This thread is in reference to the topic:  Can an Atheist also be a Christian?


Let's look at the meaning of religion here.  It's an entire belief system founded upon a pile of ideas and theories, and no solid evidence to prove it.

Religion was all until mankind made several discoveries that linked toward what was dubbed the theory of evolution. With solid, tangible support, how can it be challenged by an idolized fantasy novel?

Yet there's a reason why scientists call it a theory, and why many of them are spiritual. They have uncovered nothing that can disprove the existence of a God or Gods or some form of higher power. All science has at this point is theories, and Atheists take to heart these theories.

Some of them roam the internet (I'm not referring to anyone here in particular) looking to pick apart the religious and prove themselves right, thereby succeeding in turning Atheism into a religion. Ironic. What are your views about this?

I think some atheists are as devout as the most devout christians and this belief is very central to their identity, and for others it is simply the lack of belief in a god or gods.

If an atheist has a lack of belief in a divine being, there is no belief and therefore will have no religious basis. Most atheists I know, are very slow to reveal their feelings in this department, for they do not wish to proselytize.

Now let's talk about the "just a theory" argument.  The word "theory" is often used interchangeably with the word "guess" and this is grossly incorrect.

A theory is the best explanation based on the available facts.  If there are no facts to base the theory, it is just a guess or postulation.  Our understanding of gravity is "just a theory".  We know several facts about it. We can define it.  And anyone can test the theory by simply dropping a rock.  Facts are things that can be verified by independent sources.

Religious tenets to date can not really be called theory.  They can only be called postulation for there are no facts by which they can be verified.  So if we are going to use the "just a theory" argument, we can't talk about religion, for it merits no theory.

By the time an idea is called a "theory", it's on pretty solid ground.  That isn't to say that it is 100 percent correct, but it is safe to say that it is fairly well accepted according to the facts that support it.  To dismiss a theory offhand is to deny the facts that support it.  To deny evolution (which many people do) you may ignore the fact that dinosaurs existed for example.  You would deny that plant and animal life forms throughout history have lived and died, that these various forms have progressively become more advanced through the paleontological record.  These are facts; they support the theory.  Evolution is, by the way, the only theory currently on the table to explain these facts.  I'd welcome discussion of a different theory based on the facts that we know. Unfortunately, those who disregard the theory have not managed to come up with one of their own. They ask us to ignore the facts and believe in what they propose.  Why would any thinking person ignore facts to believe a postulation proposed by someone else?

Cindi

your logic is completely disjointed. evolution did not precede atheism. the reason evolution is a theory is that it is backed by extensive evidence, not because it has ever attempted to disprove the divine. science is not the exclusive realm of the atheist, just as stupid rhetoric and meaningless arguments are not the exclusive realm of the religious.

Evolution and Atheism are not associated. Plenty of religious people accept evolution. There are no beliefs associated to atheism other than a lack of belief in any diety (and thus religion).

As far as why some atheists are openly critical of religion, there's a variety of reasons.

First of all, of course there's jerks in every pool of people, Christian, Islamic, religious or not. That probably counts for most of the annoying people.

Though really, its hard to resist arguing (or defending yourself) when now and throughout history, pro-religion or pro-Christian groups openly imposed their beliefs on others, denigrated 'non-believers', and assaulted atheists as communists, immoral, un-American, and so forth. In some areas, openly being atheist can still land you ostracization or even subtle harassment from those around you.

And truth be told, not being believers in religion, some atheists may see things like evolution as a simple matter of rational analysis and discussion, not religion, so will argue openly against the dread foe 'ignorance', not really understanding the significance of the religious implications to the other.

Myself, I have some quite religious acquaintances, and even though they don't intend on doing it, inevitably they end up putting a bit of pressure on me. Simple things, like implicitly asking why I believe what I do, why I don't believe what they do. Either I have to hold myself back and basically dodge the question, or I have to stand firm and assertively state my case. And in any case, it also tends to identify me as an outsider.

Anyway, being in this kind of environment, it's not surprising that atheists may feel like they have to fight for their right to exist. At my uni, an atheists and agnostics club formed in part because it can often seem pretty difficult or lonesome out there when you're surrounded by people who are 'believers'.

While it may be hard to fully realize, atheists are effectively a religious minority, and often have to deal with the prejudices and generalizations that the 'majority' tends to make against them. While it depends a lot on the region, in general some nominal belief is expected. Being a rarely practicing Christian is no big deal, but atheism can make people look at you differently. It's hard to quantify, but a bias definitely exists. After all, a poll once concluded that atheism is one of the biggest traits that would cause a person not to vote for a presidential candidate. A classmate of mine once lead the 'Pledge of Allegiance' in high school over the P.A., and he omitted 'under God.' For that, he was forbidden from leading it again by the administration and chastised.

So anyway, I apologize for kind of going on... I guess I wanted it off my chest. Atheists typically don't act the way they do for no reason, at least not the ones I know.

~k

Atheism is a religion in the same sense that bald is a hair color!  >
But seriously though, Atheism has no institutions, clerics or any kind of dogmatic framework; it simply represents disbelief in the existence of a Deity so I don't see how it can be regarded as a religion.

tink

Oh Tink, you are funny!

Cindi

Atheism has always been a religion.  There is no way to prove the non-existance of god, just like there is no way to prove the existance of god.  Therefore atheists take it as an article of faith that god does not exist.  People who do not believe in god, but don't rule out the possibility of god are called agnostics.

Forgive me....but...it seems to me that you dont actually know the meaning of the word atheism since you asked such a question.  Atheism comes from the Greek: a- theos = without God. So...my friend, theres no way atheism can be a religion since it denies the existence of God , has no specific creed, no rituals and no worship places.

Atheism is the antithesis of religion. It is the absence of religion in the same way that darkness is the absence of light and that cold is the absence of heat. You can re-define darkness as much as you want, but it will never be light.

Atheism is the confident belief that there are no deities or spirits that humans need to respect or pay homage to. Humans are as you see them, corporeal, thinking animals. Any higher spirituality is due to our ability to think, feel and moralise.

Atheists, on the contrary, must make up their own individual moral codes for what is right and wrong because they arent following the guidance of a religion.

If someone asked you where you were going and you said Not London, that doesnt make Not London a specific place. Its like that with atheism. Simply saying that you dont accept a god, or a creator doesnt say what you do have confidence in (e.g. materialism, cosmic consciousness, or whatever). I doubt that anyone is sufficiently rational and empirical to believe only in things they can establish as fact, so we all have a degree of faith beyond absolute fact.

Atheism by itself is rather reactionary point of view. It is allowing theism to define the rules of the debate, rather than stating your preferred positive alternative.

I just love this argument perpetuated by religious leaders that declare that the ability to disprove religion is a   religion in and of itself. It would not matter what proof was submitted, religious people would never accept it anyway, just as they currently do not. There are far too many contradictions and just flat out falsehoods in the Bible for anyone to declare it to be an accurate account of history. I mean come on? Witches? Giants? Two of every animal on one boat? Adam named all the animals? To me it's amazing that anyone really expects anyone to believe that nonsense.

I guess what really bugs me is this idea that those of us who are sane, should have to prove to anyone that some fictitious being does not exist. And the logic that failure to prove that god does not exist, is somehow proof that he does. I have to be honest here, I had it figured out by the time I was nine. Let's see, santa, the easter bunny, the tooth fairy, god. As a kid they were all the same to me. Made up fictional characters with special powers. In my mind there was no difference between them. And after finding out one of them did not exist, it was easy to see that none of them existed.

So I say to those who would say "prove god does not exist", Prove that Santa does not exist. Prove that the easter bunny does not exist. Prove that there is no tooth fairy or Great Pumpkin. You can't. So do they also exist? Is it a religion if one does not believe in Santa Claus? Do we give it a special name when someone stops believing the tooth fairy? How about a name for those who refute scientific theory with wishful thinking?

You see, this whole thing about saying that science is just theory is another trick of the religious. Theories are not just educated guesses. They explain with rules and conditions, but most importantly, they make predictions. A theory can predict an outcome. That was how Newton avoided the same fate as Galileo. It took him twenty years to develope calculus, but in doing so he could predict the movements of the planets. He told the Catholic church, either your doctrine is wrong or I am god, since I can tell you where the planets are going to be and when. The church said "God gave us Newton" and changed their doctrine.

We do not have proof by failing to prove something and we don't have religion by failing to believe in anything. This is insane logic. God does not exist because we have failed to prove he does not. If that were so, then The Easter Bunny, Santa and the tooth Fairy would exist right along with him. That may seem silly to some, but fictional characters are fictional characters. One can believe whatever the system is willing to support.

If one were to take children and send them to special schools where all the adults told them that Santa does exist and anyone who says he don't is wrong and will be punished later, for saying so. We could open up Santa Churches where we could share our experiences, with Santa. And we would only vote for politicians who open admit they Beleive in Santa. Then we can make it a crime to say that Santa does not exist. Put Santa in our National Anthem and Pledge. It will become a special crime to assault a midget. As elves they are protected from hate crimes. It is no more far fetched than believing, or for that matter, not believing, in god.

Love always,
Elizabeth

To answer the initial question: No, it is not.

I simply do not believe in a god or any type. Or how I explain it to others, I do not subscribe to any mythology no matter how popular it may be at the moment. I do however, aggravate the bible thumpers on purpose. Usually telling them that I do not believe in a polytheism and such could not ever be a member of any Christian collective. First they get annoyed because I refuse to be one of them. Then they get upset because they cannot easily follow my words. Then, once they have digested the line they either storm off or try to cover up that they have no idea what I have just said. I only do this with those who annoy me first so I consider it self defense rather than just being a jerk.

Or George Carlin's line about using the phrase, "I am not unwell, thank you." to the question of, "How are you?" can also cause much confusion and hilarity. As he says, it ticks them off because they have to stop and figure it out themselves.

I think atheism could become a sort of religion, with richard dawkin as God, carl sagan as jesus, and Ayn Rand as the holy spirit.

My atheism resides purely in my lack of belief in God, no more and no less.

I will hereby self define as an Adeist.

Theism is the belief in the existence of one or more divinities or deities.
I'm an atheist because I have no belief in the existence of one or more divinities or deities. I don't feel I have the capacity to.

Religion also means:

A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

Atheists, do have causes, principles..do they not purse them with zeal or conscientious devotion?

I would have to lean towards yes for this reason. Yes the majority of scientists are atheists, but that doesn't prove anything. And I think most will agree that you can't disprove God by the scientific method. Eventually when you strip away all the rhetoric and pre-conceived notions, you're left with a worldview that cannot be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. And for someone to place a belief in something that can't be 100% proven, is to demonstrate faith.

So yes, because atheism is belief in something that cannot be proven, that invokes faith. Even if that faith is that "Well science has taken us this far in confirming out beliefs and I'm quite confident that it will continue to validate our beliefs with future discovery." Even that is still faith, however reasoned one may feel it is. And faith, according to my definition, is one of the key constituents of religion.

If you have a glass of water and a an empty glass, one has water in it, the other does not.  There is no water in the empty glass.

No matter how much you believe, there is no water in the glass.  Neither is there beer, wine, or science in the empty glass.  It is empty!

Cindi

Quote from: Cindi Jones on June 02, 2007, 10:42:18 AM
It is empty!

Cindi

That's a factual statement.  Who says the glass is empty?  Do you believe that the glass is empty?  Then we'e back to my original question.

Okay. In science (and life in general), the burden of proof is on existence, not the negation.

This is pretty sensible. No one makes theories why there are no magical unicorns, because there's no reason to believe they exist. A scientist, biologist, or whoever can scream all they want that they do exist, but it won't make it any more reasonable without any physical evidence. Or in other words, I don't have to believe there are no fairies, because in spite all the fictional literature, no one has detected any proof of fairies.

The reality is... there is yet to appear any veritable proof of the Christian God. By it's very nature, belief in 'God' is purely a matter of faith.

It's not that I believe there is no God, but rather I can't see any reason reason for me to believe in God. And on the other hand, there is physical evidence that the universe is billions of years old, there is evidence of evolution, and so forth. I am not going to spend my days wandering around thinking about why I don't believe in one thing or another.

Why do Atheists have to give the 'benefit of the doubt' to one system of belief? Simply because it has many followers?

Okay, if you absolutely wish, I can say, "It's not impossible that God exists." But I also would say, "It's not impossible that Buddha, or Allah, or Shiva, or Gaia, or any number of deities exist."


Anyway. This is precisely why I avoid getting in a debate with my religious friends as much as possible. It's literally impossible to disprove 'faith', and conversely, they tend to believe that my position is a matter of faith (which they try to use against me), which it is not, and has never been. You can 'believe' otherwise all you wish.

Quote from: Jeannette on June 02, 2007, 11:05:06 AM

Quote from: Cindi Jones on June 02, 2007, 10:42:18 AM
It is empty!

Cindi

That's a factual statement.  Who says the glass is empty?  Do you believe that the glass is empty?  Then we'e back to my original question.

I said that the glass was empty as part of my example. So, since it is my example I can say with authority that the glass is empty.  You could say that the glass has air in it and air has water in it.  But no, not here. This is the assumption of my argument.  The basis is that one glass has water in it and one glass is empty by definition.

Cindi