Religion

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Zolan

Regardless, I hope you didn't just imply Reddit was a non-biased source with a straight face...

That FAQ isn't biased at all from what I can tell. When it was made, the moderators specifically designed it to be non-offensive to religious people since it was supposed to be linked to non-atheists as a quick primer. If you feel it is biased, I think you might need to reevaluate the definitions and logic you're using. If I'm coming off as defensive it's because I've seen these kind of arguments from theists who try their hardest to redefine Atheism into something they can hate or argue against.

Originally Posted by Warborn

Anyone who has explained atheism to you and suggested it makes claims about the universe beyond whether a god exists has misled you.

Exactly, this is why I said it can be very hard for people to comprehend a simple definition of "lack of belief in a deities" since they want to attach things to the word based on things a collection of people who label themselves Atheist generally stand for.

It's actually one of the reasons /r/atheism has a bad reputation and people stick to the more specific /r/exjw, /r/excatholic etc type subreddits on that site. I just linked the FAQ since that's the only place it exists.

[Zolan]

Originally Posted by Warborn

Atheism says nothing about a person other than that they do not believe in god(s). It says nothing about how you think the universe started, if it did start, its purpose, the purpose of life, or any other such things. My one-year-old niece is an atheist. My brother who has Down's syndrome is an atheist. And Richard Dawkins is an atheist. None of those individuals share a common opinion on what the nature, or purpose, of the universe is, and yet they all are absent a belief in god and therefore are atheists.

Anyone who has explained atheism to you and suggested it makes claims about the universe beyond whether a god exists has misled you.

Belief in a God is not the defining feature of a religion.

Anthropologically speaking, based upon many scholarly definitions, Atheism can be defined as a non-theistic religion.

[Zolan]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

That FAQ isn't biased at all from what I can tell. When it was made, the moderators specifically designed it to be non-offensive to religious people since it was supposed to be linked to non-atheists as a quick primer. If you feel it is biased, I think you might need to reevaluate the definitions and logic you're using. If I'm coming off as defensive it's because I've seen these kind of arguments from theists who try their hardest to redefine Atheism into something they can hate or argue against.

Any image board that has a dedicated /atheism page should not be considered correct by any stretch of the imagination.

Reddit is about as non-biased as going to Al-Jazeera for information regarding the U.S. military.

If the bar is that low, I might as well start linking archived 4chan threads about unicorn overlords.

At least 4chan has disclaimers.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Zolan

Any image board that has a dedicated /atheism page should not be considered correct by any stretch of the imagination.

It has dedicated boards for all religions... You went full Duke, never go full Duke. The non-theist boards are just more popular.

Originally Posted by Zolan

Belief in a God is not the defining feature of a religion.

Anthropologically speaking, based upon many scholarly definitions, Atheism can be defined as a non-theistic religion.

You sound as lost as Duke. He got linked stuff and didn't read it either. He kept making similar statements even after people refuted them.

[Khrakhan]

No option for Flying Spaghetti Monster?!

[Baneblade]

Originally Posted by Khrakhan

No option for Flying Spaghetti Monster?!

RELEASE THE KRAKEN!


[/stopchannelLiamNeeson]

[Zolan]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

It has dedicated boards for all religions... You went full Duke, never go full Duke. The non-theist boards are just more popular

Whether or not reddit has sub-boards with theists changes absolutely nothing. The atheism board is a large hub of atheists telling other atheists about being atheist. There is a reason /atheist is always tagged on the front page. This is where the FAQs you linked are located.

It's akin to presenting views on eating meat from the vegetarian page, then trying to justify it as non-biased because there is also a fast food page.

[Zolan]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

You sound as lost as Duke. He got linked stuff and didn't read it either. He kept making similar statements even after people refuted them.

I could link information to the contrary, but the fact that I linked it doesn't make it true. Most of the information on that page isn't even related to what I was talking about (grammar/definition/agnosticism presented as a religious belief). It's just a handbook for reddit atheists to link people to because they can't answer for themselves.

[Sirisian]

So what you're telling me is you think Atheism is more than just "a lack of belief in deities" and is itself a religion? Is not believing in Christianity a religion? Or not believing in Islam? If so one would have multiple religions. It doesn't make sense to say that disbelief in something causes one to be part of a religion. The act of being forced to label oneself an Atheist is in direct response to people believing in deities.

It's gotten so complicated I think with religions trying to redefine Atheism that people have been forced to not label themselves at all because it's gotten so out of control.

[Zolan]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

So what you're telling me is you think Atheism is more than just "a lack of belief in deities" and is itself a religion? Is not believing in Christianity a religion? Or not believing in Islam? If so one would have multiple religions. It doesn't make sense to say that disbelief in something causes one to be part of a religion. The act of being forced to label oneself an Atheist is in direct response to people believing in deities.

It's gotten so complicated I think with religions trying to redefine Atheism that people have been forced to not label themselves at all because it's gotten so out of control.

Atheism is definitely more than just a disbelief in a God or Gods.

The term itself of course means only that, but it is virtually equivalent to any religious belief structure.

It meets all 7 of the divisions of religion as defined by Ninian Smart, for instance.

Atheism is also protected under the free exercise of religion clause of the first amendment, as it has been ruled (on several occasions) an equivalent to a religion, all of the way up to the SCOTUS.

Everyone keeps assuming that in order for something to be a religion, that it must involve a belief in a God. That is simply not true.

[Zolan]

Here is a link to a decent representation of those 7 dimensions.

http://pk.b5z.net/i/u/2167316/f/Nini...f_Religion.pdf

[Vash02]

Originally Posted by Zolan

Here is a link to a decent representation of those 7 dimensions.

http://pk.b5z.net/i/u/2167316/f/Nini...f_Religion.pdf

You still dont get it, even if some atheists have developed their own little ways it does not mean that all atheists follow them. You can call them humanists, or skeptics but Atheism does not have any religious element save for its position as defining someones belief in the existence of a God/s.

Just like how Theism is not a religion, Atheism is not a religion. get. that. into. your. head.

[WVoneseven]

Strong catholic.... and this poll is a little silly as from my personal experience the gaming and computing community is overwhelmingly atheistic which I believe is a result of that same IT community feeling attached to science.
Not that scientific outlooks necessarily result in atheism (I myself though still in High school am strongly attracted to the sciences and still a strong catholic). Just that there is a tendency for people in these communities to feel that atheism is an intellectually superior viewpoint and intellectual superiority is drastically important in those fields.

Basically you should have known that this poll was going to landslide atheism :P

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by WVoneseven

Not that scientific outlooks necessarily result in atheism (I myself though still in High school am strongly attracted to the sciences and still a strong catholic).

Do you just enjoy the culture and the rituals? Or do you believe that the communion wafer is the literal body of Christ? I had a friend that was hardcore Catholic and we never tried to convert him. He pretty much came to the conclusion (while getting high probably) that he was just in it for the community. He still goes to Church and just lives as a closet Atheist.

Originally Posted by WVoneseven

Just that there is a tendency for people in these communities to feel that atheism is an intellectually superior viewpoint and intellectual superiority is drastically important in those fields.

I hate that connotation. I think it happens when we get overly psychological and start bringing up arguments. Stuff like "if you're born someplace else in the world you would be a different religion because you're indoctrinated at a young age toward what you later believe to be the correct religion". If you see comments like that know that 99% of that stuff is just from Dawkins, Hitchens, Sagen, or some other well worded intellectuals. There's tons of quotes and books written with Humanist philosophies that people end up reading.

I want to say it's not that Atheists feel intellectually superior. However, it can seem that way. There are many arguments I've seen religious people make like "you think you're more moral than god himself" and for someone that doesn't believe in deities you're hit with a catch-22 since you can only reply with "yes, I'm more moral than an imaginary being" and it comes off as extremely arrogant to them. This is all part of an Atheist viewpoint which was brought up a few times.

Originally Posted by WVoneseven

Strong catholic.... and this poll is a little silly as from my personal experience the gaming and computing community is overwhelmingly atheistic which I believe is a result of that same IT community feeling attached to science.

I have a Computer Science degree and am 2 classes from a masters. You got me there. I do love me some science.

[MadPenguin]

Originally Posted by Zolan

Ah good, now that you have all given statements to my liking as I had hoped, I can make my original point regarding the poll.

One of those eh?

If by this you mean "everyone still wholeheartedly disagrees with me and im not going to respond to their criticisms of my position" then yeh, exactly as you'd hoped