Atheist Religion

[Padma]

The word Religion in no way implies a god.

[peky]

The word Religion in no way implies a god.

Beg to disagree my dear Padma, see below


religion (n.) Look up religion at Dictionary.com
    c.1200, "state of life bound by monastic vows," also "conduct indicating a belief in a divine power," from Anglo-Fr. religiun (11c.), from O.Fr. religion "religious community," from L. Beg to religionem (nom. religio) "respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods," in L.L. "monastic life" (5c.); according to Cicero, derived from relegere "go through again, read again," from re- "again" + legere "read" (see lecture (n.)). However, popular etymology among the later ancients (and many modern writers) connects it with religare "to bind fast" (see rely), via notion of "place an obligation on," or "bond between humans and gods." Another possible origin is religiens "careful," opposite of negligens.

Meaning "particular system of faith" is recorded from c.1300. Modern sense of "recognition of, obedience to, and worship of a higher, unseen power" is from 1530s.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=religion

[Padma]

No, that's just one of several meanings, so a god is not implicit.

Oxford English Dictionary:

religion /rɪˈlɪdʒ(ə)n/ noun. ME.
[ORIGIN Anglo-Norman religiun, Old French & Modern French religion from Latin religio(n-) obligation, bond, scruple, reverence, (in Late Latin) religious (monastic) life, prob. from religare: see religate, -ion.]

1 A state of life bound by religious vows; the condition of belonging to a religious order, esp. in the Roman Catholic Church. ME.

Hor. Walpole My father...was retired into religion.

2 A particular monastic or religious order or rule. Now rare. ME.

3 Belief in or sensing of some superhuman controlling power or powers, entitled to obedience, reverence, and worship, or in a system defining a code of living, esp. as a means to achieve spiritual or material improvement; acceptance of such belief (esp. as represented by an organized Church) as a standard of spiritual and practical life; the expression of this in worship etc. Also (now rare), action or conduct indicating such belief; in pl., religious rites. ME.

Gibbon The public religion of the Catholics was uniformly simple. H. Martineau The best part of religion is to imitate the benevolence of God. Day Lewis Religion...formed a natural part of my life. personified: Pope There stern Religion quench'd th' unwilling flame.

4 A particular system of such belief. ME.

W. Cather What religion did the Swedes have way back? fig.: Ladies Home Journal (US) Care of the hair has become a religion.

†5 Devotion, fidelity; conscientiousness; pious attachment. L16–L17.

Shakes. A.Y.L. Keep your promise...With no less religion than if thou wert...my Rosalind.

†6 The sanction or obligation of an oath etc. E17–E18.

[tekla]

It's not a belief system at all.  It's a knowledge system based upon demonstrable proofs that can be replicated by anyone (and everyone) else, and, as such, have predictive qualities set in a mathematical model.  No one in science is expected to take anything on 'faith'.  If you walk into a college physics course and say "Hey, I don't think that gravitation exists" the teacher would say, 'Great, prove it.' 

And those two little words - prove it - are the chasm that separates science and reason from faith and belief.  And it's one hell of an abyss between them.

You ask a religious person for some 'proof' and what they give you back is 'you must have faith.'  For the world's largest GOD based religions (and not all religions are GOD based), they have between them not a single shred of evidence, not a single iota of proof about Jesus being God, about the Jewish God existing, or the existence of Allah.  Zip.  Zero.  Zilch.  Nada.  People believe them based on faith - or as others see it, based on imagination, hallucination, and wishful thinking.  The best you can get out of the three of them combined is 'look at the world/universe, it has to be true', which is no proof at all.

A religious person would say that you have to have faith in order to get god/religion to work for you.  A scientist will tell you that you can doubt gravitation all you want but if you jump off the Golden Gate Bridge you're still going to fall, and the speed at which you hit the water is going to be determined by 9.81 m/s (32.2 ft/s or 22 mph) for each second of your descent up to the terminal velocity.  No believe required.  Splat.

And, sho 'nuff, each and every person who has jumped off that bridge - 1,200+ - have fallen down.  Not a single one fell up.  Not a single one hovered.  And though we have lots of evidence from interviews with those that have survived it that you have a long time to really regret the decision on the way down, no amount of faith, belief or prayer has ever stopped the fall.

Science and reason/rational thought do not DENY the existence of god, because you can't prove a negative.  Lacking proof, they instead say, 'perhaps'.  Maybe yes, maybe no.  They say: Hypotheses non fingo, as Newton did.  They also say, in the immortal words of Carl Sagan:
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[suzifrommd]

Science and reason/rational thought do not DENY the existence of god, because you can't prove a negative. 

Right, and that's where believe comes in. Since I, an atheist, cannot prove there is no god, then my conviction is based on personal belief rather than proof.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Be careful. While I consider the claim that life was created by an omnipotent being extraordinary, I also find the opposite claim, that life evolved naturally, to be equally extraordinary.

For life to exist and replicate, need three things:

1. A way to encode its construction. (I'll call this DNA).
2. A structure that constructs it based on the encoding (I'll call this a ribosome).
3. A way to transfer the information from #1 to #2 while still preserving the encoding (I'll call these transfer enzymes).

Any two of these, and life would quickly die out. You need all three.

So the claim that life evolved naturally requires that three very complex structures, DNA, a ribosome, and transfer enzymes all came about at the same time in the same place.

What an extraordinary claim!

[PaRaDeaD]

Right, and that's where believe comes in. Since I, an atheist, cannot prove there is no god, then my conviction is based on personal belief rather than proof.

I for one do not believe that there is a god but I also don't believe there is no god. I'm not making a claim that there is no god, I simply don't accept the claim that there is. I have absolutely no belief either way concerning the issue of god's existence.

[Nathan.]

Sounds like agnostic to me... since atheists BELIEVE there is know God... as it is something you cannot know... at least not in a 'scientific' sense...

Axélle

Actually you can be agnostic and atheist. Gnostic refers to knowledge and theism refers to belief or lack of.



I'm an agnostic atheist, I lack a belief in god but make no claim saying there is no god.

[suzifrommd]

Actually you can be agnostic and atheist.

That's me. I'm certain that the existence of God cannot not be disproven (an omnipotent being could create a universe where it appears there is no God), so I don't think it's possible to know that there is no God.

But ask my what I believe, based on all I do know, I'd tell you that I believe there is not a God.

[Kitteh Engimeer]

I guess I got it easy. I don't believe in souls or any sort of afterlife, so I guess I don't care if there's a god or not. I might be slightly nihilistic, but at the same time a materialist/physicalist.

They also say, in the immortal words of Carl Sagan:
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Also, yay - I love Carl Sagan <3
*unf unf*

[Annah]

The word Religion in no way implies a god.

absolutely agree.

My doctorate level class of World Religions defines religion as follows:

Religion is a system of thought, experiences, and inter related ideas which make metaphysical, epistemological, and culturally conditioned claims about the nature of reality itself.

No mention of God. Why? Because not every religion has a God.

[Kitteh Engimeer]

It's a funny thing to figure out the difference between -knowing- and -believing-...

Can it be that what we think we KNOW is just another form of BELIEVE?

If we have any experience we tend to think we KNOW something because we have experienced it i.e. -materialist/physicalist- , right?

How about spiritual experiences?! Are they just humbug because we are 'trained' only to 'experience' the -materialist/physicalist- ?

How about e.g. "the square root of the power of -2"
How -materialist/physicalist- is that?

Now do we –know- it... or just –believe- in it... and therefore it exists? And therefore it is not just some spook?
Some spook as God might be considered - by some?

So once again,  "what does the flea in dog's fur know even about the dog" - never mind his master?

Axélle

That's why I bolded "believe."

Besides, our brains are (amazing) finite, fleshy masses. They's got limits.

[SarahM777]

What about hate and love? Can they be measured? What do they look like physically? Are they always rational? Can we stick them in a box,weigh them up,and do they repeat themselves in the exact same way time after time? Can we define them from a scientific or rational view point? We all believe they exist but can they be proven from a rational point of view?

[Felix]

I tend to avoid the word atheist and just try to find substitutes for god that everybody can understand - science, nature, our own species, the sky, whatever.

[suzifrommd]

I tend to avoid the word atheist and just try to find substitutes for god that everybody can understand - science, nature, our own species, the sky, whatever.

I noticed a lot of people do that, avoid saying the word Atheist.

That's the most annoying thing about being an atheist. Expressing our beliefs is seen as putting down everyone's belief who believes in God.

For some reason the converse is not true. Nobody thinks that implying you believe in God in any way puts down atheists.

Strange assymetry.

[SarahM777]

I noticed a lot of people do that, avoid saying the word Atheist.

That's the most annoying thing about being an atheist. Expressing our beliefs is seen as putting down everyone's belief who believes in God.

For some reason the converse is not true. Nobody thinks that implying you believe in God in any way puts down atheists.

Strange assymetry.

Coming from a theists point of view. I see it as an atheist does not see enough evidence in the sign posts to draw a conclusion that God really does exist. The difference for me comes in that I see enough in the sign posts to convince me it's true.

It's when either side puts the other down and calls them ignorant,foolish,and starts to "throw stones" so to speak. Everyone has reasons why they believe as they do and they are reasonable to the believer or non believer,and if one is sensitive to the other party and can discuss it in a manner in which neither is put down it works much better.

[peky]

Quantum phenomena only applies to quantum world, cannot be extrapolated to the Newtonian universe.

On Enstein: yeah, the guy was great until he decided he would not accept the quantum theory, because he did not like it. Well, that is a most unscientific position, similar to the people who do not belive in the theory of Evolution because it does not agree with their religious belifs.

[peky]

absolutely agree.

My doctorate level class of World Religions defines religion as follows:


No mention of God. Why? Because not every religion has a God.

Examples?

[Annah]

Examples?

1. A god is not necessary for Buddhism. Some worship a God(s)...others do not...it is not a requirement
2. Shambhala
3. Taoism
4. Confusanism
5. Satanism
6 Some Animism
7. Many schools of Shinto


These are a few examples.

[Padma]

There are figures whom one might (or might not) call gods in Buddhism, but there is no Creator God, as there is no creating happening.

[SarahM777]

Well, that is a most unscientific position, similar to the people who do not belive in the theory of Evolution because it does not agree with their religious belifs.

Both sides make assumptions to try to fit the "evidence" into their mind set. Neither can be proven by direct evidence. No one has been alive long enough to have seen it. Both are events. Events can not by definition be proven scientifically. They are not repeatable. Any variables that may change it needs to be taken into account. Can it be "proven" that the earth is the same today as it was 5,000,10,000 or even 100,000 years ago? Can one actually be sure that the methods of testing are accurate or that the assumptions used to define the tests are accurate? Have the samples been altered to begin with? Did the dinosaur fall into the mud or it was buried by a flood? Can it be proven by the evidence left behind? Or is the evidence that is left behind really nothing more than a sign post that depends on the interpretation and assumptions that one starts with?

So what does it come down to? Most often it's the most likely scenario that "fits" preconceived interpretations of the evidence that is left behind. Not that it truly proves either or disproves either.