Why do NeoAtheists deny the practice of atheism is a religion?<<MOD WARNING>>

Nope.........as you can see below, by definition it is not a religion. The same way not playing baseball isn’t a sport.

atheism
noun
athe·ism | \ ˈā-thē-ˌi-zəm \
Definition of atheism


1a: a lack of belief or a strong disbelief in the existence of a god or any gods

 

That's clearly NOT enough to consider something to be a religion.

You're suggesting that we create a religion every time we form a conclusion.

That's obvious nonsense.

 

If there was no Jesus character depicted in the Gospels would people worship him if all they had to go on was the sparse mentions of him by Paul? Would Paul's doctrine have been enough to build an enduring religion on? Or would people still be observing the new moon festivals?

 

There would probably be a whole lot more adherents of Judaism if the NT hadn't split the faith.

 

Can I suggest the religion would be vastly different if Rome hadn’t gotten it’s hands on the gospels and fiddled with them very early on.

 

I tend not to worry about that, because from my point of view it would still be an outline of a fabulous supernatural (god, heaven, etc.) that would remain without evidence.

It can be proposed that God worked through the Romans (and others) whether they knew it or not.

This is one of the problems when one has a totally untestable "hypothesis". One can simply make up something god did that would smooth out the edges. One can believe that God told Adam (or ??) about how he created the universe. One can believe God just materialized enough water to drown all Noah's neighbors. Etc. Once you free yourself from all need for evidence, absolutely anything can be claimed - we're going to heaven!

 

I recently had it proposed by a visiting Jehovah’s Witness that Satan worked through the Romans. The odd thing is they base their particular translation of the Bible on texts the Romans had already fiddled with. None the less they firmly believe their version is the one and only true Word of God. Too often 2nd Thessalonians 2:11 comes to mind.

 

But everyone here has responded to what I said constitutes a religion, why pretend its anything different? Are you trolling me?

There you go, see! NOWHERE did it say that atheism is not a religion!

You are just making it all up.

 

Selectively bolding parts of the definition and skipping the parts about worldviews being thorough, comprehensive views of the world, not lone positions on singular topics is what's trolling. Atheism is not a comprehensive philosophy. It is not a thorough view of the world. You are back to watering down your definitions to the point to meaninglessness. I encourage you to read the articles you linked to that I referred to. According to those definitions, which clearly define worldviews as thorough/comprehensive/all-encompassing (which you have falsely declared impossible, thus claiming worldviews/religions don't even exist), atheism is not a religion.

 

There’s a hidden agenda here. It appears there’s an unconscious(conscious) motive for wanting to define atheism as a religion. I’m not sure what it is but it smells of an attempt to convince the holder that religious belief is of equal value to an assertion no God exists. It almost possible to get away with such a claim when atheists are accused of not being able to prove the non - existence of the non-existent - and absurd demand .
Possibly it’s one reason I’m agnostic in that I claim any request to prove a God doesn’t exist is in and of itself meaningless given what I take that term to represent, or more to the point, not represent. Instance, any dictionary definition of ‘God’ is necessarily going to be insufficient.

 

The definition precludes it from being a religion.

 

Define the word 'evidence' as you are using it.

Correct, it indeed can be.

Yup... I would think that the part I bolded here would make it clearer as to what religion is vs what science is...

Correct, one can indeed believe so.

Correct, one can indeed believe so.

Again, I need to know how you are using the word 'evidence'... Define it for me...

I feel like you are mistakenly using the term synonymously with 'proof', but I don't want to put words in your mouth... So, I can't provide you with a direct response to any of your claims involving the word 'evidence' until you clearly define to me how you are using the term.

Correct.

It's most certainly possible... I personally believe that Christians are, anyway.

 

Well, let's examine the whole process again that we've been going through step by step. First, I claimed "god(s) exist" (a truth claim on my part), then you asked me for evidence of said claim. At this point, you have made no truth claims.

Then, I provided you with the requested evidence [of which, for purposes of this discussion, is assumed to have been provided in a non-fallacious manner]. (This providing of evidence to you would be involving other truth claims in addition to the main claim at hand)

Then, you provided "standard rebuttals" to my evidence. At this point, you ARE (likely, anyway...) making truth claims. Those likely-to-be truth claims, however, might not involve the main claim at hand (as they might only involve the specific claims I have used as evidence).

With regard to "meeting the burden of proof"... For this discussion, we have assumed that the burden of proof has indeed been specified. In other words, you have made clear specifically what needs to be provided (from me to you) in order for you to accept my claim as true. We are also assuming that I have not been able to meet that burden of proof (as required by you, and as specifically outlined by you).

So, coming back to your point, I would say that if we were to provide a specific discussion (using this outlined format) for how the discussion went down, that your "standard rebuttal" portion of the discussion would very likely include at least one truth claim (I'd say several truth claims probably).

Correct. You considered the evidence I provided, and you dismissed it.

Correct, under the assumption that your "standard rebuttal" did not include any logical fallacies.

Correct, under the assumption that your "standard rebuttal" did not include an argument from ignorance.

Whatever belief statements were included within your "standard rebuttal". Those belief statements might not be specifically about the main claim at hand, though.

 

Oh don't worry, I'm not distracted by your exchanges with Koko... just pointing out that he made a good point (which I overlooked within our debate) that the burden of proof needs to be specified. I have now integrated that point of his into our debate (by making the assumption that the B of P was specified). I don't think it changes the flow of our debate at all, except for if we were to get into having a specific discussion instead of an overarching discussion.

 

Yes, I've been absent for a while, but now I have returned. I took some vacation days towards the end of last week (and spent all that time in the "real world") and I basically never post on weekends. Just wanted to do other non-message-board-related things for a while, and I might even keep posting less often for the foreseeable future... we'll see...

I don't recall you specifying what I had to do in order for my claim to meet the burden of proof, as determined by you... I overlooked that bit until Koko mentioned it, and ever since I saw that Koko mentioned it, I have clarified that we are operating under the assumption that the burden of proof has been specified by you.

We didn't "discuss" it; You mentioned it as being a possible example of evidence (for the sake of our overarching discussion).

Yes, I used WLC's five arguments as a similar example of evidence (for the sake of our overarching discussion) since I believe he makes use of the Ontological Argument as one of his arguments, if my memory is correct.

I, overall, like a lot of what Craig asserts. I do disagree with (or have issues with) some of it, however. I don't consider his five arguments to be "proof" of God's existence in any way. I consider them to be valid deductive arguments, in that if all the predicates are accepted to be true, then it logically follows that the arguments' conclusions are also true. I'd be happy to further examine any of his arguments with you via PM or a separate thread specifically about his arguments.

Koko was correct that, in order to determine whether or not the burden of proof has been met, that it needs to be specified precisely what needs to be done in order to meet it. Otherwise, how can one even reasonably attempt to meet that burden if they don't even know what the other person is expecting of them?

I have returned, and if I take a "leave of absence" again in the future, I will most definitely return again at some point. I don't run away from discussions.

 

Precisely.

In the overarching discussion he and I are having, this hasn't really come to full fruition yet, since he's focusing intently on the part where he is asking for evidence of my claim (which isn't a truth claim of his own) and the part where he has dismissed the evidence I have provided (which would likely include truth claims of some sort, since he'd likely be outright rejecting particular claims of mine, but we'd need to hold an actual discussion that is based on our overarching discussion in order for that point to better come to fruition).

 

Never said it was.

Correct.

 

What supernatural does Buddhism include?

Buddhists do not view "the Buddha" as a God, but instead they view him as an enlightened teacher. There are no god(s) in Buddhism...

There are, but that has nothing to do with what your accepted definition of "religion" is... I'm asking you to provide me with what you view to be an acceptable definition of "religion", otherwise we'll only keep talking past one another since we're operating under two completely different definitions of the term...

Correct. That's why I keep asking you to define your terms. You keep refusing to do so.

I have specifically stated that "belief", as I am using it, means 'the acceptance of an argument as a truth'. That is the definition that I am operating under whenever I use the word belief (or any similar form of the word).

Correct. Science does not make use of proofs. When people say "scientifically proven", they aren't phrasing their assertion very well... What they mean to say is that the applicable theories of science haven't been falsified as of yet.

Correct. Science is a set of falsifiable theories. It only deals with theories that CAN potentially be falsified. Even the theories which have yet to be falsified are not in any way "proven" and could very well be wrong.

Correct. Religion picks up right where Science left off... Religion, instead, deals with theories that are NOT falsifiable in any way.

Correct.

Name for me one single theory which is not falsifiable in any way, yet is not in any way shape or form a religious belief...

Precisely my point about dictionaries.

Precisely my point about dictionaries... You seem to not be realizing how philosophy is involved in all of this...

 

When defining a word it's rare that the definition would say what it is NOT.

And no, I'm pointing out that your attempts to define atheism as a religion are based on the notion that if you don't think there is a god, then you must be religious.

And that really should be taken as humor.

 

Hope you had a good vacation in the "real world" I have been spending a lot of time out on my motorbike probably as close "to the meaning of life" as I get!

OK now I do not agree with you that it is required that I specify what you have to do but I am happy to tell you what I require as evidence that meets the burden of proof,
To satisfy the burden of proof for the proposition god exists, evidence would have to be consistent with the claim that the proposition is true and inconsistent with the claim the proposition is false.

Koko dismissed this but in actual fact evidence of that nature does not exist, for instance when Koko suggested life itself. Life is certainly consistent with the proposition being true, but as we are aware there are many other ways life could of started so it is not inconsistent with the proposition being false.

I have listened and read Craigs arguments over many years some are more compelling than others but as you say none satisfy the burden of proof for Gods existence. I would be happy to discuss these in a separate thread, maybe we could do them one at a time to make it easier to follow. He presents slightly different versions of some of arguments and therefor there are specific reasons why I do not think they satisfy the burden of proof depending on which argument he presents.

Well I have told you exactly what the criteria for the evidence would have to meet, I do not think I can be more specific than that. In over 2000 years of debate on this topic I am not aware of any evidence that has ever been produced that meets the burden of proof. Clearly if it had then we would all be aware of it and we would not be engaging in this debate. You have stated that you do not believe in god because of evidence but on faith so I assume if you felt you did have some evidence that met the burden of proof you would not have to have faith. Koko appears to me to ignore all the debate that has existed and all the evidence that has been offered over a huge period of time as if we are discussing this in a vacuum where the theist is suddenly going to pop up with evidence for god if only the atheist would tell him what that evidence was.

I also want to deal here with personnel experiences of god because I think I might part ways with other atheists on this point. I would believe that if you had a personal experience of god and you had seriously considered all the obvious possibilities then such an experience might logically satisfy your own burden of proof. Obviously it is a very different thing for me to except you have met your own burden of proof than for me to accept your experience to meet my own. For many years I was lucky enough to discuss with two Rabbis and ultimately the reason I did not agree with them was that I have never had the religious experiences they had. They agreed with my position and I theirs. This is a clarification of what I mean by logic being personal to each person and I think you correctly interpreted what I meant.

I think I have responded in a constructive way and we can discuss the specific evidence in another thread if you wish before returning to our "main debate" I suggest we start the thread by steel manning our definitions right at the beginning as I think this is the best way to have productive debate.

 

In dividing science and religion I might describe the real problem as being that science requires that every hypothesis must be falsifiable. That is, there is a way of proving it false if it is indeed false. So, string theory doesn't qualify, because there is no way to determine if strings actually exist or to observe their acts. The proposed strings are too small for detection given current ability. Likewise, there can be no hypothesis concerning the supernaturla, because the fact of it being supernatural.

There isn't a scientifically valid way to gather evidence about the supernatural any more than there is a way of gathering evidence that strings exist. There just isn't a way to determine whether an observation came from the supernatural. There is also no way to determine why an event that "should have" come from the supernatural (given best definition of the supernatural) actually didn't happen.

(With religion, the fundamental assumption is that a supernatural exists regardless of our ability to detect it.)

Also, I would suggest that the Christian God as defined would not be interested in being tested. After all, the claim is that to be saved one must have faith. Faith wouldn't really be the question if there were a way to test God.

 

So when someone says "I have no belief in gods existence" what do you think they are saying?

 

Reincarnation is supernatural.

Science depends on proof of falsity - rigorous attempts to prove false, duplication by unassociated groups, review by experts, etc. The greatest recognition goes to those who replace existing theory with something provably better. The natural sciences don't have positive proof - there isn't a way to prove something to be true. Theories become accepted over time after review has assured that significat testing requirements have been accomplished. For exampe, the theory of evolution is a foundation of all modern biology - over time it became a premier theory because nobody can prove it false and it is useful in all fields of biology.

Science recognizes the fallibility of mankind - thus making claims of having proven something to be true is nonsense. Humans can not do that. Consider Newton. He didn't know about relativity theory, so his considerable advances only work in special circumstances which he had no way of knowing about.

Thus every theory is required to be falsifiable. That is, everyone is free to prove a theory false or to replace the theory with a superior theory. That's what gets the greatest recognition and reward. We know the names of people who did this. They are in the history books. Over time, scinece moves forward by a process of new discovery and incremental correction.

Relligion has a set of foundational assumptions and methodology that are entirely unrelated to science. Plus, religion addresses different issues. Every religion has a fundamental belief that they got it right - totally ignoring human fallibility that they know exists yet having no way to reconcile differences. Thus when differences arise there is no way to reconcile those differences and religions simply split, leaving us with thousands of religions.

==> Religion has falsity, too. It comes in the form of each individual believing their religion is absolute truth and that all the other religions are false - with absolutely no possibility of figuring it out. I don't even slighty see that as superior.

Using one toolset to address issues best answered by the other toolset is a major blunder. And, mixing the toolsets of scence and religion is sure to give total nonsense. As the Pope put it, they are different realms.

 

Assuming your bolded assertion to be true, I present to you evidence which satisfies the burden of proof for the proposition "god exists"... I present to you, the Holy Bible.

And rightfully so...

Yes, it does. I just presented it to you above.

His suggestion fit into his post #1472, given how God was defined. It adequately answered the atheist's question for evidence. Indeed, life itself IS evidence of God's existence. Like Koko said, the atheist could simply be rejecting all evidence out of hand, for they might have no will to believe in God. Without the atheist providing the theist with specifics as to what they would personally accept as evidence of God, such as "seeing God with my own two eyes", then the theist has nothing to work with, and is just blindly throwing evidence out there, since they don't know what their burden is. If the Atheist were to provide a groundwork, then the theist can discard their evidence which doesn't fit into that groundwork and solely focus on the evidence which does fit in, or has potential to fit in.

Yes, "life itself" does not meet your post #1520 description of what you are looking for, as life could very well exist without some particular god. However, my "Holy Bible" response does fit your description. The Bible is indeed consistent with the claim "God exists is true", and it is also inconsistent with the claim "God exists is false". So, if that's what you're looking for, then pick up a Bible and read it.

Well, I said that none of them are proofs of God's existence, but some of his arguments end with the conclusion that God exists, thus if the predicates of those arguments are accepted, then it logically follows that God exists. Of course, one might not accept at least one of the predicates of those arguments...

I wouldn't mind that; it's been quite a while since I've examined the arguments he makes use of.

I hope you're aware that you can't logically base any beliefs on lack of awareness. I'm not saying that you are, but just being clear... Also, it needs to be clear what "the burden of proof" is... As you clarified it earlier, it has already been met by evidence of the Holy Bible. The Holy Bible is the evidence that you are looking for.

The debate would still go on. People would still deny it.

Correct. I will make clear that I do believe that there IS evidence for God's existence [evidence, as I use the term, is defined as "any statement which supports an argument"], however there is no PROOF for God's existence. Thus, due to the lack of PROOF, and due to the lack of being able to potentially falsify the theory in an accessible, practical, specific way, I have no logical choice but to believe in God's existence on a faith basis. Faith, as I am using the term, is synonymous with "circular reasoning".

What is "the burden of proof"? Is this as determined by you?... as determined by me?

Faith would still be required, due to the reasoning I have provided a little bit above here...

I don't think he's saying that evidence will suddenly appear if the atheist would describe what evidence they are looking for... Under my definition of evidence, I would argue that evidence is already there, for ALL sides. He seems to be saying that the theist only has a chance of meeting the burden of proof if the atheist makes it clear as to what that burden of proof even is. Is it seeing God with your own two eyes? Is it the Moral Argument? Does it have to be "scientifically proven"? (I don't like that terminology). Etc. Etc...

Sure thing.

As for this assertion as a whole, it still goes back to there being no way to prove it, even to oneself (since observations are subject to the problems of Phenomenology)... It's still ultimately a belief based on faith. That's all that Theism and Atheism can ever amount to, EVEN IF God "shows himself"...

Yup, my "you might, instead, be trying to convey..." was correct, then. And going by that point, I do agree with what you are conveying.

I think you have too, for the most part... and I would be okay with a specific discussion which digs into specific evidences. I definitely agree with making definitions for certain words clear right at the start.

 

I could make small quibbles with wording, but I understand what you are trying to convey, and I do agree with it thus far.

I generally agree. Again, I won't make my small quibbles (for sake of advancing discussion).

This is where I disagree, but likely because I hold a different definition of what religion is. Do you define religion as "theism"? Because, I would agree that the fundamental assumption of THEISM is that a supernatural (ie, god) exists.

I agree, but find that bit of information to be irrelevant.

Correct.

I think it still would be. Faith doesn't ever completely go away unless there is a proof present. Even theories of science started out as faith, albeit faith which has now moved beyond simple circular reasoning, since the theory continues to survive falsifiability testing...