(August 6, 2011 at 11:26 am)Welsh cake Wrote:(August 3, 2011 at 7:44 pm)The_Flying_Skeptic Wrote: Theists have told me "Atheism is a religion."Problem here is, and we get them coming in here all the time, is that most theists who argue this don't know, and usually don't want to know, what atheism actually means. They only care about proselytizing their beliefs and reinforcing those by trying to be intellectually dishonest by wanting to either hear an admission of guilt or the magic words "I don't know" from us. They are not here to learn.
I had a similar conversation with a batshit crazy Christian woman who didn't understand she was a monotheist. Any attempt to try and help her understand the differences between theism and atheism and what the labels actually meant she would change the subject or follow up with a non sequitur response.
We wouldn’t have even graced a month before someone comes barging in here trying to tell us we’re just atheists because we want to sin. There's no point trying to reason with people like that.
The way I've seen atheists respond to the accusation that atheism is just as much a religion as Christianity, for example, misses the point that atheism is not a religion for the same reason that 'theism' is not a religion. Atheism is a characteristic of many philosophies, including Buddhism. The way I've seen atheist respond is by defining religion by example and comparing that example to atheism. This is not incorrect but we are missing the chance to explain that atheism is a broad field.
