Yes, Atheism is a Religion

[Edwardo Piet]

Atheism is a religion?

What the fuck? Get a dictionary!

[downbeatplumb]

OMG. I just found out atheism is a religion AND I'm a prostitute.
Well, f**k me. (But don't pay me....I'm a prostitute!)

The no money is on the side.

[Edwardo Piet]

I'm confus. I thought that the whole point with prostitutes is you're supposed to pay them?

[God of Mr. Hanky]

It's really obvious when you think about it: When atheism critiques religion, it inevitably ends up being either religious or very much like a religion.

Take, for instance, what atheism purports to say. Any meaningful form of atheism says either that God doesn't exist, or that one ought not to believe in God. They don't just mean this for themselves ("Oh, I personally don't believe, but it's perfectly okay if you believe"). Instead, they take it that not a single person has a rational basis for believing in God. 

These are very strong claims. There's no science to back it up. No empirical evidence for it. So on what basis are these claims made? 

There's one clear explanation: Blind faith. Atheists have blind faith in some claims, and hence they form part of an atheist's belief system.

We don't have to stop there. We can look at the definition of religion. Many scholars of world religions don't take religion to be defined as beliefs in God and the supernatural. This rules too many religions out. Instead, they look for one common ingredient in all religions, and that is the state of being ultimately concerned. Having a "most important thing" that you care about. And while, strictly speaking, atheism itself doesn't constitute all of one's religion, the broad pool of beliefs, of which atheism is a necessary and important feature. In that sense, atheism is a necessary part of one's religion. The transference of one's ultimate concern from God, to themselves. 

There's a third way in which atheism does the job that religion does. Atheism itself, or as part of a larger worldview, informs our answers to the ultimate questions in life. If you find yourself an atheist, you are NOT ALLOWED to believe some set of answers to questions like "What is the meaning of life?" "Where did all of reality come from?" "What happens after we die?" "Are we more than just our bodies?". As such, atheism not only plays the role of dogma, in defining what we are not allowed to believe. It defines the range of answers we can take to be true.

For these reasons, I think it's OKAY for people to believe atheism is a religion, and for atheism to be treated like a religion, even by atheists.

Ignorance is a religion. The ignorant live by dogmas, and never by rational observation and inquiry. They stop learning at around the age of 7 years old. They plug their ears with their fingers whenever they hear anything which would expose to them the foolishness of the ideas which they insist on. They also have a high incidence of narcissism, believing their false ideas are so infallible that the rest of the world must believe their falsehoods as well, thereby harassing those who would not agree with them becomes their purpose in life.

There you go again, Trollface Delicunt - still reeking of deflection and projection!

---

If Richard Dawkins said 2+2= "God doesn't exist", you can bet your braincell I'd be tearing him apart as a biased source.

As a biased source or someone who is simply mistaken?

Listen, it's clear at this point you have no idea what you're talking about. Inventing bullshit reasons to discredit someone doesn't rule out the fact that what they're saying might be true.

It just exposes the intellectually dishonest charade that is atheism. When atheists can't attack arguments and evidence, they try and attack people instead.

Thankfully the attacks on people don't slide. Cato hasn't managed to substantiate a single claim he's made.

You claimed there is no evidence for God's existence. You've been provided two dozen of them. Now refute them!

Hey, Delicate Asshole, you're the only one here who has made any claims since you commenced your little volley of turds here!  You claim a god exists, insisting that it's true without evidence, and we claim nothing. We don't have to agree with your ideas when all you have to prove them true is more bullshit on top of mountains of bullshit! No matter how much bullshit you present while calling it "evidence", it remains bullshit in fact.

Hint: Before you can even begin to look for actual empirical evidence, the minimal which you must do first is stop arguing, shut up, and open your eyes!

[Pat Mustard]

Instead, they take it that not a single person has a rational basis for believing in God. 

You don't. There is no evidence for the existence of god.

Just because the big boys won't humour your little fantasy doesn't make it ok for you to go crying to mammy that they are bullying you.


Edit:

Psst, you dropped this...

Her religious views say "no idea".

Frankly Delicate is lying with that one. It is obvious from reading her posts that she is a christian of a very fundamentalist strain.

It is actually quite common on spaces like this for people like Delicate to come along and try to hide their actual position in the hopes that their deceit* about their religion be taken as making their arguments stronger.

*Assuming of course, that the deceit isn't immediately copped on to.

[Delicate]

Apparently you don't even know what fallacies mean.

Not to mention Plantinga being an ID supporter has no bearing on what he says in the paper.

Not to mention Plantinga is not an ID supporter:


Not to mention bald assertions without substantiation are worthless. 

It didn't take long to find where you poached your quote without attribution (Wiki). Curious, why did you neglect to omit the preceding paragraphs?

In the past, Plantinga has lent support to the intelligent design movement.[51] He was a member of the 'Ad Hoc Origins Committee' that supported Philip E. Johnson's 1991 book Darwin on Trial against palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould's high-profile scathing review in Scientific American in 1992.[52][53] Plantinga also provided a back-cover endorsement of Johnson's book.[54] He was a Fellow of the (now moribund) pro-intelligent design International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design,[55] and has presented at a number of intelligent design conferences.[56]

In a March 2010 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, philosopher of science Michael Ruse labeled Plantinga as an "open enthusiast of intelligent design".[57] In a letter to the editor, Plantinga made the following response:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Plantinga

The more curious omission was the continuation of Plantinga's rebuttal in which he is clearly adopts the ID position of accepting evolution, but claiming it is divinely guided:

...As far as I can see, God certainly could have used Darwinian processes to create the living world and direct it as he wanted to go; hence evolution as such does not imply that there is no direction in the history of life. What does have that implication is not evolutionary theory itself, but unguided evolution, the idea that neither God nor any other person has taken a hand in guiding, directing or orchestrating the course of evolution. But the scientific theory of evolution, sensibly enough, says nothing one way or the other about divine guidance. It doesn't say that evolution is divinely guided; it also doesn't say that it isn't. Like almost any theist, I reject unguided evolution; but the contemporary scientific theory of evolution just as such—apart from philosophical or theological add-ons—doesn't say that evolution is unguided. Like science in general, it makes no pronouncements on the existence or activity of God.

Here's an article penned by Plantinga himself criticizing the decision in the Dover trial; i.e., supporting ID:
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/902/

Yet again, you are simply wrong; although, you have seemingly added insufferably disingenuous to your CV.

Actually, I "poached" the quote from a Chronicle article by Michael Ruse. Sue me.

And ID is not theistic evolution. (link)

And criticizing the legal decision does not entail supporting ID. It's entirely possible for bad legal decisions to do something good, like ban ID in the classroom.

You're clearly one crayon short of a box in this discussion, Cato.

Leave this to the big boys if you can't manage.

[Whateverist]

Nothing could be more obvious than that Cato has made good points in an even handed way while you, 'precious', continue to rant and rail your nonsense. No one here is ever going to buy the crap you're selling. You are wasting your time here. But perhaps that is a service we are providing to whatever group of people there may be who would be gullible enough to be taken in by you.

[God of Mr. Hanky]

[quote pid='1143770' dateline='1450239854']
And ID is not theistic evolution. (link)

[/quote]
That doesn't matter - it isn't science either, therefore it should not be taught in any science classroom.

And criticizing the legal decision does not entail supporting ID. It's entirely possible for bad legal decisions to do something good, like ban ID in the classroom.

Any political shenanigans to legally force an unscientific idea into public school classrooms under the fraudulent premise that it really is science is a criminal abuse of the legal system. 
If you really don't know why ID is unscientific, then you should not have skipped your science classes while in school. I was sent to one of the most far-right schools on the East Coast, and even the Accelerated Christian Education curricula didn't skip teaching the steps of the Scientific Method in their proper order during the 1980's!

[Cyberman]

Any political shenanigans to legally force an unscientific idea into public school classrooms under the fraudulent premise that it really is science is a criminal abuse of the legal system.

Exhibit A:

http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.pdf

[TrueChristian]

Religion is faith based.

Atheist is just the absence of it.

It is a religion in the same sense an empty glass is a drink.