A challenge to Statler Waldorf

[Shell B]

Holy fuck this is a lot of bullshit to wade through, but I'll give it a shot.

So now we must look at two major factors that make atheism a religion.

A. It falls under the legal definition for a religion.
B. It falls under the scientific definition of a religion.

Point A)
Modern atheism is split on this issue, many atheists want to be recognized as a legal religion because it gives them the same rights to expression on public lands as current religions have (an example would be putting up atheistic signs in capitol buildings near other religious symbols such as nativity scenes). On the other side of the divide atheists do not want to be associated with religions because they feel that their anti-religious arguments would crumble if they were part of a religion themselves. Sadly for these people, atheism has been legally deemed a religion on numerous occasions. Two examples would be…

When an inmate was denied the ability to hold an atheistic study group he sued claiming it violated his religious freedoms. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Wisconsin ruled in 2005 that atheism is indeed a religion. The court stated, “ "Atheism is [the inmate's] religion, and the group that he wanted to start was religious in nature even though it expressly rejects a belief in a supreme being.,"

Another death knell came for the “atheism is not a religion” crowd over 40 years prior to the above case when in 1961 the US Supreme Court decided that a religion did in no way require the belief in a supreme being in the Torcaso v. Watkins case. In its list of examples it included both atheism and secular humanism as such religions.
It will be interesting to see if the people who are so quick to point to court decisions concerning creationism and intelligent design will be as excited about these court decisions deeming them legally religious.

Firstly, a group being "religious in nature" does not make atheism a religion. If an atheist starts a group that is specifically about discussing religion, it is religious in nature. Furthermore, this guy gamed the system so he could have the same rights you have. Pretty sad that he had to do that, huh?

As for Torcaso v. Watkins, you will have to quote where exactly the findings show that specifically. I am relatively certain you are paraphrasing with minimal success on that one. In Justice Black's footnotes, he mentions Secular Humanism, but not atheism.

Point B)

The most common test given to determine “religiousmanship” is the “Seven Dimensions of Religion” developed by Anthropologist Ninian Smart. Religions do not need to possess all seven dimensions in order to qualify and the system the most widely used in anthropology and archeology. The seven dimensions are: narrative, experiential, social, ethical, doctrinal, ritual and material. Let’s look how atheism does on the test.

Narrative: This is simply the story told as to why we are here and how we came to be here. Nearly all atheists believe that the universe came about by purely naturalistic means and that man is just another one of the animals. These two concepts are incredibly important to how the atheist views the world. As Dawkins even said,
“Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”
Which helps to demonstrate just how closely tied atheism is to evolution and the narrative of how we all got here and what our real purpose is (survival).

Fail. All atheists would have to believe the same "narrative" for this to apply to atheism.

Experiential: There are two components to this dimension. The first is what the person experiences before they are a member of the religion that drives them to join. For atheists this is usually a heavy indoctrination into Darwinism. Most atheists can even pinpoint this down to a single moment in life when they affirmed the non-existence of God and the supernatural, almost the mirror image of the Christian’s time of regeneration.

Fail again. "Indoctrination into Darwinism?" I didn't even read "On the Origin of Species" until I was in my twenties.

The second component is after they join the religion. Many atheists including Christopher Hitchens and Carl Marx describe their conversion to atheism as a feeling of freedom or liberation. Hitchens even describes Darwin as the great liberator, filling a very similar role as Moses to Jews and Jesus to Christians.

I don't see where you went from point a to point b. Experience after joining a religion . . . great liberator. Christ, you could be an Olympian with that jump.

Social: The social aspect of atheism is greatly driven by evangelism within the religion. Dawkins says in his book The God Delusion that, “If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down.”

Okay, Dawkins may have said that. What about every other atheist?

Atheism also has its fair share of apostates just like many other religions. When one time atheistic poster child Antony Flew decided to leave atheism and become a Christian he was viciously attacked by many who used to praise his work when he was still an atheist including Richard Dawkins. If atheism really was just the absence of belief and not a religion then why would any atheists care who was with them? I don’t believe in Santa Claus but I really don’t care if anyone else does or not.

He was attacked by individuals. There are a ton of those when it comes to atheism.

b]Doctrinal[/b]: Doctrines are any beliefs that logically derive from a religion. Secular Humanism directly arose from atheism and is heavily ascribed to by many atheists today. Moral relativism also has very heavy ties to atheism.

*sigh* How can something have very heavy ties to something that can be described, at most, with a sentence?

Ethics: Atheism has proposed many different ethics systems, almost all are closely tied to Darwinism and all are morally relativistic. Some atheists live by the ethics of other religions and others live by governmental laws which are usually inspired by other religions.

Um, nope. I do what I think it right. It has nothing to do with law or your silly book.

Ritual: Because Atheism is a fairly young religion, it has not developed any major rituals. Although atheists are beginning to recognize Darwin’s birthday every February (some wanting it to even be a federally recognized holiday), so this is quickly becoming a ritual for the atheistic religion.
Material: This includes all the physical things created or greatly regarded by a religion. Many atheists have a very high view for nature. They see earth as having some form of authority over man, and survival is man’s number one purpose. The atheist’s view of nature is also heavily influenced by Darwinism.

Fail. Again. Atheism is at least as old as Christianity. There are no rituals because it is not a religion.

That finishes up the Seven Dimensions of a Religion, outlining them for atheism is actually far easier than it is for some of the other religions such as Buddhism and Jainism.

It is pretty easy to pull shit out of your ass.

Footnotes:
Many atheists do not feel they belong to a religion, however this is completely irrelevant as to whether they really do or not- Christianity would still be a religion even if Jesus said it was not one.

So you admit that Christians would deny the word of God's son if it didn't suit them? Oh, wait, wasn't he God?

Many atheists try and make the argument that atheism is not a positive belief but rather the absence of belief.

I love astute atheists.

However the absence of belief would also necessarily imply absence of knowledge about a certain subject and not many atheists would say they do not know there is no God.

Wait, what? To not believe in fairies, you have to have never heard of fairies. Do you read what you write?

Atheism was the offical state religion of the former Soviet Unition.

Oh, Statler, how you love your Soviets. Tell me, do you define genocide in the same way Stalin did? If not (I sincerely hope not), why would you go with the Soviet definition of atheism?