Australian Politics Forum - Is atheism a religious belief?

muso

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #120 - Oct 22^nd, 2008 at 8:26pm

freediver wrote on Oct 22^nd, 2008 at 12:15pm:

In that case, absence of evidence is evidence of absence. The same is not true in the case of atheism.

Well ok, but I was just trying to understand your earlier post by giving that example.

It all comes back to the fact that God/gods are not definable to all parties, and as I said before,the definitions are rubbery and depend on the world view of the poster.

I can accept that some theists experience God.

Maybe it comes back to the 'God organ'. Those with a highly developed God organ can understand God.

If the God organ theory is correct, theists may interpret it as a gift from God, while atheists can interpret it as a false signal or some such thing.

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freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 49439 At my desk.	Re: Is atheism a religious belief? Reply #121 - Oct 22^nd, 2008 at 9:40pm It all comes back to the fact that God/gods are not definable to all parties I don't think God is defineable to anyone. God is, almost by defintion, beyond definition - permanently unknowable.
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Amadd Gold Member Offline Mo Posts: 6217	Re: Is atheism a religious belief? Reply #122 - Oct 22^nd, 2008 at 10:24pm I liked Mozz's joke I haven't read though all the posts here, but I find Musician 35's comments most the agreeable to me from what I've read. Personally I wouldn't ever put atheism into the catagory of being a religion, but I could agree with it being called an organization...a non-prophet organization
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mozzaok

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #123 - Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 6:09am

Quote:

a non-prophet organization Grin

Good one Ammad.

I can't help but wonder if the UK humanist's bus campaign has got people concerned?

"There's probably no god"
"now stop worrying, and enjoy your life"

They wanted to raise five and a half thousand quid to fund the campaign, and have already received ten times that amount, which indicates that atheists may be willing to submit to a little organisation.

As atheists are smarter, more independent, and more compassionate people, seeing them get organised as a lobby group could be greatly beneficial for our political leaders to recognise, and to have their decisions scrutinised, and influenced by such decent intelligent people, instead of delusional religious wackos, can only be of benefit to society. Kiss

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tallowood Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 6048	Re: Is atheism a religious belief? Reply #124 - Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 6:58am Atheists already have organisation. It's called communist party. In fact there are few of them because they don't see eye to eye on all doctrines just like all other religions. They do have prophets often called chairmen and we know from history hoe smart, independent and humane they are NOT.
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mozzaok Gold Member Offline OzPolitic Posts: 6741 Melbourne Gender:	Re: Is atheism a religious belief? Reply #125 - Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 7:04am Thanks for the object lesson tallo.
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tallowood

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #126 - Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 7:29am

mozzaok wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 7:04am:

Thanks for the object lesson tallo. Grin

be my guest mozz Cheesy

Quote:

State atheism is the official promotion of atheism by a government, typically by active suppression of religious freedom and practice.[1] State atheism has been mostly implemented in communist countries, such as the former Soviet Union,[1] China, Communist Albania, Communist Afghanistan, North Korea, Communist Mongolia and Poland under communist rule also promoted state atheism and suppressed religion.[2] In these nations, the governments viewed atheism as an intrinsic part of communist ideology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism

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Kytro

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #127 - Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 7:30am

tallowood wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 6:58am:

Atheists already have organisation. It's called communist party. In fact there are few of them because they don't see eye to eye on all doctrines just like all other religions. They do have prophets often called chairmen and we know from history hoe smart, independent and humane they are NOT.

Just because atheists don't believe in god does not mean that they communist.

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tallowood

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #128 - Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 7:53am

Kytro wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 7:30am:

tallowood wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 6:58am:

Atheists already have organisation. It's called communist party. In fact there are few of them because they don't see eye to eye on all doctrines just like all other religions. They do have prophets often called chairmen and we know from history hoe smart, independent and humane they are NOT.

Just because atheists don't believe in god does not mean that they communist.

But communist parties are organisations consisting of atheists and when they are in power they have appalling records of humanitarian abuse.

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freediver

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #129 - Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 8:10am

mozzaok wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 6:09am:

Quote:

a non-prophet organization Grin

Good one Ammad.

I can't help but wonder if the UK humanist's bus campaign has got people concerned?

"There's probably no god"
"now stop worrying, and enjoy your life"

They wanted to raise five and a half thousand quid to fund the campaign, and have already received ten times that amount, which indicates that atheists may be willing to submit to a little organisation.

As atheists are smarter, more independent, and more compassionate people, seeing them get organised as a lobby group could be greatly beneficial for our political leaders to recognise, and to have their decisions scrutinised, and influenced by such decent intelligent people, instead of delusional religious wackos, can only be of benefit to society. Kiss

Interesting that they use the money to further their ideology rather than do charitable work in the community.

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muso

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #130 - Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 8:42am

tallowood wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 6:58am:

Atheists already have organisation. It's called communist party. In fact there are few of them because they don't see eye to eye on all doctrines just like all other religions. They do have prophets often called chairmen and we know from history hoe smart, independent and humane they are NOT.

Tallow,

Do you really believe that all atheists are communists, or that all atheists belong to some kind of global conspiracy?

I've said this before, but the average atheist thinks that religion is generally a good idea. I don't have a problem with religion, and even sent my kids to a Roman Catholic School.

The ones that get stirred up by Dickh--d Dawkins and Christopher Ugly Hitchens are what I call the Evangelical Atheists, or the über atheists. They are in an incredibly small minority.

These guys are newcomers. It's only recently that we've had über atheists being disrespectful to religions in that sort of way, and quite frankly, it's embarrassing.

To tar all atheists with the same brush is like saying that all Christians are like say....Ted Haggart (trying to think of a famous evangelist who hasn't disgraced himself.)

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Kytro

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #131 - Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 8:44am

tallowood wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 7:53am:

But communist parties are organisations consisting of atheists and when they are in power they have appalling records of humanitarian abuse.

Your point being? Are you implying it is because they are atheist?

Let's have a look at communism:

From Wiki:
Communism is a socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless society based on common ownership of the means of production and property in general.[1][2][3] According to Marxism, communism is the final stage in human society and is both classless and stateless. Leninists have attempted to produce communist societies by setting up political parties, which in some cases have become governments. These attempts have never produced the "pure" communist societies envisoned by Marx, and have led to totalitarian states.

So basically communists in practice are not really communists at all. never the less there is no evidence to support that atheism causes corruption, there are in fact plenty of religious state both present and past that have been corrupted.

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muso

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #132 - Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 8:51am

freediver wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 8:10am:

Interesting that they use the money to further their ideology rather than do charitable work in the community.

The thing I find intriguing is in an atheist organisation, what would you actually talk about?

"There is no God"
"Hallelujah Brother!"
"I say to you there is no God"
"Praise the ... say what exactly do we praise?"

OK, we're agreed on that, now can we just go home?

I've never been a member of an Atheist organisation, but I am an active member of many charitable organisations.

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mozzaok

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Re: Is atheism a religious belief?
Reply #133 - Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 9:44am

More lame arguments.
FD, you could use the same argument to all humans, just wear hessian bags, and eat beans and rice, and give the rest to charity.
You do not need to be religious to be charitable.
Promoting life, and doing charity are not mutually exclusive.

And muso, that thing you couldn't work out what the atheists were promoting, is in the slogan, it is LIFE.

Sure it is a little reactionary, and a little cutesy, but I think it may help atheists to find a voice, to counter those of all the religious lobbyists, who try to see their individual faith based agendas favoured by governments, as people who classify themselves as having 'no religion' makes up a significant proportion of the community, and have no self promoting agenda to push, other than that things be done for rational, and humane reasons, then I don't see it as a problem.

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freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 49439 At my desk.	Re: Is atheism a religious belief? Reply #134 - Oct 23^rd, 2008 at 10:00am It was interesting because you made them out to be more compassionate blah blah blah, but when they donate money it's to further their ideology, not do charitable work like other organisations do. There are even 'unaligned' charities that they could donate to instead.
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