Is Atheism a Religion?

Burning Petard · Post by **Burning Petard** » Wed Jan 24, 2018 3:36 pm

Scooter has challenged me to advocate in support of the proposition that Atheism is a Religion.

I will not. I find this to be a metaphorical dead horse that stinks worse than the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. His challenge came out of my objection to his tagline that atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.

I find Scooter's statement to be meaningless. I draw a Venn-diagram circle that I call "religion" and include atheism in that circle. Scooter draws a circle called 'hobbies' and declares that a non-participation in one of them is outside the circle. Yep. But Scooter's analogy leaves the terms 'religion' and 'atheism' undefined. And so perhaps of rhetorical utility, but empty of meaning. By basics of language, Atheism is not theistic. That does not require it to be not religion.

Discussions of things like the topic of this thread must begin with clear and agreed terminology. It can be found in scholarly works by Sociologists, Anthropologist, Theologians, Philosophers. Agreement among those within those specialties usually is based in obtuse, subtle reasoning and such rarely appears in this forum.

I will not argue religion here.

snailgate.

RayThom · Post by **RayThom** » Wed Jan 24, 2018 5:10 pm

As you all know I usually reduce things down to their simplest form.

I am an Atheist (atheist) and I don't give a whit if it's considered a religion, a belief system, an ideology, or something else. Personally I think it borders more on a religion than not, but it's not worth it to me to argue fine points with a person who considers themselves a devout Christian (or Muslim, or Jew.) No amount of argument is going to change either side. And once again -- simply put -- it is what it is.

If a devoutly religious person thinks I'm going to hell when my soul leaves my body, or if I feel there is nothing more "out there" after their death -- what does it matter? How does it harm them? We are both arguing from a position of not knowing. Yes, I'm in the minority but does this make me wrong? No. As little as the catholic church knew at the time, Galileo and Copernicus went to hell when they died -- really? Strong feelings, as compared to what cannot be proven, does not make for a strong argument either way.

I live with the consequences of my life. I am comfortable with my choices. Yes, in retrospect I could have done many things better or differently, but that is everyone's lament. I don't need someone telling me that without a belief in a supreme being I am lost. I am not! And life is good.

red is grey and yellow, white
but we decide which is right,
and which is an illusion.

Burning Petard · Post by **Burning Petard** » Wed Jan 24, 2018 5:18 pm

The carpenter from Nazareth, Joseph and Mary's son Josh, said the kingdom of God is all around you right now.

Not sometime later, in the great beyond. Best wishes Ray, to have a nice day, right this minute.

Scooter told me to keep religion and politics separate, but here I go again. POTUS is the only person I know who has said he has nothing to repent and no reason to ask God for forgiveness.

snailgate.

Lord Jim · Post by **Lord Jim** » Wed Jan 24, 2018 5:34 pm

I find this to be a metaphorical dead horse

Man ain't that the truth...

We flogged this filly into a fine mist a long time ago, not just on this board, but on the two that preceded it...

And as far as I know, (as is so often the case) not one mind was changed...

I will not argue religion here.

Scooter · Post by **Scooter** » Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:27 pm

I was particularly interested in hearing about this "system of unprovable (in the Karl Popper sense) assertions about the origin of reality and morality" to which I supposedly ascribe. But alas, it appears that it is not to be...

Joe Guy · Post by **Joe Guy** » Wed Jan 24, 2018 9:12 pm

If someone were to put time aside for and find pleasure in convincing other people to not collect stamps, the idea of not collecting stamps would be his hobby.

Crackpot · Post by **Crackpot** » Wed Jan 24, 2018 9:23 pm

Somewhat off topic: the other day my son said to me: Sometimes I think the only reason for church is to make money. I’m proud and disturbed at the same time.

datsunaholic · Post by **datsunaholic** » Wed Jan 24, 2018 9:55 pm

Atheism is a religion when you preach it. Otherwise, it's not.

ex-khobar Andy · Post by **ex-khobar Andy** » Wed Jan 24, 2018 10:06 pm

In the end it's a matter of semantics. A more useful analogy than stamp collecting (or not) is black's status as a colo(u)r. Strictly speaking black is the absence of hue in the sense that no light of a specific wavelength is reflected. In that sense black is not a color or, to put it another way, an a-color. But if you are a painter looking at a set of oils on your palette, black is a color just like Burnt Sienna and Tiepolo Blue.

Is atheism a religion in the same way that black (a 'non-color') is a color? Well, yes and no.

BoSoxGal · Post by **BoSoxGal** » Wed Jan 24, 2018 11:37 pm

Burning Petard wrote:The carpenter from Nazareth, Joseph and Mary's son Josh, said the kingdom of God is all around you right now.

Not sometime later, in the great beyond.

The biggest argument against religion, ever.

Jesus wasn’t preaching all the shit that later became the religion named after him - which is insulting to his true message.

Jesus said the kingdom of god is at hand, right now, and that poverty is evil and rich people were basically irredeemable. His message was socialism and he never once claimed he was divine.

The Christian religion is a twisted perversion of the teachings attributed to an itinerant Jewish carpenter with a radical political message, who was killed for his message by the powers that be much like Martin and Bobby were.

Econoline · Post by **Econoline** » Thu Jan 25, 2018 12:27 am

Have you ever read the novel Messiah, by Gore Vidal?

MajGenl.Meade · Post by **MajGenl.Meade** » Thu Jan 25, 2018 3:11 am

Jesus said the kingdom of god is at hand, right now, and that poverty is evil and rich people were basically irredeemable. His message was socialism and he never once claimed he was divine.

What is the source for "what Jesus said"?

Joe Guy · Post by **Joe Guy** » Thu Jan 25, 2018 4:08 am

Jesus said the kingdom of god is at hand, right now, and that poverty is evil and rich people were basically irredeemable. His message was socialism and he never once claimed he was divine.

Jesus was a Democrat.

Lord Jim · Post by **Lord Jim** » Thu Jan 25, 2018 5:30 am

A Democratic Socialist:

dales · Post by **dales** » Thu Jan 25, 2018 5:36 am

Burning Petard · Post by **Burning Petard** » Thu Jan 25, 2018 1:48 pm

What is the source for what Jesus said? Oral tradition from the people who knew him. Same as the source for what we know about Alexander the Great. For more complete discussion of these sources I commend you to most any thing by Bart Ehrman or "The Five Gospels" by Robert W. Find, Roy W. Hoover and the Jesus Seminar. The latter is a very nice modern English translation with careful examination of every individual word attributed to Jesus. Check out the Wikipedia entry for the Jesus Seminar. Many 'Christian' scholars consider the work of the Jesus Seminar to be the product of a consortium of non-believers. The seminar, as I remember, attributes more stenographic accuracy to the Gospel of Thomas than to the Gospel of John.

snailgate.

BoSoxGal · Post by **BoSoxGal** » Thu Jan 25, 2018 2:12 pm

MajGenl.Meade wrote:
Jesus said the kingdom of god is at hand, right now, and that poverty is evil and rich people were basically irredeemable. His message was socialism and he never once claimed he was divine.
What is the source for "what Jesus said"?

The stories about Jesus in the Gospels.

BoSoxGal · Post by **BoSoxGal** » Thu Jan 25, 2018 2:35 pm

Econoline wrote:Have you ever read the novel Messiah, by Gore Vidal?

No, but I'll check it out.

I was raised Christian and was incredibly devout as a child. When I was 14 or 15 years old, I ordered a book from my book of the month club catalog - sadly, I can't recall the title or the author's name, but he was a religious scholar and priest or possibly a bishop. I thought maybe it was Spong, but I reviewed a list of his works and none of the titles jogged my memory.

Anyway, the book shocked and upset me so much that I returned it to BOMC in exchange for something else. Essentially it argued against the divinity of Jesus, and argued that his message wasn't about the kingdom of God in the afterlife, but the kingdom of God AT HAND, NOW, in this life, in this world. That is was all about being Christians HERE AND NOW, for the purpose of bringing God's kingdom to life HERE.

I was upset by it because it challenged all the ways in which I'd learned about Jesus in Bible study, from the simple church ladies who taught us while we colored in pictures of Bible story scenes. Later in my life I realized that if I'd been upstairs listening to the sermons given by my best friend's father, our minister, I would have had exposure to the roots of open-mindedness that would have made the book less shocking to me. Although baptised Episcopalian and later confirmed such in college, I attended a local community church as a child, which had a fair bit of open-mindedness about it - we even had a Korean minister for a short time in the 70s while my best friend's father took a sabbatical year.

Anyway, over the course of my life since that shock, which included years of attending the churches of friends (my mother had stopped attending, and thus no family church tradition any longer) in all denominations, and much reading of history and theology, and much pondering and considering and soul-searching, I've come to the realization that Jesus was not divine, that he used the concepts of God taught in his Jewish tradition and built on the Jewish mandates of service to others and preached primarily about social justice using the tools of religion that are opiate to the masses. They killed him for his radical message, and the powers that be then warped him into a tool for controlling the masses. It's one of the saddest stories ever, IMHO.

And Meade, nothing you could possible say will convince me otherwise, so I will respect your right to hold your beliefs and ask that you do the same. I have in very difficult times had the desire to slip back into the comfort of believing in a grandpa God up in heaven who makes everything ok in the long run, but I recognize that for what it is - a desire to again be the happy, trusting child I once was who believed in happy endings. The brutal execution of Jesus for trying to improve the life of his people, and 2000+ years of brutality conducted in his name, is all the proof I need of that.

MajGenl.Meade · Post by **MajGenl.Meade** » Fri Jan 26, 2018 6:33 am

BoSoxGal wrote:
MajGenl.Meade wrote:
Jesus said the kingdom of god is at hand, right now, and that poverty is evil and rich people were basically irredeemable. His message was socialism and he never once claimed he was divine.
What is the source for "what Jesus said"?
The stories about Jesus in the Gospels.

Thank you - that's what I thought but wanted to make sure. We agree on the source. I don't know we'd disagree on much, so no attempt to argue you out of your belief. Discussion perhaps, as it's a good way for me to learn what I and others think and why we do; but "as you wish".

Theologians battle about what the "kingdom of God" means. You are correct. The kingdom is at hand. We enter it by following Jesus. There is the eternal kingdom to come and there is the temporal kingdom here and now. It's expressed in the summary of everything that counts; love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself.

The bald statement "poverty is evil" is not something I find in the gospels. You are correct if you mean that Jesus taught that everyone (even the poor themselves) should care for and about the least among us. I suspect that "evil" is found in the failure of people to be caring, especially "believers" perhaps.

No doubt it's difficult for the rich to get into heaven but "what is impossible for man is possible for God", which is what Jesus did say about that very problem (Mark 10 etc). If it's correct that Biblical events and stories have relevance to today, who now are "the rich" and what is their difficulty with belief and obedience? How do you interpret it?

There is no message of socialism in any teaching of Jesus, in the political sense. There is an overwhelmingly clear message of stewardship and social responsibility, which I guess is what you mean.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts.

MajGenl.Meade · Post by **MajGenl.Meade** » Fri Jan 26, 2018 9:29 am

snail,

I was very interested in the work of the Jesus Seminar. Splashed out the dollars for the hard-back report when it came out. Thomas is a sayings text, of which about half are found in various forms in the canonical gospels. I don't get into who is or is not a believer; I thought them a little arrogant but they produced thought-provoking ideas.

It's a minor point but I disagree that our sources are oral. They are written, whether about Alexander or Jesus, based on the memories of contemporaries. Alexander had a lot more written about him close to his time than some Christians pretend is the case.

Paul in his AD 53/54 letter to the Corinthians, relied on people who knew Jesus as he forthrightly states in order to write 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, the earliest extant written statement about Jesus:

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: how Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and was seen by Cephas, and then by the twelve. Then He was seen by over five hundred brothers at once, of whom the greater part remain to this present time, though some have passed away. Then He was seen by James and then by all the apostles. Last of all, He was seen by me also, as by one born at the wrong time.

Whatever we make of the truth of such things, we have to turn to what is actually written in order to critique it.

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