Robert wrote:Okay, so there are people who think that cats are dogs. They are wrong, and their belief is not valid.

The truthfulness of deism isn't the same as equating cats with dogs. In fact, I'd think deism is more legitimate than theism, yet you consider theism the more legitimate of the two.

People may or may not hold the false belief that a theist can believe the universe is governed solely by the laws of physics. That belief is not coherent since it reduces God to a mythological allegory for the laws of physics, which is atheist.

An allegoy for the laws of physics isn't the same as a deity who created the laws then stepped back to only observe. Deism is coherent from everything I know of it, even though I don't think it's true.

More of these meanings are incompatible with 2+2=5 than are compatible with it. False beliefs are legal and real, but they are not sensible or true.

But when it's a discussion about the belief spectrum, as this thread is, it doesn't matter if a belief is false. If it exists as a belief, it has a place in our vocabulary. Redefining words because the belief is false doesn't work. We haven't scratched the word phlogiston from our dictionary just because the concept doesn't refer to anything. Just because some people believe false things doesn't mean we erase those beliefs from reality. They matter to the categorization of beliefs, the vast majority of which are false.

johnson1010 wrote:Atheism is not a religion, and it is also generic. The opposite of atheism isn't Christianity, or Shinto... it's Theism which is also generic. Atheism is a trait. It's a single answer to a single question. "Do you believe in a god? No."

Atheism is much more than that single answer. By that ‘non-belief’ definition, people who have never thought about the topic or who lack the capacity for such thought are atheists. You at least need the belief that there are no gods to be atheist. In practice atheism is more a positive rather than just a negative trait, belief in scientific materialism rather than just non-belief in specific supernatural creeds.
I think the new atheists have cottoned on to this new negative definition of atheism as solely non-belief because they find it politically convenient. The first case of this ‘non belief’ hypothesis that I have seen is from Sam Harris, but if there is an earlier one I would be interested to know.

johnson1010 wrote: There are a lot of different ways of life that incorporate that answer and they are not all identical.

Yes, but they boil down to two types:
1. Strong positive religious atheism believes there are no gods
2. Weak negative irreligious atheism does not believe there are gods.
The distinction between positive and negative atheism illustrates the point about whether any atheists claim to be certain that there are no gods. Denying all certainty is part of the liberal scientific and political worldview of the new atheists, but they are far from representing all atheist thinking. Many atheists are in fact certain that there are no gods.
Weak atheists recoil from certainty because it reminds them of faith. They effective argue that we cannot be certain of X not Y, even though all evidence supports X and none supports Y, because our inductive confidence is never certain. The new atheists want an ethical theory where all knowledge is provisional as the basis for their vision of a future world without religion. Unfortunatively this tentative land of provisional uncertainty is completely impractical.

johnson1010 wrote: There is a definite difference between a world view and a religion. And a philosophy and a religion. Believing something very strongly doesn't make it a religion.

Yes, for religion you require the certainty of absolute faith. The point of a religion is that it provides a framework of shared meaning which people can take on faith. But if a component of your world view is that nothing is certain, then you believe in nothing and have no faith. That is an interesting nihilistic intellectual exercise, rather like David Hume’s skeptical opinion that there is no necessary connection between a cause and its effect. However, such a thought experiment immediately breaks down in practice, since the abstract philosophy of no belief gives no ground for trust, loyalty, belonging, ritual and other normal psychological functions that provide meaning and purpose and direction in life. The abstract theory that life has no meaning is not exactly a hopeful or practical idea. Finding meaning in life takes religion.

johnson1010 wrote: People's world view or their philosophies influence whether or not they believe. A person might be an atheist because they believe in methodological naturalism. So they are Methodological naturalists, and THAT is their philosophy. If you want to be wrong about calling them religious, it's THAT that you should be trying to call a religion. They philosophy at least has something to say about how the world works and what counts as truth.

A rigorous methodological naturalist is without religion, but rigorous naturalism is solely descriptive, not normative. It is a collection of facts not a theory of values. As soon as we start to say that some facts are intrinsically more important or valuable than others, we rely on assumptions, and have started down the slippery slope to faith. It is entirely possible (in theory) to be without religion as long as you have no values that you hold to be true.

johnson1010 wrote: The word atheist doesn't even make a truth claim about the external world. It's a statement about what you believe.

This modern dogma of weak liberal atheism that does not even believe that god does not exist is not particularly coherent and cannot be called a worldview since it makes no claims about the world. The distinction here is that when atheism makes the truth claim about the external world that god does not exist, it only makes that claim on the basis of faith assumptions. Just saying we have no evidence for god is a merely negative statement, and does not really describe how many atheists incorporate the observation that belief in gods is delusional into their worldview.

Weak liberal atheism resiles from this faith claim made by strong atheism and prefers to say nothing at all. Very zen. Very beautiful and unattached enlightenment. But also somewhat disengaged and irrelevant. As soon as atheism engages with the world, putting the gear box out of neutral, it performs a shift from weak to strong atheism.

johnson1010 wrote: RT, you might want to call your philosophy and version of religion atheism, but that word already has a definition. You can't get upset with the rest of the world for not going along with your new definition.

I am not upset with the rest of the world, since practically everyone agrees with me that atheists think that god does not exist, and it is only the small group of confused thinkers like Sam Harris who contend for their personal reasons this new novel claim atheism consists solely in non-belief. My view is that retention of religion while removal of its supernatural errors is a complex and difficult social reform agenda, and is well served by recognizing that atheism is a positive moral value and method of explanation.

johnson1010 wrote: There are atheists all over the planet who don't believe the things you do.

Sure. There is hardly anyone who shares my belief that Jesus Christ was fictional, and fewer who share my theories of how Jesus was invented. That does not make my opinions incorrect. I see the assertion that God does not exist as a morally important basis for reform of religion away from the delusion of traditional fantasy towards the rigor of scientific evidence.

johnson1010 wrote: Even atheists who are religious, or believe in auras or prophetic signs in the sky, or psychic energy. I don't believe in any of that. I don't share their world view or philosophy. Yet they and I are all atheists. BECAUSE..... atheism is not a world view. It's the answer to whether or not you believe in a god. The reason for that comes from our various world views.

This thread is about how atheism functions as a religion. You have well explained that the most prominent forms of modern liberal weak atheism are not a religion because they systematically exclude any absolute beliefs or values regarding god. So Dawkins put himself at 6 on the seven point scale from theism to atheism. That is fair enough, but I just regard such weak atheism as deceptive, useless and incoherent, since in practice when atheists argue that Christians are wrong they revert to the strong seven out of seven atheist view that God does not exist.
Saying you are not sure means you argue with one hand behind your back. It is still possible for a materialist to be charitable towards religious myths by showing that they have a social meaning and function independent of the supposed existence of a supernatural entity.

johnson1010 wrote: Here's a video that applies. This is discussing whether or not evolution counts as a religion. Frankly, people who are trying to say atheism is a religion often conflate atheism with evolution. Those things are NOT identical any more than humanism and atheism. But the arguments in the video below apply just as well to this tedious talk about trying to label atheism a religion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzmbnxt ... 53A6F002CC

That is a good video in its explanation of the factual basis of evolution and the value of separation of church and state. However, it avoids the primary point of the purpose of religion to provide social values. This reminds me of the non overlapping magisteria theory of the relation between religion and science, which I think is best explained as the view that religion is about values while science is about facts, and these are two domains that do not overlap.

In practice these domains interact all the time, since we endeavor to base our decisions upon evidence, applying values to assess facts. If you are content with a worldview that does not answer what we should do, how we should live, what is important and other such value questions then you can do without religion. As soon as we make any evaluative statement, such as that the flourishing of life is good, we are outside the domain of science and into religion.

Robert Tulip wrote:

johnson1010 wrote:Atheism is not a religion, and it is also generic. The opposite of atheism isn't Christianity, or Shinto... it's Theism which is also generic. Atheism is a trait. It's a single answer to a single question. "Do you believe in a god? No."

Atheism is much more than that single answer. By that ‘non-belief’ definition, people who have never thought about the topic or who lack the capacity for such thought are atheists. You at least need the belief that there are no gods to be atheist. In practice atheism is more a positive rather than just a negative trait, belief in scientific materialism rather than just non-belief in specific supernatural creeds.

Well, I think it could be argued that the non-thinking or lack-of capacity folks will default to some belief in a god. But I believe johnson is right, Robert, and that your counter-argument has something to do with one's intellectual duty. But I would say there is no duty necessarily involved when anyone says they don't believe in the God of the Bible. There is no duty implied to then transform to a partisan of scientific materialism, even if it is true that in most cases one would favor scientific explanations. Presumably, a faith in God requires one to actively maintain certain beliefs and practices. Non-belief in God simply frees one from such attachment to belief.

The distinction between positive and negative atheism illustrates the point about whether any atheists claim to be certain that there are no gods. Denying all certainty is part of the liberal scientific and political worldview of the new atheists, but they are far from representing all atheist thinking. Many atheists are in fact certain that there are no gods.

I'm repeating myself, but the dilemma can be solved just by always making it clear what God we're talking about. I don't see any reluctance on the part of new atheists to declare the God of the Bible or Koran isn't real. The strength of this atheism really is measured by the atheist's desire to combat the belief in this God. Some want to, for the supposed good of society, and some don't care to. We should also remember that certainty can be defined as a feeling engendered in the brain. Being aware that my certainty that there is no God of the Bible is a feeling, gives me just a bit of pause to go crusading against a feeling in someone else's brain.