hitmanNo2 Posted June 12, 2014 Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 +1 for finding no sense in calling Atheism a religion. Link to post Share on other sites
Habakure Posted June 12, 2014 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 Why not? Just my opinion based on what is the fundamental basis to call something a religion. Belief. That's all you need to be religious. No-one can change your mind, you believe in it whole heartily. Religion doesn't have to have a god for it to be a religion. I'm neither, so I have no religion. I have reasons and they are mine alone. What I don't like is peoples hatred towards anyone who has a religion. That's wrong. A person can be good and religious. Just as a person can be bad, and be religious. Swings and round abouts. Link to post Share on other sites
hitmanNo2 Posted June 12, 2014 Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 Yeah, in your opinion. If we all went around interpreting stuff where would we be? Well somewhere like the middle east. Say I believe in the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot. Does that make me a follower of a religion where we worship them as gods? re·li·gion ri?lij?n/ noun noun: religion the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. "ideas about the relationship between science and religion" synonyms: faith, belief, worship, creed; More sect, church, cult, denomination "the freedom to practice their own religion" a particular system of faith and worship. plural noun: religions "the world's great religions" a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance. "consumerism is the new religion" Link to post Share on other sites
Habakure Posted June 12, 2014 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 Buddhism/Buddhists, they don't believe in a god or am I mistaken? Edit:- also, try to be civil. It's far nicer for a discussion and good manners. Opinions with explanation, last time I checked that was considered important to a discussion (and to make your point). It's an idea of mine, not a fact. Edit No2:- no. Believing in a thing or ufo's can be seen as a religion, but I don't see it like that. My pint is that a faith or belief that is the exact opposite to all recognised religion, can be interpreted as a religion in its self. If you don't give a *suitcase* (like me) then your not religious (or atheist, as to be one you have to completely agree there is no god or higher being. I simply don't care and wouldn't defend one view or the other). Link to post Share on other sites
hitmanNo2 Posted June 12, 2014 Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 You had to go and complicate matters with Nontheism heh heh. I'm not an expert, but yeah, no creator gods but gods still exist. Back to Bigfoot. If you believe, do you follow a Bigfoot religion? Link to post Share on other sites
AceOfSkulls Posted June 12, 2014 Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 A small group labled themselves as such however much of killing was done in the name of the state rather then atheism itself. In any case the label nowadays is used to describe aggressive atheists on the internet. Its telling we have to look back to the 1930s and 1940s to find an actual militant atheist! It was up intill the fall of the USSR. The athiest state repressed religion doing the aforementioned. CCP ordering the shooting of budhist pilgrims is still going on. A group of people do something in the name of atheism, atheism isnt to blame. Someone does something in the name of religion, all religion is bad, funny that. Link to post Share on other sites
Habakure Posted June 12, 2014 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 If you believing in an animal, that is different to believing in an idea of existence. Hence, no. Bigfoot believing isn't a religion. Bet it would have a *fruitcage* boss holiday though . . . . Link to post Share on other sites
hitmanNo2 Posted June 12, 2014 Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 I still don't get why believing in not believing is considered a religion. I think we'll have to agree to disagree. Link to post Share on other sites
Habakure Posted June 12, 2014 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 Well that's different. You did say how is believing in Bigfoot, not a religion. Because it has nothing to do with the life and death of a human being. The journey of a human bing is at the core of religious teachings. It try's to find an answer to an impossible question. Why are we here. It's just a ride. Cheers Bill Hicks, you were a legend. Link to post Share on other sites
hitmanNo2 Posted June 12, 2014 Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 Sorry, I went back to your previous point. My pint is that a faith or belief that is the exact opposite to all recognised religion, can be interpreted as a religion in its self Link to post Share on other sites
Habakure Posted June 12, 2014 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 Because it's a belief system. That the world wasn't created by a god, it was a chance occurrence. That life is born, die, the end. You have faith in that existence and that nothing else is true. Like I said, it's an idea based on those principles. If you didn't care wether there is a god or not, you wouldn't be an aethiest or agnostic. You simply don't care and hold no ill feeling to others that do. Link to post Share on other sites
hitmanNo2 Posted June 12, 2014 Report Share Posted June 12, 2014 OK. I get where you're coming from but I see no aspect of Atheism that follows a religious angle other than you grouping yourself with other like minded people and with the same belief. Being Atheist requires nothing more than that one decision. Link to post Share on other sites
Mike_West Posted June 13, 2014 Report Share Posted June 13, 2014 Militant athiest, kidnapping, torturing, imprisoning and disapearing christians in the USSR. Ummm, you're getting that bit wrong, actually. A tale from the 1950s. Poland. Communist state. Guerrillas loyal to the government-in-exile hunted down and murdered under government orders. Priests? Well, not so much actually. As long as the priest played along with the official party line, and didn't try to dabble in politics, they were left alone. Hell, there even were priests aligned with the supposedly atheist government, so called "patriot priests", who collaborated in spouting the official propaganda about how the Vatican and imperialist West wanted to exploit the socialist countries, yadda yadda, never cared much about all that . OK. Fast forward to 1980s. There's a priest, politicking one, called Popieluszko. Before the secret police kidnapped and whacked him, they asked the head of the Polish church to tell Popieluszko to shut up. Well, the cardinal did, Popieluszko didn't listen, whack whack, they fished the poor priest out of a river, hog-tied and strangled. Link to post Share on other sites
AceOfSkulls Posted June 13, 2014 Report Share Posted June 13, 2014 Well yes, but that wasnt the only incident. Repression of religious views was doctrane, including the use of violence. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union http://people.opposingviews.com/communist-persecution-christianity-religion-4328.html (NSFW) http://martyredintheussr.com/about.html My point is Atheism isnt as clean and shinny as atheists love to portray. Some people love to portray atheism that way because then its easy to say "if there was no religion (or if everyone was an atheist) the world would be a better place". People would act exactly the same just with different justification or no justification at all. Link to post Share on other sites
airsoftmatthias Posted June 13, 2014 Report Share Posted June 13, 2014 Athiesm is not a religion in any meaningful sense... In 3 years of a philosophy degree I never heard once atheism being referred to as a religion. I've only ever heard it on the internet with little explanation offered. You can be religious and an atheist but atheism itself is not a religion... As a Biology major, philosophy has never been my area of expertise. However, I have taken a substantial amount of undergrad philosophy and ethics courses. I specifically stated that "atheism as a philosophical worldview" could be considered a religion. Considering a large majority of the world's population is religious, it would be in the best interest of all humans to learn tolerance and patience. Both the religious and non-religious (technically, atheism as a philosophical worldview is a religion since it fulfills all the requirements needed to call a religion, a religion) should learn to respect each other's beliefs. Any individual or group who thinks of themselves as superior to others because of a philosophical belief runs into the danger of committing moral atrocities. Slavery and genocide are typically the extreme end results of such elitist thinking. Atheism, as in the simple denial in the existence of deities, is not a religion. It is a label used to describe the belief that deities do not exist. Atheism, as a philosophical worldview, encompasses a set of beliefs/worldviews and practices that is adhered to by a group, which makes direct statements on the topic of the supernatural (or in this case, the denial). Everybody has a worldview and set of beliefs. Somebody who claims to have no beliefs is both misinformed and ignorant. Even rationalism relies upon the basic belief that truth can be intellectually discerned. As a result, every person has a belief system. Religion is simply an organized belief system that codifies the supernatural. We are also deviating from the primary topic, which is the persecution of Christians in the 21st century. Link to post Share on other sites
Azubi Posted June 14, 2014 Report Share Posted June 14, 2014 In this case, it wasn't being a Christian that she was sentenced for, but being non-Muslim. Link to post Share on other sites
Desolation mkII Posted July 13, 2014 Report Share Posted July 13, 2014 No, it was apostasy she was sentenced for. Link to post Share on other sites
darkchild130 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 Atheism is a lack of belief. Nothing more. There shouldn't even be a word for it's there isn't a word for people that don't believe in unicorns. I've been an anti theist atheist all my life and I hate nothing more than atheists that group together based solely on their lack of belief. That to me is a religious mindset, and religion does not require a god IMO. Also, based purely on the thread title,people used to kill atheists for being atheist,so I don't much care if Christians are being executed for their beliefs. Darkchild Link to post Share on other sites
Baddbaz Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 Atheism is not a religion . As for it to be a religion you have to worship something . Athiests don't worship anything . !! Belief and religion are getting confused in this thread . !!! Link to post Share on other sites
scorch Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 I think I get what you're saying DC. Banding together under the common belief (in no god) could be construed as a religious mindset. Believing that there is no god, but not really making a fuss about it would be the non religious way. Link to post Share on other sites
darkchild130 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 Yeah exactly scorch. It is in people's nature to band together, for many reasons (feelings of belonging, fighting off a common threat etc) especially these days with social media, atheists tend to group together to argue with theists and act generally all smug (because face it, we always win the arguments) I don't like this attitude, because it makes people act like the idiots they are arguing against, and it means they start to adopt a sheep like mentality, all chiming in and agreeing with each other, forming societies, groups, appointing figureheads etc. This leads to theists accusing us (incorrectly) of being religious, as atheism is literally a lack of belief, this isn't right. The problem is the atheists acting like they are part of a religion, often unaware of how they are perceived by outsiders, and taking offence when people call atheism a religion. So in summary: atheist groups; in beliefs, no religion. In actions, religion. As I said before, religion does not require a belief in god, it is an entirely separate concept from any god. I am not confusing belief and religion at all. I don't like other atheists. Darkchild Link to post Share on other sites
Baddbaz Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 Religion is defined in most dictionaries and intellectual writings as a belief in a god or supernatural being /s . Atheism is not defined as any sort of religion . Full stop !! Atheism is a non belief in any supernatural power or god . . As defined in various dictionary's . Writings etc. so trying to define it as a religion is incorrect. . A group of individual beliefs / analogys does not make a religion . . As with all things mAn try's to pigeon hole, label things. . Atheism relies on science , fact and proof . Wheras religion relys on faith !! Link to post Share on other sites
Habakure Posted July 17, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 Budists don't believe in a god. They are religious. Edit: also, a thesis isn't fact till it is proven, so the person has faith in their thesis that it is correct. Faith isn't just about religion or god (gods for that matter). It's about trust also (which is unquantifiable). Edit No2: Also, atheist is a label (by sheer definition alone). Link to post Share on other sites
darkchild130 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 It's also defined as a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion. By the oxford dictionary, no less. Like for example, joining a group and meeting up on a particular day with a bunch of people that share your opinions. Maybe appointing a figurehead. Sound like something? Anyway, thanks for missing the point, I never said atheism was a religion, I said some atheists acted religiously, as in to act with a religious mindset. Darkchild Link to post Share on other sites
Baddbaz Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 So Buddhists don't worship Buddha then ?? Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.