Another day when there is no God

This is utter BS, and shows how little you know about atheists. The so-called weak atheists, or implicit atheists are just saying "I don't believe that." They don't proselytize, and they are certainly not a monolith with a common creed.

Although i don't have much hope for it, you might educate yourself. The best online source about religion that i have ever encountered is Religious Tolerance-dot-org. I can only access their Ontario pages from here, but you might get a different site if you search for religioustolerance.org. This is their page on so-called "atheism."

From RationalWiki:

Atheism as an organized religion

“”Atheism is a religion in the same way as 'off' is a television station.
—Ben Emerson

One of the widest misconceptions, often used as a strong criticism, is that atheism is a religion. However, while there are secular religions, atheism is most commonly defined as "no religion." To expand the definition of "religion" to include atheism would thus destroy any use the word "religion" would have in describing anything. It is quite often pointed out that if atheism is a religion it would be akin to stating that the act of not collecting stamps is a hobby, or that being unemployed is an occupation. Following from this, atheists do not worship Charles Darwin or any other individual. Although some think that atheism requires evolution to be a complete worldview,[50] there is no worship of anything or anyone in atheism, and acceptance of evolution isn't exclusive to atheists - for that matter there is no necessity for an atheist to accept the evidence for evolution (Stalin is a good example: he rejected Darwinian evolution, promoting Lysenkoism instead, and he consistently purged evolution biologists in favor of Lysenkoists). By definition, if atheists worshiped Darwin as a god, they wouldn't be atheists. Basically, "atheism" is a word for a negative. However, this leads to a few semantic issues.

This confuses the religious because they are used to terms of religious identity being a declaration of allegiance to a view, rather than of separation from. This confusion then leads them to assert that a denial of their religion must be an avowal of another. They then do things like declare the so-called New Atheists as hypocrites for denigrating religion while sticking to an unstated one of their own, or declare that because science has an epistemology and religion has an epistemology, therefore science is just another faith (when religion's problem is that science's epistemology provably works much better than religion's).

“”Atheism is actually a religion - indeed, much like "not collecting stamps" might be called a hobby, or "not smoking" might be called a habit.

—TheThinkingAtheist

A standard response is to note that if atheism is a religion, then "bald" is a hair color, "not kicking a kitten" is a form of animal abuse, and so on. Another is to note that if the definition of religion was expanded enough to legitimately include atheism - say, by defining a religion as "any philosophy on life" - then practically everything in the world would be a religion, such as socio-economic policies or views on equality. (British law has come close to finding this in employment discrimination cases.)

A new movement of atheist churches appears to be developing (such as Sunday Assembly), but what they do is not worship; rather, they are places where like-minded people get together on Sunday mornings to have fun, celebrate life and whatever. This is a relatively new phenomenon, and its prospects for the future are unclear.

Atheists, as a whole, are not a unified group, so accusation that "atheists" are doing x, y and z hold little water. In fact, a disaffection with organized religion, and the potential for groupthink, is what causes many believers to abandon faith and come out as atheists. It doesn't follow that such individuals would happily join another organised group. Debate within the atheistic community is robust - debates even about whether there is even an "atheistic community" at all, for instance - and the fact that this debate exists presupposes no dogmatic mandate (or at least not a widely followed one) from an organized group. It does follow from this lack of organisation that there is no atheist equivalent of the Bible, Koran, or other holy text. There are, of course, atheist writings, but one does not need to adhere to opinions held by, say, Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens to be considered an atheist. Some atheists will actively oppose what these kinds of authors do and say. In fact, some atheists wish they could believe.

I believe in something but I don't partake in religion. Although some artichoke eyed individuals think this cannot be, I must again say that it can. It has.

Religion as such is nothing more than a conglomerate of money grabbing organizations that parade around with signs and songs declaring themselves the best of the blessed while picking your pockets and telling ever changing stories. Stories which all say you're doomed if you don't join them!

God or Abba or whoever or whatever isn't going to condemn people to hell for not going to church, temple, synagogue, mosque or tent in the field!

I believe there is a semantical issue here. Much of what you have written applies more properly to agnosticism than Atheism, and there is a difference between the two. I don't wish to bang the table over this as did the now departed Frank Apisa, but the distinction is worth making.

The metaphors you noted about stamp collecting and smoking illustrate some of the, perhaps arcane, semantical traps here. For example, not smoking as a matter of normal behavior is, in some (not all ) contexts describable as a habit. Indeed I believe that the phrase Atheism is a religion is merely a semantical trap meaning little. One could argue that in some cases, and among some atheists, the expression of their beliefs has some similarities to some religious practices, but, as is eviden,t properly qualified the statement no longer has much meaning or significance.

You're not trying to proselytize so you direct me to a page about atheism.

That's the oldest trick in the book. "The reason you don't like our religion is because you don't know enough about it, these books will help."

You just can't help yourself.

That's not the point, you can call yourself whatever you want, however you wish to describe yourself. Whatever type of atheist you wish to be, hard, soft, al dente, or whatever denomination you wish to profess. I'm very happy for you, I really am. What you can't do, is claim that the 40% of British people who described themselves as having no religion as fellow atheists. That's the point.

The 13% who described themselves as atheists are all yours. You can welcome them to the world of Ontarian atheism, but leave me out of it. What part of "I'm not religious," did you take to mean, "Please teach me more about atheism from a Canadian perspective?"

You're pathetic. Religious Tolerance is about all religions, and areligion and irreligion. Leave it to you to make an hysterical issue of this. You badly need to get over yourself, and to grow up. It is possible, you know, to have discussions, rather than constantly escalating arguments. But that seems to be all you're interested in.

It is hilarious, though to see you refer to atheist denonimations. I guess you didn't read the page from RationalWiki. As i said, pathetic.

Tolerance is neither religious or irreligious. In any event there certainly is far too little of it in today's world. Contemporary doctrines of political correctitude require embracing whatever is in the currently fashionable cant, when in fact our world (and these threads) actually needs less thought control and more tolerance for all. Live and let live is a good rule indeed.

Sure it is, and Jehovah's Witnesses are all about understanding the Bible.

For someone who claims to be a soft atheist you don't half bang on about it a lot.

I'm sure your little group is absolutely wonderful, but I'm not interested.

If you're honest about religious tolerance you could start by respecting other people's choices by not lying about them being atheists. I don't think you can do it. You're too much of a zealot, the fact that you're spitting feathers about a word like denominations is proof of that. That's why you're condemning the heretic.

I haven't lied about anyone being an atheist--i've provided my sources. There is no "little group" which includes me, nor have i attempted to solicit your interest, nor would if there were. The rest of your ridiculous accusations are typical of the sort of hysterical escalation which you have always shown here when you are criticized.

You've supported the lie that people of no religion are mostly atheists. The fact that you can't see it is indicative of your fanaticism.

Any non god that inspires such myopic smugness isn't a non god worthy of worship.

That is absolutely false, and that is typical of you, and that is why i say that you are pathetic.

No it's not.



Now that's absolutely false.

I've had enough run ins with religious nutters not to be bothered about what you think. You're all so thin skinned.

I'm not thin-skinned, i think you're hilarious, in large measure because you are or pretend to be serious about the bullsh*t you peddle.

When i said that 80% or more of Swedes are not theists, it was in the context of quoting from a source which gave its sources, and wrote of a certain percentage of Swedes who believe in a power or spirit in the universe. That's not god, so that means that they're not theists. Read it over a few times, if you need to, i know that things don't sink in either well or quickly with you.

I suspect that you've got you knickers in a knot because your own personal superstition has been offended, but you are just barely intelligent enough to realize that blind faith is indefensible as a logical basis for belief.

Keep up the good work,though, you are marginally entertaining.

This is what i meant when i said that your remark was utterly false. I have not said that, nor have i "supported" such a claim. To say that people are not theists is not to say that they are atheists. Once again, take your time, it will probably sink in one of these years.

Weasel words become you, you put me in mind of one of those old time Southern preachers.

Instead of damnation you offer smug self congratulatory epithets about how smart you are, (a bit like Reasoning Logic.) Nobody can regurgitate facts like you, that's because your such a clever chap, as long as we forget about things like wit and humour. Or would you like to entertain us all with another pun?

You're a sad case, Bubba. Doesn't all that bile spoil your meals?

That's not a pun. It's not even close.

Has anyone here said it's a pun? Are you from the planet Earth?