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Is atheism a religion?

Waywardduck 4 May 28
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6 comments

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0

No but go ahead and treat science like one.

3

Technically a religion does not have to have a deity or can be deity-optional (Buddhism, Taoism, La Vey Satanism, nontheist Quakers, Unitarian / Univeralists, others), so what is left, absent a deity to worship? Some combination of a clergy or ascetic class of adherents, traditions / customs, a holy book, and//or some combination of dogma, creed or cosmology that claims, without substantiation, to make you a better person or give you access to an afterlife of some kind (be it sequential or cyclic). In the case of the UU congregations, there's literally nothing but a community based around a mutual covenant, but it's still organized around common beliefs, however indirect (generally, beliefs about social justice and liberal politics).

Atheism has NONE of those things (an atheist can be of any political stripe, theism-hostile or not, activist or not, etc), and by definition, even if it did, it wouldn't be relevant, because ALL one needs to be classified as an atheist is a lack of belief in even one deity.

Individual atheists are free to associate with any group or belief they please, and so they might find common cause with religion at times, or join one of those groups I mention above. But that doesn't make "atheism" a religion. Atheism is only a lack of belief in any deities. It is not an organization or club that one joins. It is a label that one self-selects on a very narrow basis.

Even evangelicals like to say that living in a garage doesn't make you a car, and going to church doesn't make you a Christian. So why do they turn right around and claim that thinking unapproved thoughts about their god makes you religious?

1

noun: religion
the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

Atheism is the lack of a belief in a God.

So No

If you claim that Atheism is a religion - it's a bit like saying that "Off" is a TV channel.

@oldnslow Just because I may be an atheist it doesn't necessarily follow that I am a nihilist . I can not believe in any gods year still choose to believe in other things .

0

Religion is a system. You can't have a system based on nothingness.

5

Only if bald is a hair color.

2

Absolutley not!

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