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Ritual is only key to religious belief for anthropologists (which makes sense, they focus on behavior). Not all religion contains rituals. Many Christians observe no Christian practices. They just believe in god.

LordofHats wrote:No need to get personal lynchmob No one is talking about passing religion into law here. We're talking about the possibility of atheism (or science) being embued with religious qualities.

Point 1: Read my post just above yours. The idea that religion is organized is an almost strictly Abrahamic concept. Most religion is in fact not organized at all. They don't have clearly defined rules.

Point 2: Like I said above, your defining religion in a very Christian sense. Typically I find that inadequate to define religion hence things like 'faith' or 'theism' are not central to something being religious.

I wasn't getting personal.

Point 1, Did you see all the christians rallying and donating lots of money to deny others the right to marry? It was kind of a popular thing these last few years.

point 2,when it comes to if atheism is a religion or not, its only the christians saying it is? shouldn't that be for the atheists to decide? did you see the definitions for religious and religion?

but if religion is so ambiguous then dakkadakka is a religion.

The real issue is what I'm naming the ugly hat hypothesis.

Say you buy this really awesome hat, and its just awesome.
You take it home and your family/friends tells you its the ugliest hat they've ever seen.
You feel like they are attacking you because you personally because you really love that hat.
It has nothing to do with you per say, they just don't like the hat.

Christians tell me there is a god, I say prove it. christians tell me I'm an atheist. Its never a group I chose to be in. Now here are the christians coming up and telling me that atheism is now also a religion? seriously, wtf?

I am atheist which I define in my own way as anti-idiot-with-(insert holy text)- telling others-how-to-live-by-force-of-law.

I also add definitions to it such as the confidence (not belief) to the fact that science maintains some dignity by producing a broad range of scientists, theories, evidence into one big mould that can constantly be shaped to form a better answer than "god did it". While on the other hand I could believe in one holy text produced so many years ago and translated so badly in order to control the way I live based on this one book.

dogma wrote:

dæl wrote:
The whole point of science is that it will change its belief if presented with appropriate evidence. That is what distinguishes it from faith.

Science doesn't have beliefs, its a process.

When you call said process "it" you vest it with the sort of capital that faith trades on.

Actually, it does, kinda... All sets of scientific explanations requires the use of another, larger set of principles, and all given sets of explanations at one given time implies a set (or constellation) of paradigmatic concepts.

More or less, yes, science has beleifs. But, contrarily to institutionnalized religions, you don't have static beleifs ; the sets of scientific facts should grow and that of the paradigmatic concepts should thin. Up until the point where we face a paradigmatic revolution, and then we replace the paradigm with a different one, and so we start anew again.

sirlynchmob wrote:
point 2,when it comes to if atheism is a religion or not, its only the christians saying it is? shouldn't that be for the atheists to decide? did you see the definitions for religious and religion?

I'm atheist and I say it's a religion.
I think a lot of atheists are saying that actually...

sirlynchmob wrote:
It has nothing to do with you per say,

per se*

Testify wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:
point 2,when it comes to if atheism is a religion or not, its only the christians saying it is? shouldn't that be for the atheists to decide? did you see the definitions for religious and religion?

I'm atheist and I say it's a religion.
I think a lot of atheists are saying that actually...

sirlynchmob wrote:
It has nothing to do with you per say,

per se*

Well I am glad you don't speak for all of us. I would like to nominate someone else as spokesman.

Private_Joker wrote:
Well I am glad you don't speak for all of us. I would like to nominate someone else as spokesman.

A prophet, in other words

Testify wrote:There's a fair parallel with anarchism here. You have a group that claims all the others are wrong, and doesn't believe in a government. Make no mistake though, they are still donkey-caves
Religion is used by dickheads, but it's just a manifestation of their dickery - people have been dicks to each other far longer than religion has been around. If you abolished religion they would just use politics or culture or language to hate others.

I think Deadpool once said (regarding erasing races) : it'd still be one less reason so suck.

Testify wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:
point 2,when it comes to if atheism is a religion or not, its only the christians saying it is? shouldn't that be for the atheists to decide? did you see the definitions for religious and religion?

I'm atheist and I say it's a religion.
I think a lot of atheists are saying that actually...

first I've heard of it, is that some UK thing?

Well that makes things more fun, if you make it a religion and I don't join that religion, then I'm not an atheists or a theists.

first I've heard of it, is that some UK thing?

Well that makes things more fun, if you make it a religion and I don't join that religion, then I'm not an atheists or a theists.

Better to define oneself as Transhumanist ; weither or not there is God or not is irrelevant. Regardless, I want the position.

Isn't there some universial something that all scientist think exists and is constant, and all other scientific findings are based on the core values being true?

sirlynchmob wrote:

Testify wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:
point 2,when it comes to if atheism is a religion or not, its only the christians saying it is? shouldn't that be for the atheists to decide? did you see the definitions for religious and religion?

I'm atheist and I say it's a religion.
I think a lot of atheists are saying that actually...

first I've heard of it, is that some UK thing?

Well that makes things more fun, if you make it a religion and I don't join that religion, then I'm not an atheists or a theists.

You adhere to a strict set of belief, as laid down by authority figures.
You identify and judge others based on whether or not they believe as you do.
I am merely observing this.


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Kovnik Obama wrote:

first I've heard of it, is that some UK thing?

Well that makes things more fun, if you make it a religion and I don't join that religion, then I'm not an atheists or a theists.

Better to define oneself as Transhumanist ; weither or not there is God or not is irrelevant. Regardless, I want the position.

Better to not define oneself at all. Nothing is constant.

d-usa wrote:Isn't there some universial something that all scientist think exists and is constant, and all other scientific findings are based on the core values being true?

A few things : Causality, non-contradiction and propositionnal identity being the very most basic ones.


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Testify wrote:Better to not define oneself at all. Nothing is constant.

But inconsistency?
Thanks Parmenides...

sirlynchmob wrote:Point 1, Did you see all the christians rallying and donating lots of money to deny others the right to marry? It was kind of a popular thing these last few years.

That has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

point 2,when it comes to if atheism is a religion or not, its only the christians saying it is? shouldn't that be for the atheists to decide? did you see the definitions for religious and religion?

Not really. At the end of the day the people who study these things end up deciding (irony being that if Atheists do not think of themselves members of a religion, and atheism then gets considered a religion, they become a religion of people who do not believe they are religious). Of course I doubt atheism will ultimately be considered a religion. Likely there will be a new category probably called ideology, as its already being called that will encompass all these things.

EDIT: I don't care about dictionary definitions, because they're often worthless for discussing something as complex as religion. Ignoring of course that you didn't even read the definition properly. The first one can actually cover Atheism because its that broad.

but if religion is so ambiguous then dakkadakka is a religion.

Its not ambiguous. Its hard to come up with a definition that covers everything, and of course the ongoing debate about things like Atheism, and even politics, that are at times religious-like in their behaviors and how to associate them together and how far that association should go.

The real issue is what I'm naming the ugly hat hypothesis.

Say you buy this really awesome hat, and its just awesome.
You take it home and your family/friends tells you its the ugliest hat they've ever seen.
You feel like they are attacking you because you personally because you really love that hat.
It has nothing to do with you per say, they just don't like the hat.

I approve of the name of this hypothesis Now, we're going to need a scape goat, a silly looking hat, some surveillance equipment, and popcorn.

Christians tell me there is a god, I say prove it. christians tell me I'm an atheist. Its never a group I chose to be in. Now here are the christians coming up and telling me that atheism is now also a religion? seriously, wtf?

And you say your not taking it personally? This same problem has already been applied to Christianity a dozen times in this thread. Like I said before. There is what something is, and there is what people think it is. Atheists play the victim as often as Christians, because everyone thinks they are the victim regardless of whether they are.

Kovnik Obama wrote:

d-usa wrote:Isn't there some universial something that all scientist think exists and is constant, and all other scientific findings are based on the core values being true?

A few things : Causality, non-contradiction and propositionnal identity being the very most basic ones.
...

I was thinking more about cosmic constants and things like that.

LordofHats wrote:And you say your not taking it personally? This same problem has already been applied to Christianity a dozen times in this thread. Like I said before. There is what something is, and there is what people think it is. Atheists play the victim as often as Christians, because everyone thinks they are the victim regardless of whether they are.

The 1st great figure of philosophy was executed on charges of atheism (more or less)... All in all, History has been far less forgiving toward atheists than toward religious figures. Trolls will mention Mao and Stalin, but hey, let's forget that they were vying for complete control over their populations, and saw religions as political entities...

So bringi up Stalin is trolling and insignificant because that was so long ago, by bringing up the first person 2000 years ago that was killed for being an atheist is significant?

You know, I think we can start a new meme.

Play the Victim!

Or does that already exist?

EDIT: Also, Socrates wasn't killed because he was an atheist, he was killed because he criticized democracy, and that don't fly in Athens people! That, and he had the arrogance to propose that Athenian society was morally bankrupt. The thought!

d-usa wrote:So bringi up Stalin is trolling and insignificant because that was so long ago, by bringing up the first person 2000 years ago that was killed for being an atheist is significant?

Noboby claimed Stalin insignificant because it was long ago, simply that he didn't do things in the name of "No-God"

d-usa wrote:

Kovnik Obama wrote:

d-usa wrote:Isn't there some universial something that all scientist think exists and is constant, and all other scientific findings are based on the core values being true?

A few things : Causality, non-contradiction and propositionnal identity being the very most basic ones.
...

I was thinking more about cosmic constants and things like that.

IIRC, cosmic constants are basically the values given to constantly expressed phenomenon. Like universal Gravity is 1. Now this allows scientists to go and play with the values, and try to see what would happen if, for exemple, universal gravity had been set at 0.9 at the moment preceding the Big Bang. So no, these aren't the 'beleifs' scientists use.

What's a neat thing to mention, one argument offered by Intelligent design is that no other combinaison of Cosmic Constants, amongst all the imaginable ones, could have given not only rise to life, but even to matter. Most of those combination would lead to nothingness, or a big ball of iron.

Stuff like causality and non-contradictions have to be true in order to start thinking about something.


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d-usa wrote:So bringi up Stalin is trolling and insignificant because that was so long ago, by bringing up the first person 2000 years ago that was killed for being an atheist is significant?

No, bringing up Mao or Stalin is trolling (sometimes/often) because none of them used their political position to further their ideology. They used their political position to further their control. Or does anyone need to be reminded that Stalin wasn't a communist?

It's as if one were to mention the Nazi when counting the evils Catholicism brought on this world, because Hitler was a Catholic/Christian/something... (I hope no one is going to GODDAMN mention 'but Hitler was atheist'', I've got the freaking page of Mein Kampf bookmarked at home, I will hit you repeatedly with it, and its an heinously huge book)


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LordofHats wrote:

EDIT: Also, Socrates wasn't killed because he was an atheist, he was killed because he criticized democracy, and that don't fly in Athens people! That, and he had the arrogance to propose that Athenian society was morally bankrupt. The thought!

The charge they brought up against him was corruption of the youth and crime against the gods (trying to create new ones). Being critical of democracy had little to do with it (except in the sense that someone who spends his days talking off citizens doesn't make many friends). Despite holding no political power himself, he was pretty close to VERY unpopular young figures (amongst which Plato and Alcibiades), some which were held responsible for the latest failures in the war against Sparta. So that was the 'corruption' part, seeing as Socrates was somewhat a teacher to those.

The charge of crimes against the gods doesn't make sense unless you read Aristophanes play, in French its 'Les Nués, I think that would translate into 'the Heavens'. It was a comical piece published something like 20 years before the events of the Apology. It pictured Socrates as a full-fledged sophist, who could teach anyone to obtain whatever he desired, be it right or wrong. There's a passage in it in which Socrates deny the existence of the Gods. Otherwise, there's really nothing we know about him that would've explained the 'crimes against the gods' part, because from all we know he was really pious. But most people in Athen would have known about Aristophanes's play and little about his true teaching, seeing as Socrates chose his students, and refused to teach to others he didn't like.

So yeah, he got executed for political reasons, but was sentenced for atheism, because those were the charges that would stick in front of a crowd of elderly and crippled (which constituted the jury).

Also because he refused to offer a bribe to the jury, which was a normal part of a trial at the time. Aaah democracy...

Kovnik Obama wrote:
Actually, it does, kinda... All sets of scientific explanations requires the use of another, larger set of principles, and all given sets of explanations at one given time implies a set (or constellation) of paradigmatic concepts.

More or less, yes, science has beleifs. But, contrarily to institutionnalized religions, you don't have static beleifs ; the sets of scientific facts should grow and that of the paradigmatic concepts should thin. Up until the point where we face a paradigmatic revolution, and then we replace the paradigm with a different one, and so we start anew again.

Someone has read too much Kuhn.


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LordofHats wrote:Also, Socrates wasn't killed because he was an atheist, he was killed because he criticized democracy, and that don't fly in Athens people!

Moral: never make light of people with more money than you, also, swords.

So yeah, he got executed for political reasons, but was sentenced for atheism, because those were the charges that would stick in front of a crowd of elderly and crippled (which constituted the jury).

So you admit he was executed for being a political dissident, not an atheist? Okay then. By your own logic he's no more relevant than Stalin or Mao. Hell, even Mein Kampf wouldn't be relevant because it the populist rantings of a populist. What people do is what's being discussed, not what they say they do. What Stalin and Mao did was create an Atheist system, so of course it will be brought up when one asks for an example of institutional atheism.

Also: Atheism was actually quite common in Ancient Greece. Religion was something for the poor.

LordofHats wrote:

So yeah, he got executed for political reasons, but was sentenced for atheism, because those were the charges that would stick in front of a crowd of elderly and crippled (which constituted the jury).

So you admit he was executed for being a political dissident, not an atheist? Okay then. By your own logic he's no more relevant than Stalin or Mao. Hell, even Mein Kampf wouldn't be relevant because it the populist rantings of a populist. What people do is what's being discussed, not what they say they do. What Stalin and Mao did was create an Atheist system, so of course it will be brought up when one asks for an example of institutional atheism.

Also: Atheism was actually quite common in Ancient Greece. Religion was something for the poor.

Humm. Not sure how to handle that post. Socrates didn't defend atheism. He didn't even defend himself... The point of bringing him up was to illustrate that philosophy and science had been constantly ostracized by religion (or recuperated), ever since its birth. The point brought up by 'Mao and Stalin were atheists' is that they killed people to further their goal of an atheistic society. My contention is that it isn't the case, their goal was a society THEY had control over. If they had figured a way to do it through religion, I reckon they would've done it. That's speculation, I admit, but it's dishonest to compare my depreciation of Stalin and Mao as historical figures in comparison to the fact that Socrates, the single person to which knowledge is the most indebted (IMHO), was killed over charges of atheism.

Let's put it this way : It was enough to accuse of atheism one of the most esteemed elderly of a city, before 500 other men, to get a sentence of death. That speaks length to me.


''Also: Atheism was actually quite common in Ancient Greece. Religion was something for the poor.''

Considering that Polemarque also got executed for his atheism, I'm not so sure about this. Simonide also, IIRC...

If your argument is that Mao and Stalin weren't motivated by atheism, there are far less esoteric means of proving such.

LordofHats wrote:What Stalin... ...did was create an Atheist system, so of course it will be brought up when one asks for an example of institutional atheism.

There was me thinking he inherited one from Lenin.

dogma wrote:If your argument is that Mao and Stalin weren't motivated by atheism, there are far less esoteric means of proving such.

What wut. I didn't set myself to proving anything. Maybe my last post was a mess, but that's because I had to defend two other unrelated posts... anyway, yeah, that was the point of that post.

The point of bringing him up was to illustrate that philosophy and science had been constantly ostracized by religion (or recuperated), ever since its birth.

This isn't true in the slightest. Relatively few scientists ever had problems with religious officials, even in Western Europe of the Medieval Middle East (hell Muslims made scientific strides that their European counterparts wouldn't be making for centuries, and they were more fundamental in their faith than any Christian of the period). You only got in trouble if you stepped on the churches toes. Otherwise, they might accuse you of questionable beliefs and disagree with you, but they typically didn't go out of their way to do anything about it.

That religions have long opposed scientific progress is one of the greatest myths of history, furthered primarily by extremely vocal scientists and atheists who cherry pick extreme cases that were not the norm, like Galileo.

My contention is that it isn't the case, their goal was a society THEY had control over. If they had figured a way to do it through religion, I reckon they would've done it.

This is true. However they rejected using religion because the political philosophy they were using to achieve their power was an atheist one. I don't know if Stalin or Mao were personally atheist (in the case they're being used here it doesn't really matter), but they were brought up because their governments are historical examples of atheism institutionalized much like one would institutionalize a religion.

There was me thinking he inherited one from Lenin.

Um, between WWI, the Civil War, and his strokes, Lenin didn't really have any time to make a government. Lenin made the philosophy, Stalin made the government. Fun fact, once incapacitated by his medical condition, Lenin was attended to by a middle ranking official of the Politburo named Iosef Stalin who carried out Lenins will to his death. It worked out rather well for a man who was at the time last in line to take over the country.

Kovnik Obama wrote:

dogma wrote:If your argument is that Mao and Stalin weren't motivated by atheism, there are far less esoteric means of proving such.

What wut. I didn't set myself to proving anything. Maybe my last post was a mess, but that's because I had to defend two other unrelated posts... anyway, yeah, that was the point of that post.

Fair. I can give props to another drunk philo major.

LordofHats wrote:

There was me thinking he inherited one from Lenin.

Um, between WWI, the Civil War, and his strokes, Lenin didn't really have any time to make a government. Lenin made the philosophy, Stalin made the government. Fun fact, once incapacitated by his medical condition, Lenin was attended to by a middle ranking official of the Politburo named Iosef Stalin.

Stalin ignored his philosophy, but was forced to take the view against religion because he could not control it, and thus could not control it's influence on the people. Stalin acted the way he did out of fear, nothing more.

Marx, Engels and Lenin all agreed that there should be complete separation of church and state and that the state should never make laws about religious belief, either to support one religion or to ban another. All three were opposed to arguments that religion should be banned under socialism

So what you saying Dael is that it was Stalin who created the atheist systems of the later USSR? I mean, if Lenin isn't the one who did it (and if Lenin indeed intended to create a secular government instead) why are we even arguing about this?

I do not need to be a Christian to pass a law against gay marriage anymore than I need to be an atheist to ban the church.