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If atheism is a position against the existence of gods, is it also a-religious bearing in mind that religion doesn't need deities and, if it is a-religious, does it have a set of criteria to define it so as any academic position would?

Geoffrey51 8 July 7
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Atheism is not a knowledge position, it is a belief position, specifically a lack of belief in any gods. It is basically seeing no valid reason to believe or disbelieve.

Agnosticism is the knowledge position, but similarly, it is not taking up a position for OR against the existence of any deities, as supernatural beings and realms are inherently un-falsifiable.

No, atheists do not have to be anti-religion, or even areligious, although inherently to the extent they embrace religion officially and authentically, they would be confined to "atheistic" religions like most sects of Buddhism, Taoism, some precincts of Quakerism ... or post-Christian, non-creedal constructs like Unitarian-Universalism.

Yes, not all religions include a deity. To the extent I'm opposed to religion, it has to do with their failed and dangerous epistemology (religious faith, the uncritical acceptance of asserted truth without requiring substantiation).

4

i believe in "live and let live", if someone chooses to "believe" in god thats their business, i don't care enough to waste my time on being "against".
i wish they would all reciprocate. lol

Kitz Level 4 July 8, 2018

yes absolootley - I don't mind if anyone wants to believe in the invisible pink unicorn or the flying spaghetti monster, its their choice and its also a personal choice how we decide to describe our own thoughts about naming our own belief/non beliefs- its no one else's business unless we decide to share ourselves.

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Atheism is not a position against gods. It is a lack of belief in them. I am not against fairies, I do not believe in them.

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There are no gods to be ‘against.’ I consider Atheism an understanding or acknowledgement there are no ‘gods.’ To claim it’s ‘a religion’ seems like claiming those who view a clear sky as blue must belong to the religion of blue sky believers.

I’ve read various tenets of Atheism, written by those apparently tired of explaining their perspective … but for the fact I can’t remember one.. yet remain a lifelong Atheist, they’re not criteria for which we consciously strive ..and are as varied as personal perception.

A member of American Atheists, it’s a political or civil rights organization to me, nothing religious.. And though many religions have become political organizations, too (though illegal in the USA, if they want to remain tax exempt), AA’s goal is the separation of state from religion and protecting the rights of those wishing to maintain reality based rational lives.

Varn Level 8 July 8, 2018
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Atheism isn't necessarily against the existence of gods.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict almost all of us evil atheists would abandon our baby eating ways if only one or more gods would say "HOWDY".

It's fairly certain few of us would worship deities who stop to chat. Considering gods' reputations many of us would try deicide as our next favorite hobby.

Most of us would believe if shown repeatable experiments and solid evidence.

I have a similar standard towards the Hot-Crazy matrix, ummm except I won't kill unicorns.

There's good eating on one of them...

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One

Gods doesn't exit. They were created to fill the gaps between the human condition and the ability to explain it.

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Atheism is not "against" the existence of gods, we simply just don't believe they exist; I think your notion of "against" just makes things complicated. To make an analogy, consider someone who doesn't care about baseball, but is not against it; don't read anymore into it.

godef Level 7 July 8, 2018

Yes my semantics were incorrect and apologised to a previous responder. I'll approach the question in a different form another time.

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To me that would be like saying I'm against the existence of unicorns and leprechauns

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Atheists aren't against the existence of gods they just don't believe in them

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I'm not sure how to react to what one might propose. for the basics of Atheism is there now valuble evidence that proposeses the proof of some entety has some some favor of other beings, and make humans his number one above all others, it just dosen,t make any sense.

sorry for the typos, I'm still learning to type on my smart phone.

Oh I know about the Smart phone. My a frequently comes out as s! I agree entirely about the dedicated deity to a particular group. The question, which I should have phrased better, is really, where do atheist's ideas stand with non-deistic religions. I hasten to add I am not a deistic troll. Just opening a line for debate.

You need a smartah one!

@godef I need a smarter brain! Not the phones problem!

6

Your premise is flawed. It is a lack of belief, not a position against. You're describing anti - theism. Consider the law. If the verdict is not guilty, that doesn't mean innocent. It means the prosecution failed to meet the burden of proof for a guilty plea. An atheist votes not guilty based on the evidence. They aren't voting innocent.

Also, the lack of belief is not a foundation under which you can organize. People that don't collect stamps wouldn't have a set of criteria under which it would be defined

Apologies for the error. You are correct regarding the flawed premise. What is an atheistic view point regarding structured philosophies that do not refer to deities.

@Geoffrey51 Again, you cannot structure something around the lack of a belief. If I don't believe in Bigfoot, I can't organize a group of like minded people to form tenets around Bigfoot's non existence... I think what you mean to ask is what are secular belief structures that you can find principles to.... in which case I'd point you to something like humanism. Humanism is not atheistic, atheism is -in its entirety a "not guilty" verdict and nothing else - but Humanism is something some atheists can and do identify with separate from their belief in a deity

What happened "innocent" until proven guilty?

@Kitz Under the bill of rights? Cool. As evidence for something's existence? Not so much.

Innocent until proven guilty is why the prosecution has the burden of proof. They are making a positive claim and have to provide the evidence to support it - otherwise you default to the null. I'd not like to see it if you had to prove your innocence to go free.

Regardless, jury's aren't asked to vote innocent, even with that presumption

@Tucker79 hey, I don't know about that, I'm English, we have common law, and, we are often asking the question, what happened to innocent until proven guilty, because that's what it used to be, today not so much.

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Atheism is just without God/Gods anything after that is something else.

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