They come close to doing so in Wisconsin – which, BTW, is often referred to as “God’s Country” – so OF COURSE they are going to do full loop-de-loops in Heaven.
Incidentally, the waterslides in Hell also do full loop-de-loops. It’s just that the splash-down pond there is always empty…..
George W Harris
Oh, the splash-down pool is full. Just not of water.
Casi
It is however filled with something that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike water
Yeah, I’m quite sure there isn’t a God, but I can still agree when people who are mourning say god-y stuff. (Or at least say “yeah, that sounds really good”). The person is way more important than whatever I think happens to dead people.
Btw, pro-tip (from my rabbi dad, who has done hundreds of funerals for hundreds of families) — he doesn’t bring up heaven talk to the grieving people (such as “they’re in a better place”), but if the grieving person says it first, he says “that’s a comfort”.
that is a great tip because I really hated hearing that. Mostly because it feels really hollow to me, being and atheist and all.
Harmony
I’m not an Atheist, but an Antitheist (I believe gods exist, but that they’re basically just the human mind equivalent of an evolved distributed bot net virus, and kind of like that zombie ant fungus that makes ants act in self-destructive ways for the benefit of the fungus – I’ve noticed once I started looking at gods that way, a lot of stuff about religion clicked that didn’t before).
As such, I’ve always struggled with how to respond to “they’re in a better place now”, too. To date, my response has always been a change of topic back to the person and away from religion without getting confrontational, such as, “Always remember to keep them in your heart.” However, Leorale”s “It’s a comfort” line is a good defuser, and I’ll keep that one in mind from now on, too.
modulusshift
Heh. I dunno if I agree with religion being one of those, but there are definitely symbiotic mind viruses we all deal with: languages. You might think language is a tool invented by humanity, and while there’s arguably been some success in shaping it, it’s definitely placed a higher priority on being irresistible to almost all baby human brains, there’s multiple competing strains, mutations spread in viral fashion, etc. Linguistics on a macro scale is basically epidemiology.
Wagstaff
“Mind viruses”, or behaviors that mutate and get refined and naturally selected over time in an environment as though they were genes, actually have a name.
They’re called memes, the term for which was coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.
My brother actually got to meet him once at a tech conference. I am envious as fuck.
Delicious Taffy
“How about ‘full of shit’? Is that a meme?”
-Raiden, Metal Gear Rising
/reference /notserious
Icalasari
Huh, I always look at tales of old gods as them going, “They are basically humans but with immense power, so we worship them so we aren’t on their shit list. You know what WE do to other humans? Imagine that with god power!”
When my friend, who was Jewish, passed last December, the rabbi who conducted the online shiva service for her told me, “May your memories of her be a blessing to you.” That works, too.
“Nontheist” is a term that gets used to mean “doesn’t believe in god” without pushing a specific label. We don’t know* if Joyce is atheist, agnostic, misotheist, or what, and she might not know either. Therefore, nontheist is a reasonable term.
Also, no, atheism is not a religion.
*it’s possible we do and I don’t recall, but I’m NOT doing a reread at 11 PM.
Thag Simmons
Nontheist is just a synonym of Atheist though.
Viktoria
No, nontheism is an overarching term for basically any “there probably aren’t any gods” philosophy, many of which are decidedly non-atheist. I was in a nontheist group in college with a couple Buddhists, as well as quite a few other philosophies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheism
If nothing else, it’s far more useful as an umbrella term than as a synonym for something we already have a word for.
Arian
Deists are not theists, while also not being atheists in the sense of believing in no god(s) of any nature. I think they have to be called nontheists. Another reason “atheist” is a very ambiguous term.
JediMB
Thinking “there probably aren’t any gods” just sounds like being agnostic atheist to me. (Personally, I consider myself gnostic atheist, although the label isn’t particularly important to my identity.)
Wagstaff
Gnostic? Dont you mean agnostic?
a/snow/mous/e
No, agnosticism is the belief that the existence or nonexistence of deities is unknowable; gnosticism is the belief that it is knowable. An agnostic atheist doesn’t believe in higher powers, but also believes they could be wrong; a gnostic atheist believes with certainty that there are no higher powers.
thejeff
Since they highlighted it in contrast to the agnostic atheist they mentioned in the previous line, probably not.
Leorale
I just googled “atheism vs nontheism” and, predictably, the first two hits asserted two opposing things.
The first site said that nontheism was basically a rebranding idea in the 1800s or so, to get away from the Christian belief that atheists also don’t believe in morality, and the Everyone idea that sometimes atheists are kinda obnoxious and pushy about it. So, nontheism was meant to be like atheism, without the baggage of being considered immoral or annoying. Hey, it was worth a shot!
The second hit was Wikipedia, which had a complicated relationship in which nontheism included various types of atheism, and is surely a fun wiki-hole waiting for anyone who desires it.
StClair
the euphemism treadmill never works that way.
Felix
Well, wikipedia is…wikipedia[citation needed]
Delicious Taffy
Hey, some people [who?] expect reliable info from that site.
thejeff
And honestly, it’s usually pretty good. The occasional edit war not withstanding.
Not authoritative, but hardly the garbage it’s sometimes treated as.
King Daniel
Yeah, while it shouldn’t be treated as the end-all-be-all source, “Wikipedia Is Garbage” is sooo…2011ish?
Meagan
Wikipedia literally has citations. I don’t understand why people who talk trash about Wikipedia don’t seem to understand that you can look at a Wikipedia page and see if whatever information contained there is cited or not, and it if it is, go to the source and evaluate it based on whatever criteria you choose. Many, many pages cite peer-reviewed studies.
Additionally, pages with minimal citations often make note of that fact, and claims made within a page that don’t have a citation will often have [citation needed] after the claim in brackets.
So, yes, Wikipedia is a great source where anyone who has a basic understanding of citations can find a treasure trove of indexed and referenced information, as well as a directory to other sources of information about the same topic.
Demoted Oblivious
Wikipedia also been accademically evaluated by independents, and found to have a lower error rate than Britanica.[see google for the citation]
OBBWG
If religion is an expression of faith, then Atheism is a religion. It is a belief that cannot be proved nor disproved. It is, in essence, faith that there is no god.
I stand by this very strongly because if Atheism is not a religion then, in the U.S., Atheist have no protection under the 1st Amendment or anti-discrimination laws.
Thag Simmons
That’s not how a religion is defined.
Wagstaff
Yeah, and as hard as religion is to define, here is one of the most general, loosest available definitions offered by Senior Anthropologist Clifford Geertz:
“A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, persuasive and long-lasting moods and motivations in people by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”
Still coming nowhere close to atheism.
And by the way, atheists actually ARE protected under the first ammendment, which protects FREE WORSHIP, including the option of not worshipping anything.
Meagan
How is that nowhere near to atheism? Atheism produces (or rather is in a mutually reinforcing relationship with) moods and motivations in the people who believe in it.
For example, there is an atheist in my town who has campaigned to remove invocations by local pastors/ministers (and the occasional rabbi) from the beginning of our city council meetings. His motivation to do this is related to his atheism (although there could theoretically be theists who also support the campaign on the basis of the separation of church and state).
The motivations of atheists generally seem to be, from my personal experience and observations: wanting truth/a factual understanding of the world (a way to relate to reality based in evidence, or that makes sense to them), accuracy, not to be fooled or tricked into believing something that isn’t true…perhaps also a love of learning and knowledge. And when it overlaps with humanism there are other moods and motivations
And considering that for most of humanity and in most cultures there is some belief in a god/gods/spiritual beings or forces, atheism could certainly be viewed by those adhering to it as ‘uniquely realistic.’
annarchy
Thing to point out.
The desire for more realistic / evidence-based confirmable methodologies generally comes from the fact that individuals often used to believe something strongly that they no longer believe and believe to be false now. Meaning they know their senses can be tracked they know they can be wrong and they know they can actively motivatedly try to change other people’s minds to false ideologies.
Once you realize you can make somebody else double Damned because you basically made mistakes for them, you work hard to make less mistakes.
Wagstaff
The thing is, there is no set of symbols or motivations common to ALL atheists, in the same way that all Christians at the very least hold SOME kind of reverence to Jesus Christ, or the same way that all Muslims believe at the very least that there is nothing else in all existence that’s like God.
Trying to assert that atheism is a religion is like trying to assert that there’s some common food that’s always enjoyed by people who don’t like Mac and Cheese — just plain ridiculous.
thejeff
“A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, persuasive and long-lasting moods and motivations …”
It’s not even necessarily that there aren’t symbols or motivations in common to all atheists, but that atheism or even most subgroups of atheism doesn’t have such a system of symbols. And by that definition, that’s what a religion is.
As I said earlier, there are some religions that are atheistic. Some varieties of Buddhism are the most common examples. They have such systems of symbols, they just don’t include belief in a god.
Rabid Rabbit
…
Citation needed.
Reltzik
Okay, so by my count:
OBBWG is using the word atheism to refer specifically (and only) to strong atheism….. at least that’s how I’m reading it, not sure… which is one definition in common usage… but also saying that all it takes to be a religion is an unprovable article of faith, which… no. There are religions which require no articles of faith, and there are things that might be believed only on faith that don’t constitute religions. Furthermore, atheists DO have protections under the 1st amendment, regardless of whether atheism is a religion or not. The Supreme Court, for the past generation or two, has consistently held across lots of cases that 1st amendment protections apply not only to religious beliefs, but any belief about religion, including its rejection.
Carla’s #2 fan is … saying atheism is a theism? That’s… no. Just no.
Thag is saying that atheism and nontheism are the same thing, which… works for one or two definitions of atheism in common usage…. so, fair.
…. we’re heading towards another atheism-definition fight aren’t we? Nonexistent-God-Dammit.
Look, can we at least agree that there’s a lot of different definitions for the word in common usage, and that none of them is the only objectively correct definition because objectiveness doesn’t apply here?
OBBWG
Reltzik, you are correct in your interpretation of what i was saying. You have made a very cogent post, so I will drop my discussion at this point. Thank you.
Clif
My definition is objectively correct, but I’m not going to tell you what it is.
Throwatron
Fuck, finally. Another person who agrees with my opinion.
annarchy
Why should the non-religious give any emphasis to the religious’s biased and disingenuous usage of the word atheist?
They are actively rewarded for lying about what atheism is and often misrepresented as a bad faith of light as they possibly can so when a religious person tries to tell me what an atheist is, I don’t even listen.
Motivated liars trying to sell you their brand.
Meagan
I definitely agree with ANYONE who says there’s a lot of different definitions of almost any word for an intangible concept, and that there is no objectively correct definition. Not just for the word ‘atheism.’
annarchy
Lack of faith is also implicitly protected by the freedom of faith.
Saying the lack of something is synonymous with having it he is disingenuous and muddying the waters.
To the law to express one space and no representation by the government of any particular faith not pushing non-faith or penalizing none faith.
Especially because faith is considered by most believers to be an action the epistemological act of using Faith as an epistemological tool for confirmation not a reference to their religion as a grouping such as this Faith versus this other religious faith.
Basically colloquially faith can be considered a synonym for religion. But within usage Faith inside of religions is used to describe an epistemological process of confirming the truth of something by believing it to be true very hard without checking by any verifiable means.
“Pick a dinner”
“All these dinners are bad. I choose none of these.”
“Nothing is a food! QED”
…nah
Dawgs, I just wanted to say Joyce was trying to keep religion out of it, look at all this thread ??♀️
annarchy
I have found the way Willis goes about addressing religious D conversion and change over time to be really honest and true to many people’s lived experiences.
My own included. Really well addressed and some interesting conversations it has spurned too.
Daniel M Ball
gee, we used to just use the euphemism ‘questioning’ for people in Joyce’s position. Not everyone goes straight to “Santa isn’t real so god is bullshit”, sometimes questioning ‘faith’ is really questioning if the church you grew up in actually reflects the Faith accurately. (a LOT of fundies are as guilty of bowdlerizing the bible as your most aggressive progressives, sometimes even to the point of feeding the negative stereotypes. See: Fred Phelps or Jim and Tammy Bakker.)
It’s kind of important for non-theist types to realize that ‘fundamentalist’ is an advertising term rather than a true descriptor. A lot of fundies actually don’t preach the FUNDAMENTALS of their religion so much as reinterpret them to support secular political goals.
Methinks Joyce is discovering that, and for theists out there, y’all should hope she learns to parse it without truly losing faith (something Becky appears to have done already).
as an agnostic with deist leanings, I’m not sure that there are some brands of ‘atheist’ that AREN’T a religion every bit as pernicious as the worst of the ‘fundies’.
The problem is that god is an out-of-context problem, an hypothesis that by definition can’t be tested or falsified. That doesn’t preclude the existence of ‘a’ god, but it does suggest the one we all hear about might be incorrectly defined.
milu
So, as an atheist who doesn’t really care about my atheism and just finds that any spiritual belief is kind of superfluous and irrelevant to my everyday life, do you want to help me understand what it is about my”religion” (I’m fine with the term although it feels a bit grand for what essentially amounts to indifference) thats so pernicious? I don’t especially care what i label myself, the descriptor “atheist” was just lying around when i realized the religion i’d been raised in (catholic) didnt interest me and neither did any other.
C.T. Phipps
My mother thinks I’m an atheist because I don’t go to church despite the fact I consider myself intensely religious in the Christian faith. I just don’t see how a church benefits it. I also know people who don’t believe in God but are intensely religious. They just hold a philosophy and tradition that doesn’t have a theistic center.
Arian
The comments I’ve seen from you certainly don’t give me the impression that you’re an atheist. I’m sorry to know your mother doesn’t recognise you as a “real” believer.
thejeff
There definitely are some toxic brands of atheist, but that doesn’t mean your brand is that way. See the fedora-tipping “rational skeptics” from a few years back who started out debunking Christianity then dove headfirst into anti-feminism and often merged into the alt-right.
Twitcher
My sister’s an atheist, and she is intensely frustrated with right-wingers basically using atheism as an excuse to hate muslims, women, their parents, and humanism in general. She seems to understand Damn You Willis better than me though.
It sort of upset me that when Willis lost faith in his parents, he lost faith in God, and my sister was like, “You get that when you have an authoritarian religion, your parents are totally enmeshed with the concept of God, right?
With me, my parents weren’t all that great, but I’ve always felt that there was something above them. I’ve come to wonder if that something isn’t necessarily kind.
I wonder about Becky, though, is her faith rock-solid or only sustained by Amazi-Girl assisted luck?
milu
@thejeff @Twitcher: oh, some atheist movements are terrible, no question.
But Daniel M Ball made a much taller claim, i quote:
“I’m not sure that there are some brands of ‘atheist’ that AREN’T a religion every bit as pernicious as the worst of the ‘fundies’.”
And I absolutely want to hear a defense of that position!
thejeff
You’re reading that as “he isn’t sure there are any non-pernicious brands of atheist”? I can see that, but I read it as “he isn’t sure there aren’t some pernicious brands”.
The negatives don’t cancel out in my reading.
milu
Oooooh
You’re probable right
I’m so disappointed
thejeff
I don’t think so. “Questioning” would have applied before the timeskip I think, but she seems to have gone well beyond that now, even if she’s still keeping it from most of her friends. Some people, like Becky, drop parts of the dogma of their faith while keeping the belief. That’s not what Joyce’s journey looks like.
Atheism bears no resemblance to religion. It’s just a lack of belief in the existence of gods. It has no doctrine, no ritual, no system of worship, no symbolism, no scripture, no mythology, no sacred objects or concepts, no faith.
Theism isn’t a religion either. It’s possible to believe in gods without being a member of any particular religion. If theism doesn’t qualify as a religion, how can atheism POSSIBLY qualify?
Also, it’s interesting to recognize that members of a religion are theists ONLY regarding the god(s) of their choosing. Towards all other gods, they’re atheists. So if atheism really were a religion, all members of a religion would actually be practicing TWO religions: the theism of belief in their god(s), and the atheism of non-belief in all other gods.
Rose by Any Other Name
I feel like this argument is really about what the word “religion” means.
Everyone seems to pretty much agree on what atheism is. The issue is what the definition of religion is. Depending on the definition of religion, Atheism could or could not fit that definition.
To clarify, all of the arguments above on this point seem to be using different definitions of what religion means, and thus both sides are right (using their definition) and both sides are wrong (using the other side’s definition).
Of course, I have no horse in this race. As a pagan, I don’t give a crap what any of the rest of you believe so long as you don’t oppress me and my beliefs. Believe and let believe – or not believe.
Clif
The Cheese by any other name would smell as sweet.
In other words, atheists believe in nothing right?
Atheists, bow before me, for I am your god!
Wagstaff
Well I hope you’re happy ruling from a black hole.
If physical nothing exists in this universe, that’s the only place it could POSSIBLY exist!
I am Nothing
Hey, that’s a good one I hadn’t considered.
But even in this context it doesn’t reeally physically exist. I guess you could also argue that nothing can exist in the form of an abstract concept. After all, it wouldn’t be wrong to say an idea exists.
Though I feel the whole “what defines religion” thing to be a bit pedantic, after all it has no effect on any belief itself. Though it’d be wrong to say that hardcore atheists don’t argue for their own beliefs as much as much as those who are strongly into a religion.
My advice: Don’t sweat the small stuff!
Wagstaff
It is true that some atheists have built up a large body of refutations against flawed arguments and claims for the existence of gods. But refuting arguments and claims doesn’t amount to doctrine or faith. It’s just a response to other people’s attempts at persuasion.
Calling atheism a religion is a false equivalence designed to level a non-level playing field. It’s often done to try and saddle atheists who made no truth claims with a false burden of proof to match the burden of proof on religious claims.
I am Nothing
It’s really just semantics, it really doesn’t matter how you define what you believe in.
milu
I think your stance on this issue is skewed by your belief in semantics.
Wagstaff
So it’s TL:DR again huh?
Long story short, atheism isn’t a religion because there are no beliefs ANY of them hold in common, the same way people who don’t like baseball don’t hold any beliefs in common.
385 thoughts on “Miss”
Ana Chronistic
Awwwwwww
*choosing not to see any contrarian hint of Joyce’s recent nontheism fighting to overpower basic empathy*
Ana Chronistic
“THE WATERSLIDES DO NOT GO UPSIDE-DOWN”
“why not”
“…oh right HEAVEN YES THE WATERSLIDES GO UPSIDE-DOWN”
He Who Abides
I half-expected a link to something Action Park related.
Needfuldoer
Action Park, you say.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flkW-ceNvck
Jim
I believe the Cannonball Tubes, a short-lived water slide at Action Park.
had a loop the loop.
The Other Mike
I wondered how far down in the comments I’d get before somebody mentioned Action Park.
Bicycle Bill
They come close to doing so in Wisconsin – which, BTW, is often referred to as “God’s Country” – so OF COURSE they are going to do full loop-de-loops in Heaven.
Incidentally, the waterslides in Hell also do full loop-de-loops. It’s just that the splash-down pond there is always empty…..
George W Harris
Oh, the splash-down pool is full. Just not of water.
Casi
It is however filled with something that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike water
Leorale
Yeah, I’m quite sure there isn’t a God, but I can still agree when people who are mourning say god-y stuff. (Or at least say “yeah, that sounds really good”). The person is way more important than whatever I think happens to dead people.
Btw, pro-tip (from my rabbi dad, who has done hundreds of funerals for hundreds of families) — he doesn’t bring up heaven talk to the grieving people (such as “they’re in a better place”), but if the grieving person says it first, he says “that’s a comfort”.
Queezle
that is a great tip because I really hated hearing that. Mostly because it feels really hollow to me, being and atheist and all.
Harmony
I’m not an Atheist, but an Antitheist (I believe gods exist, but that they’re basically just the human mind equivalent of an evolved distributed bot net virus, and kind of like that zombie ant fungus that makes ants act in self-destructive ways for the benefit of the fungus – I’ve noticed once I started looking at gods that way, a lot of stuff about religion clicked that didn’t before).
As such, I’ve always struggled with how to respond to “they’re in a better place now”, too. To date, my response has always been a change of topic back to the person and away from religion without getting confrontational, such as, “Always remember to keep them in your heart.” However, Leorale”s “It’s a comfort” line is a good defuser, and I’ll keep that one in mind from now on, too.
modulusshift
Heh. I dunno if I agree with religion being one of those, but there are definitely symbiotic mind viruses we all deal with: languages. You might think language is a tool invented by humanity, and while there’s arguably been some success in shaping it, it’s definitely placed a higher priority on being irresistible to almost all baby human brains, there’s multiple competing strains, mutations spread in viral fashion, etc. Linguistics on a macro scale is basically epidemiology.
Wagstaff
“Mind viruses”, or behaviors that mutate and get refined and naturally selected over time in an environment as though they were genes, actually have a name.
They’re called memes, the term for which was coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.
My brother actually got to meet him once at a tech conference. I am envious as fuck.
Delicious Taffy
“How about ‘full of shit’? Is that a meme?”
-Raiden, Metal Gear Rising
/reference /notserious
Icalasari
Huh, I always look at tales of old gods as them going, “They are basically humans but with immense power, so we worship them so we aren’t on their shit list. You know what WE do to other humans? Imagine that with god power!”
Bicycle Bill
When my friend, who was Jewish, passed last December, the rabbi who conducted the online shiva service for her told me, “May your memories of her be a blessing to you.” That works, too.
Just_IDD
I shall have to remember ….that is a comfort. For any time people talk about heaven or hell.
Carla's #2 Fan
Atheism is still a theism
Thag Simmons
Except it isn’t.
Viktoria
“Nontheist” is a term that gets used to mean “doesn’t believe in god” without pushing a specific label. We don’t know* if Joyce is atheist, agnostic, misotheist, or what, and she might not know either. Therefore, nontheist is a reasonable term.
Also, no, atheism is not a religion.
*it’s possible we do and I don’t recall, but I’m NOT doing a reread at 11 PM.
Thag Simmons
Nontheist is just a synonym of Atheist though.
Viktoria
No, nontheism is an overarching term for basically any “there probably aren’t any gods” philosophy, many of which are decidedly non-atheist. I was in a nontheist group in college with a couple Buddhists, as well as quite a few other philosophies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheism
If nothing else, it’s far more useful as an umbrella term than as a synonym for something we already have a word for.
Arian
Deists are not theists, while also not being atheists in the sense of believing in no god(s) of any nature. I think they have to be called nontheists. Another reason “atheist” is a very ambiguous term.
JediMB
Thinking “there probably aren’t any gods” just sounds like being agnostic atheist to me. (Personally, I consider myself gnostic atheist, although the label isn’t particularly important to my identity.)
Wagstaff
Gnostic? Dont you mean agnostic?
a/snow/mous/e
No, agnosticism is the belief that the existence or nonexistence of deities is unknowable; gnosticism is the belief that it is knowable. An agnostic atheist doesn’t believe in higher powers, but also believes they could be wrong; a gnostic atheist believes with certainty that there are no higher powers.
thejeff
Since they highlighted it in contrast to the agnostic atheist they mentioned in the previous line, probably not.
Leorale
I just googled “atheism vs nontheism” and, predictably, the first two hits asserted two opposing things.
The first site said that nontheism was basically a rebranding idea in the 1800s or so, to get away from the Christian belief that atheists also don’t believe in morality, and the Everyone idea that sometimes atheists are kinda obnoxious and pushy about it. So, nontheism was meant to be like atheism, without the baggage of being considered immoral or annoying. Hey, it was worth a shot!
The second hit was Wikipedia, which had a complicated relationship in which nontheism included various types of atheism, and is surely a fun wiki-hole waiting for anyone who desires it.
StClair
the euphemism treadmill never works that way.
Felix
Well, wikipedia is…wikipedia[citation needed]
Delicious Taffy
Hey, some people [who?] expect reliable info from that site.
thejeff
And honestly, it’s usually pretty good. The occasional edit war not withstanding.
Not authoritative, but hardly the garbage it’s sometimes treated as.
King Daniel
Yeah, while it shouldn’t be treated as the end-all-be-all source, “Wikipedia Is Garbage” is sooo…2011ish?
Meagan
Wikipedia literally has citations. I don’t understand why people who talk trash about Wikipedia don’t seem to understand that you can look at a Wikipedia page and see if whatever information contained there is cited or not, and it if it is, go to the source and evaluate it based on whatever criteria you choose. Many, many pages cite peer-reviewed studies.
Additionally, pages with minimal citations often make note of that fact, and claims made within a page that don’t have a citation will often have [citation needed] after the claim in brackets.
So, yes, Wikipedia is a great source where anyone who has a basic understanding of citations can find a treasure trove of indexed and referenced information, as well as a directory to other sources of information about the same topic.
Demoted Oblivious
Wikipedia also been accademically evaluated by independents, and found to have a lower error rate than Britanica.[see google for the citation]
OBBWG
If religion is an expression of faith, then Atheism is a religion. It is a belief that cannot be proved nor disproved. It is, in essence, faith that there is no god.
I stand by this very strongly because if Atheism is not a religion then, in the U.S., Atheist have no protection under the 1st Amendment or anti-discrimination laws.
Thag Simmons
That’s not how a religion is defined.
Wagstaff
Yeah, and as hard as religion is to define, here is one of the most general, loosest available definitions offered by Senior Anthropologist Clifford Geertz:
“A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, persuasive and long-lasting moods and motivations in people by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”
Still coming nowhere close to atheism.
And by the way, atheists actually ARE protected under the first ammendment, which protects FREE WORSHIP, including the option of not worshipping anything.
Meagan
How is that nowhere near to atheism? Atheism produces (or rather is in a mutually reinforcing relationship with) moods and motivations in the people who believe in it.
For example, there is an atheist in my town who has campaigned to remove invocations by local pastors/ministers (and the occasional rabbi) from the beginning of our city council meetings. His motivation to do this is related to his atheism (although there could theoretically be theists who also support the campaign on the basis of the separation of church and state).
The motivations of atheists generally seem to be, from my personal experience and observations: wanting truth/a factual understanding of the world (a way to relate to reality based in evidence, or that makes sense to them), accuracy, not to be fooled or tricked into believing something that isn’t true…perhaps also a love of learning and knowledge. And when it overlaps with humanism there are other moods and motivations
And considering that for most of humanity and in most cultures there is some belief in a god/gods/spiritual beings or forces, atheism could certainly be viewed by those adhering to it as ‘uniquely realistic.’
annarchy
Thing to point out.
The desire for more realistic / evidence-based confirmable methodologies generally comes from the fact that individuals often used to believe something strongly that they no longer believe and believe to be false now. Meaning they know their senses can be tracked they know they can be wrong and they know they can actively motivatedly try to change other people’s minds to false ideologies.
Once you realize you can make somebody else double Damned because you basically made mistakes for them, you work hard to make less mistakes.
Wagstaff
The thing is, there is no set of symbols or motivations common to ALL atheists, in the same way that all Christians at the very least hold SOME kind of reverence to Jesus Christ, or the same way that all Muslims believe at the very least that there is nothing else in all existence that’s like God.
Trying to assert that atheism is a religion is like trying to assert that there’s some common food that’s always enjoyed by people who don’t like Mac and Cheese — just plain ridiculous.
thejeff
“A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, persuasive and long-lasting moods and motivations …”
It’s not even necessarily that there aren’t symbols or motivations in common to all atheists, but that atheism or even most subgroups of atheism doesn’t have such a system of symbols. And by that definition, that’s what a religion is.
As I said earlier, there are some religions that are atheistic. Some varieties of Buddhism are the most common examples. They have such systems of symbols, they just don’t include belief in a god.
Rabid Rabbit
…
Citation needed.
Reltzik
Okay, so by my count:
OBBWG is using the word atheism to refer specifically (and only) to strong atheism….. at least that’s how I’m reading it, not sure… which is one definition in common usage… but also saying that all it takes to be a religion is an unprovable article of faith, which… no. There are religions which require no articles of faith, and there are things that might be believed only on faith that don’t constitute religions. Furthermore, atheists DO have protections under the 1st amendment, regardless of whether atheism is a religion or not. The Supreme Court, for the past generation or two, has consistently held across lots of cases that 1st amendment protections apply not only to religious beliefs, but any belief about religion, including its rejection.
Carla’s #2 fan is … saying atheism is a theism? That’s… no. Just no.
Thag is saying that atheism and nontheism are the same thing, which… works for one or two definitions of atheism in common usage…. so, fair.
…. we’re heading towards another atheism-definition fight aren’t we? Nonexistent-God-Dammit.
Look, can we at least agree that there’s a lot of different definitions for the word in common usage, and that none of them is the only objectively correct definition because objectiveness doesn’t apply here?
OBBWG
Reltzik, you are correct in your interpretation of what i was saying. You have made a very cogent post, so I will drop my discussion at this point. Thank you.
Clif
My definition is objectively correct, but I’m not going to tell you what it is.
Throwatron
Fuck, finally. Another person who agrees with my opinion.
annarchy
Why should the non-religious give any emphasis to the religious’s biased and disingenuous usage of the word atheist?
They are actively rewarded for lying about what atheism is and often misrepresented as a bad faith of light as they possibly can so when a religious person tries to tell me what an atheist is, I don’t even listen.
Motivated liars trying to sell you their brand.
Meagan
I definitely agree with ANYONE who says there’s a lot of different definitions of almost any word for an intangible concept, and that there is no objectively correct definition. Not just for the word ‘atheism.’
annarchy
Lack of faith is also implicitly protected by the freedom of faith.
Saying the lack of something is synonymous with having it he is disingenuous and muddying the waters.
To the law to express one space and no representation by the government of any particular faith not pushing non-faith or penalizing none faith.
Especially because faith is considered by most believers to be an action the epistemological act of using Faith as an epistemological tool for confirmation not a reference to their religion as a grouping such as this Faith versus this other religious faith.
Basically colloquially faith can be considered a synonym for religion. But within usage Faith inside of religions is used to describe an epistemological process of confirming the truth of something by believing it to be true very hard without checking by any verifiable means.
So you’re really misrepresenting the issue.
Ana Chronistic
“Pick a dinner”
“All these dinners are bad. I choose none of these.”
“Nothing is a food! QED”
…nah
Dawgs, I just wanted to say Joyce was trying to keep religion out of it, look at all this thread ??♀️
annarchy
I have found the way Willis goes about addressing religious D conversion and change over time to be really honest and true to many people’s lived experiences.
My own included. Really well addressed and some interesting conversations it has spurned too.
Daniel M Ball
gee, we used to just use the euphemism ‘questioning’ for people in Joyce’s position. Not everyone goes straight to “Santa isn’t real so god is bullshit”, sometimes questioning ‘faith’ is really questioning if the church you grew up in actually reflects the Faith accurately. (a LOT of fundies are as guilty of bowdlerizing the bible as your most aggressive progressives, sometimes even to the point of feeding the negative stereotypes. See: Fred Phelps or Jim and Tammy Bakker.)
It’s kind of important for non-theist types to realize that ‘fundamentalist’ is an advertising term rather than a true descriptor. A lot of fundies actually don’t preach the FUNDAMENTALS of their religion so much as reinterpret them to support secular political goals.
Methinks Joyce is discovering that, and for theists out there, y’all should hope she learns to parse it without truly losing faith (something Becky appears to have done already).
as an agnostic with deist leanings, I’m not sure that there are some brands of ‘atheist’ that AREN’T a religion every bit as pernicious as the worst of the ‘fundies’.
The problem is that god is an out-of-context problem, an hypothesis that by definition can’t be tested or falsified. That doesn’t preclude the existence of ‘a’ god, but it does suggest the one we all hear about might be incorrectly defined.
milu
So, as an atheist who doesn’t really care about my atheism and just finds that any spiritual belief is kind of superfluous and irrelevant to my everyday life, do you want to help me understand what it is about my”religion” (I’m fine with the term although it feels a bit grand for what essentially amounts to indifference) thats so pernicious? I don’t especially care what i label myself, the descriptor “atheist” was just lying around when i realized the religion i’d been raised in (catholic) didnt interest me and neither did any other.
C.T. Phipps
My mother thinks I’m an atheist because I don’t go to church despite the fact I consider myself intensely religious in the Christian faith. I just don’t see how a church benefits it. I also know people who don’t believe in God but are intensely religious. They just hold a philosophy and tradition that doesn’t have a theistic center.
Arian
The comments I’ve seen from you certainly don’t give me the impression that you’re an atheist. I’m sorry to know your mother doesn’t recognise you as a “real” believer.
thejeff
There definitely are some toxic brands of atheist, but that doesn’t mean your brand is that way. See the fedora-tipping “rational skeptics” from a few years back who started out debunking Christianity then dove headfirst into anti-feminism and often merged into the alt-right.
Twitcher
My sister’s an atheist, and she is intensely frustrated with right-wingers basically using atheism as an excuse to hate muslims, women, their parents, and humanism in general. She seems to understand Damn You Willis better than me though.
It sort of upset me that when Willis lost faith in his parents, he lost faith in God, and my sister was like, “You get that when you have an authoritarian religion, your parents are totally enmeshed with the concept of God, right?
With me, my parents weren’t all that great, but I’ve always felt that there was something above them. I’ve come to wonder if that something isn’t necessarily kind.
I wonder about Becky, though, is her faith rock-solid or only sustained by Amazi-Girl assisted luck?
milu
@thejeff @Twitcher: oh, some atheist movements are terrible, no question.
But Daniel M Ball made a much taller claim, i quote:
“I’m not sure that there are some brands of ‘atheist’ that AREN’T a religion every bit as pernicious as the worst of the ‘fundies’.”
And I absolutely want to hear a defense of that position!
thejeff
You’re reading that as “he isn’t sure there are any non-pernicious brands of atheist”? I can see that, but I read it as “he isn’t sure there aren’t some pernicious brands”.
The negatives don’t cancel out in my reading.
milu
Oooooh
You’re probable right
I’m so disappointed
thejeff
I don’t think so. “Questioning” would have applied before the timeskip I think, but she seems to have gone well beyond that now, even if she’s still keeping it from most of her friends. Some people, like Becky, drop parts of the dogma of their faith while keeping the belief. That’s not what Joyce’s journey looks like.
John Smith
Only if you define ‘theism’ so broadly the term becomes nonsense.
Wagstaff
Viktoria is right, atheism is not a religion.
Atheism bears no resemblance to religion. It’s just a lack of belief in the existence of gods. It has no doctrine, no ritual, no system of worship, no symbolism, no scripture, no mythology, no sacred objects or concepts, no faith.
Theism isn’t a religion either. It’s possible to believe in gods without being a member of any particular religion. If theism doesn’t qualify as a religion, how can atheism POSSIBLY qualify?
Also, it’s interesting to recognize that members of a religion are theists ONLY regarding the god(s) of their choosing. Towards all other gods, they’re atheists. So if atheism really were a religion, all members of a religion would actually be practicing TWO religions: the theism of belief in their god(s), and the atheism of non-belief in all other gods.
Rose by Any Other Name
I feel like this argument is really about what the word “religion” means.
Everyone seems to pretty much agree on what atheism is. The issue is what the definition of religion is. Depending on the definition of religion, Atheism could or could not fit that definition.
To clarify, all of the arguments above on this point seem to be using different definitions of what religion means, and thus both sides are right (using their definition) and both sides are wrong (using the other side’s definition).
Of course, I have no horse in this race. As a pagan, I don’t give a crap what any of the rest of you believe so long as you don’t oppress me and my beliefs. Believe and let believe – or not believe.
Clif
The Cheese by any other name would smell as sweet.
Stanistani
It also, by any other name, stands just as alone.
skartling
I thought it ran away
I am Nothing
In other words, atheists believe in nothing right?
Atheists, bow before me, for I am your god!
Wagstaff
Well I hope you’re happy ruling from a black hole.
If physical nothing exists in this universe, that’s the only place it could POSSIBLY exist!
I am Nothing
Hey, that’s a good one I hadn’t considered.
But even in this context it doesn’t reeally physically exist. I guess you could also argue that nothing can exist in the form of an abstract concept. After all, it wouldn’t be wrong to say an idea exists.
Though I feel the whole “what defines religion” thing to be a bit pedantic, after all it has no effect on any belief itself. Though it’d be wrong to say that hardcore atheists don’t argue for their own beliefs as much as much as those who are strongly into a religion.
My advice: Don’t sweat the small stuff!
Wagstaff
It is true that some atheists have built up a large body of refutations against flawed arguments and claims for the existence of gods. But refuting arguments and claims doesn’t amount to doctrine or faith. It’s just a response to other people’s attempts at persuasion.
Calling atheism a religion is a false equivalence designed to level a non-level playing field. It’s often done to try and saddle atheists who made no truth claims with a false burden of proof to match the burden of proof on religious claims.
I am Nothing
It’s really just semantics, it really doesn’t matter how you define what you believe in.
milu
I think your stance on this issue is skewed by your belief in semantics.
Wagstaff
So it’s TL:DR again huh?
Long story short, atheism isn’t a religion because there are no beliefs ANY of them hold in common, the same way people who don’t like baseball don’t hold any beliefs in common.
Ana Chronistic
Hey, I just watched you in The Perks of Being a Wallflower!
(Sorry Patrick)