validity to organized religion.
Conversely, my experience has led me to doubt a lot of the things that have been offered to me as facts by the scientific community, such as Einstein’s idea that a stationary grid of space and time causes gravity as objects move through it. Or the connection between carbon dioxide levels and climate change. I take the same approach, prove it to me. Sometimes it seems to me that the scientific community tries to be our neopope and expect us to accept things because they tell us to. For those who do, it has become a religion in its own right.
NeoWolfe
Though I have never heard of, nor can imagine, a situation where atheists come to blows over who is the “pure atheist”, their are certain, sometime stark differences in the ideas of people in our wing of thought. There those, as described who are humanist, some who believe there is good in all religion without picking a particular deity to worship. The other end of the spectrum is those that think that life and unimaginably huge universe is an accident. I am one of those weirdos in the middle. The universe and it’s potential for discovery beyond what is already breathtaking on our own little speck of dust in space leave me undecided about some form of design. But, what is stark in the face to any thinking individual is the fact that organized religion is crap, designed to victimize as many as possible, exploiting their fear of death (survival instict) that nature built in.
So while some purist atheists might consider themselves as having risen above religion, the fact that they take on faith an unproven principle that life is an accident, and no force of nature exists who may have manipulated the outcome of the universe, they have indeed adopted a religion of their own.
NeoWolfe