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

You are proof positive of certain people not understanding, or purposely ignoring, the meaning of words.

Thus, your "religion" would seem to be ignorance, As you continue to display it at all times.

 

Belief is the acceptance of an argument as a truth.

Great. That means that you accept the argument "grass is green when healthy" as a truth.

Correct.

Correct. Religion goes beyond theism.

 

Sounds politically illiterate to me.

Politics
New Atheism is politically engaged in a variety of ways. These include campaigns to draw attention to the biased, privileged position religion has and to reduce the influence of religion in the public sphere, attempts to promote cultural change (centering, in the United States, on the mainstream acceptance of atheism), and efforts to promote the idea of an "atheist identity". Internal strategic divisions over these issues have also been notable, as are questions about the diversity of the movement in terms of its gender and racial balance.[82] Kettell, Steven (2013). "Faithless: The Politics of New Atheism". Secularism and Non Religion. 2: 61–78. doi:10.5334/snr.al.

Not everyone has their head in the sand, I'd elect any theist over the substanceless snake oil neoatheists peddle.

 

Talking about absurd, look at agnostic+anything else, lack or absence of belief if you really want to take a nose dive off the deep end.

Behaving as if something is true has propositional value since all beliefs require a thought process, all 'isms' require thought and the acceptance of something.

You behave as you were trained to behave by the world around you.

 

Didnt see this, correction to the previous post:

Correction to read: Behaving as if something is true has 'NO' propositional value, you cant believe or its semantic disbelieve, before its addressed as a proposition in the mind.

Please spare us your fantasies, we all know you are making it all up because you are incapable of quoting anything that mentions much less refutes the claim in the definition regarding 'atheism is a religion'.

You have a lot of refuting to do:


Atheists admit they are a religion Post: #885

IRS grants atheists tax exemption as religious group Post: #893

Atheisms religious world view Post: #899

Atheism is Religion Post: #804

You cannot eliminate religion Post #799

You failed Post #624

neoatheists ship sunk #577

Atheism is a religion proven #529

Court Agrees Atheism a religion Post: #893 #896

lack belief' #990 #899

Atheism does not preclude being a religion Post #1016
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...-is-a-religion.554804/page-41#post-1070584386

 

You of course are perfectly aware that’s I’ve given you the definition of atheism, which precludes it from being a religion. The same way that not playing baseball isn’t a sport.

 

This has nothing to do with my awareness, you have posted nothing in this thread to qualify your redd herring claims.

Atheism is proven to be a religion, just like water is wet.

 

Every time the debate gets too much you leave it a few pages and start again with the same old stuff that has been debunked to death.
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...-is-a-religion.554804/page-42#post-1070584894

 

Just remember, he started this thread with a lie and continues to try to enforce it. There is no such thing as a "neo-atheist", except in his delusions. Never has been, never will be.

He been asked time after time to define what his made up term means and has consistently failed to do so.

 

I have no problem with it being tagged a "Religion". So long as we get the benefits.

As a matter of fact, I find it much easier to infiltrate the government with "atheology" if we're a religion. And if that were our objective. And, the best part: we could do it tax-free.

 

You really shouldn’t use words you don’t know the meaning of. Lol, red herring.

Atheism by definition is not a religion. You are perfectly aware of that, as you’ve been provided the definition. Just like not playing baseball is not a sport.

 

Believe can mean simply what one suspects is most likely true or even just what one prefers, such as the perhaps relatively archaic "I believe I'll have coffee."

I like your statement about "governing action in your life". But, claiming any method one uses for making decisions qualifies as religion is an insult to the concept of religion. When the Bible talks about worshipping false idols such as gold the message involves contrasting values, etc., not qualifying gold as an actual religion.

I would also say that religion must include something that can be considered worship.

I doubt any atheist or agnostic worships their view of the supernatural. Why would one bother? How would one go about that? Surely it's an absurd idea. There are those who would love to cause others to change their views, but that's not worship.

 

I didn't say anything about theism.

And, believe can mean simply that I suspect it is more likely to be true. It can even be no more than what I would like to be true - as in "I believe I'll have coffee."

And, you're ignoring what Koko said about guiding principles (and my response) and what I said about worship.

 

Just for kicks this is my definition of religion, you know because you wont find it anywhere on the net but here.

Kokos Universal Definition of Religion:
The comprehensive personal/cultural practices of a persons; value and faith based beliefs, morals, self-knowledge, duties of conscience, truth, world view, worship, that may or may not include a supernatural being or agency.

This covers every contingency, using well known philosophically argued conditions of religion all rolled up into one sentence/definition.

 

GFM's argument isn't the best, but yours is no better. And you keep demanding that GFM answer a question that only Kokomojojo can answer, but you refuse to answer a similar question yourself. Namely, what do you believe? You can go on claiming lack belief all day long, but it doesn't answer any questions, and lacking belief does not mean that you have no belief, it means you believe the negative. Agnostics like Koko have a greater claim to saying they have no belief, but even there, they still have a belief, that being that they can't decide one way or the other. So what do you believe, that God does not exist or that you can't decide one way or the other?

Jordan Peterson has an interesting take on belief. He says he lives his life as if God exists, but he speaks publicly as if God does not exist. Personally, he says he doesn't know and that claiming to know is arrogant, which more or less makes him an agnostic like Koko.

 

Have you ever read Atlas Shrugged? There's a scene in that book that stood out for me by a country mile, and it occurs when Dagny Taggart has discovered Galt's Gulch. In the Gulch, Galt has erected a large floating dollar sign, and Dagny but can't help but stop and admire it. Ayn Rand was an atheist, but it's not true that she didn't worship anything. She worshipped the almighty dollar. Does that count as a "religion"? Debatable.

On the other hand, Buddhism doesn't really worship anything and is atheist, but it does have beliefs, practices, a moral code, and an answer to the meaning of life, so I'd say it qualifies as a religion. It even has monks.

 

No Ayn Rand did not worship the dollar. To here it was a symbol of the honest acquisition of wealth through effort and ingenuity.
Naive maybe given the ruthless means so many of the wealthy adopt to gain that wealth. This is where Rand was somewhat dishonest in her fiction. All her hero’s attained their wealth honestly. All her villians pursued power and sometimes wealth immorally . As to what for her costituted moral or immoral attainment she was quite clear but that’s another topic.
As to Rand’s supposed ‘worship’ of the dollar the old bat is rolling in her grave at the suggestion such a term could be directed her way.

 

Substanceless snale oil? Don’t know enough about neoatheists to agree or disagree. If we must categorise anything as snake oil I’d nominate any number of religions. Speaking of which, how do you differenciate between religion and superstition?

 

Since he refuses, or can't, answer me ask him what exactly a "neo-atheist" is and how it differs from an atheist. He seems to have had no luck in finding anyone to tell him the difference so has to try to come up with the difference himself, and is failing.

 

Maybe Bear needs to be more clear about what he's looking for when he says "practice"... I took "how do you practice Atheism" to mean 'how does one be an Atheist'... I think #1033 answers that. If he's looking for some sort of rituals to follow, then I'd say that religion doesn't require rituals (so doing rituals aren't what make a person into a 'practitioner' of any particular religion). Under my proposed definition, all that is required is belief in an initial circular argument as well as in other arguments which all stem back to that initial circular argument. At that point, one has religion. I would say that each and every one of us adheres to NUMEROUS different religions...

I think mine and Koko's definitions put together are quite solid. Mine describes the very logical foundation of what religion is (precisely what makes a religion, as opposed to a science), and Koko's describes the practical everyday application of that very logical foundation (how one makes use of that logical foundation in their everyday life).

Precisely. He doesn't want atheism to be a belief, though, because accepting that argument as truth leads him to undesired results when extending the logic behind it to its conclusion. I will describe below:

All theories [explanatory arguments], whether they are falsifiable or not, start off as circular arguments. However, theories which are falsifiable can move beyond being circular arguments [IF testing against the theory's null hypothesis is accessible, practical, specific, and produces a specific result].

Atheism is the belief that god(s) do not exist. In other words, it is theorizing that god(s) do not exist. Since that particular theory is unfalsifiable, the only way to logically form an argument for atheism [so the proponent of atheism can avoid arguing fallaciously] is to form that argument as a circular argument (leaving it as it began) [ie, to conclude with the initial predicate, that god(s) do not exist]. That means that atheism cannot move beyond being a circular argument [as it is outside the realm of science]. That puts it into the realm of religion. Now, what specifically makes atheism a religion is that the other argumentation proponents of atheism make use of all stems back to [ie, is fully dependent on] the truth of the initial circular argument, which is "god(s) do not exist".

That is why Atheism is a religion. That is why my definition for religion consistently works. This same line of reasoning can be applied to Christianity, Buddhism, Shinto, Judaism, Islam, etc. etc. etc., so the logic behind what constitutes a religion works all the same. It even applies to things which people regularly mistake for being science, such as the Big Bang Theory and the Theory of Abiogenesis.

In a nutshell, it all comes down to the falsifiability of theories. If a theory is falsifiable, then it falls within the realm of science. If it is not falsifiable, then it falls within the realm of religion. So, the definitions for both of those words need to reflect those truths. That's why defining science as "a set of falsifiable theories" makes perfect sense, as Karl Popper's philosophy asserted, and that's why defining religion as "an initial circular argument with other arguments stemming from it" makes perfect sense, as unfalsifiable theories cannot move beyond being circular arguments.

Agreed completely!

Yup.


Thanks for the well thought out comment!

 

My cousin loves that book. I have yet to read it.

Agreed. I would consider it debatable as well.

Correct. I think it qualifies as a religion under both Koko's and my definitions of religion. The initial circular argument of Buddhism, I'd say, is something along the lines of "the teachings of Buddha were enlightened and will provide his followers with enlightenment".

 

http://www.politicalforum.com/index...-is-a-religion.554804/page-43#post-1070585657

 

A self serving, arrogant and egotistic attempt at self justification which exposes more false information about yourself than you suppose. Also, an awful lot of double talk and preaching. In other words, a total failure.

 

On the other hand by Koko's definition, Atheism, lack of belief in gods is clearly not a religion. Thread over.

 

Your point??

And, to once again address your question, only Koko can properly answer it for you, since I am not Koko... but to address how I would answer it under my view of what religion is and how one "practices" it, I would say that no, Koko does not live his life as if god(s) exist. He does not live his life as if god(s) do not exist either. He, instead, lives it as if he can't decide one way or the other... He walks down the center path.