Atheism a religion?

[Kyuuketsuki]

It doesn't matter how *you* define atheism. No seriously, it doesn't matter. Because *you're* not an atheist. You don't get to tell us what the definition is for the label we choose to use.

Not sure if you intended it or not but that seems to hint that we can decide for ourselves what atheism means and , if so (and I stress this is reading between the lines so I'm likely wrong), I've given this some thought and I think that's a flawed concept ... I think what atheism is, is based on definition pure and simple.

This is a reply I posted a couple of years ago on that subject:

"Theism" in its broadest sense is a label that defines someone who believes in a god or gods, it is based on the Greek word for God ("Theos") and essentially means "with God". To be a theist carries no philosophical implications in and of itself because you could be a believer that there is a god without believing that such a god left us any guidance directly of through human intermediaries'. You could be Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Deist but to be "a theist" means no more or less than to say that that person believes in a god or gods ... any specific religious beliefs are over & above the fact that that person is a theist.

The word "atheist" is wholly dependent on the definition of "theist" and in English grammar terms the use of the "a" in front of the word simply reverses the sense of the word to mean "not with god". Again, as with "theist", the word "atheist" carries no philosophical implications and people can have various beliefs within atheism but, to quote Aristotle, "It is the mark of an intelligent mind to be able to entertain an idea without necessarily accepting it." ... this is important to understand because someone can be "an atheist" and actively disbelieve in gods, they can also be an atheist and simply not accept current claims to the existence of god. At no point does the sense of the word "atheist" dictate that one must actively believe there is no god though I accept that many do but it is my experience that when challenged, the rational atheist accepts the possibility of god or gods whether they believe they exist or not. It is my experience that most rational atheists fit into one category ... that of rejecting all current claims to deity, of considering the likelihood of an as yet undiscovered deity to be low but of being intellectually prepared to accept the possibility of deity given the requisite evidence and that is roughly where I am.

I describe myself as a rational atheist, that is to say I am someone who arrived at a position of atheism by reviewing the evidence available to me and as such it is important to me that I extend that philosophy to include disbelief in deity, I don't think there are or ever have been any gods but I recognise I cannot know that because something which will not reveal itself in a scientific sense cannot be observed, cannot be validated and therefore is outside the remit of science i.e. gods are, in my opinion, something that must be taken on faith and personal experience alone. To my mind it is equally as illogical to claim there is no god as it is to claim there is one ... neither side of this particular argument can know whether they are right or wrong.

Of course that now leaves the door open to others claiming that that makes me (and just about every other rational atheist alive) agnostic and that is, of course true, but that isn't quite as easy a distinction as some would like to make.

Like "theism" & "atheism", "gnostic" mean knowledge (in this context "of god") in other words the gnostic "knows of god" or "has knowledge of god" and the agnostic "knows not of god" or "has no knowledge of god" and today that has changed slightly to mean that the agnostic "does not know if there is a god" or holds that "the existence of god is unknown or unknowable".

Now belief in something (the acceptance of a given explanation) is a two state affair, you either accept that explanation or you reject it i.e. I believe that science represents our best current understanding of the universe around us ... given the nature of science it is not hard to defend that POV nevertheless it is merely a belief on my part. The agnostic, by the very act of saying he/she "does not know" (or indeed by claiming that the existence of deity is unknown and unknowable") is essentially rejecting current religious *explanations* EXACTLY as an atheist does. In fact what is clear about the agnostic position is that it differs from atheism only in the way it is perceived by others and, indeed, historically the term is believed to have originated with T.H. Huxley as a term he used because he did not like the connotations associated with the "atheist". In other words, if the agnostic does not accept current claims to deity (and typically they don't but for various reasons they don't want to say there is no god) then the agnostic, at that point in time, is an atheist whether they want to be identified as such or not.

The other definition of agnosticism, that the existence of god is unknown and unknowable, is little more than a philosophical dodge ... of course the existence of god is not known or knowable because god won't come out and play nice with the scientists.

So logically, agnosticism and atheism are one and the same position ... one or the other is a redundant term. Since atheism (apparently) has precedence and the definition makes more rational sense in relation to "theism", agnosticism is, IMO, the redundant term.

Ultimately it's fairly straightforward logic combined with simple English grammar.

Kyu