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[Fenrir]

You defended your post by asserting three things.

1. “It has quite a bit to do with the topic since it is one of the morals you can get from the Bible.”
Your post never mentions the Bible, and no one else had either. It’s really weird to randomly assert that the Bible teaches “People identify with either themselves or other people,” without even mentioning the Bible and without it being relevant to anything anyone else was saying either.

Even if you were being honest right now and that was what you were trying to say, that does not explain why you didn’t just say it instead of re-defining words first.

2. “Said thing and theory is in fact a quote from someone else(rather famous philospher I believe).”
Who thought of it first is irrelevant.

3. “It's just that I failed to provide the context.”
Again, context does not make connotation smuggling not connotation smuggling.

[10ebbor10]

Let's start from the beginning, what  am I supposed to have done wrong again?

Nevermind, I think I saw where I made a kind of non sequitur.

[Fenrir]

You wanted to say “Atheism is a religion!” so you re-defined “god” and “idol” to mean something else that atheists and agnostics (arguably) do have, so you could say “See? Everyone has a god or an idol,” and therefore imply “Religion!” and, when someone tries to call you on it, you insist that it was just a metaphor.

No one else seemed to notice it was a ruse. If anyone actually used your new definitions, what they would get would have nothing to do with anything anyone was talking about.

Of course, this might just be a run-around you’re giving me, but I’ll give the benefit of the doubt for now.

[10ebbor10]

I think I managed to figure out my entire thought pattern there. The non sequitor was caused by the fact that I write post over a long time, and when I ended up writing the last part of it.

Problem was caused by me using a wrong connotation of religious (as in, fervent believers in something, a connotation you often see recurring in this sort of debates). ( this part was scrapped before the final post) Followed by me switching to another definition of religiousity, where you can indeed draw parralels.

I suppose that by using the wikipedia definition of religion you can say that atheism + other -isms aren't religions, since that's pretty much the definition.
I do dare to say that there are a lot of similarities between some atheists and religious people, and that sometimes the link between atheists and religous people can be greater than between the different types of atheists and religious.

[Leafsnail]

I do dare to say that there are a lot of similarities between some atheists and religious people, and that sometimes the link between atheists and religous people can be greater than between the different types of atheists and religious.

This isn't really saying much at all.  Like I get that you're saying some atheists are dogmatic but what is that meant to mean?  Are these atheists who act like religious people meant to be bad?

[Micro102]

I hate trying to post here with phones, it just doesn't work

Anyway, atheism should not be considered a religion. On one hand it is a name based on what you don't believe in, which is a very uncommon way of identifying things, by what they aren't. Secondly, religion is based on faith, atheism isn't.

But if it does end up getting classified as a religion by the government then I don't really mind. Just means tax free "churches" 

[Deathworks]

Hello!

On one hand it is a name based on what you don't believe in, which is a very uncommon way of identifying things, by what they aren't.

I have to disagree with you there. You are mixing agnosticism with atheism there. Atheism means that you believe in the non-existence of any gods/divine beings. It does not refer to the other options but rather states clearly what you believe in: a completely mundane world.

Secondly, religion is based on faith, atheism isn't.

Once you have found a way to disprove the existence of divinity without using axioms inherent of atheism, your statement would be correct. But as it stands, atheism requires just as much faith as religion. Atheists believe there is no divinity, just as much as Christians believe in the existence of the Christian god, and neither side has any better proof for their belief than the other side.

Whether to classify atheism as a religion or not is a very difficult question. In many regards, atheism works as a religion, in other regards it can not do so. For instance, atheism answers the same questions about the creation of the world, the creation of humanity. It also answers the question of meaning.

In addition, it definitely takes up the same slot as theist religions. That is, if you are an atheist, you can't be a Christian.

On the other hand, atheism lacks rituals and community, and more importantly, it inherently denies objective ethics, thus providing no ethics in and of itself.

Personally, I prefer to refer to atheism as a religion, simply as this stresses that atheists are just as dependent on faith as theist people. The atheist position is in no way objectively superior or inferior to the theist position in that regard, and this is something important too many people tend to forget.

Yours,
Deathworks

[Max White]

Good god, are we doing to difference between Agnostic and Atheist again?
Agnostic is an adjective. It means to be uncertain of. For example, if Bob didn't know if Jamie was a boy or a girl, then Bob is agnostic to Jamies gender. It is also a rather important thing when using inheritance in programming. Agnostic is a word that exists outside of religious aliment.

Now, how does it fit into ones religous aligment? Well here.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Because you can't prove a negative, you will find most rational people are agnostic atheists. In the same way, without a way to prove that unicorns, dragons or grumpkins don't exist, most people are agnostic about those too.

Remember kids, agnostic atheist isn't a religion, because there is no faith involved. You aren't making any statement about somethings existence, you are just pointing out the total lack of evidence for something and saying that we might as well treat it like it doesn't exist until something turns up.

[kaijyuu]

Under that chart, I suppose I'd be a Agnostic Theist, though I only lean toward Theism very slightly and due to gut feeling/wishful thinking, rather than anything logical.


I still don't particularly like that chart since it assumes everyone's come to a conclusion, even if they don't put any claim of knowledge behind it.

[Deathworks]

Hello Max White

You have a very nice graph there, and it illuminates what I had been trying to point out quite nicely: Not all atheists are agnostics, or rather atheism does not mean you are automatically agnostic. And if you are a gnostic atheist, then you do have faith just as a gnostic theist. Thus, atheism as such can have as much faith as theism.

Yours,
Deathworks

EDIT: Kaijyuu: I am an agnostic atheist in that chart. And I do believe that everyone has at least subconsciously a position as to how the world works, whether due to one or more divine entities or due to their absence. These are very basic questions as they are at the deep core of our decision-making process.

[Max White]

Under that chart, I suppose I'd be a Agnostic Theist, though I only lean toward Theism very slightly and due to gut feeling/wishful thinking, rather than anything logical.


I still don't particularly like that chart since it assumes everyone's come to a conclusion, even if they don't put any claim of knowledge behind it.

The interesting thing is that if you are a agnostic theist, then most likely you are also an agnostic atheist. Not always but often. See if you are an agnostic theist towards say, Isis, then you most likely don't believe in Thor, but being agnostic leaves room for the possibility to exist, so you are an agnostic atheist towards Thor.
In the same way, being gnostic theist towards Thor would require you to deny many other gods, making you gnostic atheist towards Isis and Zeus.

The claim of certainty is a big thing...

Hello Max White

You have a very nice graph there, and it illuminates what I had been trying to point out quite nicely: Not all atheists are agnostics, or rather atheism does not mean you are automatically agnostic. And if you are a gnostic atheist, then you do have faith just as a gnostic theist. Thus, atheism as such can have as much faith as theism.

Yours,
Deathworks

EDIT: Kaijyuu: I am an agnostic atheist in that chart. And I do believe that everyone has at least subconsciously a position as to how the world works, whether due to one or more divine entities or due to their absence. These are very basic questions as they are at the deep core of our decision-making process.

True, there are atheists that claim absolute certainty that there is no god or something similar. This really does come down to faith making it a lot more similar to a religion than the agnostic counterpart, but you will find that the majority of atheists are agnostic, and willing to accept any real evidence you can find for a god. Just don't expect us to swallow any of that 'Self evident' tripe, or other voodoo arguments.

[Deathworks]

Dear Max White,

I would rather like to be careful about giving likelihoods. I don't know of any reliable statistics about the number of genuine atheists in a given region and much less about whether they are agnostic or not.

I don't see why an agnostic atheist should try to convert people away from theism. After all, if you don't know about the validity of your own position, how can you claim that your position is better/superior to a different position? And yet, there are those who are publicly campaigning against theism, ranging from the personal level up to attacking theist religions as a concept as such.

Therefore, I don't think that gnostic atheists are that rare.

And frankly, when you try to link rationality with agnostic atheism, it feels as if you implied that theism was irrational, a generalized qualification that would already go towards gnostic atheism in my opinion.

Yours,
Deathworks

[Max White]

I think you have made a mistake. I don't mean to imply that an agnostic doesn't have certainty about the validity of their position, but rather their position is that there can be no absolute certainty on the existence of this deity. I am certainly sure about that.
It is for that reason that agnostic atheist is a reasonable, defensible position.

As for this ' publicly campaigning against theism', in a world where religion is like a cancer in education, healthcare and human rights, I think you will find that any agnostic atheist would fight for a secular society. You can have your faith, just make sure it doesn't get in the way of anything important.

And I don't mean to imply that theism is rational and atheism isn't. I mean to imply that agnostic is rational and gnostic is not. Claiming knowledge of something you have no objective evidence for is silly. If you have some, then show me.

[kaijyuu]

And I don't mean to imply that theism is rational and atheism isn't. I mean to imply that agnostic is rational and gnostic is not. Claiming knowledge of something you have no objective evidence for is silly. If you have some, then show me.

Empirical evidence is based upon equally indefensible axioms, you know. A solipsist would scoff at you calling such evidence "objective."

[Max White]

Ok for the sake of ever getting anything done, can we just pretend that the base assumptions of science are certainty? Otherwise there is no such thing as knowledge and everything is unknowable and you just end up in a philosophical 'wat iz realz' clusterfuck with no answer ever.