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

only a fool would think that the gubmint is going to give any one a religious exemption they didnt have to give them.

Just goes to show you that atheism really is a religion just like water is wet.

 

I believe there are no unicorns.
Does that mean it is a religion

 

What you believe or don't believe is irrelevant here. What is relevant is what you can prove, demonstrate, support by argument, etc. And you haven't provided one bit of information, proof, demonstration, argument, etc. that would change anyone else's mind. The nonexistence of something else is no proof of the nonexistence of God, for example. Jackalopes don't exist, therefore, platypuses don't exist. You see why that's not proof? God hasn't come down and shown you that he exists. But that's no proof of anything because God has only shown himself to a few hundred people in the history of the world. What would make you special enough for God to prove himself to you? You're essentially nobody, but you want the creator of the universe to prove himself to your satisfaction. Why would he even bother? It's no skin off God's nose (so to speak) if you don't believe in him. If you believe the Bible, the only one who gets hurt in that scenario is you.

I think belief and non-belief work like Cartesian and non-Cartesian coordinate systems... both are internally consistent and make sense within their own frameworks, but if you try to apply the rules of one to the other, they fail. The most salient is the rule in Cartesian space that parallel lines never cross. That's true in Cartesian coordinate systems, but in non-Cartesian space, parallel lines DO cross. As a believer, I accepted that Jesus was dead when he was taken down from the cross. When I became an atheist, I realized Jesus wasn't dead, that the line from the Bible that says "blood and water gushed out from Jesus' side as he was pierced" is proof that Jesus was still alive. A dead body does not gush, it leaks slowly. The same evidence was available to me as a believer as a non-believer, but it never registered. It was like switching from a Cartesian coordinate system to a non-Cartesian one. Suddenly I saw things from a completely different perspective. And it's a perspective that a believer cannot convey to a non-believer and a non-believer cannot convey to a believer. They are talking from completely different reference systems. Having been both, I can see both sides. And I can see why neither side ever makes a dent in the other side. All either side can do is control the narrative that gets conveyed to the muddled class. (I just invented that, but I like it.)

 

depends, it could be.

 

LOLOL

It could be, you accidently admitted it. Shame on you, after miles of excuses.

Just like, I believe there are no Gods, It could be.

Sure, a person could make a religion out of it, but that is not what makes him an atheist.

 

no need to put your failure to make the necessary distinctions on me, and you even fail to make the correct distinctions in your version, its all you.

 

I will admit, there is no end to your excuses.

 

Atheism by definition is not s religion. Sorry.

 

Now you know why atheism is failing worldwide

 

what do you do, just make sh-t up as you go.
The human race is evolving, most of us, not all.

Why atheism is surging around the world



For Professor Owen C. Thomas, a former physicist and current president of the American Theological Society, atheism is experiencing what he refers to as a global ‘surge’. In other words, all over the world, fewer and fewer people are thinking of themselves as religious.

Millions now say that not only is there no God, divine plan or afterlife but that secularism, humanism and science must replace organized religion. The question we need to ask is whether or not we should embrace this growing phenomenon.

“There’s absolutely more atheists around today than ever before, both in sheer numbers and as a percentage of humanity,” says sociology professor Phil Zuckerman.

While many atheists, freethinkers and secular humanists see victory on the horizon there are still many countries around the world where being an atheist not only means your ostracization from your family or community but can actually get you killed.

 

Global Study: Atheists in Decline, Only 1.8% of World Population by 2020
Atheist Richard Dawkins. (AP)

(CNSNews.com) – Atheism is in decline worldwide, with the number of atheists falling from 4.5% of the world’s population in 1970 to 2.0% in 2010 and projected to drop to 1.8% by 2020, according to a new report by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Mass.

In its report, Christianity in its Global Context, 1970-2020: Society, Religion, and Mission, researchers analyzed data on church membership and activities from thousands of Christian denominations and other religions worldwide, presenting that data from 1970 and 2010 for a 40-year comparison and, using that information and related demographic data to forecast the world religious makeup in 2020. (See ChristianityinitsGlobalContext(1).pdf)

The numbers show that in 1970 there were 165,500,000 atheists worldwide, about 4.5% of the global population. In 2010, the number of atheists had fallen to 136,582,200 or 2.0% of the population. If trends continue, according to the study, there will be 136,685,000 atheists in 2020, or about 1.8% of the world population.

“Projections to 2020 indicate a sustained decrease of the global share of the non-religious,” reads the study.

In reference to agnostics, the data show they constituted 14.7% of the world’s population in 1970 but declined to 9.8% of the population in 2010; they are projected to fall further by 2020, to make up 8.9% of the population. (See ChristianityinitsGlobalContext(1).pdf)

Citing the data from the report, Donohue said “Russia was 38% Christian in 1970 and in 2010 the number jumped to 71%. The world’s first officially atheistic state, Albania, is now 63% Muslim and 32% Christian.”
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/global-study-atheists-decline-only-18-world-population-2020
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Atheism in decline worldwide

There seems to be a growing consensus around the globe that godlessness is in trouble.

“Atheism as a theoretical position is in decline worldwide,” Munich theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg told United Press International Tuesday.

His Oxford colleague Alister McGrath agrees.

Two developments are plaguing atheism these days. One is that it appears to be losing its scientific underpinnings. The other is the historical experience of hundreds of millions of people worldwide that atheists are in no position to claim the moral high ground.

Writes Turkish philosopher Harun Yahya, “Atheism, which people have tried to for hundreds of years as ‘the ways of reason and science,’ is proving [itself] to be mere irrationality and ignorance.”
I agree and that can be seen in the posts and 'lack' of reasoning by atheists posting in this thread. gfm pointed out with great clarity the fallacies of the building blocks atheists use to support their religion.

Atheism’s other Achilles heel are the acts on inhumanity and lunacy committed in its name. As McGrath relates in Christianity Today: “With time (atheism) turned out to have just as many frauds, psychopaths, and careerists as religion does. ... With Stalin and Madalyn Murray O’Hair, atheism seems to have ended up mimicking the vices of the Spanish Inquisition and the worst televangelists, respectively.”
https://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/atheism-in-decline-worldwide/

The atheist position is indefensible, people want truth, not irrational word games being played by atheists on this site.

 

Only if you have a meeting, wear funny hats, and have 101+ people join you. If you have a meeting, wear funny hats, but get <101 people to join you, you have a cult.

 

As you know, I can defend it quite well, and I don't use the "lack belief" nonsense in my proof.

 

Why do you find the actual definition of atheism to be nonsense? Atheism is the lack of belief in a god or gods.

 

Its no stretch of imagination to comprehend that:

Dogs 'lack belief'

Cats 'lack belief'

Rocks 'lack belief'

Water 'lacks belief'

My big toe 'lacks belief'

Using 'lack of belief' everything lacks belief but those who express a belief in a G/god.

Lack of belief 'incorrectly' includes agnostics who do not believe in G/god, nontheists, nones and several other varieties of beliefs claiming they are atheists. They are not.

Its so broad its ridiculous therefore has no meaning what so ever.
Atheists like Smith recognize that a conscious decision is made by atheists to believe G/gods do not exist.

[Neo]atheists commit a long list of fallacies as their foundational core premise.

Fallacies of definition are the various ways in which definitions can fail to explain terms.

Three major fallacies are overly broad, overly narrow, and mutually exclusive definitions,[2] a fourth is incomprehensible definitions,[3] and one of the most common[4] is circular definitions.[5]

Definitions can go wrong by using ambiguous, obscure, or figurative language.
If one concept is defined by another, and the other is defined by the first

A definition intended to describe a given set of individuals fails if its description of matching individuals is incongruous: too broad (excessively loose with parameters) or too narrow (excessively strict with parameters).

For example, "a shape with four sides of equal length" is not a good definition for "square", because squares are NOT THE ONLY shapes that can have four sides of equal length; rhombi do as well.

Atheists are NOT THE ONLY people that lack belief; agnostics, nontheists and several other also lack belief.

Likewise, defining a "rectangle" as "a shape with four perpendicular sides of equal length" is not useful because it is too narrow, as it describes only squares while excluding all other kinds of rectangles, thus being a plainly incorrect definition.

If a cow were defined as an animal with horns, this would be overly broad (including goats, for example), while if a cow were defined as a black-and-white quadruped, this would be both overly narrow (excluding all-black or all-white cows, for example)[2] and overly broad (including Dalmatians, for example). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_definition

From what I have seen so far Smith is not in denial on the lack of belief issue and like gfm understands the importance of the philosophical and logical rules that Neoatheists simply dismiss and sweep under the table. This has been explained countless times in countless threads to you and your ilk. You ask the question then the explanation falls on deaf ears.

 

My pet dogs and cats, believe I will feed them when I get home.

I guess to them, I could be a God.

 

please reread my full post, you completely missed the point, the above is nonsequitur, for your convenience:

emphasis added in brown and commentary added in blue

 

Nobody reads your page long mindless rants.

 

so its support of a definition when you post, but when I post its a rant and you dont see a problem with that? Seriously?
~cognitive dissonance/denial.

 

Make any excuse you like.
virtually all of your posts are like that.

 

Unfortunately for you, and this moronic thread, atheism remains by definition, not a religion. The same way not playing baseball isn’t a sport.

Atheism continues to mean lack of belief in a god or gods.

 

Here is one of the reasons why your premise is meaningless and caused you to lost the debate:

Reductio ad absurdum
One of the techniques that is often used to expose fallacies is reductio ad absurdum. When using this technique, one attempts to show that an argument is fallacious by showing that an argument with the same form can be used to produce a conclusion known to be false. For example, if someone commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent, one might say "by your logic, we can


For example, "a shape with four sides of equal length" is not a good definition for "square", because squares are NOT THE ONLY shapes that can have four sides of equal length; rhombi do as well.

Atheists are NOT THE ONLY people that lack belief; agnostics, nontheists and several other also lack belief.

The only people buying into your atheology are others in denial with a political agenda without regard for destruction of the language

 

I didn’t lose anything. I refuted your moronic premise in the very first page of the very first thread you tried this stupidity.

The definition of atheism, precludes it from being a religion. Just like not playing baseball is not a sport.

Atheism continues to mean, the lack of belief in a god or gods.

 

Standing on the corner lacking belief, one looks at the other and says, there's no doubt, the rest of the world is insane but thine and I.

 

I proved your premise is irrational fallacy in in post 990 and gfm tried to explain it to you several times.