Atheism is a religion like abstinence is a sex position.

As it seems to get compared to a religion

Bill Maher summed it up nicely.

Bill Maher - Atheism is a religion like abstinence is a sex position - YouTube

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Originally Posted by RGA

As it seems to get compared to a religion

Bill Maher summed it up nicely.

Bill Maher - Atheism is a religion like abstinence is a sex position - YouTube

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Very droll. It amuses me that religionists are offended to by atheists' mockery. Keep it up, Bill
:thumbsup:

Speaking to the choir eh? Still how about this one.

Evolution is a Fact - They need to start using the word Fact instead of "theory" more often because the average Joe doesn't understand the terminology.

Thankfully Richard Dawkins is now just calling it Fact which it is.

Dawkins Drops the Bomb - YouTube

The full version - it's amazing people are so intent on denying fact I don't understand why? God Strikes Back (1/5) - Richard Dawkins - YouTube

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Originally Posted by RGA

Speaking to the choir eh? Still how about this one.

Evolution is a Fact - They need to start using the word Fact instead of "theory" more often because the average Joe doesn't understand the terminology.

Thankfully Richard Dawkins is now just calling it Fact which it is.

Dawkins Drops the Bomb - YouTube

The full version - it's amazing people are so intent on denying fact I don't understand why? God Strikes Back (1/5) - Richard Dawkins - YouTube

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Yes, evolution is fact. There might still be some argument about the mechanism of evolution: is it (i) survival of the fittest, and/or (ii) luck and sexual selection, or is God-directed?

Not all religionists reject the fact of evolution. Many take the perspective that it was God-directed, at least in the case of Mankind. Many of these same declare the seven-day creation story to be metaphor. And if Christian, they might belief that Jesus' virgin birth and physical resurrection are myths. If they are Muslim, they might believe that Muhammad's Night Journey was a vision or purely spiritual journey rather than a physical one.

But a whole lot of other religionists are literalists. In the case of Christianity Liternalism really a 20th century phenomenon -- ironic given that that century saw the exponential expansion of scientific knowledge. Literalism has, arguably, a longer history in Islam than Christianity. Why do people insist that the canonic text must be literally true? Something to do with insecurity no doubt.

A theist presumably believes in one or more gods, an atheist does not. A religion implies some degree of organization, even informal. A mere belief does not imply a religion, so the definition Maher uses (he did not invent it) is tendentious and confuses discussion.

There are theistic religions and there are non-theistic religions, Jainism and Theravada Buddhism come to mind.

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Originally Posted by Pat D

A theist presumably believes in one or more gods, an atheist does not. A religion implies some degree of organization, even informal. A mere belief does not imply a religion, so the definition Maher uses (he did not invent it) is tendentious and confuses discussion.

There are theistic religions and there are non-theistic religions, Jainism and Theravada Buddhism come to mind.

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Granted, Maher is tendentious in this and good many of his other statements.

For my part, the core of the debate is about empirical knowledge and reason vs. faith, whether in he context personal faith, organized religion -- or political mythology.

Any battle to make most people objective and rational will fail. The best we can hope for is to minimise the power of religion and mythology in political governance.

I think what Bill is saying is that atheist is a religious term applied to people who do not believe in a god. Non-religious people were just people until religious zealots coined a term for them.

It can also be described as Don Hirschberg said,“Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color”

As everyone knows, a theory is not a fact, but in a sense is considered a fact until proven wrong. The difference between scientific theory and religion is that a scientific theory has to stand up to repeatable proofs of its validity and not fail at even one proof. Religion is has no proofs, either pro or con, only belief.

As for the theory of evolution being called a fact, there is still room for discussion. To make a point, consider Newton's theory of gravity being a force that draws masses together. Along comes Einstein with his theory that gravity is, in actuality, curved space. So which is it, a force or something else? While some people may see both these theories as two different ways to describe the same thing, I think that one fact that supports Einsteins version is that force and gravity act differently on mass. In a sense, gravity is not a force. Strictly speaking, it takes more force to accelerate a larger mass the same amount as a smaller mass, but gravity accelerates differing masses at the same rate. Mass doesn't seem to affect the outcome in a gravitational field as it would when a force is applied to a mass to accelerate it. I'm sure you get the point.

It's a strange thing that all of us look upon a witch doctor as a superstitious person who's beliefs are based upon ignorance, but how are today's religions any different?

The question that perplexes me the most is, how is it possible that intelligent people can base their lives on unsubstantiated premises?

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Originally Posted by StevenSurprenant

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As everyone knows, a theory is not a fact, but in a sense is considered a fact until proven wrong. The difference between scientific theory and religion is that a scientific theory has to stand up to repeatable proofs of its validity and not fail at even one proof. Religion is has no proofs, either pro or con, only belief.
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There is a very good Wikipedia discussion on the Existence of God that summarized (though at some length) arguments for, including non-Christian arguments, and against; see it HERE.

Personally I adhere to a "Weak atheism" position ...

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Originally Posted by Wikipedia: Existence of God

Weak atheism
The term weak atheism (or negative atheism) is used in two main senses, describing those who (a) do not assert strong atheism ("no gods exist") but rather the more minimal statement that for a variety of reasons (principally the lack of credible scientific evidence) there are no good reasons and no credible grounds for believing that gods exist ("I do not believe that any gods exist"); or (b) neither believe that gods exist, nor believe that no gods exist. This is orthogonal to agnosticism which states that whether gods exist is either unknown or unknowable. There is some controversy about this use of the term.

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This jocular list will be enjoyed by some of us; HERE.

You hear the following argument a lot these days ...

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ARGUMENT FROM INFINITE REGRESS, a.k.a. FIRST CAUSE ARGUMENT (II):
(1) Ask atheists what caused the Big Bang.
(2) Regardless of their answer, ask how they know this.
(3) Continue process until the atheist admits he doesn't know the answer to one of your questions.
(4) You win!
(5) Therefore, God exists.

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And this one ...

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ARGUMENT FROM "THE MATRIX"
(1) We cannot prove that we don't live in a Matrix-like world.
(2) Therefore we cannot know reality.
(3) If reality is contingent, then everything is possible.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

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Originally Posted by StevenSurprenant

Religion is has no proofs, either pro or con, only belief.

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Although I am an Atheist (and I like that definition that Feanor provided although I think my thoughts run a bit stronger than that), I will play devils advocate here in favour of religious people and respond to your statement regarding proof.

As stated, I am atheist and have been since I was about 16…perhaps even earlier than that but 16 was about the age that my own beliefs started to take real form over that of the things that my parents tried to get me to believe.

Having said that, I recognize that there have been events in my life that, if I believed in god, I could easily take as proof of divine intervention. But since I don’t believe in god I don’t see them that way. These events that I speak of are not empirical events, like surviving a tragic accident, but rather events that some might call spiritual.

The difference between me and a religious person is that those events that happened to me, are just things that happened. While I recognize them to be significant and profound moments in my life I don’t attribute them to a higher being. But to a religious person those events would have been proof that god is looking over them. Could they be proved scientifically? No. But a religious person is not looking for scientific proof, only spiritual proof. And while certainly we could try to debunk “spiritual proof”, for millions of people that is all the proof they need.

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Originally Posted by Feanor

Personally I adhere to a "Weak atheism" position ...

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That sounds realistic to me.

Myself, I don't have any proof to support any belief in any god, so I don't concern myself with the notion. On the other hand, logic dictates that in order to believe something false, such as god doesn't exist, I would have to have proof, which I don't have.

So, where does that leave me? In the end, I suppose that since I can't prove or disprove it, then it remains a possibility with a probability of nearly zero.

As a comparison... Some people claim that life exists is reason enough to believe, but the interesting thing about life (organic matter) is that adheres to every known law of physics. Given the right conditions, organic life will form every time.

As a side note, there are billions of galaxies and billions of stars in each galaxy. That means that there are a billion billion chances for life to begin elsewhere. Without claiming that life exists elsewhere, it seems that there is a higher probability that it does compared to believing in a deity.

As for your next post... Someone put a lot of time making that list come out to 666 reasons. I've heard many of them.

As for the MATRIX concept, it has a higher probability to be a reality than any god. The reason I say this is because what we call our mind is a manifestation of the brain. Our brain is a computer of sorts, hence if we develop computer software that mimics the brain in every detail, that computer program might become self aware. I see no reason to doubt that, or should I say that the probability is that it will be self aware and have a mind.

Another way of saying this is that the brain obeys the laws of physics and whether it is organic in nature, or made of silicon, it is the logic and processing power of the brain that creates what we call our mind.

Then again, if we do live in a MATRIX, then we are either a program in some type of computer, or just the thoughts of a being with far greater mental capabilities than ourselves. In either case, the world we exist in is not real.

I'm just letting my imagination run wild here. We could think philosophically about this from now to eternity and never have the truth, if that were the truth. In the mean time, we have to assume that our reality is real and go with it.

See what you started!

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Originally Posted by ForeverAutumn

But to a religious person those events would have been proof that god is looking over them. Could they be proved scientifically? No. But a religious person is not looking for scientific proof, only spiritual proof. And while certainly we could try to debunk “spiritual proof”, for millions of people that is all the proof they need.

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You're right. Proof is in the mind of the beholder, sad as that may be.

A short story...

I was having a discussion with a fellow from a local religious university here and I stated that God is all knowing, which he agreed with. I then stated that since that is true, then God knows every choice he will make in life, which he also agreed with. So then I said, since both of the conditions are true, then his life is preordained and there is nothing he can do to change it, hence he doesn't have free will and his destiny has already been determined. At this point, he disagreed. He claimed that he had free will to change his life. I reminded him that since God is all knowing, any decisions he makes, God already knows about, so nothing has changed.

From that point we went in circles.

The point of the story is that contradictory religious beliefs defy logic. Once religious beliefs are cemented in the mind it is too late, at least for most people.

I should point out that from a scientific point of view, fate is predetermined also. The reason this is so is because everything that exists in the universe follows the laws of nature and because of this we can use those laws to predict the behavior of matter and energy, our brains are no exception. Anyway, many theoretical physicists pondered this conundrum and, as they have said, the uncertainty principle of the quantum state allows randomness to exist and gives hope that free will exists.

If you've not followed physics, then you might not be aware of this.