Atheism is a Religion.

This all stems from AUUB’s entry and a little "tiff" a noter and I had.

Religion: a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

Devotion: profound dedication; consecration. earnest attachment to a cause, person, etc. an assignment or appropriation to any purpose, cause, etc.: the devotion of one’s wealth and time to scientific advancement.

Atheism: the doctrine or belief that there is no God.

Theism: the doctrine or belief in the existence of a God or gods

So, atheists believe there is no God.  Which is a set of beliefs concerning the creation of a superhuman agency (ie. it’s lack of existence).

No where does it say that religion needs a God.  If an atheist has a theory about the creation of the Universe (Ie. the Big Bang Theory, etc.) then it is a belief (because it cannot be proven) concerning the nature of the universe.

Likewise if an atheist believes that the purpose of life is self gratification that is again a belief as to the purpose of the universe.

Furthermore, atheists cling to their beliefs as being the only truth out there, which is a strange amount of devotion to a belief.

Just because something hasn’t happened yet and is improbable doesn’t make it impossible.  If you drop a ball one time it will fall.  Drop it 100 times, it will fall, drop it 1000 times it will fall, but it is very possible that if you drop it an infinite number of times it will not fall.  It’s highly improbable, statistically impossible, but that doesn’t mean it CAN’T happen.

As to Religion being the cause of "bad things."  That’s innane, Religion is a tool, much like mathematics is a tool.  Through the application of mathematics (and physics, and chemistry, which are both…applied mathematics…) we got the atomic bomb and used it to destroy lives.  Does that make mathematics bad just because it was used to a not so nice end?  No…it’s about how the tool is used.  

People in large groups are stupid, no offence, but we are, it’s said that you take a group of people, find the smartest member, then divide the IQ by the number in the group and that’s the effective intelligence of the group.  Gross exaggeration I think, but when you have something as complex as religion and someone says:  "I don’t get it."  What happens?  You get someone else saying:  "This is what it means."

The Buddha was famous for his little sermons where he’d do something "arbitrary" like hold up a flower and that would be it.  He wouldn’t explain, why?  Because to explain something is to define it in terms that can be misused, misunderstood, etc.

Also, saying that believing in something obviously false is dangerous (In reference to God).  Again no.  Honestly believing that a rock is the messiah and by throwing away all my pennies I’ll be granted eternal life in paradise with a fountain that pours Slush Puppies instead of water is in no way harmful.  The rock telling me that I should tell other people about this also not harmful (if that is, other people like Slush Puppies and don’t like pennies).  But now we go from something Divine (the rock) to something base (me) whereupon I try and explain in my base words the Divinity of a rock to other people.  It’s like that game Telephone we used to play as kids.  Somewhere someone screws it up, be it on purpose or on accident for their own gain or lack of understanding.

What is dangerous, however, is when you have someone telling you that something Divine is telling them to tell you do do something, if the Divine had something so important to say they would say it to the individual and not need someone to go mucking about in other’s business.

As for challanges for God to make you a believer within the next 24 hours or he doesn’t exist.  All that proves if that if there is a God, he’s apathetic towards humanity, not that he doesn’t exist.

And regarding the whole "You’re a Christian you’re Stupid" crap, what does one have to do with the other?  Einstein was a Christian, Newton, Plato, Aristotle, Da Vinci, all of them religious, are they stupid?

Besides, Atheists tend to have a huge flaw in their logic, "there is no God because you can’t prove he exists" but at the same time many (not all) believe in things like…superstring theory, or life on other planets, or bigfoot.

Science never tries to prove things.  Because you can’t prove things to be true.  You can prove them to not be false under extreme testing.  (or not true, because they can’t be proven false). 

The typical Atheist is no better than any other religious person in the spreading of their doctrines.  To get others to see the light the Truth.

Isn’t that what other religions are also trying to do?   But since their Truth doesn’t match your Truth and they can’t prove you wrong, and you can’t prove them wrong, and they can’t prove themselves right, and neither can you because all you have are sets of beliefs, what do you have but two different conversations happening with two different dialects of the same language and all you get is frustration trying to get the other people to understand what you’re saying.

They say that only through believing that Jesus died for our Sins and accepting him as our lord and savior may we reach the gates of Heaven.  You say that only through logic and science can we achieve true understanding.  Perhaps that’s what "Heaven" is, well, Heaven is merely a goal, as is understanding, or Enlightenment, or Nirvana, or even Death.  They are all goals and different names for the same thing.

Religion gives us a moral fiber and basic instructions for how we should live our lives, now some say that this is some survival thing we humans developed to save ourselves as a species.  What?  You’re telling me that we invented things like, sharing, and sense of self and community and nothing like that exists in the animal kingdom?  It’s a strictly human set of behaviors? 

There is a difference between Religion the concept and Religion the institution.  All atheists have done is taken the institution out of religion by not giving it a centralized power.

It’s all about power and the people who have it.  If something like 83% of America is Christian, then it stands to reason that if someone came to power there’s an 83% chance that he’s Christian.  Are Christian views "Bad" views?  Some of them are now archaic compared to what was needed by Jewish law 2000 years ago.  And that it is why it is up to the individuals to discover what the Bible, Torah, Koran, Tao Te Ching, etc. means to them, and what they believe because they truly believe it, and what they believe because that’s what they were told.

Wh

ere as Atheists see believing in a God as absurd, theists see NOT believing in a God to be equally absurd because they see the proof around them all the time.  We see the proof for our own believes around us all the time, and that’s all the proof we need.

We’re never going to change anyone’s mind about anything, nor should we.  An atheist standing on a street corner saying that Christians are wrong because there is no God is no better than a Christian on a corner saying that atheists are wrong because there is a God.  Two sides of the same coin, and quite frankly one cannot exist without the other.

I feel that much like the Nordic traditions, the Greek, the ancient Roman and Celtic traditions, they have become myths, and archetypes for us, and in another two thousand years, perhaps all of the current Religions will be nothing more than myths and archetypes for future generations.  And we need myths.  They provide us with the concept of perfection, and concepts and conjectures of situational anecdotes, a mold for us to strive for.

I’m sure I had other points.

But bear in mind:  I am Atheist.  I do not believe in God, gods, or Divine Will of any sort.  However I’ve accepted that I will be going to Hell, I will be reborn as something, and I will rot eternally in the ground.  I cannot prove which is true, so I must consider them all to be both true and false.

–RK