This is actually not true. It is possible to believe in souls without believing in Gods. There are nontheistic religions which believve in reinacrnation, for instance.
Beyond that, lacking a belief in souls does not constitute a belief in itself and it’s certainly not a “doctrine,” just a scientific observation that there is a lack of evidence for souls.
Evolution is not a belief any more than gravity is a belief.
I don’t know what you mean by “conventional wisdom,” but I doubt this statement is true.
This is definitely not true.
Evolution is not ideological. Absence of doctrine is not doctrine. None of the beliefs you ascribe to atheists are even universal to them.
I’m an atheist and I don’t believe “all the faithful” are fools. Most of them are well-meaning people and I have no problem with them. Many are believers because they just go along with what they grew up with and never stop to think about why they believe. The only believers I think are fools (besides those who try to force their beliefs down my throat via laws) are those who give money to quacks posing as religious leaders.
Diogenes the Cynic, when a child sits on the park bench and asks questions about the world you answer. It doesn’t matter what you answer, but those answers form a frame of reference in this childs life. Those frames of reference are axioms until that child grows up and forms unique ones. Telling your child, ‘your mother is a whore’ over and over becomes a belief that child will hold on too. The child isn’t old enough to make arguments for or against the principles you set out so until they learn better they will hold on to it as fact. To them, Evolution IS an ideology.
In retrospect I shouldn’t have tried to expound a structure to Athiests the only fact of which they have in common is that they don’t believe in God. Still, they define themselves by what they aren’t, much like Libertarians…maybe that’s why we can’t get any traction for the next generation. Equipoise, if you don’t think that fool means, “…just go along with what they grew up with and never stop to think about why they believe.” you are fooling yourself.
It’s a common mistake to try and come up with axioms that define the “dogma” of atheism, since religious people grow up with a set of rules, and it seems hard to imagine a “belief” system not having its own complimentry set of rules.
Atheist is just a term to describe someone. It’s like calling someone racist, or rational, or disorganized. If you try and come up with a set of commandments for disorganized people, no one’s going to agree on anything, because there’s no holy book or prophet on disorganizism, because it’s not a religion. Atheism is the default position; it means one simply does not believe in supernatural deities. If someone chooses to believe in a certain supernatural deity, they can be described as following a religion, otherwise, they do not follow a religion. Just like a racist can be otherwise intelligent, an atheist can be irrational and stupid. Hell, an atheist could even not believe in evolution (maybe creditting aliens instead of a god for intelligent design). Setting atheism against religion gives too much credit to atheism: it’s like asking who would win in a fight between Batman and no one.
I haven’t read either of the books but anytime someone tries to “debunk” atheism, it just makes them look desperate and silly. Religion is a matter of personal faith, going out trying to “prove” it is just an insult to one’s fellow followers.
It is my fond hope that the next person that posts in this thread actually has read the book in question and we can talk about that. Is that too much to hope for?
