A challenge to Statler Waldorf

[Statler Waldorf]

Why the personal attacks? Whoever is making personal attacks just looks weak.

He did his best to make a case, and he did far better then a lot of preachers I have seen. I can see that thought and time went into his post. Most of people may not agree with what he wrote, but this is just low.

I was challenged to make a case; I feel I made that case fairly strongly. I expected to really only get a bunch of personal attacks in return and a few "You're wrong because you are just wrong" posts, at least I was not disappointed there. With the exception of TheDarkestOfAngels and yourself, nothing of substance was really added to this thread by the atheist camp (even the poster who started the thread really just joined in with the mud slingers). Thanks for the civility and the intellectual honesty.

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There is a very strong case that can be made suggesting atheism is as much a religion as Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism and here it is in a nutshell.

Perhaps you should enlighten us as to what the legal and scientific definitions of those are.
With links to the necessary sources for everyone to see, because I can't find either.
I can find the dictionary definition of religion which defines religion as a set of beliefs that concern the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe especially when considered as the creation of supernatural entity or entities usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
Atheism is not a set of beliefs of any kind. It is a rejection of religion as defined or 'disbelief'. The very opposite of a belief.

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.

Quite interesting.
You've managed to prove that atheism is a religion according to US law for purposes of the US law's respect to a person's beliefs or lack thereof.

You are right that many atheists want atheism to be considered a religion in the eyes of US law entirely for the reason that actual religions do. WHich for say, tax purposes and religious freedom to the effect that the law protects atheists from religious intolerance in the same way other religions are protected.

Still, all you've done is prove that atheism is considered a religion for certain purposes concerning US law.
This doesn't make atheism a positive belief in anything nor does it make atheism an actual religion. This is something you have yet to prove and your first point, while a near hit, is still a miss in that regard. In order to prove that atheism is an actual religion, you would need to prove that atheists have actual beliefs, or otherwise do anything that even resembles a religion of any kind. And no, simply sharing a 'rejection of religion' does not qualify atheism as a religion.

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.

Yes, and I'll link this test here.
In any case, since the other fail-train has come to a complete stop, let's hop on the new one.

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).

According to your seven dimensions of religion by Ninian Smart,
Narrative and Mythic: stories (often regarded as revealed) that work on several levels. Sometimes narratives fit together into a fairly complete and systematic interpretation of the universe and human's place in it.
Let me know when you can prove that evolution (since Darwinism as you use it doesn't exist) is a collection of stories rather than scientific and maybe this'll have some merit. Since that'll never happen, I'll just write this off as wishful thinking on your part.
Including the point that 'atheists believe that the universe...' isn't a thing since atheists have no such beliefs as defined.
But hey, maybe the other six dimensions will have more merit.

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.

Ahh, this one.
Experiential and emotional: dread, guilt, awe, mystery, devotion, liberation, ecstasy, inner peace, bliss (private)

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.

So what? This happens commonly both in and out of religion all the time. I can recall the times I became a fan of star trek and dragonball z in the 90's when I was 15 or so years younger that follows your exact description and yet neither star trek nor dragonball z are religions.

You're starting to paint a very broad picture in order to include atheism in this. Most religions invite you in (if you weren't a member beforehand) the same way anyone invites anyone to do anything. The difference is that once you're there, you're participating in activities that follow the actual dictionary definition of religion that I provided earlier in this post that isn't present in things like atheism - given that it is a rejection of those religious beliefs.

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.”
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.

Ah. this one.
Social and Institutional: belief system is shared and attitudes practiced by a group. Often rules for identifying community membership and participation (public)

Again - you're painting a very broad picture here. By this definition, the political parties of the nations around the world (such as libertarian, republican, democrat, green, sex, nazi, communist, socialist, and so forth) are all religions.
They all have proponents of their ideas. They all have books and speeches that exist in order to bring you to their view of things.
Yet, they aren't religions because they don't do things like this:

a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

Hell, they aren't even based on beliefs but often things like economic and social theory which can be backed up by data.

If atheism is anything, it's much more of a religion-focused activist group with some leaders, activists, and a common principle (the rejection of religion).

In terms of fitting your own definition into the seven dimensions, you've failed to prove that atheism is a set of beliefs at all, thus everything based upon 'atheists believe..." fails.

Doctrinal: 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.

Doctrinal and philosophical: systematic formulation of religious teachings in an intellectually coherent form
Religious Doctrines are the written body of teachings of a religious group that are generally accepted by that group according to dictionary.com.

Atheism has no written doctrines of religious nature at all (according to the definition of what constitutes a religion).

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.

Oi. So many things wrong with this one...
Ethical and legal: Rules about human behavior (often regarded as revealed from supernatural realm)

First of all, atheism has no doctrines of any kind that govern behavior.
There are no offical ten commandments of atheism or other moral guidelines for being a proper atheist.
Second of all, "Darwinism" doesn't exist as you seem to define it.

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.

Ritual: Forms and orders of ceremonies (private and/or public) (often regarded as revealed)
Atheism doesn't have any of these as well. Atheists do occasionally choose to note Darwin's birthday, but the US government recognizes mother's day, father's day, and the birthdays of several founding fathers. There's even a whole month devoted to Black History.
Respect to people idealogically aligned with yourself doesn't mean you're included in a religion which has a ritual around that individual.

Material: ordinary objects or places that symbolize or manifest the sacred or supernatural
Earth!?! Seriously? The whole damn planet?
Yes, I have a great deal of respect for the place I live and the universe in which I reside for the exact same reason I have respect for the apartment I'm currently living in.
I respect my apartment because I live here and if I don't respect it, it could murder me before I'm the wiser or at the very least make living here unbearable.

But no, the earth itself is neither sacred nor supernatural in any sense of the term according to atheists or any of the materials in which they base their view of the universe on. For exmaple, I base my view of the universe on current scientific findings in physics, astrophysics, chemistry, radiology, and so on for the universe and numerous sciencies for the earth and solar system.

Not one of them cites the earth as being sacred in any sense of the term (we are quite insignificant considering the totality of the universe) and definatively not supernatural.

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.

I have to tell you that using your broad strokes in your definitions, I can actually define magical trevor as a religion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au3-hk-pXsM

Ritual: Disappearing and subsequently interviewing a cow is both a miracle and a ritual. I'm sure eating beans and always making aisles entirely consisting of beans could be considered as such.
Narrative and Mythic: The entire story is of a magician who disappears a cow. The trick is very clever. The cow has a religious experience in another world in which he saw lots of beans. This has been revealed by Mr.Weebl to us.
Experiential and emotional: Millions of people have seen the miracles of one Magical Trevor and have experessed varying levels of emotions. Many have become fans (followers) of Mr. Weebl's works entirely from the magical story of magical trevor.
Social and Institutional: fans of the four cannon trevor stories can congregate and voice their views on their lord and savior via web forum.
Ethical and legal: Clearly it teaches respect to one's fellow cow and perhaps to avoid leather whips in front of an audience of cows. That's two dictations of human behavior brought about by this fifty second video.
Doctrinal and philosophical: The video is a video and thus by definition is forulaic and 'doctrinal' in regard to the miracles and philosophies of Magical Trevor.
Material: Leather whips, wooden stages, and vast grass fields for religious artifacts. Religious paraphanelia include T-shirts and other items sold @ weebls-stuff.com

So there. Using your ability to fit square blocks into circular holes, I have proven that a reasonably popular fifty second internet video can constitute an entire religion.

This new definition of atheism is actually a revisionist’s definition. The traditional definition of atheism is summed up by the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy as follows,
““Atheism is the position that affirms the non-existence of God. It proposes positive belief rather than mere suspension of disbelief.”

First of all, you have no evidence that the current definition of atheism (as a rejection of religion rather than a positive belief) has changed since the word was first coined and since none of us have a link or something to peruse in regard to your Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (which apparently requires a subscription to access their online catalogue) none of us can actually use it to double-check your statements as being anything other than BS.
Second of all, Encyclopedias aren't the source of definitions of words. The dictionary is.
I'm sure there is a reason you used the REoP over the dictionary since it's probably one of the only sources that possibly reaffirms your statments, which still does nothing to prove that atheism is a religion or even that atheism is founded upon positive beliefs.

In short, your footnotes are claptrap.

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

Irrelevant. As it's been said on this thread before, just because the former Soviet put "Atheist" as their state religion doesn't make it a religion any more than putting 'bald' as a hair color when all religions are analogous to hair.

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Interesting post TDOA, thanks for actually adding to the discussion. I think you kind of addressed the issue incorrectly though. Of course you can sit here and argue that the seven dimensions of religion do not apply to atheism, just as I have argued that they do. The point is that it is far easier to apply the seven dimensions to atheism than it is even established religions like Buddhism and Jainism. I could sit here and make a pretty good case that Christianity is not a religion because not all seven dimensions apply to it and the ones that do also apply to sports and Dragonball Z. The fact is that many courts are starting to lean towards classifying the new atheism as a religion and many of the dimensions of religion do apply to atheism.

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Why the personal attacks? Whoever is making personal attacks just looks weak.

He did his best to make a case, and he did far better then a lot of preachers I have seen. I can see that thought and time went into his post. Most of people may not agree with what he wrote, but this is just low.

Look, I admit I have only been on the forum for a short time, but the few times I have come across Walldork, I have NOT been impressed with him. He dodges questions, he hides behind walls of text, and he changes the topic when cornered.

About the only thing I find skillful about him is how subtle he is with placing fallacies into his posts.

As far as weak or strong - I am not here to "Wow" people, or to show strength. I am here for admitingly selfish reasons. I have discussion for the sole purpose that they entertain me. The moment they no longer entertain me, will be the moment I permanently hit that "log out" text at the top of the screen.

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Oh! However no examples given, disappointing but not surprising. Talk is cheap.

Well at least you are honest about the fact you are not here to add any intellectual merit to the discussions on here, but rather just here to sling mud.

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I've just been through the thread, and I'll go against the grain here; Statler makes some good points and some good observations. When looking at the 'core atheists', the people who speak in public, the ones who enter the debates, those who post on forums, you'll often see the same lines arise, the same arguments spoken out, the same people quoted. I have visited several atheist and secular forums, and as much as Christians re-use the same arguments, many quotes are re-used by atheists. Of course this has a logical cause - if religious people keep rehashing the same arguments, the answers will always be the same. However, this does give a sense of uniformity that is also encountered within religious groups.

And atheism in it's current form (new atheism?) is rather new. Some people have published works that have been a wakeup call for many to see things in a different light. Because of this effect, these people fall into a sort of 'leader role'. Because it is new and against the grain of the old, people are still debating it, and being very engaged about it. This kind of looks like spreading the word like religions do. However, I do want to add that not all people support the notions proposed by these 'figureheads'.

So in short; in it's behavior and appearance, the core group does resemble the behaviours of religious groups.

Btw, I must add that I find atheists who try to make 'rituals' and festive days of their own outright silly. I mean, sure, Dawkins is a nice guy, but I see no reason to celebrate his birthday.

Anyways, having some appearances in common with religion, does that make atheism a religion? I think not.

First of all, atheism has no central dogma. I know you refered to how life came to be stories, but it is not a central thesis on which atheism relies. All religions I know of have central stories and rules that are part of being of that religion. Christians, regardless of denomination, find the bible to be important. Buddhists have the rules as made by Buddah, and so on. Atheism has no such thing.
On to the origins of the universe and life; the reason that most atheists have this in common is because this issue is a breakingpoint between religion and science. This is the point where people stumble upon science, look at religion, and find that there is no bridge between the two. The theory of how gravity works, math, and other sciences are generally accepted by everyone - but I think you wouldn't say that these things are somehow part of either a religion or atheism because all members believe these facts to be true.

Also, if we look into the 'does behavior make it a religion' idea - if you are a republican, are you a...republicanist? I am not from the US, but how people seem to engage in political discussions there, and how they seem to experience political issues has a lot in common with religion too. Kids, while not allowed to vote yet, are clearly marked either republican or democrat by their parents. When political leaders speak, the whole experience and enthousiasm of the crowd resembles that of people listening to a preacher. The way that those people villify each other resembles how different religions can attack each other.

Anyways, for me it is a grey area. Atheism has no central tennets - if one was brought up without coming in touch with religion and has no idea of the concept of a deity, that person is an atheist too; atheist being a person who is simply not religious. However, many vocal atheists' behavior does resemble it much, and sadly, the vocal hostility sometimes as well (though at least they dont oppress and kill people, so thats a huge leap forward). And because many of the debate topics and regular talks center around religion topics and it is activly trying to carve its own niche in...yes, well what? and as what?
I get how you came to your conclusions.

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Strong post, with some good points.

I would like to address your points about the lack of central dogma in atheism. I somewhat disagree, I feel that when it comes to the origins sciences (so laws of gravity and all of that aside) atheism is heavily fueled by these scientific stories. Remember, these are events that nobody observed, so they do have a folk tale fare to them. I feel that many atheists are so in awe of science that it does become somewhat of a central dogma. There are Christians who are scientists, but I feel for them their science is more of just a tool for gathering knowledge, and they realize it has great limitations. However, you have atheistic leaders like Peter Atkins who claim that science IS omnipotent, and has no limits (a claim is pretty easy to refute, but nonetheless he makes it). So I feel that the origins sciences and naturalism have become somewhat of a central dogma for the new atheism. I can't think of a leader within the new atheism that is not heavily involved in science or at least has a child-like awestruck view of it.
Your thoughts?