Atheism Not A Religion?

[Analytics]

Even if space were infinite (and I believe it is even though some of space has some things in it), if infinite space was filled with an infinity of odd numbers on paper there would still be no more space for anything else... because the infinity of space would be filled with an the infinity of odd numbers on paper. 

 

A couple of years ago, there was a huge discussion on these boards about Georg Cantor and the nature of infinity.  Did you participate in that by chance?

[Brian 2.0]

Please define what kind of "evidence" would make a difference for you.

 

Your question may be best suited for it's own thread instead of what this thread is going for, but I'm more than happy to try and answer.

 

It's get a little tricky because we also have to define God to get into what evidence would support that God.

 

I don't see evidence for a Supreme Being that is interacting with humans and providing help or harm.  I do not deny the benefit some people can get from beleiving in God but I do not see that benefit as arriving BECAUSE of an actual supreme being, and instead find more probable reasons for why such benefits come.

 

If Jesus came today and did all of the miracles prescriped to him, including resurrection, I would say that is ample evidence of Jesus being a Supreme Being.  I personally don't see suffienct evidence that those such events of the bible were literal history.  

 

If certain forms of worship were shown to be consistent in bringing certain results, that could be evidence.  Say priesthood blessings were shown to increase your chances of recovery from bone cancer from 30% to 80%.  Such studies are obviously difficult and contain a number of factors but I could probably be convinced by something like that.

 

As for something like "who created the universe" I simply don't know and haven't seen that anyone has any eviendence to help in that question.  There very well could be a supreme being behind it, or a computer, or who knows what.  

 

But obviously I can't prove a negative, so I cannot prove there is not God, I have just yet to hear evidence for the existence of God that is compelling enough for belief.  I do find certain beliefs about a Supreme Being as being more probable than others.  A benevolent God that provides tangible blessings to humans on earth (a quarter to buy a chicken wing for example) I find less probable than a Supreme Being that created the universe and is hands-off allowing humans and natural processes to take place.

[Ahab]

Mormonism teaches that there is an infinite number of Gods stretching back forever and that there is an infinite number of potential Gods going forward. By your logic, eventually there will be too many Gods for the universe to accommodate.

Hmm.  Well, for some reason it's easier for me to imagine that than to imagine a universe filled with an infinite number of odd numbers on paper.  Maybe the reason we still have some more space to fill up now is because we haven't filled it all up yet.

 

So, anyway, while I'll now concede the theoretical idea that there could be an infinite number of beings in the universe, and perhaps even theoretically an infinite number of different kinds of beings, I know for a fact that theory is not true, even though some people can reasonable believe it is true.   The fact that something is reasonable doesn't mean it is true.  But at least it's a reasonably false idea.

[Ahab]

A couple of years ago, there was a huge discussion on these boards about Georg Cantor and the nature of infinity.  Did you participate in that by chance?

No.  Sounds like it would have been a good discussion, though.  Sorry I missed it.

[Ahab]

You guys are the ones insisting on a very narrow definition of atheism that is not consistent with either the dictionary's definition or Analytics' self-definition.

You're trying to lump us all together as if we all have the same ideas, but that is not the case here.

 

The dictionary definition offered for atheism was this:  disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.

 

I have consistently said an atheist is someone who does not believe God exists.

 

Where are you getting the idea that my idea isn't consistent with the definition from the dictionary?

[Brian 2.0]

I'd slightly disagree with your assessment of an agnostic. I consider myself an agnostic believer, but I'm agnostic because I am without knowledge. I can't say whether the thing is intrinsically knowable, but I know that my knowledge can't be justified beyond myself. I consider Sam Keen a pretty good example of my type. "It isn't about belief and disbelief, but experimentation and play." Something like that.

 

I do believe that the evidence out there is typically not justifiable in the sense that it can be asserted for everyone in the manner of, say, gravity or magnetism. This doesn't make the evidence uninteresting or irrelevant.

 

I like Analytic's terms: "agnostic theist" and "agnostic atheist."  The agnostic atheist is the soft-atheist of disbelief, while the agnostic theist is the religious experimenter, or the anarchist, like me. We just don't get along with religious authority very well.

 

I think I understand what you're saying.  Read this one wikipedia:

 

Agnostic atheism, also called atheistic agnosticism, is a philosophical position that encompasses both atheism and agnosticism. Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity and agnostic because they claim that the existence of a deity is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact. The agnostic atheist may be contrasted with the agnostic theist, who believes that one or more deities exist but claims that the existence or nonexistence of such is unknown or cannot be known.

 

 

I do believe that God, if he/she/it exists is knowable to some extent (at least by our the standard of our physical senses we use to interact with the world), removing me from the first qualification for this term,  but this definition also seems open the idea that the exitences of a deity is "currently unknown in fact."  This seems like they are trying to take a large chunk of atheists in this definition, leaving stictly "atheists" those that believe that it is definitive and factual that there is no God and no evidence could ever come forth to support one.  In my experience I just don't know any self-proclaimed athetists that believe that dogmatically.

Edited November 14, 2013 by Brian 2.0

[jkwilliams]

You're trying to lump us all together as if we all have the same ideas, but that is not the case here.

 

The dictionary definition offered for atheism was this:  disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.

 

I have consistently said an atheist is someone who does not believe God exists.

 

Where are you getting the idea that my idea isn't consistent with the definition from the dictionary?

 

Are you not one of the people insisting that being an atheist requires an active, positive denial of the existence of God? If not, I apologize for lumping you together.

[Ahab]

I think I understand what you're saying.  Read this one wikipedia:

 

 

I do believe that God, if he/she/it exists is knowable to some extent (at least by our the standard of our physical senses we use to interact with the world), removing me from the first qualification for this term,  but this definition also seems open the idea that the exitences of a deity is "currently unknown in fact."  This seems like they are trying to take a large chunk of atheists in this definition, leaving stictly "atheists" those that believe that it is definitive and factual that there is no God and no evidence could ever come forth to support one.  In my experience I just don't know any self-proclaimed athetists that believe that dogmatically.

So you're basically saying there is still at least a little hope for someone who is an atheist.  After all, they could change their mind.

[AddamS]

Even if space were infinite (and I believe it is even though some of space has some things in it), if infinite space was filled with an infinity of odd numbers on paper there would still be no more space for anything else... because the infinity of space would be filled with an the infinity of odd numbers on paper. 

But the paper has mass, the numbers do not.

It is my understanding that many (if not most) Theists believe "God" is of spirit,not flesh.

Are there beings like this? Who knows.... I would think that it would follow that if there were an infinite number of "beings" they would exist in an infinite number of forms (and lack thereof).

[Ahab]

Are you not one of the people insisting that being an atheist requires an active, positive denial of the existence of God? If not, I apologize for lumping you together.

I am and my position is consistent with the dictionary definition.  That's where you put your foot in your mouth.

[AddamS]

Interesting how this thread spun into a discussion of what the definition of "atheist" was from a discussion of whether "atheism" is a religion.  In the end most OP's on this Board seem to end in discussion of semantics is that because semantics don't cause lock ups, but politics does?

 

My 2 cents...

Atheism is not a religion, but there are sure some folks that are determined to treat it as such.

[jkwilliams]

I am and my position is consistent with the dictionary definition.  That's where you put your foot in your mouth.

 

We'll just have to disagree, then. My foot remains out of my mouth, thank you.

[Ahab]

But the paper has mass, the numbers do not.

 

The numbers do when they are part of the paper.

 

It is my understanding that many (if not most) Theists believe "God" is of spirit,not flesh.

Are there beings like this? Who knows.... I would think that it would follow that if there were an infinite number of "beings" they would exist in an infinite number of forms (and lack thereof).

We can find out by finding out what spirit is and what flesh is and then seeing whether God is of spirit and/or flesh.

 

It doesn't necessarily follow that an infinite number of beings would exist in an infinite number of forms, though.  Any being that doesn't have any form or substance is a figment of someone's imagination and there can reasonably be only a finite number of forms and/or substances.

[Ahab]

My 2 cents...

Atheism is not a religion, but there are sure some folks that are determined to treat it as such.

Now seems like a good time to get into what "religion" is, exactly.  Not that we're all going to agree, but we could look in a dictionary.

[Stone holm]

Interesting observation. They say that they don't want politics because it gets too emotional. Well religion is alot like politics in some cases. I think the main reason politics should not be allowed (and probably is not allowed) is it is so easy to go off coarse as it is. Adding another thing that is just as complicated as relgion in would make it almost impossible to to stay on any given topic.

 

There is of course a political overtone floating around in this whole debate because the idea that "atheism is a religion" was actually first devised as a way of asserting that atheists were attempting to "establish a religion".  My wife and I chatted about this over lunch, she just could not get her head around the idea that atheism was a religion.  I then explained it was an argument that the Christian Right devised in order to wage political and legal war over the Constitutionality of school prayer and teaching evolution in schools.  Her response was, but we have churches for prayer and teaching creationism, schools are for teaching kids about other things and about science.  Always love her ability to cut to the chase.

[Ahab]

We'll just have to disagree, then. My foot remains out of my mouth, thank you.

You can't even admit that my position is consistent with the definition in the dictionary???

 

There ought to be a religion for people who like to deny things that are true.

[pmccombs1]

I think I understand what you're saying.  Read this one wikipedia:

 

 

I do believe that God, if he/she/it exists is knowable to some extent (at least by our the standard of our physical senses we use to interact with the world), removing me from the first qualification for this term,  but this definition also seems open the idea that the exitences of a deity is "currently unknown in fact."  This seems like they are trying to take a large chunk of atheists in this definition, leaving stictly "atheists" those that believe that it is definitive and factual that there is no God and no evidence could ever come forth to support one.  In my experience I just don't know any self-proclaimed athetists that believe that dogmatically.

 

That's interesting. I'm the sort of agnostic that believes in many kinds of gods, just as I believe in may kinds of recipes or formulas. The recipes and formulas are certainly real in an abstract sense, and they can be made concrete by following them and getting results. These instances reveal god as an aspect of the person who follows the formula, and so that is the way that God is reified.

 

Whether or not the various recipes (some of them compete with others) represent some objectively "existing" being isn't important, and claiming that knowing that the story does represent some real, external and exclusive thing misses the point and distracts people from what actually matters.

[Stone holm]

That's interesting. I'm the sort of agnostic that believes in many kinds of gods, just as I believe in may kinds of recipes or formulas. The recipes and formulas are certainly real in an abstract sense, and they can be made concrete by following them and getting results. These instances reveal god as an aspect of the person who follows the formula, and so that is the way that God is reified.

 

Whether or not the various recipes (some of them compete with others) represent some objectively "existing" being isn't important, and claiming that knowing that the story does represent some real, external and exclusive thing misses the point and distracts people from what actually matters.

 

Have always wondered if there isn't some perfect form of rabbit, do you suppose there is a bunny god -- I mean we get to go back to our Heavenly Father, do they get to go back to a heavenly buck or something?

[jkwilliams]

You can't even admit that my position is consistent with the definition in the dictionary???

 

There ought to be a religion for people who like to deny things that are true.

 

Your position is a subset of atheism that applies only to some atheists. It is not consistent with the broader definition of atheism as simply a lack of belief in God.

[Ahab]

Have always wondered if there isn't some perfect form of rabbit, do you suppose there is a bunny god -- I mean we get to go back to our Heavenly Father, do they get to go back to a heavenly buck or something?

The book of Revelation, in the Bible, mentions different orders of beasts and how some are more supreme than others, although not as supreme as our kind.  Like how a lion is regarded as the king of the jungle, and an eagle is the supreme kind of bird.   Bunnies, though. I dunno.  I'm sure all of them sprang from another bunny who begat them, though.

[AddamS]

Now seems like a good time to get into what "religion" is, exactly.  Not that we're all going to agree, but we could look in a dictionary.

 

Oh no....

[Ahab]

Your position is a subset of atheism that applies only to some atheists. It is not consistent with the broader definition of atheism as simply a lack of belief in God.

You're saying "lack of belief" is the "broader" idea, but you're not justified in saying that.  Why not just call that a subset of the definition of atheism, too?  Whether it's definition (1) or definition (2), both definitions are correct definitions of an atheist.

 

There is more than one way to be one, and if you're one in any way, you are one.

[Ahab]

Oh no....

Well you're saying it's not a religion. I and others say it is.

 

When in doubt about words, consult a dictionary.

[jkwilliams]

You're saying "lack of belief" is the "broader" idea, but you're not justified in saying that.  Why not just call that a subset of the definition of atheism, too?  Whether it's definition (1) or definition (2), both definitions are correct definitions of an atheist.

 

There is more than one way to be one, and if you're one in any way, you are one.

 

I'm justified because the lack of belief is the dictionary definition. It does not require an active assertion that there is no God.

[pmccombs1]

Have always wondered if there isn't some perfect form of rabbit, do you suppose there is a bunny god -- I mean we get to go back to our Heavenly Father, do they get to go back to a heavenly buck or something?

 

That's for the bunnies to work out. I admit I've confined my investigations to people-gods, and some of those do concern themselves with other creatures it seems.