Thats pretty clever honestly I could care less about religion. I'm not atheist I just don't follow one set religion. Something has to happen when you die not just cutting to black. I have to much to worry about to focus on religion but I do believe it's a religion......just not a very good one. All religions have there flaws......
I did an you shot back with a comic. I do believe religion is simply a belief and there are people who worship atheism. So I consider atheism a religion.
Ok so that was bad wording......the entire point of Christianity is to spread the word of god that's what I ment by teaching. Religion I all about what happens when you die, rather you go to heaven or hell or if there is a hevan or hell. So why is it that people that don't believe anything happens and it all cuts to black can't say it's a religion? It's what they believe happens as crazy as it sounds.
A religion, at its very base, is an explanation of "how." How we got here, how the universe was made, etc. when there is no objective explanation. Honestly, there isn't. One can't prove one way or another (I'm going to keep my beliefs to myself for now. (if you want to know them, just ask, but I've had bad experience in forums with mine.) A religion must also contain faith. Faith means, to me, that even in the face of doubt, you still believe that the way you know is right. If, going by that standard, then it comes down to what the individual believes. If the atheist believes that the Big Bang is it, and he BELIEVES that to be true, then I would say it's a religion. If the atheist says simply "I don't know", then there is none.
Science explores and seeks to explain how things work. How did the universe become, how does water evaporate, how does gravity work. If you look at 'why' as being the desire for something to happen, science doesn't bother with that, because that is an entirely subjective idea.
So you have the question, how did the universe get here. Christians will say God made it, scientists will say they don't know, but they have a few ideas. That is the how. Theists will then tell you why, which is the emotional impetus behind the drive to do it. When I was younger I was told God made the universe because he was lonely. So loneliness explained the why.
Am I making this clear? I'm not very good at articulating my thoughts.
To anyone who may further persue the argument that "atheism is a lack of belief, therefore is nothing" should really consider giving a looking into the basic ideas of deconstructionism.
While it is a very common argument, I still tend to look at it that way. I don't think I've ever heard a person explain why it isn't the very same thing as calling not collecting stamp a hobby.
If you're willing to tell me why that argument isn't valid (without just posting a link telling me to "read up",) then I'd be all for it. I'm more than happy to change my view on it, I just haven't been presented a good enough reason to do so yet.
"atheism is a lack of belief, therefore is nothing"
It's the part where you said we're saying that it isn't anything that I'm having trouble with. I don't think anyone has made that claim.
We may have pointed out that atheism is not a religion because it shares none of the practices or general concepts common to religion, but we never said it wasn't something.
It is quite possible that it was pointed out though, that it is an odd practice to give a label to not doing something, that we have a term for lacking belief. Is there a word that describes someone who does not drink coffee, or does not wear the colour red? But we have a word for not believing. And it must be pointed out again that not believing that something exists is not the same as believing it does not exist. Or the absence of belief in a god is not the same as belief in the absence of a god.
I never said you were saying that, and I've made it clear that it may have been a previous entry or another forum fuzzying my brain. And by previous, I mean years ago.
There are in fact a great many un-words, that describe not an activity, but an intentional lack of an activity, such as tee-totalling.
