I have a very dear friend who is a man of faith - a Mormon. I enjoy talking to him about religion because he's secure enough in his beliefs to have conversations with me about the issue without getting too upset. We're not trying to change each others mind, we are swapping philosophies and at times challenging the logic behind what the other person believes.
A little personal history before we get on with this. I was raised in a small town in Washington from the time I was in fifth grade to when I graduated high school. After I moved into the area, a Mormon temple was built and Mormons started moving in which gave the local economy a boost and raised the rosters at the local schools quite a bit, causing a need for more schools to be built which created jobs as well. The Mormon immigration was not a bad thing - but you would have thought it was the end of civilization as we knew it. I remember reading about people being singled out and abused because they were Mormons in local shops and at public events and my dad talking about it, saying we're all first hand witnesses to a case of Christians eating one another. It was a lesson I learned about the importance of doctrine to religious people. To this day I can't understand how people rationalize doctrine as divine in any way, but it was eye opening to see at such a young age groups of people who believed in the same god and the same messiah but still stubbornly hated one another because of differences in details.
All this being said, I generally liked the Mormon kids that moved in. They were down to earth, humble, smart, and most of all - they knew that their religion was a whole lot of stuff that to an outsider wounded like complete woo. They understood and Mormonism made sense to Mormons because they were Mormons. Some of them didn't believe it, some of them did. Most of them were like my friend - they generally followed the religion but they also had their own opinions and they didn't fear any repercussions for deviating from strict adherence to the church.
My friend and I were talking about atheism and he brought up that tired old argument that atheism is a religion. I feel like this argument is a derisive one - to tell an atheist that what they believe is religious is like telling a vegetarian that their lifestyle perpetuates the meat industry. I didn't feel like my friend was trying to mean, though, I felt like he probably heard this argument himself and not being terribly big on critical thinking he absorbed it and accepted it without really questioning it.
Dawkins (was it Dawkins who coined this phrase? I'm pretty sure it was...) was spot on when he said that atheism is a religion the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby. The assertion that atheism is a religion is ridiculous and not really worth exploring in and of itself. I explained to my friend why atheism isn't a religion and he agreed eventually with some reluctance. His argument ended up hinging on conflating the definition of religion to the point where not only atheism, but the belief or non-belief in anything would be considered a religion. Of course, if the only way you can logically prove an assertion is by creating a personal definition of what something is, you've really only convinced yourself - the one person who doesn't require convincing.
I asked him after the atheism is a religion thing was past, how it made him feel when people called the Mormon religion a cult. He shrugged, told me it didn't really bother him that much because he knew they were just being mean. It was then that I told him that I knew how he felt.
If Mormonism can somehow be considered a cult or not, it doesn't matter. The connotations of the term 'cult' are highly negative and so when you apply it to Mormons or any group of people, you're using the term as an insult while also being able to claim that you're properly applying an apt term to a group. It's the same thing when you insist that atheism is a religion. Atheists make no secret of their general contempt for religion. It's true that some atheists don't care too much about religions, but a good deal of atheists seem to view religion with feelings that range from a mild contempt to a passionate distrust with a myriad of emotions in between, all of which could be considered negative. This is not a fact that only atheists are aware of, this is well known, and so to say that atheism is a religion is a way to insult atheists without openly insulting them. It's a low blow that doesn't have to be answered for which is the worst kind of insult you can throw at someone.
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Jettboy · 815 weeks ago
It is really hard NOT to see Atheism as a religion when too many act too much like they belonged to some kind of belief system. Criticism of religion isn't the problem. Downright hostility does make for religious people to wonder how serious Atheists are in non-belief or just belief in disbelief.
FormerComposer · 814 weeks ago
I don't know how they write books; based on the results they seem to do it the same way everybody else does -- have some ideas and find a clear and effective way of communicating them.
I think you meant "Big Bang" but I would agree that in certain circles, discussions of Big Bands do take on the trappings of a religious debate. Just like opening the can of worms among programmers about the best text editor does.
Global Warming, Evolution and the Big Bang don't require believe (a fundamental component of theology), they require thinking and analysis of evidence. Just like the rest of science.
Scientists are questioned all the time; we're usually not privy to the conversations leading up to a published theory but I think it's a lot like making laws and sausage. Even after publication, there is usually quite a bit of questioning and definitely lots of
"I'll have to duplicate this result myself before I can agree with you."
The mixed metaphor of missionaries who go out to destroy says more about your own viewpoint of missionaries than it does about scientists. Non-supportable hand-waving does have to be combatted, though.
Seeing atheism as a religion is actually pretty hard. None of the trappings of religion are present: unfounded beliefs, holy books that must be treated with respect regardless of the errancy of the texts, secret incantations and theater, exclusivity and circle-the-wagons responses, etc.
"Believing in disbelief" doesn't even make semantic, let alone logical, sense.
re hostility: You might want to peruse this post -- Athiests and Anger at http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christina...
-- for some of the reasons we aren't always as lapdog-ish as folks might like.
pinko_commie 65p · 814 weeks ago
I think the hostility comes from the attitude many atheists face from religious people which amounts to - we're bigger than you so just be quiet and let us run the show. In America (not to assume you are or are not American) we are constantly having to insist that we deserve the same amount of rights and inclusion as everyone else. This hostility you mention would more honestly be described as defensiveness. When there is hostility it is usually reactionary - it is not something that happened out of the blue without any provocation. It is fair to pick on someone day after day for hundreds of years and then when they finally lose their cool and tell you to stop picking at them, you say they're being irrationally (after all, using this perceived 'hostility' as a reason to say that atheists are religious is to say the the hostility is irrational) hostile?
Your comparisons regarding scientists to priests and theories to theology holds absolutely no weight whatsoever. You are literally comparing apples to oranges and trying to assert that by simply making the comparison, the comparison is valid. Does that mean all I have to do is compare religion to prison and that makes the comparison logical by default? Of course not.
Scientists welcome questions and challenges to their work, the problem I think a lot of typically but not always fundamentalist christians have with science is that mythology provides no real challenge and no valid questions.
I feel like it's probably not hard for someone to see atheism as a religion if that person has very little understanding of atheism beyond their own contempt for a preconceived but not necessarily correct idea of what atheism is. All atheism is is a lack of belief in god. Anything you choose to tack on to it as specific to and required in order to be an atheist is your own complication of a very simple and singular idea.
Seth R. · 814 weeks ago
But I think it is fair to say that plenty of atheists (especially on the internet) display behaviors of fanaticism, and black-and-white thinking that many atheists are fond of pretending belong solely to religious people.
I'm a Mormon who has internet run-ins with the ex-Mormon crowd on a fairly regular basis and I deal with both atheist and Evangelical ex-Mormons (the two most vocal ex-Mormon factions).
I had an odd experience this last year. I was arguing with an Evangelical ex-Mormon who was making the point that Joseph Smith has about 5 (or more) different versions of his foundational "First Vision" - the one where he saw God, and the whole thing got kick-started off.
Now, his argument was a bit perplexing to me, because I didn't see what the big deal was. People remember different things about their experiences at different points in their lives. We remember the past in light of our present set of experiences. So it seemed like a no-brainer that Joseph would have a few different accounts at various stages as well - regardless of whether the Vision was legit or not. Think back to when you were 14. How many of your important life events that year do you remember that clearly?
Where's the beef, I thought.
But my Evangelical acquaintance felt this was a damning piece of evidence. He seemed to think that because Joseph was a prophet, God would have somehow ensured that Joseph would recite the events exactly the same - no matter what phase of his life he was in. He seemed to think that when you get labeled a prophet, it means you are suddenly infallible and no matter what you say, on whatever occasion, it had better be correct - otherwise it must mean you're a false prophet.
Total black-and-white thinking. A common hallmark of Christian fundamentalism.
I could not accept such a world view. In my mind, no one gave prophets an exemption from being wrong on occasion, or inaccurate. It just wasn't an issue to me, and I just didn't care.
Then, almost that same month, I had an ATHEIST ex-Mormon use exactly the same criticism of Joseph Smith. With the same implied demand for prophetic infallibility in ALL matters.
I mean, what's going on here?
It became rather apparent to me that while this guy had left organized religion, and professed no real religion, he had taken his religiously-fostered fundamentalist thinking with him.
He wasn't a Christian any more. But he was still just as much of a black-and-white fundamentalist as he ever was within the church. And I've met a lot of atheist ex-Mormons like him. It seems an atheist ditches their religious myths long before they ditch their fundamentalist thinking.
And yet you have Hitchens and Dawkins trying to claim that this kind of stupidity is a uniquely religious affliction.
Ironically it is among the so-called "New Atheists" that I find this kind of fundamentalist thinking to be most prevalent.
So, while it may be silly to call atheism a "religion," it does seem apparent that quite a few atheists brought along their baggage with them into the new club.
pinko_commie 65p · 814 weeks ago
Also, because some atheists may still act in ways which they were taught to act in their previous religions, that doesn't add any weight to the argument that atheism is a religion. If the claim were that some atheists act religiously, that's an interesting point and in some cases a valid assertion.
Seth R. · 814 weeks ago
As a religious person, I am no more in a rush to claim this kind of stupid thinking as "religious" as you are to claim it as particularly "atheist." But I have encountered a lot of "New Atheists" who seem to act like church has a monopoly on this stuff.
And, as I stated at the beginning, I don't think atheism is a "religion."
As to whether atheists still act "religiously" outside of church...
Like I said, I don't consider fundamentalism to be a particularly "religious" worldview to begin with.
I don't want to claim it. I doubt you do either.
Peter B. · 814 weeks ago
Atheism is a religion in the same way that health is a disease.
Anon · 813 weeks ago
stuffed 77p · 812 weeks ago
It amuses me greatly that people portray a group as sad all the time,
I mean we really haven't come very far from stereotyping people like
"He's black he's a thief." It's rubbish spewed out with conviction.
People need to grow up and stop thinking that they are superior because
no one is. We are all different. We are just more critical than MOST
religious sheeple.