Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Chris_24]

OK, that's a good enough definition for me.

Siquo, I meant a scale of belief from believing one thing to believing another, not strongly believing to weakly. Although I also noticed it added almost nothing to the debate after I posted it. So sorry about that.

Anyway, looking for something to find fault with... ()
What exactly do you mean by science can't answer 'why' questions? I mean it could answer "why does a butterfly have those pretty colours?". I'm not trying to be deliberately thick here I'm honestly inquiring. And what certain things can't it describe?

[G-Flex]

I still stand by my previous point, atheism is a belief.

This doesn't make any sense, and I've already stated why. The absence of a particular belief is not, in itself, a belief. You aren't even necessarily stating that "God is real" is false; you could simply have no opinion.

People who have never had any concept of a god, and have never heard of it, are atheists by necessity. This doesn't mean they have a "belief" that there is no god; they've simply never heard of it. They don't have any particular ideas about whether or not "God is real" is true. Similarly, there's a difference between stating "<idea> is not true" and "I don't think <idea> is true". If you don't understand the difference yet, I'm not even sure I can help you.

[Micro102]

Atheism doesn't have absence of belief, it just has abscence of belief in a god.

I belive that there is no being capable of creating the world. I belive that life started with a random encounter trillions of years ago which created the first strand of DNA, I belive in the big bang....Your definition states simply belief, not belief in a god....saying that would be twisting the meaning.

[dreiche2]

I still stand by my previous point, atheism is a belief.

This doesn't make any sense, and I've already stated why. The absence of a particular belief is not, in itself, a belief. You aren't even necessarily stating that "God is real" is false; you could simply have no opinion.

Would you mind addressing my contribution? Because I agree with Siquo and Grakelin in that one regard, that atheism is a statement of belief, or a collection thereof, unless we are talking about agnosticism.

No reason to rephrase it. Saying a statement is false is saying the negation of the statement is true, so that's covered already.

Only in logic. Greek orthodox tradition, for instance, sais you can only describe God in double negatives:
You cannot say that God does not exist.
Language is a lot richer than logic is.

I fail to see your point. The statement as such can still be negated:

"You cannot say that God does not exist" vs. "You can say that God exist". By making that first statement, you voiced your belief in that statement being true. So where's the problem? Not that it really matters...

No, if many people would really treat science as a religion, then it would be a religion.

No. Science as a philosophy itself has pretty much ruled out a lot of things it could cover, it can never answer a "why" because that's just out of scope. It cannot describe certain things because it limits itself. This is pure Science and it's beautiful.

There are however a lot of people who do believe that Science holds All Answers, and treat it as a religion. To differentiate, I call that Scienceism. It is a corruption of the ideals of pure Science, and a foothold for abberrations such as Intelligent Design, and for Christian fundamentalists who feel threatened by this newfangled "religion". Truth is that Science shouldn't and can't ever replace any religion.
Believing in the dogmas of science (such as uniformity of law and uniformity of processes across time and space, that there is a real world irrespective of our senses) does not automatically make you a Scienceist, by the way. It does limit your worldview, however, in my humble opinion.

I don't get what are you getting at. I stick with my statement that there are not many people who "treat science as religion" (again, unless this is supposed to be a metaphor or limited comparison). Please give examples to the contrary.

[kuro_suna]

So what are we defining as belief and as religion right now,
I believe in gravity and I  believe jumping off a tall cliff will end badly for me, I don't know that their isn't a gravity anomaly that will prevent me from falling in any particular cliff but I'm not going to jump off one regardless.
Is not jumping off cliffs a religion now?

[Cthulhu]

Actually, Scientism is a real thing.  How widespread it is probably depends on whether you ask a scientist or someone else.

[Micro102]

[dark humor]Perfect example! Lets have every religious person who believes their god can stop them from dieing if they fall off a cliff, jump off one. Then whoever is left are the ones that their god wants alive. Heck if I see it myself I'll change to whatever that religion is. [/dark humor]

[dreiche2]

Actually, Scientism is a real thing.  How widespread it is probably depends on whether you ask a scientist or someone else.

Yes, and I think this fits the bill quite nicely for what Siquo wants to criticize. However, it uses terms such as "ideology", "dogma" and "doctrines", and it is not saying that science is actually treated like a religion.

But yeah, let's not get bogged down with semantics. Even if one would like to say that in scientism, science is treated "like a religion", the underlying assumption is that 'proper' science itself is not a religion (which Siquo agrees with).

[Grakelin]

I will ignore the trolls who are trying to strawman this argument by claiming I hate atheists (looking at you Sergius. This doesn't even make sense).

I still stand by the idea that believing there is no god and rejecting that there is a god is the same thing. You're right that not having a driver's license is not the same as having a license to not drive. But if I say 'no, I refuse to accept this driver's license', I still do not have a driver's license. Similarly, if you say 'I refuse to believe there is a Deity', you do not believe there is a Deity.

Neruz is correct on his original definition of religion (this is widely accepted by scholars). Religion isn't a single belief, but a collection of beliefs.

[Sergius]

I will ignore the trolls who are trying to strawman this argument by claiming I hate atheists (looking at you Sergius. This doesn't even make sense).

It was you who trolled about feeling "strongly" about how atheists are defined. Several times.

"You need to explain why you feel so strongly about why Atheism is not a religion. It seems like it has been explained here already and you are denying it just because you don't want it to be true."

See? Trolling.

But if I say 'no, I refuse to accept this driver's license', I still do not have a driver's license

Yet, according to your logic, instead of not having a driver's license, you're accepting a license that means you won't drive. Here, the license is the religion.

I don't need any special lessons to stop driving. I may have never even been offered the chance of getting a driver's license. I may even live in a country where there are no cars and no driving licenses are issued.

Just because someone comes and offers me a driver's license, and I say "no", that doesn't mean that rejecting a driver's license is the same as accepting a "no-driver's license". Accepting would be analogous to believing.

[Grakelin]

Analogies are great when they actually apply to the subject at hand. In this case, it does not. A religion is not a 'license'. If the definition of a religion is 'a set of beliefs about the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe', then everybody has a religion, because everybody believes something about the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe. If your belief is 'I don't know what I believe, but it's not that', you are not an Atheist, you're simply an Agnostic who has decided some options aren't viable.

A better analogy would be, if I do not have legs, I do not have legs. If I have legs and deny that I have legs, I still have legs. But if I do not have legs, there is no way that I can truthfully say that I do.

[dreiche2]

So Grakelin, I am effectively an atheist.  Are you seriously saying that when someone asks me

"Are you religious"

I am supposed to say yes? And then, that atheism is my religion?

Edit: And no, that is not the definition of religion, sorry. It's a vague concept concerning a social phenomenon and doesn't have a strict definition.

Again: If I believe string theory to be true (something about the nature of the universe), that means I'm a religious person??

[dreiche2]

Sorry for the double post, I'm trying to avoid editing confusion.

Here's wikipedia again:

A religion is any systematic approach to living [...]

Bang. That's already where the identification with science falls short. But here's the full paragraph (emphasis mine):

A religion is any systematic approach to living that involves beliefs about one's origins, one's place in the world, or a responsibility to live and act in the world in particular ways. Religion is often equated with faith and belief in a higher power or truth, but it is more commonly defined in religious studies as the patterns that express that faith and reinforce it in day-to-day living. One can share the philosophy of a religion, believing in its higher truth, without manifesting that faith religiously.

Next paragraph:

Aspects of religion include narrative, symbolism, beliefs, and practices that are supposed to give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life. Whether the meaning centers on a deity or deities, or an ultimate truth, religion is commonly identified by the practitioner's prayer, ritual, meditation, music and art, among other things, and is often interwoven with society and politics. It may focus on specific supernatural, metaphysical, and moral claims about reality (the cosmos and human nature) which may yield a set of religious laws and ethics and a particular lifestyle. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and religious experience.

So religion is a vague term, but it usually involves belief in some higher power, a moral code, practices and rituals, a life philosophy, etc etc etc.  Actually, the parts in bold above characterise it pretty well.

[Neruz]

because everybody believes something about the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe.

I don't.

[sonerohi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSMeUPFjQHc

To clarify: Harmony harmony oh love, guys. Harmony harmony.