[Serious] Atheist Dogma

[Prof.Lunaphiles]

"Theism is belief in God," protects the theist religious doctrine, and atheists' dogma

Defining theism to be an ontological doctrine challenges the religious doctrine that belief and knowledge is magically installed into the soul.

What's the dogma of atheism again?

Atheism does not have a dogma. Atheism has doctrine describing what it is the designation for - definition .

Atheists have a dogma based on the incorrect definitions of words significant to their conversations about theism and religion that keep atheists occupied in a proverbial box just like theists.

The doctrinaire for humanist is all of the world's knowledge. The problem being that there lacks a reliable classification system that aides in understanding the relativity of the categories - words.

If there were a reliable classification system, then it would be used as a reference for clarifying arguments, just like how a dictionary is used to clarify arguments.

[Belacqua]

I'm claiming to have identified some of the erroneous doctrine, and that means it is dogma - atheist dogma. Full Stop! 

I certainly agree that there are dogmatic atheists. 

It's a kind of paradox on this forum and elsewhere that everyone insists all atheists only have one thing in common, but if a person diverges from forum orthodoxy he is immediately accused of being not a real atheist. For example by denying that atheism is lack and only lack, or by refusing to honor the greatness of C. Hitchens. 

However I agree with the point that, in fact, atheists really do have only one thing necessarily in common, and may differ on just about everything else. The fact that Anglophone atheists arguing on the Internet represent a very very narrow range of opinion doesn't mean that there is a dogma which is atheist per se. 

Again, I'd recommend John Gray's book Seven Types of Atheism. He describes various philosophical and social movements which made atheist convictions possible even in majority-religion cultures. There are different mental frameworks or systems (episteme, if you're into Foucault at all) which lead to and maintain atheism. 

He points out, for example, that Sam Harris seems to think that ridding ourselves of religion will automatically lead to modern liberal values. But this is certainly a kind of dogma, and not borne out by history, in which many atheists have been not at all liberal. 

So I think if we're identifying atheist dogma we have to specify the narrower range we're talking about. New Atheist 21st century Internet atheism, unknowingly descended from Auguste Comte, might be a loose group with an identifiable dogma. But there are others.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Atheism does not have a dogma.

It doesn't 

 Atheism has doctrine describing what it is the designation for - definition .

No it doesn't 

Atheists have a dogma based on the incorrect definitions of words significant to their conversations about theism and religion that keep atheists occupied in a proverbial box just like theists.

Nope 

The doctrinaire for humanist is all of the world's knowledge. The problem being that there lacks a reliable classification system that aides in understanding the relativity of the categories - words.

Wrong

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I certainly agree that there are dogmatic atheists. 

It's a kind of paradox on this forum and elsewhere that everyone insists all atheists only have one thing in common, but if a person diverges from forum orthodoxy he is immediately accused of being not a real atheist. For example by denying that atheism is lack and only lack, or by refusing to honor the greatness of C. Hitchens. 

People who constantly repeat Christian talking points are suspect and this denial is just that a denial and no one here has demanded you honor anyone

[Mister Agenda]

I'm claiming to have identified some of the erroneous doctrine, and that means it is dogma - atheist dogma. Full Stop! 

I certainly agree that there are dogmatic atheists. 

It's a kind of paradox on this forum and elsewhere that everyone insists all atheists only have one thing in common, but if a person diverges from forum orthodoxy he is immediately accused of being not a real atheist. For example by denying that atheism is lack and only lack, or by refusing to honor the greatness of C. Hitchens. 

However I agree with the point that, in fact, atheists really do have only one thing necessarily in common, and may differ on just about everything else. The fact that Anglophone atheists arguing on the Internet represent a very very narrow range of opinion doesn't mean that there is a dogma which is atheist per se. 

Again, I'd recommend John Gray's book Seven Types of Atheism. He describes various philosophical and social movements which made atheist convictions possible even in majority-religion cultures. There are different mental frameworks or systems (episteme, if you're into Foucault at all) which lead to and maintain atheism. 

He points out, for example, that Sam Harris seems to think that ridding ourselves of religion will automatically lead to modern liberal values. But this is certainly a kind of dogma, and not borne out by history, in which many atheists have been not at all liberal. 

So I think if we're identifying atheist dogma we have to specify the narrower range we're talking about. New Atheist 21st century Internet atheism, unknowingly descended from Auguste Comte, might be a loose group with an identifiable dogma. But there are others.

Funny, I never have any of those issues. I wonder why our experiences are so different?

[The Grand Nudger]

They aren't. Some people simply have a poor command of terms and wish to rail against other things, which can very easily be done - and is in no way helped or advanced by tilting at windmills.

The above, for example, is a play on positivism. If a person has a bone to pick with positivism in science, fine. Atheism and positivism are not interchangeable, neither creates or forces the other...and here on these boards..you probably wont find many positivists.

It would be "the problem with positivist dogma", not atheist dogma. OFC, that doesn't help a person to equate one thing with some detested other. Free association and all that.

[Nay_Sayer]

I'm claiming to have identified some of the erroneous doctrine, and that means it is dogma - atheist dogma. Full Stop! 

I certainly agree that there are dogmatic atheists. 

It's a kind of paradox on this forum and elsewhere that everyone insists all atheists only have one thing in common, but if a person diverges from forum orthodoxy he is immediately accused of being not a real atheist. For example by denying that atheism is lack and only lack, or by refusing to honor the greatness of C. Hitchens. 

However I agree with the point that, in fact, atheists really do have only one thing necessarily in common, and may differ on just about everything else. The fact that Anglophone atheists arguing on the Internet represent a very very narrow range of opinion doesn't mean that there is a dogma which is atheist per se. 

Again, I'd recommend John Gray's book Seven Types of Atheism. He describes various philosophical and social movements which made atheist convictions possible even in majority-religion cultures. There are different mental frameworks or systems (episteme, if you're into Foucault at all) which lead to and maintain atheism. 

He points out, for example, that Sam Harris seems to think that ridding ourselves of religion will automatically lead to modern liberal values. But this is certainly a kind of dogma, and not borne out by history, in which many atheists have been not at all liberal. 

So I think if we're identifying atheist dogma we have to specify the narrower range we're talking about. New Atheist 21st century Internet atheism, unknowingly descended from Auguste Comte, might be a loose group with an identifiable dogma. But there are others.

Just a heads up amigo, You dropped some of this.

[The Grand Nudger]

"Atheists can be dogmatic" is not interchangeable with "atheism is a dogma". Any person can be dogmatic, about anything. If we're speaking about atheists as a demographic when we make some claim to the dogma of atheism, rather than the claim of atheism itself - then we should indicate as much. Failure to do so produces a subtle but deleterious equivocation, while telling us nothing interesting or unknown about people and their ability to be dogmatic.

Let's see how the author of the book recommended mentioned above defines atheism.

A provisional definition of atheism might still be useful, if only to indicate the drift of the book that follows. So I suggest that an atheist is anyone with no use for the idea of a divine mind that has fashioned the world. In this sense atheism does not amount to very much. It is simply the absence of the idea of a creator god.

Looks like a lackist to me.