Bollocks. The verb “believe” has two wildly opposite meanings:
1- to accept something as fact, without adequate proof
2- to accept something as fact, based on adequate proof
I believe plenty of things, when given adequate proof. The moon landing, antibiotics, and the deliciousness of chocolate chip ice cream, all of which have been sufficiently documented.
If your key criterion is empirical evidence, not believing in stuff that has no hard proof is the more logical point of view.
What principles?
Err… No. Find me something I believe on faith - something I believe without good reason - and I’ll stop believing it. End of story.
No
No
No
No
We’ve been here before. As said upthread atheism is just the reverse of being a theist and has neither principles nor dogma and it tells you absolutely nothing useful about the person in question.
Best that we get that straight at the start.
Now Secular Humanism is more of a positive statement on a persons worldview (thought it isn’t to my mind a religion) and of course is open to those of one god, many or none.
Nonsense.
First, atheism is the logical default position; it’s the job of people who claim gods exist to provide evidence, not for atheists to prove a negative.
Second, atheism fits the observable facts; that’s accepting the evidence, not “faith”. Atheism would only be based on faith if gods demonstrably existed.
And third; atheism doesn’t have principles, and it can’t take what it doesn’t have on faith.
Like, just for reference. My character in a D&D game running in the games room is an atheist. He doesn’t believe in the various gods of the universe he resides in. But he takes that on faith, or rather on sheer denialism, as the effects of these gods (and indeed, often their very presence) is thoroughly and unmistakably visible throughout the world.
By contrast, in our world, the gods we ascribe meaning to show no signs of existing at all. Atheism makes no claims. It says exactly one thing: “I reject the god concept as unsupported and/or false”.
Is it. :dubious:
News only to people who aren’t aware of the SCotUS case of Torcaso v. Watkins.
The difference between; for the purposes of the First Amendment X is a religious belief and Y court has ruled that X is a religious belief isn’t a small one.
CMC fnord!
Great. I’m going to declare myself a non-profit and avoid taxes!
Aww, Christ. Does this mean I need to be baptized or barmitvahed or something? I’m gonna complain to my iman/priest/minister/rabbi/whatever as soon as I determine who (s)he is. There go my free Sundays. Or Saturdays. Whichever. Aww, Christ.
Atheism is the lack of evidence for the existence of god. We don’t need empirical evidence that there is no evidence for the existence of god.
Theist giggling about atheism supposedly being a religion is like wooists sneering that evidence-based medicine is a religion.
It’s intended to be a devastating insult, which always leads me to wonder: since they think being religious is so bad, why do these people hate religion?
And “bald” is legally a hair color for identification purposes.
Given that, per my understanding of law over there, a person claiming religious beliefs need not cite an organised body of so-many-members, but rather must show that their claimed beliefs are true and honestly felt in order to receive protection for them, I don’t think this blunt summary quite works.
If nothing else, the way you put it makes it seem like religious protections are just about pandering to large groups, rather than a philosophical judgement.
I’m willing to call atheism a religion if I can get the tax breaks. I would love to be able to get together with my friends every weekend and deduct the expense like the devout do. Booze, travel and white elephant sales, all under the guise of helping mankind - It’s about time the rest of us were allowed on that gravy train.
I’ll never understand why the religious get so excited by the notion that the non-believers of the world might be considered religious based on some technicality. Oh yeah, you caught us out, we’ve been lying to ourselves all these centuries.
but … but… we’re not organized enough to be a religion - we haven’t even adopted a symbol yet…
And verily One shall be provided to you through a Prophet of Atheism engulfed in tongues of flame… and hell, let’s throw a “surrounded by virgins” in there to sound extra religiousy.
Once again, a reminder that the court ruled on secular humanism, not atheism, and they are not the same thing. The OP is still wrong.
It *can *be. It doesn’t have to be a religion. It isn’t always a religion. But sometimes it is. Certain individuals make it so.
And LO! The Prophet of Atheism, though it be a Singular Prophet, shall have TWO Aspects by which the Prophet shall be made manifest to the Faithful. Two shall be the number of Aspects, and Two shall be the number of Avatars of the Prophet. As Male and Female shall the Avatars manifest, and Each Avatar shall be counted and revered the Equal of the Other. It shall be like unto a Rubik’s Cube, with exactly two correct solutions, or something.
And in token of the clarity of thought prizéd by the Atheistic faithful, the Female Avatar shall be known as Clara.
And in token of the impenetrability of the mystery attendant upon a Single Prophet manifesting as TWO Avatars, the Male Avatar shall be known as Peter.
And when the Avatars shall appear Simultaneously to the Blessed Faithful, or if the Prophet of Atheism is spoken of outside the Physical Presence, the Prophet shall be known as[spoiler]do you REALLY want to know? Read on if you dare:[spoiler]I probably shouldn’t, but[spoiler]It’s really kind of blasphemous.
Oh, well, it’s not like I’m a monotheist[spoiler]THE [SIZE=“7”]CLARAPETE![/SIZE]
please don’t hurt me.[/spoiler][/spoiler][/spoiler][/spoiler]