Another day when there is no God

@izzythepush,

I don't see those as equivalent situations at all - but I did get riled when you told me that all atheists are the same.

I guess the issue is you think the atheist is a bad/insulting label - and I don't - it's just a statement of whether you believe in the existence of gods. It says nothing else about you.

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@hingehead,

I never said all atheists are the same, I said I viewed it as a religion, with strict views on the afterlife. You believe there is no god, no afterlife, nothing. That's fair enough, but don't pretend it's not a religion. because religion deals in certainties not doubt.

Jesus died for our sins.
The Koran is divine written by an angel, Mohammed transcribed it.
There is no god, everything is a series of random events.

All certainty. Now I know most atheists don't attend the Sunday assembly, or try to proselytize, and it's not organised, but it's still a religion.

There's a word for it, there's not a word for what someone with no religion believes.

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

Hmmm. Drowning in semantics now.

So if you have your own personal beliefs that no-one shares - is that a religion? And atheism doesn't say what happens in the afterlife. It just says there's no evidence for believing in gods. Period. Mind will change with sufficient evidence.

1 Reply

@hingehead,

hingehead wrote:

I guess the issue is you think the atheist is a bad/insulting label

I never said that. It's another assumption. Dave Gorman has mistakenly been called Jewish. He's not, but he doesn't think Jewish is an insulting label.

Quote:

In his stand-up show Dave Gorman's Powerpoint Presentation at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Gorman stated that he is an "atheist from a Christian background". However, he is frequently incorrectly assumed to be Jewish; for example, the Jewish magazine JLifestyle includes him in a list of "literary Jews".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Gorman

It's not about whether something is deemed insulting or not, it's about representing the truth. If someone describes themselves as something it should not be assumed to be something else. The 40% of British respondents ticked no religion, they didn't tick atheist, and I don't know their motivation for that any more than you do, so stop making assumptions.

The only fact is that they said they had no religion, so stick to the facts.

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@hingehead,

hingehead wrote:

Hmmm. Drowning in semantics now.

So if you have your own personal beliefs that no-one shares - is that a religion? And atheism doesn't say what happens in the afterlife. It just says there's no evidence for believing in gods. Period. Mind will change with sufficient evidence.

If it was a religion they wouldn't have said they have no religion. Do you think Frank Apisa will be happy with your definition of atheist? He is a fervent agnostic who believes there's no evidence in believing in gods, call him an atheist and you'll never hear the end of it.

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

Quote:

If it was a religion they wouldn't have said they have no religion

So atheism isn't a religion?

Ooops, scratch that. Thought you were talking about atheists, but you meant the no religion, people.

Do you think they have a universal, agreed, understanding of what a religion is? It's starting to feel really subjective. For me it's generally an organised set of observances, for the most part - so includes most religious and cult orders I can think of. So if I had my own code, that didn't believe in gods, I'd probably say 'no religion' - but I don't even have that.

I can't help feeling that it's murked up by semantics and connotation (I think Osso raised this point).

And don't mention Frank even as a joke! I'll have to start talking about green cheese on the moon again!

1 Reply

@hingehead,

It's got its own box to tick. And it's not confined to one person. It's a movement.

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@hingehead,

Quote:

I don't doubt for a sec that there are annoying atheists (or Missouri Synod Lutherans), but I'm not going to paint them all with the same brush.

Of course not, and neither do Izzy or I. We both keep pointing out exceptions and use words like "some" or "sometimes". Some of the religiously Atheistic don't get that for some reason.

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@hingehead,

hingehead wrote:

It's called upcycling Ed.

I call it sabotage.

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@trichakra,

trichakra wrote:

God is here with us.

How you are so confident that there is no god?

Screw off.

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@bobsal u1553115,

Maybe I missed the nuance, but I certainly didn't notice Iz using some or sometimes. Pretty sure his line was 'none of the no religion people is an atheist' and 'all atheists follow the atheism religion'.

You guys are in a semantic parallel universe to me. I'm not even sure we're talking about the same thing with these words.

1 Reply

@bobsal u1553115,

I think we're already in Frankville, a roller coaster of repetition that goes on for years.

See ya round.

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@hingehead,

Are you being deliberately obtuse? You can't keep making assumptions, your meme did exactly that, it assumed everyone who said that had no religion was an atheist.

They didn't say they were atheists so you can't assume they are.

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Izzy has a serious case of pot and kettle syndrome here. He assumes that "atheism" is a religion, which implies that all atheists are a monolith of people holding the same opinions. There's a good line about that in the so-called gospels: . . . first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

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What with this mysterious definition of "religion" by the no religionists, which as much as we can gather means, "we're not having it," no religion certainly has the ring of esotericism.

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Im getting dizzy!!!!

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@InfraBlue,

It's not a movement, nothing esoteric about it, just people deciding not to follow something, like some people don't watch football. Having a religion is not compulsory.

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@Setanta,

One slight criticism of atheism and the little fascist in you pops straight to the service. What does it matter what I think of atheists, I'm just one bloke, I'm not infallible, why does it upset you so very much?

You're supposed to know a bit about history, and freedom of conscience was one of the very first rights people fought over. That's the one you want to take away, you know better what someone believes than they do themselves. The more you claim atheism is not a religion the more fundamentalist and fanatical you come across. You're even quoting scripture to back up your point.

If atheism is so good, so logical then why the need to lie about the number of adherents? Stop making assumptions about raw data to fit in with your own prejudices. You've even been told by people who have ticked the no religion box that they're not atheists, but that's not good enough for you, you still know their minds than better they do.

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@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

It's not a movement, nothing esoteric about it, just people deciding not to follow something, like some people don't watch football. Having a religion is not compulsory.

Another day when there is no God

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