Is atheism a religion?

[Unknown Soldier]

It's possible;

Do chimpanzees engage in religious behaviors?

''To date this question remains unanswered. I use methods from religious studies and anthropology of religion that demonstrate an answer in the affirmative. A comprehensive review of primatology reports reveals that chimpanzees do perform ritualized patterns of behavior in response to birth, death, consortship, and elemental natural phenomena. A structuralist analysis of these patterns shows that chimpanzees deploy similar formulaic action schemas involving recombination of syntagmatic and paradigmatic behaviors across all four of these life-situations. In the course of these performances, chimpanzees decontextualize and convert everyday communicative signals to express non-ordinary emotions of wonder and awe. The patterning of chimpanzee ritual behaviors evidences all the components of a prototypical trans-species definition of religion. These findings support hypotheses that propose religious behaviors for other species, including hominins prior to Homo sapiens sapiens.''

Thanks for that information. It sure looks like religion evolved.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Whatever else people may believe or do, a lack of conviction in the existence of a God or gods is essentially nothing more than that.

Indeed. The belief or disbelief in a god... is a belief, not a religion. Religion requires an unobserved authority and dogma. Atheism by definition can't be run by a mystical and unobserved authority. Nor is dogma centralized in Atheism, because there is no underlying source. Atheists are free to pretty much believe anything. Where as people within a religion are tied down to a series of rules and understandings.

 

[SIB]

To me, Its not a religion but some atheist are religious. They have as much blind faith in their statement of belief about god as any fundy think theist religious people I know.

List the traits of a fundy theist. Predict how an atheist would sound with those traits. The notion of religion-ist" fits to me. I call them fundy think types. From 50 yards away fundy think type atheist/theist sound the same. Their belief is defined by how it fits atheism.

Most reliable atheist define their belief with observation and others call then atheist, or even wanna be theist. I think some atheist are really trying to convince themselves to me. They are dangerous to people around them.

 

[Juvenal]

Atheism is a "religion" according to a US SC decision I'm not gonna bother looking up in the sense that it's constitutionally protected under the first amendment. But in practice, it describes not what an atheist is, but what an atheist is not.

 

[steve_bank]

As I lie to say all human social organizations exhibit the same psychology and social behavior.

Popular science abounds with books and interpretations of science with authors and figures having followings. People quote pop science authors much as Christians quote scripture. Interpretations of QM taken as fact.

In te extreme if something does not fit into a quantifiable experimental science it has no validity.

Out of COVID came 'the science says..', 'we go by what the science says...'. Now we see it in marketing. As if 'science' represents a kind of absolute truth.

Our governor uses the phrase to justify his decisions.

 

[SIB]

As I lie to say all human social organizations exhibit the same psychology and social behavior.

Popular science abounds with books and interpretations of science with authors and figures having followings. People quote pop science authors much as Christians quote scripture. Interpretations of QM taken as fact.

In te extreme if something does not fit into a quantifiable experimental science it has no validity.

Out of COVID came 'the science says..', 'we go by what the science says...'. Now we see it in marketing. As if 'science' represents a kind of absolute truth.

Our governor uses the phrase to justify his decisions.

agreed. Other wise this simple. We are p[art of a larger more complex system. The reverse belief just counters observation like a dude dying and rising.

I once had an atheist tell me "You are giving them an out" ... I knew that atheist and I were not discussing beliefs that match observations.

 

[DBT]

To me, Its not a religion but some atheist are religious. They have as much blind faith in their statement of belief about god as any fundy think theist religious people I know.

List the traits of a fundy theist. Predict how an atheist would sound with those traits. The notion of religion-ist" fits to me. I call them fundy think types. From 50 yards away fundy think type atheist/theist sound the same. Their belief is defined by how it fits atheism.

Most reliable atheist define their belief with observation and others call then atheist, or even wanna be theist. I think some atheist are really trying to convince themselves to me. They are dangerous to people around them.

Blind faith? Faith is a belief held without the support of evidence, which is blind by definition. A lack of conviction in the existence of a God or gods is a lack of belief....a lack of belief based on the absence of evidence, which is the opposite of faith.

 

[SIB]

To me, Its not a religion but some atheist are religious. They have as much blind faith in their statement of belief about god as any fundy think theist religious people I know.

List the traits of a fundy theist. Predict how an atheist would sound with those traits. The notion of religion-ist" fits to me. I call them fundy think types. From 50 yards away fundy think type atheist/theist sound the same. Their belief is defined by how it fits atheism.

Most reliable atheist define their belief with observation and others call then atheist, or even wanna be theist. I think some atheist are really trying to convince themselves to me. They are dangerous to people around them.

Blind faith? Faith is a belief held without the support of evidence, which is blind by definition. A lack of conviction in the existence of a God or gods is a lack of belief....a lack of belief based on the absence of evidence, which is the opposite of faith.

yeah, the belief that we are part of some thing more is so far more reliable than the reverse belief that only blind faith explains why somebody would deny that stance.

 

[DBT]

To me, Its not a religion but some atheist are religious. They have as much blind faith in their statement of belief about god as any fundy think theist religious people I know.

List the traits of a fundy theist. Predict how an atheist would sound with those traits. The notion of religion-ist" fits to me. I call them fundy think types. From 50 yards away fundy think type atheist/theist sound the same. Their belief is defined by how it fits atheism.

Most reliable atheist define their belief with observation and others call then atheist, or even wanna be theist. I think some atheist are really trying to convince themselves to me. They are dangerous to people around them.

Blind faith? Faith is a belief held without the support of evidence, which is blind by definition. A lack of conviction in the existence of a God or gods is a lack of belief....a lack of belief based on the absence of evidence, which is the opposite of faith.

yeah, the belief that we are part of some thing more is so far more reliable than the reverse belief that only blind faith explains why somebody would deny that stance.

What do you mean by 'the belief that we are part of something more' being reliable? What exactly is this 'something more?'

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Atheism is a "religion" according to a US SC decision I'm not gonna bother looking up in the sense that it's constitutionally protected under the first amendment. But in practice, it describes not what an atheist is, but what an atheist is not.

The courts have decided that atheism is a religion only in the special sense:

According to the Kaufman court, “when a person sincerely holds beliefs dealing with issues of ‘ultimate concern that for her occupy a place parallel to that filled by ... God in traditionally religious persons, those beliefs represent her religion.”

In short, the courts have held that the establishment clause is equally applicable to the nonreligious and even the anti-religious. As the 7th Circuit stated, “[A]theism may be considered, [only] in this special sense, a religion.”

See THE FIRST AMENDMENT ENCYCLOPEDIA, Atheism.

 

[TomC]

courts have decided that atheism is a religion only in the special sense:

I think that there's a simpler explanation.

The government ruled the organizations that operate like religious organizations get the same benefits as similar self-labeled religious organizations. Tax laws, reporting, all that stuff.
Tom

 

[DBT]

To label atheism as a religion suits some need, to categorize, to quantify, to pigeonhole, to say, ''oh, you too have faith, therefore my religion is as good as yours."

 

[Unknown Soldier]

To label atheism as a religion suits some need, to categorize, to quantify, to pigeonhole, to say, ''oh, you too have faith, therefore my religion is as good as yours."

Yes. I think that's the whole point of people like evangelists and apologists defining atheism as a religion. In a way it's a tacit admission that religion is just a set of claims anybody can make.