A challenge to Statler Waldorf

[Angrboda]

Look at that wall of text..and not a single mention about me in it

You need to read more closely. I quote:

To put it in reverendjeremiah's terms, unless you can deterministically apply these criteria and always come up with the right answer, you've got crap.

Not that I wish to be a stickler, but another problem with Waldorf's demonstration occurs to me. He is asserting that Professor Smart's criteria are a valid way of identifying a religion. However, if atheism is not a religion, it follows that Smart's criteria are not a valid way of identifying what is and is not a religion, and therefore demonstrating it using those criteria is not possible. In order to determine if Professor Smart's criteria are valid, one has to have independent proof that atheism is a religion -- you can't use Smart's criteria to demonstrate its own validity, that would be question begging. And since there is no independent evidence that atheism is a religion (at least that has been offered), it is impossible to conclude whether the criterion are invalid, or whether atheism is a religion, without further proof.

Furthermore, even if I grant the framework more legs than it has, it's entirely possible that atheism is like a religion (for some atheists). That's an entirely different thing than saying that atheism is a religion. If you were to assert that a unicycle is like a bicycle, I might incline to agree; however if you assert that a unicycle is a bicycle, I couldn't more strongly disagree. Regardless of how many criteria they share (having spokes, employing wheels, peddles, useful for transportation), their likeness does not imply their equivalence. Now I would agree that atheists and theists share a lot in common, since they are both human, there's bound to be a lot of overlap. But let's not restrict ourselves to a one way street here -- if the behavior of atheists is purely a product of godless human invention, and theism shares these behaviors, it seems only sensible to conclude that theism is also the product of godless human invention.

Anyway, since you seem to feel that Smart's criteria are scientific, that atheism is a religion and that the word of law is truth, why not go for the trifecta and convince a judge that it's a scientific fact that atheism is a religion, and that its demon spawn Darwinism/evolution is likewise religious and should be excluded from the public schools. I'm gonna take a long shot and bet that you do no such thing. But I'll be delighted to hear how you rationalize your not doing so.

I'm all ears.