Not religious doesn't necessarily mean atheist

[John V]

From my perspective, ditching one irrational belief system for another is not conducive to rational thought or critical thinking processes, meaning that witchcraft is no more representative of reality than christianity.

Yeah, that's the point. Atheists here get excited about reports that people are becoming less religious, but that doesn't mean all such people are becoming like them. Many are just exchanging one thing you reject for another thing you reject.

Read the bolded folks. Yes, atheists can believe in astrology, but we don't get a lot like that here, do we?

[JackRussell]

Yeah atheists are cunts.

like Americans.

[The Grand Nudger]

Read the bolded folks. Yes, atheists can believe in astrology, but we don't get a lot like that here, do we?

Maybe you should haunt an astrology board, if you're looking for astrologers? If people believe in god less, then people are becoming "like us" in the only sense that makes any sense with regards to atheism.

[Jackalope]

@OP

Really? No shit.

TIL

[vorlon13]

Tuned in to a brief bit of The Jesus Christ Show recently (IANMTU) and Neil Saavedra (portraying your Holy Host, Jesus Christ) was talking about people who believe in atheism.

Unfortunately, only got a little bit of the show, and on previous occasions when I've listened I haven't been too impressed.

But, oh my goodness gracious, that phrase: "people who believe in atheism", Jesus fucking Christ, what a howler !!

[Pat Mustard]

I mean...astrology isn't a religion.  It (and other pseudoscience crap) is certainly a delusion, but it's not a religion anymore than being anti-vax or anti-evolution is.  And atheists can certainly be astrology believers, the two aren't at all mutually exclusive.

I would say that if it is not religion then it is so close to religion that you could barely squeeze a Rizla between the two. To use astrology, from whence did it come? The Babylonian religion, specifically it was the way in which the priests of Babylon and its antecedent empires decided as to what messages their gods gave them, how they persuaded the common people to bow down and worship (and incidentally give the priests half their produce so that the priests could better read the stars). Witchcraft or wicca similarly can trace its roots as a bastardised version of the old Celtic pagan traditions and religions, retaining what few remnants were left of that religious tradition after the Romans, and later christians, were through with dismantling it.

If you look hard at all these new age spiritualisms you either see a harking back to the old folk religions, or a scam artist trying to create a new religion in order to profit, or most often both.

[Edwardo Piet]

It's true. Non religious does not necessarily mean atheist. There are Buddhists that are very religious and yet don't believe in or worship any gods. But they still believe in supernatural bullshit like full blown literal karma and reincarnation.

The way I see it religious=you believe in something supernatural and follow it as your 'religion'. Most, but not all religions have gods.

Non-theist however... does necessarily mean atheist.

This is nothing new and I don't see the point of the OP. The dictionaries agree with this. It's nothing new or interesting.

EDIT: Wait, I got this backwards. Religious doesn't necessarily mean theist. Non-religious absolutely does mean atheistic because non-religious means not believing in anything supernatural including gods. What the fuck are you talking about OP?

Oh, unless you're including deism. Like I guess you could be a deist without really being religious. Or a pantheist without really being religious. But the OP example is about pseudo-science and woo, which is irrational cultish and like religion . . . but it's not technically religious. Because 'pseudo-scientifi'c and 'paranormal' is different to 'supernatural'. At least paranormal and pseudo-scientific nonsense doesn't claim to be outside of nature. It's supposed to just be 'ooooh spooky shit'. But not outside of nature.

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From my perspective, ditching one irrational belief system for another is not conducive to rational thought or critical thinking processes, meaning that witchcraft is no more representative of reality than christianity.

But there is much more evidence for witches then for Jesus.

Actually there's the exact same non-number. (zero isn't a number).

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This is why wicca never succeeds or fails as a cultural phenomena[...]

I cannot grasp the concept of something never succeeding nor failing when failure itself is the absence of success

And if absence of success is not a failure, then your inaction is a success

It's why I'm so lazy all the time. I need to actually figure out a worthy goal I'd deem to be desirable and worth achieving before I can have a meaningful sense of ambition. Ambitiousness is a strong motivated desire for success but if I have no goals I already have what I want, which is nothing, thereby I am a success by default. I can't be a failure if I have no goals to fail to achieve Because ultimately failure is a lack of success, not an absence of success, so success can be an absence of a lack of success by default

[Aroura]

Actually hammy, there is conclusive evidence that witches exist. Many practitioners of wicca and other religions are witches, the same way a follower of Christ is a Christian.

What there is no evidence for is witchcraft.

[The Grand Nudger]

I cannot grasp the concept of something never succeeding nor failing when failure itself is the absence of success

And if absence of success is not a failure, then your inaction is a success

It's why I'm so lazy all the time. I need to actually figure out a worthy goal I'd deem to be desirable and worth achieving before I can have a meaningful sense of ambition. Ambitiousness is a strong motivated desire for success but if I have no goals I already have what I want, which is nothing, thereby I am a success by default. I can't be a failure if I have no goals to fail to achieve Because ultimately failure is a lack of success, not an absence of success, so success can be an absence of a lack of success by default

Not in a religious economy.  Think of it this way; they aren't going out of business, but they aren't turning a profit either.  Wicca doesn't appeal to the sort of consumer required (or appeal in the manner required) for the profligate growth of what we consider a mainstream religion.  It's chokey.  For example, between the 90's and the 10's, as it matured in the american market space, it began to coalesce around a loose but singular message (this is one of the factors that, as we understand it, helps a religion to grow - consolidation)..and by the numbers it was an up and comer with what seemed to be the fastest rate of conversion of any american religion..if you ignored the actual numbers and possible errors in reporting.  From roughly 8k to 140k ish.  Not alot of people..and significant number of them probably didn't convert, just "came out of the broom closet" as it were.  

The kindest appraisal would classify wicca as a local frozen yogurt shop competing with global brands.  The global brands, for their part, encroach on the small local shops market space with ease.  Christo-paganism is a thing.  It appeals to the same consumer that wicca appeals to, but maintains the traditional iconography and even cultural support that the adherent is accustomed to.  The larger the buddy jesus camp becomes, the more of the available space for wicca is consumed.  It's in a precarious spot, where it only exists in the receding margins.  

For a religion, that's not success, at best it's survival, at worst a slow death.  

@Witchraft.  
Most adult wiccans have a modified belief/position on witchcraft, just as they have a modified position on gods.  They take it to be effective, but not necessarily for reasons of magic.  They're ritualists, as I mentioned before.  The value of witchcraft is explicable beyond some force that makes people love you, just as the value of focal divinity is explicable beyond the literal existence of gods.  In the strictest sense, the wiccans who believe in literal magic and literal gods are generally adolescent or in transition from christianity - and beyond that...a minority.  As they get older, and as they shed their christian underpinnings, their wicca comes to resemble a concept of utilitarian metaphor.  They draw down the godhead in a personalized ceremony not so much because they believe they are being possessed by a god, but because the ritual focuses and grounds them.  Witchcraft becomes an exercise in goal orientation.

[Anomalocaris]

From my perspective, ditching one irrational belief system for another is not conducive to rational thought or critical thinking processes, meaning that witchcraft is no more representative of reality than christianity.

Yeah, that's the point. Atheists here get excited about reports that people are becoming less religious, but that doesn't mean all such people are becoming like them. Many are just exchanging one thing you reject for another thing you reject.

But the important is those people are spitting on what YOU accept, as they should, even if they accept something else they shouldn’t.