I feel like, behind this thread and the “true Christian” one lies a desire to categorize people in such a way that you can check a box under “Religion” according to what category they fall into—this person’s a Christian, that person’s a Jew, that other person’s an atheist—and know just what to expect from them.
The thing is, people can be categorized according to (1) what they believe, (2) what they practice, (3) what they belong to, or (4) what they identify themselves as.
When all four of these things line up, that makes it easy.
If someone (1) believes all of the things stated in one of the classic Christian creeds, (2) prays and reads the Bible and makes a wholehearted attempt to live according to the teachings of Jesus, (3) is a member in good standing of a mainstream Christian church, and (4) claims to be a Christian, most of us would have no problem accepting that they are, indeed, Christian.
If someone (1) has no belief in any sort of god, (2) doesn’t follow any religious rules nor participate in any religious rituals, and their behavior is guided by purely secular considerations, (3) is not a member of any religious organization, and (4) claims to be an atheist, most of us would have no problem accepting that they are, indeed, atheist.
But these are sufficient conditions, not necessary ones. It’s when you try to lay out necessary and sufficient conditions for a person to be a “true atheist” or “true Christian” that the controversy starts.
The definition of religion I like best is: “An organized system of ideas, possessing both and ethos and a mythos, the latter involving an appeal to a personified supernatural.”
If it ain’t supernatural (in some respect) it ain’t a religion, and believing in an impersonal supernatural force, like ESP, doesn’t cut the mustard.
Also, if you don’t have to do anything, it isn’t a religion. You have to pray toward Mecca, or not eat pork, or “accept Jesus” or perform some other act.
It isn’t ironclad, but it covers most of the bases.
An atheist, of course, accepts neither of these things.
"The definition of religion I like best is: “An organized system of ideas, possessing both and ethos and a mythos, the latter involving an appeal to a personified supernatural.”
Trinopus, again, this is way too complex, when the matter is actually rather simple. A religion is any system of [atavistic] beliefs based on the notion that some intelligent being created everything. The beliefs need not be organized, written, or reasonable.
Well, I certainly never said it had to be reasonable! Come to think of it, I didn’t say they had to be written, either: tribal lore about spirits is religious.
The definition is an attempt to “sharpen the edge” of what is inescapably a fuzzy set. It does a fairly good job of including most of the things we (by and large) think of as religions, while excluding most of those we don’t.
Worshipping your motorcycle can have some religious-like overtones, but it doesn’t involve a personification of the supernatural, so, nope, it’s just a fetish.
I know you are joking but I feel it should be noted that “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” divides the two right from the title. Its about applying your spirituality/religion to a process.
Some Buddhists are, some aren’t. You’ve been told many times what it depends on. Why do you keep asking questions like this as if you don’t know the answer? What are you trying to accomplish?
Same answer as above.
Right. The poster said that is one of many options for a theist. It also describes some atheists. WHAT POINT ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE?
Why, am I required to be the person you’re responding to in order to answer? I’m someone who has watched you pretend that you don’t get a simple thing over and over.
YES!!! You can believe in anything you want, but if you have no belief in the existence of any gods you are an atheist! Will you stop asking the same questions now?
As x-ray vision said, it really doesn’t matter what else you believe in- if you don’t believe in any god/s, then you have met the only requirement for being an atheist. One could believe in ghosts and ghouls and UFOs and the afterlife and a multiverse that includes a spiritual plane… but as long as you don’t believe there is a deity that controls all/some of it, then you are an atheist, by definition.
I would find you to be an ODD atheist, no doubt, but you still meet the one and only prerequisite for “atheism”.
Personally, someone who believes in ghosts, an afterlife or less than omnipotent deity is most certainly not an atheist. It would be an oddly arbitrary line to say believing in all powerful magical creatures is much different from a guy who believes in Poseidon because he is only god of the oceans.
Others disagree, and that’s my point. You may well think so, but it’s hardly settled just by you saying so.
UY Scuti"Thus, I strongly believe a ‘true’ atheist is a person who rejects any religious belief. And to prove I’m not alone in this, I’m going to quote encyclopedia britannica: “Atheism, however, casts a wider net and rejects all belief in “spiritual beings,” and to the extent that belief in spiritual beings is definitive of what it means for a system to be religious, atheism rejects religion. So atheism is not only a rejection of the central conceptions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; it is, as well, a rejection of the religious beliefs of such African religions as that of the Dinka and the Nuer, of the anthropomorphic gods of classical Greece and Rome, and of the transcendental conceptions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Generally atheism is a denial of God or of the gods, and if religion is defined in terms of belief in spiritual beings, then atheism is the rejection of all religious belief.”
Thudlow Boink*“If someone (1) has no belief in any sort of god, (2) doesn’t follow any religious rules nor participate in any religious rituals, and their behavior is guided by purely secular considerations, (3) is not a member of any religious organization, and (4) claims to be an atheist, most of us would have no problem accepting that they are, indeed, atheist.”* eburacum45 "But I’m quite happy with the simple answer ‘no religion’,…" UY Scuti: In my opinion, a good definition of the atheists should mention the lack of belief in any type of “divine” or supernatural…Because an atheist is a non-theist, whatever the nature of the latter may be. Contexts differ around the world, and internationally speaking being an atheist involves holding no religious creed and believing in no transcendental/metaphysical/supernatural force, energy and the like… marshmallowIf I met an atheist who said he doesn’t believe in that outdated God stuff but who professed belief in souls, an afterlife, reincarnation, or astral powers, I might think this guy is technically an atheist, but he’s doing it wrong.