Is Atheism a religion?

[CatsAndDogs]

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Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
To KNOW is to believe. But to believe is not necessarily to know.

To know is to know, to believe is to believe.

End of!

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Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
Knowledge is a type of belief.

So if I say that I know ice is cold, you would qualify that as a belief? Do yourself a favour.

Yes I would, because ice could be very warm to someone who deals with things that are much colder than ice.

Ice boils liquid nitrogen. Ice is VERY HOT compared to many things.

I do believe that ice is cold, in a particular context, and very hot in other contexts. Is ice IN FACT “cold” always? No. To believe it is cold within a proper context is fine. But no one KNOWS that ice is cold in all cases.

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Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
To know that you don’t believe in something believable is called what? (answer: mistaken belief, which is a belief in itself)

Endlessly repeating yourself is no way to win a debate.

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Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
To be human is to believe. That one of those beliefs is not-believing-in does not exempt us from the responsibility of having those “non-beliefs” (not-believing-ins).

See what I mean?? endless repetition.

When someone believes that non-belief is not a belief, there is certainly no way to make them believe what they simply will not believe.

I’m not here to make you believe as I believe, but only to show the consequences of trying to explain another’s beliefs to someone who believes they are the arbiter of what is believable.

It’s been an interesting show! Thanks!

 

[Newbie2]

My friend, Theology means the study of god.

“God does not exist” is merely a belief, NOT a system of beliefs.

To classify as a religion there has to be a system of beliefs. not just one belief.

Isn’t atheism a Non-belief?

I saw a comic in the paper a couple weeks ago about this…

“What would one call a non-practicing (lapsed) atheist?”

 

[ribozyme]

Isn’t atheism a Non-belief?

I saw a comic in the paper a couple weeks ago about this…

“What would one call a non-practicing (lapsed) atheist?”

I do not know, but I have the same religious proclivities that Ash Ketchum has. (Well, I never seen him do anything that can be associated with a practicing member of a Judeo-Christian religion.)

 

[R_McGeddon]

You are very good indeed at telling us how very little you know about God.

Everybody knows nothing about God. All you know, is what has been passed down through the years, and in all those years there has been no first hand account.

God is before everything else to be believed

This is utterly unknowable.

as the All-Good and the All-Just, as well as the All-powerful

Cyclones and earthquakes are all-good and all-just?

once those things are set as “first facts”, after which all other facts are considered subservient, then you begin to understand what God is about.

You are just speculating here.

But if that’s not possible, and if the whole world must be perfect before God can be considered good, then God will be forced away as the price for that formulation.

It doesn’t have to be perfect, just free from natural disasters that kill tens of thousands of innocents.

The results of God being forced away by preconditions set by us is what we see in the world as the continual creation of evil out of God’s bounty of good.
(Of course, since even greater good is the product of humanly spread evil, God and good don’t really ever lose! )

This isn’t a very good argument to justify the bad in the world.

 

[R_McGeddon]

A religion is not A SINGLE belief. Do I really have to repeat this point 200 times for it to penetrate?

A religion is the entire set of beliefs of any individual person. They act from that basis. That is their religion.

You can repeat it 200 million times, it won’t change it from being wrong.

No one can believe ONLY that politicians are in it only for themselves.

I didn’t say ONLY politicians.

But that belief in distrust of those we call “politicians” is certainly an element of the person who holds that belief, whose religion most likely has a very big problem with trust, power, the proclivity of others to “sin”, and not least authority in general.

I don’t have a religion or a problem with authority in general, just a percentage of those people in authority.

 

[R_McGeddon]

I actually do believe that any time that a person holds a belief in something worth “aquiring” or being a “higher power” than themselves, they are in fact creating a deity.

Why would you believe this?

But there is a difference between worshiping A deity and THE deity. There is only ONE “THE” deity, but there are an infinity of “A” deities.

You don’t know this to be factual, it is a faith of yours.

To believe at all is to have that belief focused on either “the” deity or a could of “a” deities. Neither belief nor diety, which is the consequence of belief, are optional to the human being.

You got that the wrong way round, belief is the consequence of a deity, and a deity is optional.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
You are very good indeed at telling us how very little you know about God.

Everybody knows nothing about God. All you know, is what has been passed down through the years, and in all those years there has been no first hand account.

Well, you see, that is your opinion, your BELIEF, and yet another example of your rather common mistake of equating “fact” with “your opinion”.

What I know of God He has shown me. That you haven’t been shown what you’d like to be shown by Him, but only what you HAVE been shown by Him (and others) which you refuse to accept as ANY information about Him, is your problem and not mine.

Do you REALLY claim that YOU know what He has shown me?

 

[R_McGeddon]

You have a lovely abrasive way about you!

Only when someone speaks down to me.

That you can’t find anything worthy to say merely shows your “creativity” at the opportunity to talk. Your lack of response speaks volumes.

Your voluminous post didn’t make any sense, so I couldn’t respond to it.

I appreciate your voluminous response very much, as illustrative of where folks who come from “your end of the spectrum” are coming from.

See what I mean about talking down to someone?

 

[R_McGeddon]

That’s like the difference between being run over by an elephant or a lack of an elephant.

You mean that the lack of an elephant could be any other large animal or vehicle?

In either case we’re talking about elephants, aren’t we?

No, we’re not.

If I ask you if you were run over by a lack of an elephant, your answer would be that there was no elephant involved, but you would have to know the difference between an elephant and a non-elephant to make that statement.

I wouldn’t say “non-elephant” I would just name the other large animal or vehicle.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

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Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
as the All-Good and the All-Just, as well as the All-powerful

Cyclones and earthquakes are all-good and all-just?

You MURDERED quite a few bacteria when you last ate a meal. Are you “evil”. You, like the motion of the atmosphere, and like the shifting of the earth’s parts, have your own job to do in this world. The atmosphere had no “intent” to do harm. The Earth’s parts had no ill intent to do harm to any human person. You had no intent to harm your meal’s ancillary bacteria.

God made the world (universe) to be our environment so that we could learn what we were to learn. Part of that learning is to have to deal, as a group, as humankind, to the suffering of some of our members.

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Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
once those things are set as “first facts”, after which all other facts are considered subservient, then you begin to understand what God is about.

You are just speculating here.

This would certainly be speculation to you, but is confirmed fact to me. You may believe as you wish.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
But if that’s not possible, and if the whole world must be perfect before God can be considered good, then God will be forced away as the price for that formulation.

It doesn’t have to be perfect, just free from natural disasters that kill tens of thousands of innocents.

You would alter the mechanism of the atmosphere and the parts of the earth to spare a tiny minority of humanity suffering?

Would that make you feel better that the universe was THAT unpredictable and free from being a stable place for us to learn our lessons?

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
The results of God being forced away by preconditions set by us is what we see in the world as the continual creation of evil out of God’s bounty of good.
(Of course, since even greater good is the product of humanly spread evil, God and good don’t really ever lose! )

This isn’t a very good argument to justify the bad in the world.

There is no justification for “the bad” (evil-doing) in the world. There IS explaining it, though. And the explanation is that it is there to help us, as mankind, to learn to do less and less evil as time goes by, or not, as the case may be.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
I actually do believe that any time that a person holds a belief in something worth “aquiring” or being a “higher power” than themselves, they are in fact creating a deity.

Why would you believe this?

I believe this because I’ve seen these created “deities” give their adherants goods and evils. The evils always outweighing the goods by a large measure, eventually.

 

[R_McGeddon]

I have one religion, which contains that belief that believing in the (or a) “Flying Spaghetti Monster” is worth not believing in.

I could be wrong about that, but having yet another belief about something not worth believing in does not create another religion in me.

AN INDIVIDUAL can only have ONE religion, and it is composed of the sum total of that person’s beliefs.

Yes, what you believe in. Not what you don’t believe in.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
But there is a difference between worshiping A deity and THE deity. There is only ONE “THE” deity, but there are an infinity of “A” deities.

You don’t know this to be factual, it is a faith of yours.

Knowledge is a belief. I believe, and my belief is confirmed to me by “testing”, that God is the one true deity and that there are an infinite number of demonic “deities” called “gods/idols” by people.

That you KNOW that I don’t have that belief, and know that I do in fact believe it, would be interesting to see you prove, since “proof” seems to be so important to you!

 

[R_McGeddon]

You may be “as simple” as you like. But that doesn’t alter the fact that you believe that considering the “tooth fairy” believable is wrong.

I know that I consider tooth fairy unbelievable.

Do you believe that the tooth fairy is real?

No I don’t, and that’s knowledge not belief.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
To believe at all is to have that belief focused on either “the” deity or a cloud of “a” deities. Neither belief nor diety, which is the consequence of belief, are optional to the human being.

You got that the wrong way round, belief is the consequence of a deity, and a deity is optional.

We’ll have to agree that we are each “the wrong way around” to the other in many ways.

If belief is dependent on there being a deity, and you have no deity, then you have no beliefs, such as the belief that the sun will be shown in the sky tomorrow.

I’m terribly sorry that you live in the complete chaos of a world that you do, then.

 

[R_McGeddon]

You cannot prove that they don’t exist. Therefore it is only your belief that they don’t exist.

Things that don’t exist, don’t leave evidence of their non-existence. The burden of proof is on those that make the claim of something existing.

That you believe that znooms don’t exist is laudable, as they probably don’t, but the point that you may be wrong in your belief is certainly not moot.

I know they don’t exist and it is their non-existence that is the moot point.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

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Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
You have a lovely abrasive way about you!

Only when someone speaks down to me.

It’s impossible to speak down to you! You are obviously “above it all”, and utterly free from any restraint that “isn’t you”. You ARE the measure of all things, after all!

 

[R_McGeddon]

Yes I would, because ice could be very warm to someone who deals with things that are much colder than ice.

Ice boils liquid nitrogen. Ice is VERY HOT compared to many things.

No, ice is not as cold as liquid nitrogen.

I do believe that ice is cold, in a particular context, and very hot in other contexts. Is ice IN FACT “cold” always? No. To believe it is cold within a proper context is fine. But no one KNOWS that ice is cold in all cases.

Yes is, it is just varying degrees of cold.

When someone believes that non-belief is not a belief, there is certainly no way to make them believe what they simply will not believe.

I’m not here to make you believe as I believe, but only to show the consequences of trying to explain another’s beliefs to someone who believes they are the arbiter of what is believable.

As you said in another post, you don’t agree with official definitions, and that is the bottom line.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
That’s like the difference between being run over by an elephant or a lack of an elephant.

You mean that the lack of an elephant could be any other large animal or vehicle?

If I had meant non-elephant I wold have said non-elephant. I meant being run over by something not there, by a lack of an elephant.

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Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
In either case we’re talking about elephants, aren’t we?

No, we’re not.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
If I ask you if you were run over by a lack of an elephant, your answer would be that there was no elephant involved, but you would have to know the difference between an elephant and a non-elephant to make that statement.

I wouldn’t say “non-elephant” I would just name the other large animal or vehicle.

The situation is that you were “run down” by the lack of an elephant, not a non-elephant.

Were I to say that you were run down by the lack of an elephant, even if you didn’t know what an elephant was, you’d still have to know the difference between the thing that wasn’t there and whatever the thing supposedly was.

But you’d still be at least wondering what an elephant was, meaning that you’d be thinking of some object which I’ve described as an elephant.

When presented with a thing to either believe in or not, you “create” some image of it, and then actively believe it believable or believe it unbelievable, but in any case you form a belief about said object.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
You cannot prove that they don’t exist. Therefore it is only your belief that they don’t exist.

Things that don’t exist, don’t leave evidence of their non-existence. The burden of proof is on those that make the claim of something existing.

You’re quite right! Things that don’t exist DON’T leave evidence of their non-existence. God has shown me that He exists. God has shown you that He exists in ways which you refuse to see as evidence that He exists.

It’s not MY job to show you evidence that God exists qua God. It is God’s to show you and yours to accept His showing you, which you won’t do, which leaves you with nothing but the apparent need to talk about God-stuff so as to defend your belief in His non-existence.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
That you believe that znooms don’t exist is laudable, as they probably don’t, but the point that you may be wrong in your belief is certainly not moot.

I know they don’t exist and it is their non-existence that is the moot point.

Since your “knowledge”, your “knowing a thing”, is not subject to being wrong, I’m left to hope you have as much fun with that curious conclusion as you can possibly handle!