RE: Atheism is a religion.
July 17, 2014 at 5:14 pm
(This post was last modified: July 17, 2014 at 5:42 pm by ManMachine.)
(July 16, 2014 at 9:22 pm)Zidneya Wrote: Okay first of all I want to know that right know I am a little angry, but don’t let that stop from speaking your mind okay, nor I want you to think I'm attacking someone in here.
Now the stuff is this. I was talking with a creationist that suffers from atheophobia. Even when she is an atheophobic she doesn't encourage anyone to hurt atheist however she constantly do what most atheophobics do, you know: diminish, ridicules, ignore, mock, denigrate and insult atheism. And while we were talking she drops out the classical “Atheism is a religion.” Witch of course I claim it wasn’t truth. And imagine my surprise when she gave me a list of names and locations and examples of atheist churches. I am from a third world country and in here there aren't such churches much less heard of anything like that. And so I decided to look and prove that there aren’t such things, which I can’t because there are in fact atheist churches.
So I was wondering if anyone could be so kind of explaining to me WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH THOSE CHURCHES!!
Because I always thought that CREATING A CHURCH IS THE LAST DAMN THING WE ATHEIST WILL DO!
Why would we create them in the first place. What would atheists go there? What the hell do they do there? And most important: WHY THE HELL DO THOSE ATHEISTS THINK THAT ASSIST TO A CHURCH ISN’T RELIGIOUS?
![[Image: objection-onion-head-emoticon.gif]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=emoticoner.com%2Ffiles%2Femoticons%2Fonion-head%2Fobjection-onion-head-emoticon.gif)
As with any human social construct, there is a lot of philosophical pushing and shoving and eventually a consensus of ideology will emerge, some people will adhere to this consensus, others will reject it.
Atheism itself does not preclude meeting places or 'churches', but one would want to question why these places exist. It is almost certainly that some of the social functions performed by the religious church are being fulfilled by these atheist churches. Which only goes to show that these social constructs forming around atheism are no different to the social constructs that formed the early churches, they all meet the same fundamental human needs and humans are subconsciously smart, why reject a social strategy that works for so many people?
I've been an advocate of human social invariance for years, for me it is very easy to spot the repeating patterns in society and human endeavour. Atheism might not have a deity, but there is certainly a coalescence of thinking around some of the general themes that seem to be associated with atheism, the raising of the prophets Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris is alarming. Don't get me wrong, I like their works in the respective fields of science and journalism but the way authority that has been ascribed to their ideologies is too similar to way authority was ascribed to Moses, John the Baptist and Jeebus for my taste.
I often wonder how much of a coincidence it is that the three modern prophets of atheism get spoken and written about together so much, why three? A trinity - perhaps. I find it fascinating. Try countering their ideologies in the forum and see how many will step forward with proverbial stones in hand...
MM
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions" - Leonardo da Vinci
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
