but atheist singles out a specific archetype of 'God'.
What? Why?
An atheist is one who does not believe in any theistic being or system. That includes all forms of deity as far as I am concerned. While they don't have to be fully materialist (they can believe in spirituality), that is a different question. Atheism is simply the negative answer to, "do you believe in a deity or deities?"
Deism is a variation on theism as far as I am concerned. It is a theist who does not believe that their god intervenes in the world.
While many atheists (or rather angstheists) are just kids who are kicking out against their parents religion, and so only think of their fathers God when considering what they are rejecting, that doesn't speak to atheists as a wider group. Remember, that group that includes such kids also has to include people likethis.
the word theism as we use it is a direct connector from the monotheistic deity of the bible. most any etymology will make this connection, deity and theity are different but similar concepts. which has no bearing on spiritual matters in general or any divinity outside of these monotheistic archetypes.
And in general, a lack of a religious belief is indifference, an affirmative beleif against something is not indifference, completely different thing from lack of belief.
Nonsense. Not one of the definitions I know for 'theism' reduces it to monotheistic beliefs, and certainly not of the bible. The most restricted it becomes is an intervening deity, in opposition to a deistic, detached view of god.
Theism is simply a belief in the existence of god or gods. Nothing more.
And have you read my journal yet? Maybe you can actually argue with my viewpoint rather than around it.
And in general, a lack of a religious belief is indifference, an affirmative beleif against something is not indifference, completely different thing from lack of belief.
Says you. Demanding evidence of a claim is not indifference. An "affirmative belief" against something is as irrational, if not more irrational, than a belief in something that hasn't been demonstrated, if for no other reason than it's impossible to prove lack of existence. Skepticism is not indifference. Indifference is not caring one way or the other. Indifference is ignoring what's out there. The atheist claim is that nothing has been presented to ignore.
Your claim of indifference is a wonderful little slight. It's the most cowardly form of insult: A veiled one.
An atheist is one who does not believe in any theistic being or system. That includes all forms of deity as far as I am concerned. While they don't have to be fully materialist (they can believe in spirituality), that is a different question. Atheism is simply the negative answer to, "do you believe in a deity or deities?"
Deism is a variation on theism as far as I am concerned. It is a theist who does not believe that their god intervenes in the world.
While many atheists (or rather angstheists) are just kids who are kicking out against their parents religion, and so only think of their fathers God when considering what they are rejecting, that doesn't speak to atheists as a wider group. Remember, that group that includes such kids also has to include people likethis.
I actually think a lot of self-labeled atheists are actually more along the lines of agnostic, you think so too?
I would have to refer you back to that journal I keep linking for a full explanation, but here is the brief version.
An atheist is anyone who doesn't believe in a god of any sort. Unless you actually have a positive belief, you are an atheist. As such, most of those kids will be atheists.
However, about any particular model of god, say the Christian God, Allah, Zeus, Thor, the Wiccan Mother and Father (or whatever they are really called) or any other concept of god anyone can think up, you have a wide range of options for belief.
The main thing you have to decide about any model of god is whether it is possible to know if it exists or not. It may be that you find logical or theological flaws in an argument for a particular model of god and so strongly believe that it doesn't exist, for rational reasons.
Then there is the stance that you can't know. If you find no internal flaws in an argument for a deity, but don't believe that the logic is sound enough to require the existence of that deity, you can take an agnostic standpoint towards it, believing it is impossible to know if it does exist or not. You can still believe in it or not, being atheistic or theistic, but you admit that it is a choice made on lack of evidence rather than by convincing argument. An agnostic is still an atheist or theist. They still have to make a belief claim. But they make an additional, negative, knowledge claim.
I believe that many people who identify as atheists, who I bitch at for being angstheists, are strongly atheistic towards a single model of god, commonly the Christian model, but have not even considered other models, so being agnostic (or more correctly simply ignorant) towards all other models. They are still atheists, but not very considered atheists.
Not to mention that original atheism towards Christianity not normally being very rational.
haha, got me on that one, one two word phrase in the middle there, your def has it mine didnt. 'or Gods'. it was linked also to the american heritage dictionary, but the ones I saw for 'Theism' did not include the 'or Gods' Altho they did differentiate between theism and deism, in biblical terms, A God which does or does not take an active role in the world he created. I have read your journal many times, on that, its been linked to more than once. And in a semantic argument it does quite well, but once again i think the terms too general. For their generalities, if you ascribe to those generalities, it is quite the primer. For those of us that do not it is more an outline, something to be fleshed out further. I just get very unhappy with these terms when they are misused so. Having buddhists labelled atheists, or whathaveyou, then there is the practice of filial piety, which I always thought got a lot of undeserved disrespect in america. What you would call 'weak atheism' I would call indifferent. Agnosticism I would call ignorant, not judgingly, they admit to it, they do not know and will not make the decision without said info. Strong Atheists I would say have made a decision, its not indifferent. But the need of such quantifiers proves the terminology to be imperfect.
@Nimiety any LACK of something is not an affirmation, I am not saying that someone who does not believe in God is nothing but indifferent, but if all you can say is 'I don't believe in God' without having anything more to it THAT is indifferent. That isn't I have looked into it and have not been convinced, and its not, I see more that tells me the world is Godless. That is simply, I chose not to put any effort into answering that question. I did say that in a way where it was unfairly generalized, my fault there.
I believe atheism is a religion. For me atheism is the "over enforcement" of the phrase describing a piece of our Constitution. This phrase is "separation of church and state" when the real meaning of it that "The government shall pass no law regulating religion." This involves the active removal of just the word "God" (are as they would write it... "god") or any piece of anything that has to do with religion. We have already seen one such example: The 10 commandments be removed from a federal building. While the first three may "offend" an atheist, the remaining seven are good rules to live by. "In God we trust" is also written on our money, yeah... its there but it isn't a law, and it isn't regulating religion. How long until there is a lawsuit to remove it? Atheists are people that don't believe and think everyone should not believe as well. They use the fact that you can sue over being "offended" to further their cause.
On a different note, you have people that probably don't believe in God but are not atheists. They just plain don't believe in a higher power, and don't care that other people do, and aren't offended when someone does the sign of the cross over their lunch.
For me atheism is the "over enforcement" of the phrase describing a piece of our Constitution. This phrase is "separation of church and state" when the real meaning of it that "The government shall pass no law regulating religion." This involves the active removal of just the word "God" (are as they would write it... "god") or any piece of anything that has to do with religion. We have already seen one such example: The 10 commandments be removed from a federal building. While the first three may "offend" an atheist, the remaining seven are good rules to live by.
How is this atheism? You're talking public policy here, not spirituality. In regards to the 10 Commandments, hell you can even get James Madison to agree that there are good teachings in Christianity--but we should leave the teaching to the Christians, and not to the government, since everybody isn't a Christian. The Five Pillars of Islam have some good stuff. Zen Buddhism is full of good teachings. Something tells me you wouldn't want your tax dollars to present these other faiths. Even if you were cool and groovy about it, though, there is only a finite amount of cash, and so the only fair thing to do is to not present any religion through the state.
"In God we trust" is also written on our money, yeah... its there but it isn't a law, and it isn't regulating religion. How long until there is a lawsuit to remove it?
It is a state endorsement of a deity, God. It probably should be removed, as several lawsuits have argued. Hell, it has only been on money since the 1950's. It wouldn't be that big of a deal.
Atheists Christians are people that don't believe and think everyone should not believe as well. They use the fact that you can sue over being "offended" to further their cause.
What's your point?
On a different note, you have people that probably don't believe in God but are not atheists. They just plain don't believe in a higher power, and don't care that other people do, and aren't offended when someone does the sign of the cross over their lunch.
These people would also be atheists. More tolerant atheists, but...still atheists.
First things first, the thread is only a page and a half long. Would it kill you to read it?
For me atheism is the "over enforcement" of the phrase describing a piece of our Constitution.
Personally, I disagree with 'over enforcement' as well, and could document a few cases if pushed. However, that is not atheism. Atheism is a belief claim about the existence of god or gods, not anything more. I am about to post a reply to halgameguru which you could probable do with reading as well, once you get up to speed on the rest of the debate.
This phrase is "separation of church and state" when the real meaning of it that "The government shall pass no law regulating religion."
Separation of Church and State refers to the purpose of the Establishment Clause of the First Ammendment of the US Constitution. The exact wording is;
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"
It is normally coupled with the Free Exercise clause which follows it;
"or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
I want you to note a few important points here.
Firstly, the language used is very general. That was intended by the founders. They debated the exact phrasing of the clause for a long time, and the version you propose (no law regulating religion) was dismissed during that period, as were other laws that were less regulating. They went for the broadest language they could, to forbid the government from creating any law that favours or opposes people or establishments on religious grounds.
The best (in my opinion) judge of whether something violates the establishment clause is the Lemon Test, which has three prongs a law must pass to be constitutional;
1. The government's action must have a legitimate secular purpose; 2. The government's action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion; 3. The government's action must not result in an "excessive entanglement" with religion.
If it can't manage to pass all three tests, it is deemed to be "respecting an establishment of religion" by discriminating for or against a particular religious viewpoint.
Don't misrepresent the first Amendment again.
This involves the active removal of just the word "God" (are as they would write it... "god") or any piece of anything that has to do with religion.
Two debates here on your wording.
When the word god is written as God, it normally refers specifically to the Christian deity. It may be used for the Jewish God as well, but it is virtually exclusive to those two religions and their various offshoots. Even Islam only uses the capitalised God when in a Christian context, such as comparative religion at Christian primary school.
When someone is talking about a deity other than the Christian God, they may choose not to capitalise it to distinguish between the two terms. The Christian common name being just God means that the proper name 'God' and 'god' the common term for any deity are too easily confused otherwise. A non-capitalised god is supposed to refer to the latter rather than the former, and so is more general and religion neutral.
Coming from that point, we get to one of your sides fatal arguments. Ritual deism.
This is the idea that the state, while remaining largely secular (religiously independent) should be able to refer to a non-specific deity. Jefferson and several other founders did this a lot (Jefferson in particular used very vague terms when talking about religion). This is the argument for allowing religious terms on money and in the pledge, which would otherwise be instantly unconstitutional under the establishment clause.
The main problem here is that most cases that claim ritual deism are anything but. Take the pledge. The term inserted was 'under God', quite specifically and obviously targeted towards the Christian deity. The main forces pushing for its insertion were Christian groups with obvious intent to advance their religious cause (in specific opposition to the state atheism of the Soviet Union). The term was not intended to be neutral, and is rarely taken as neutral today (just look at the majority of protests against removing it today and tell me it is a religiously neutral issue).
We have already seen one such example: The 10 commandments be removed from a federal building.
Let us look at this one in depth again.
In 2005 there were an interesting pair of Supreme Court cases that examined this issue. There were two separate displays of the 10 Commandments being considered, one at the Texas State Capitol and the other (well, others really) were in court houses across McCreary County in Kentucky.
Both decisions were issued on the same day, and both decisions were 5-4 splits in the court. Most interestingly, one went each way. One display was ruled unconstitutional, the other was ruled as fine. To understand why, just look at the details.
In the Texas case, the commandments were written on a memorial donated by a private group 40 years before, just one of over a dozen memorials designed to highlight the ideals of those who had settled in Texas, ranging over a wide range of civic issues.
In the Kentucky case, the commandments were put up and paid for by the courts themselves using public money, and were the centrepieces of displays that focused solely on religion, specifically Christianity.
The Texas case was ruled constitutional. The Kentucky one unconstitutional. If you need more in depth reasons, look at the logic that Justice Breyer (the swing vote between the two cases) gave;
1. The monument's 40-year history on the Texas state grounds indicates that nonreligious aspects of the tablets' message have been predominate. 2. The group that donated the monument, the Fraternal Order of Eagles, is a private civic (and primarily secular) organization. Who, while interested in the religious aspect of the Ten Commandments, sought to highlight the Commandments' role in shaping civic morality as part of that organization's efforts to combat juvenile delinquency. 3. The Eagles' consultated with a committee composed of members of several faiths in order to find a nonsectarian text -- an act which underscores the group's ethics-based motives. 4. The tablets, as displayed on the monument, prominently acknowledge that the Eagles donated the display. 5. The physical setting of the monument suggests little or nothing of the sacred. * The monument sits in a large park containing 17 monuments and 21 historical markers, all designed to illustrate the "ideals" of those who settled in Texas and of those who have lived there since that time. * The setting does not readily lend itself to meditation or any other religious activity. * The setting does provide a context of history and moral ideals. * The larger display (together with the display's inscription about its origin) communicates to visitors that the State sought to reflect moral principles, illustrating a relation between ethics and law that the State's citizens, historically speaking, have endorsed. That is to say, the context suggests that the State intended the display's moral message -- an illustrative message reflecting the historical "ideals" of Texans -- to predominate.
And then the ruling;
If these factors provide a strong, but not conclusive, indication that the Commandments' text on this monument conveys a predominantly secular message, a further factor is determinative here. As far as I can tell, 40 years passed in which the presence of this monument, legally speaking, went unchallenged (until the single legal objection raised by petitioner). And I am not aware of any evidence suggesting that this was due to a climate of intimidation. Hence, those 40 years suggest more strongly than can any set of formulaic tests that few individuals, whatever their system of beliefs, are likely to have understood the monument as amounting, in any significantly detrimental way, to a government effort to favor a particular religious sect, primarily to promote religion over nonreligion, to "engage in" any "religious practic[e]," to "compel" any "religious practic[e]," or to "work deterrence" of any "religious belief." Schempp, 374 U. S., at 305 (Goldberg, J., concurring). Those 40 years suggest that the public visiting the capitol grounds has considered the religious aspect of the tablets' message as part of what is a broader moral and historical message reflective of a cultural heritage.
They use the fact that you can sue over being "offended" to further their cause.
Interestingly, as far as establishment clause cases go, you don't have to even show that you were offended. Just that the government is doing something wrong. Because the cases normally deal with the use of public tax money, and deal with the religious freedoms of thousands, it is judged that you don't need to show personal harm to bring a case against them, simply be in a position that brings you into contact with the violation. For a 10 Commandments case, using the courthouse or being around the memorial is enough. For an evolution school case, having a child at the school is more than enough.
On a different note, you have people that probably don't believe in God but are not atheists.
Well, if you mean God as the Christian deity, you are right. If you mean God as god, as any deity, then you are flat out wrong, because that is the very definition of atheist.
Well, I maintain that the labels I put forwards in my journal say absolutely nothing about a person beyond their stance on deities; such a small part of what makes up a person you can know someone for months and not be able to say for certain unless discussion gets into that area at some point.
Saying that a Buddhist is an atheist is often accurate. It doesn't mean they are the same type of atheist as, say, a secular humanist or a selfist Satanist, but they are all still atheists. In the same way, a Jesuit Catholic, Fred Phelps, Osama Bin Laden and George Bush are all theists of types, but you would still go to pains to describe the differences that remain.
People seem to think that atheists are a single group or should have some defining feature beyond their stance on the existence of dieties. This is frankly the wrong way of going about things. As a generalisation of the broadest type, it works wonders. But people want the group to be small and homogeneous, and they will always be disappointed.
As for agnosticism, I do have to say it is a term that gives me real problems, because there are two types. There is a 'we don't know' form, and a 'we can never know' type. Weak/strong agnosticism? I don't really know how to distinguish best. The term should, properly, apply to the second type only, but has been claimed most commonly by the first type.
Atheists tend to treat Atheism as a religion, so it might as well be one. They often think themselves better than other people, just because the claim to be open-minded. Truely open-minded people do not have egos or claim to be open-minded. These same Atheists will also claim they have no beliefs, which is also bullshit. They believe there is no existance of some sort of supreme being or creator.
There are two real factions within the Atheist community: Strong and Weak Atheists.
Strong Atheists are stead-fast (and thus have faith) in their beliefs that there is no god(s) and nothing you can say will sway them their belief. The majority of Strong Atheists are also Anti-Theist, in that they are anti-religion and would like to convert everyone to Atheism. I personally have complete disgust at Strong Atheists who have a single-focus bigotry for religion and have very closed-minded opinions about religion. They are just as bad, if not worse, than Radical Christians and Radical Muslims. They will claim to open-minded and tolerant, but when the mud flinging starts, their true fanatical hatred nature shows itself.
Weak Atheists (or as I like to call them, True Atheists) think the existence and non-existence of god are equally likely. Where Theists believe that one or more deities exist and Strong Atheists believe that no god(s) exist, Weak Atheists hold neither belief. We differ from Agnostics in that we have made up their minds, deciding that the evidence doesn't warrant strong belief of any kind. Most Weak Atheists have never been introduced to the concept of God(s), don't care enough about God(s) to believe or disbelieve [apatheists], or consider the question of God(s) to be meaningless [ignostics].
I'm a Weak Atheist who has more or less turn his back on the Atheist Community out of utter disgust. It is overrun Radical Atheists and I will not be a part of that group.
People seem to think that atheists are a single group or should have some defining feature beyond their stance on the existence of dieties. This is frankly the wrong way of going about things. As a generalisation of the broadest type, it works wonders. But people want the group to be small and homogeneous, and they will always be disappointed.
While you are splitting atheists along strong/weak lines, you are trying to paint all strong atheists with the same brush. Strong atheism is just a belief claim, and has no bearing on your personality.
I am, for the most part, a strong atheist. I used to identify as a radical atheist (as defined by Douglas Adams, basically just a strong atheist) although I dislike the label now because people take it to mean someone with anti-religious motivations. I am also dating a Christian and enjoy the occasional theological debate.
Now, you did leave room for exceptions in your post, but the way you did it suggested that they were rare. In my experience, lots of people are strongly atheist yet act neutrally towards religion outside of open debate. The majority of those who do attack religion in the ways you describe are, in my experience, the angstheists who I bitch about constantly. They are mostly very weak and underdeveloped in their beliefs.
And again, read through the thread before posting.
I'm sorry. I tend to rant a little when talking about the Strong Atheism sect. I realize there are some good and honest Strong Atheists out there, but you are after all, the minority.
There are groups of people who are anti-religious, but they are not always (or even normally) strong atheists in the sense of actual strong atheism, which is simply a belief claim.
The capitalisation is quite telling as well. Kinda like True Christians...
i was more on about the lumping of all Buddhists into the atheist camp, many are, many are not, heck I have known people who considered themselves 'good' catholics who didn't believe in God. I don't know how it works but i decided not to question them at that time.
as for agnostic, the term means without knowledge, so that would, tome depict those who simply say 'don't know' there would probably have to be another combo there for 'cannot know' sort of incognostic? I dunno.
My real problem is not even with how you used the terms, like I said your primer was right on, my problem is with the fact that the terms have to so ethereal in the first place. Maybe I'm just too individualistic, but personal faith, to me, doesn't seem to get boxed in too easily into such terms. I mean many would consider me almost a buddhist christian agnostic, parts of my faith reflect many different philosophies. But, to me I am still primarily Christian, Ascribing to such a faith. And yet I cannot easily label myself 'merely' a christian, questions get asked, attempting to lump me in or align my beliefs with some sect for someone else's comfort? it just riles me, for no reason other than I'm kind of OCD on stuff like this.
I actually meant to do that earlier, believe it or not. But there was this liquor store that needed to be robbed.
All religions, great or small, are built around (surprise) religious experience. We are almost powerless to describe them, but we try anyway, and commonalities of descriptions show up, so we talk more with those people, and eventually start creating churches, and then doctrine, and all of the practices and rituals that we associate with religion.
There isn't a church of atheism, people don't pray to David Hume, and there isn't really a religious experience at the heart of atheism. There might be a really cool and groovy feeling of one-ness with the universe like the guy describes in the video Pal linked to, but, that's just how he describes his experience. So it isn't a religion because it doesn't have any features of a religion.
Is it a world view or philosophy like religion can be? Sure, of course. But that doesn't mean the two are the same.
I'm going to take a shot at this...this entry is taken off of Webster's New Dictionary of the English Language. Copyright 2002 by Merriam Webster.
Religion - 1. Service and Worship of God. 2. Set or system of religious beliefs.
We all know that the first definition isn't correct so I am looking at proving whether it fits into the second definition. For this I looked up religious.
Religious - 1. Relating or devoted to an ultimate reality or deity 2. Relating to religious beliefs or observances (see first definition). 3. Faithful, fervent, or zealous.
Atheism could still be put into the third definition of religion, so I will now look up Atheism.
Atheism: n. One who denies the existance of God.
One could show faith or "confidence", as defined in the same dictionary, in Atheism. I couldn't find a definition for anti-religious so I have nothing in that department. By the third definition, I could loosely define Atheism as a religion. Although I believe that the third definition was just meant to modify the first definition of religious. So I really believe that it isn't a religion by the authors intentions. So there you go, I'm sure I will get flamed somehow even though I bothered to look this shit up. Please offer constructive criticism.
pardon the double post correcting a typo in the third section of my post, it falls into the third definition of religious. God I miss my sponser editing.
Atheism could be defined easily as a religion. I guess. A very splintered, fragmented, inconsitent religion. Like christianity! lol.
Sorry!
Seriously now, as an Atheist I didn't view it as a religion. It's more a position. From all the Atheists I have met the ONLY thing that we share is the understanding that there is no god. There is no cohesion. There is no shared set of values. No unifying war cry. As GroovinLow says... it's a philsophy.
I think if you want to look for a religion from this area of society you are best off looking at those that I term Antitheists (which I class myself as one of). Essentially these are the "strong atheists" those who believe not just that there is no god, but that religion itself is in many ways to the detriment of man kind when taken as a whole. Right or wrong. That is where we sit and in THAT instance I think it is a religion, belief comes into, stronger views, guiding ethos, everything. To use an analogy...
An Agnostic shrugs An Atheist slowly shakes their head And Antitheist spits wrath and arguement (ok, negative view, but exaggeration to prove a point)
Yeah, I agree. Most people think we atheists are out to destroy religion when really most of us couldn't give a rats ass. Just like not all christians go door to door preaching to join their religion or burn forever.
The problem with using the dictionary is that it usually defines words based on common usage. That's why you can look up the word "theory" in a dictionary and be told it means "guess or conjecture". If you walk into a discussion about a scientific theory and start crowing about how it's all "just a guess" and point to the dictionary to back up your statement, you're going to get burned.
I'm looking at the definition of Religion that you quoted above, and I immediately not that definition 2 uses the word religious. The second definition of religious then uses the word religious in it (with a pointer back to the first definition). That's not good form.
More important, for this discussion anyway, is the fact that word meaning is flexible, and often context dependant. One could claim, for instance, that I show up at EB Games "religiously" every Tuesday. That would fall under the 3rd definition of religious above, but I'm not doing it out of faith. I clearly don't belong to the cult of the XBox or anything like that. I'm just looking to see what their new stock is.
Religioustolerance.org uses the following definition of religion throughout their website:
"Religion is any specific system of belief about deity, often involving rituals, a code of ethics, a philosophy of life, and a worldview."
(A worldview is a set of basic, foundational beliefs concerning deity, humanity and the rest of the universe.) Thus we would consider Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Native American Spirituality, and Neopaganism to be religions. We also include Agnosticism, Atheism, Humanism, Ethical Culture etc. as religions, because they also contain a "belief about deity" -- their belief is that they do not know whether a deity exists, or they have no knowledge of God, or they sincerely believe that God does not exist.
I disagree with their definition, of course, because they choose to define "belief" so broadly as to be meaningless (somehow they're able to twisted it so that belief = no belief. In my mind, that's like saying white = black). They also tighten their definition of religion by including things such as rituals, but then don't apply that qualification evenly.
Religion is the adherence to codified beliefs and rituals that generally involve a faith in a spiritual nature and a study of inherited ancestral traditions, knowledge and wisdom related to understanding human life. The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to faith as well as to the larger shared systems of belief.
By this definition, a religion is both the rituals (public and/or private) and a codified system of beliefs. These can go hand in hand, or stand on their own. I like this definition because it doesn't speak of "God" or "gods", but rather about spiritual faith. In that sense, it's broad and far reaching, but it's much tighter and feels less ad hoc to me than the religioustolerance definition.
But, the wikipedia article goes on to say
There are many definitions of religion, and most have struggled to avoid an overly sharp definition on the one hand, and meaningless generalities on the other. Some have tried to use formalistic, doctrinal definitions and others have tried to use experiential, emotive, intuitive, valuational and ethical factors.
Sociologists and anthropologists see religion as an abstract set of ideas, values, or experiences developed as part of a cultural matrix. Primitive religion was indistinguishable from the sociocultural acts where custom and ritual defined an emotional reality.
Other religious scholars have put forward a definition of religion that avoids the reductionism of the various sociological and psychological disciplines that relegate religion to its component factors. Religion may be defined as the presence of a belief in the sacred or the holy.
So, there really isn't a clear cut universal definition. However, I argue that atheism doesn't meet any such definition without it being specifically designed to do so.
Atheism isn't a specific system of belief about a deity. It's A) not specific, and B) not a system. I'd even go so far as to say it's not even necessarily a belief or conviction. My opinion on the matter, as I've stated time and time again, is that a lack of a belief is the default stance. I don't have to actively disbelieve that deities exist anymore than I have to actively disbelieve that the Earth is going to spontaneously transform into fig pudding (I realize this is where hal gets his "indifferent atheist" claims from, but he's equally wrong if he wants to claim I'm also "indifferent" toward the composition of our planet). There are no rituals associated with atheism. There's no shared world view between atheists, no code of ethics, or philosophy. There's no uniform spirituality. In fact, there are many atheists who are also religious. There are many religions out there that do not worship a deity, or proclaim the existence of any deities, including some forms of Buddhism.
Atheism is more in par with "vegetarianism" than "Islam". If someone walks up to you and says they're a vegetarian, you may have this idea of what that means, but I'm sure it's very different from what the vegetarian means. There's no vegetarian guide that says "you must do this, you must do that" if you want to be a vegetarian. All you can really assume you know about someone when they claim they're a vegetarian is that they don't eat "meat" (by which, they often mean simple mammal flesh). They may mean very much more, but the term is just that damn broad.
pal has a journal about the different kinds of atheism here. It's worth a read.
In reply to DiMono, #23: I agree with you in that scenario, but I've had to deal with Christians who told me that I "need to find God" on almost a daily basis. Quite recently, I put a stop to it all, but not without having to explain to the asst. principal that if they don't allow harassment based on color, race, AND ethniticity, they shouldn't allow religious harassment either.
Back on topic, atheism is not a religion. If someone says "What religion do you follow?" and someone says "I'm an atheist," they aren't calling atheism a religion, they're saying "I am an atheist and therefore do not have one.
There is a difference between someone having a religious discussion and harassment. If it goes over the line, then yet, it is a problem. However, it is the same as any form of harassment, and can't be stopped just because you are sick about hearing about their religion.
If they are persistent and obsessively pestering you, then there is a good case for harassment and taking action against them. If they are not actually focusing on you or are simply using their right to free speech and expression of religion without violating your own rights or causing disruption then there shouldn't be a problem.
Often cries of harassment are anything but. People just tend to jump to the conclusion that they are in the right and shouldn't have to be challenged.
