Do you consider Atheism a religion?

@JamHead Said

Myself? I believe in nothing.

@JamHead Said

re?li?gion (r-ljn)
n.
1.
a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.


That fourth one...

There are some "atheists" that fit the bill for that fourth one. I'd say atheism as it's supposed to be isn't a religion although lots of people have decided it is. And the meaning of a word is generally decided by people!? I think that's the problem with labelling yourself and others with words like these. You can understand your meaning of a word and then tell someone else who has a completely different idea of that word means. There's so much confusion about what all these words mean I wouldn't call myself any of them, even if I apparently fit in to one of the categories. I'll leave the labelling of my beliefs up to others. Sorry for the slightly off-topic rambling but it just seemed to follow on :D

@fitzyp Said

ATHEIST!!!

atheism (plural atheisms)

1. Absence of, or rejection of, belief in the existence of God or gods.
2. The belief that there are no gods, the denial of the existence of God or gods.

@JamHead Said

I'll leave the labelling of my beliefs up to others

@fitzyp Said

You have been labelled.

@JamHead Said

Thanks but you see why these labels are a crock of bulls*** and therefore null and void?

ag?nos?tic (g-nstk)
n.
1.
a. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
b. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.

How can I be both?

@fitzyp Said

"Philosophers such as Antony Flew, Michael Martin, and William L. Rowe have contrasted strong (positive) atheism with weak (negative) atheism. Strong atheism is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist. Weak atheism includes all other forms of non-theism. According to this categorization, anyone who is not a theist is either a weak or a strong atheist. The terms weak and strong are relatively recent, while the equivalent terms negative and positive atheism are of older origin, having been used (in slightly different ways) in the philosophical literature and in Catholic apologetics since at least 1813. Under this demarcation of atheism, most agnostics qualify as weak atheists."
Wikipedia

Simply put agnosticism is a subset of atheism.

@JamHead Said


That's a very interesting perspective of it! But if you think that before God was invented that was sort of saying everything on the planet was, by default, an atheist? That doesn't compute really because atheism is the refution of a God. It cannot exist without the concept of God, so if God had never been invented, atheism wouldn't actually just be, stuff would just be.

@JamHead Said

Who are the other ones?

So according to some people I'm irrefutably a weak atheist that dosn't profess true atheism (???) because I don't know, or believe, that God exists or not and don't know, or believe, that it's possible to know if he does or not. It certainly makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing I have this label and am now affiliated with people who claim they know God doesn't exist, to millions of people who misinterpret it's meaning, but please don't call me that in front of the children, I don't want to have to explain to them all this waffle and have them suffer the terrible trauma I just did from finding out I'm a weak atheist. I'll still not call myself that. It even sounds derogatory. They could have at least called it liberal atheism or half-arsed atheism.

@richph Said

Yes, agreed, I stand corrected. But I was trying to figure out if atheism is a belief system, it is if there is a concept of God, because we do not know if there is a God. I think you said it better than I did!

@richph Said

Yes, agreed, I stand corrected. But I was trying to figure out if atheism is a belief system, it is if there is a concept of God, because we do not know if there is a God. I think you said it better than I did!