Atheism is a religion

[passionatefool]

Does it irritates you when religious people say Atheism is a religion? I mean does that statement even make sense? Is this some sort of mental defense thing to make them feel more comfortable? Like "Ha! You are no different. ATHEISM IS A RELIGION!". I don't see how lacking a fundamental belief system in some higher being or faith, which is what religion is, make it a religion? I don't know, I get this A LOT! I'm just about tired of it, in fact I was just in a debate about it, it makes no sense and it irritates me beyond imagination. Some Atheists I know even think science is BS! so No Science isn't a holy scripture or religious scripture either! It isn't based on blind faith.

Okay sorry for the rant.

What one believes can be considered religion. Most folks are a victim of their own imagination. Be careful with how you handle yourself, you could be wrong.

My lack of belief in a higher being does not qualified as a religion infact it should be the opposite of religion...non religion. If my belief or what I believe become a religion, then democracy is a religion, human rights is a religion, my underwear is a religion!

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Yeah it does irritate me. In fact one of the Christian apolgetic books is called "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist". I have even heard a professor of mine say that line verbatim and it just makes me want to face-palm.

I think Christian's have different reasons for saying this including perhaps as others have mentioned the comfort of feeling like they aren't being irrational by holding onto their beliefs. I think the best thing you can do is to simply explain to them that atheism simply means lack of belief and it isn't faith in something you can't see.

Ultimately I think most people know that they can't 100% disprove the idea of a being that is supposedly undetectable and outside of our universe. Although to be cute neither can anyone disprove the existence of the invisible fire breathing dragon in Sagan's garage :p.

If people back into that corner and use that as their argument you can safely assume they have surrendered the discussion. Honestly the argument of "I just have faith" should be countered with "faith based on what?". I think forcing people to admit that it lies in fear, tradition, and in some cases blind faith is a great step to helping people understand you and themselves better.

But hey, there are a fair bit of people who will probably bury their head in the sand instead. People often resist change especially change on that level. Unfortunately Christianity does a pretty good job of keeping the "sheep" in through scare tactics.

It's not the arguement that atheism being a kind of faith that irritates me. It's the reasons behind it.

Theists want atheism to be a religion because they want them and us to be on equal terms by way of saying that "well your beliefs are just as ridiculous".

Their reasonings for this is rooted in a lovely combination of the usual bias and ignorance but they need to bring us to that level because they have no arguements to justify their own faith over the evidence that atheists typically use to coutner their claims and they need to invalidate our claims.

So, it's not really the arguement itself that bugs me, but dispelling the stubborn and ignorant reasoning they use to justify their claims is more annoying.

What's more annoying is arguing points that can be dispelled by a simple google search - like all those points I was making on another thread about relativity. The idiot in question doesn't know a lick about physics and was just repeating what he read about anisotropic synchrony convention (the idea that light travels at half C away from the earth but infinately fast toward the earth - it's an AIG paper that attempts to justify genesis) and all he had to do to learn how we measure the speed of light is through a simple google search to learn that we really don't time light through clock synchronization.
This is, of course, in addition to the fact that he didn't listen to any of my points regarding just how impossible a variable speed of light is given our reliance on C being precisely equal to C at all times from all perspectives.

The most annoying thing though - they don't FUCKING LISTEN. They edit out my main points and respond in such a way that they just repeat what they told me and simply ignore all of my counterpoints.

I mean I have to agree, there is no better explanation for why they make this complicated other than the fact that they want to think atheist is just like them and by convincing them that Atheism is a religion, they will feel like logical and rational criticism from atheists would lose its credibility...which is bizarre.

I hate it when they said "it is not as simple as you put it, it is much more complex" and I just want to smash my head against the wall....it isnt that complex, and all the argument I have heard so far on why it is a religion is ridiculous. One was that it is a religion because it has something to do with religion....yes but it is a lack of belief or religion...People say under the law Atheist are allowed the protection of freedom of religion or how the government identified the rights that atheist has to be religious right but that hardly explain why it is a religion. Freedom of religion is the right to practice or belong to a religion or not belonging to any....it is just ridiculous.