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Since atheists have a common belief system and they are pretty organized why they do not consider themselves as a part of a another religion which does not have a god?

Because not playing sport is not a sport.

atheism can not be classified as another religion cuz it doesn't make any sense !!
atheism is the fact that you don't believe in any religion
haw can it be a religion ?

Best way to answer such question  ;)

It's always funny when religious idiots try to claim that atheism is also a religion, but why do that, are they saying religions are stupid or bad?

Because they aren't moving under any "celestial" law, man.
As it has been said, not playing a sport can't be a sport.
You said they are "pretty organized", but under what? under one only common thought: God doesn't exist, but there are many atheists believing in life after death, but with no laws to determine how is going to be the step.
To be inside a religion you need some rules to follow. For example, Catholic stuff believes in the final repent. So you can live in sin and just in the final moment say "Oh! I repent!" and then go to the sky. Just really convenient.
Atheists do not believe in something ahead, in some entity with power dictating rules, they (us) just live, but under many different points of view. There's no common rules, there's no religion at all.

Atheism is classified as another religion all over the place. Google it. The reason it is not classified so universally, is that there are atheists who don't seem to know the definition of religion, who want to classify atheism differently.

8)

It is a matter of understanding the word "religion"
Maybe because religion is always define as a practice of belief with superstitious understanding, and also atheists don't have a weekly activity and discuss many things about their philosophy unlike religious people.
So it doesn't matter if they are a religion or not a big deal. The big deal is if you are belong to religion be active on it, do your duty to keep yourself from being hypocrite.

From what I understand they simply don't believe in a deity and that's the only thing they have in common. There are some that still have some inkling of past religiosity like those that believe there is a "force" or something out there. I've watched a few vids, they're a rather mixed bunch.


Nice and simple.

IMO it's hard to classify something as something that it is not. The whole point of religion is that in some form or fashion a religious person believes in a god or a higher power and the fact that atheist don't believe in such things don't make them religious by default which means you can't classify them as such even if there are a well organised "group" of them. It's kinda like a car and a tree i'll just roll with that metaphor on this one. The car(religious person) is a car and a tree(atheist person) is a tree the tree isn't trying to be a car in any way therefore it is not a car. If the tree decided one day that it wanted to be a car and went through the trouble of reforming itself by getting an engine, wheels, etc to be a car then it would be a car. I hope that made sense I kinda just made that up on the fly.

True! It couldn't be as simple as it is. If you are told to put in your religion, then you place "not applicable" because you don't believe in a religion. If you consider atheism as a religion then you defeat the purpose of an atheistic life. If you don't believe in a higher power then that is not a religion, you have an absence of religion. The above reply is kind of harsh, but it is true. You can't consider atheism as a religion like you won't consider not a playing a sport as a sport.

I am not trying to bash atheists or whatever the other guys who believe in religions, i want to know a simple thing. Must there be a god in a religion to be considered as a religion? Aren't there any religions without the belief of a almighty one?

You are the only one saying that, why though? Are you trying to insult atheism by calling a religion and if you are, are you not implying that a religion is a bad thing then?

In the broadest sense, there is a lack of faith in the existence of the divine. In a narrower sense, atheism is a denial of the belief that divinity exists, specifically, atheism is the view that there is no divinity. Atheistic opposition to theism, in the most general form, is the belief that at least one god exists.

atheists dont have a common belief, atheism is about disbelieving and researching validating the information you receive for truth or distruth

You forgot the part about doing an Internet search to see that I am not the only one saying that.

You forgot the part about checking the complete definitions of the words atheism and religion, so you can see that atheism is a religion by definition.

8)

But the lack of faith isn't complete in the atheist. Even the atheist suggests by inference that he is god by claiming that there is no God. After all, how else would an atheist be able to determine that there is no God, except if he were a god knowing all things so that he could make that determination?

Consider. Do you or I absolutely know everything? No! So, how could the atheist know that God doesn't exist somewhere he hasn't examined yet?

You might answer that the atheist is such because he believes that there is no God, even though he doesn't know it.

I would respond that since the atheist knows that he doesn't know, he doesn't really believe in his own atheism. Atheism is a lie. At best it is incorrectly defined.

8)

The damage that religion has done to the world from holding back science due to it proving religion wrong and the countless wars in my opinion makes it so that atheism really is no form of religion.

Who says its not considered a religion? People may call it whatever they want but atheism is basically a religion that doesn't believe in any dieties and prefer to be practical about it. It's actually a religion that makes good sense in a way :p

Religion is a certain system of views, conditioned by belief in the supernatural. Atheism is a lack of belief in gods. Atheists are not believers in supernatural. They are convinced that there's no any gods. And they rely on clear, logical arguments.

Sure man, that's why there are countless churches of atheism where we go to every Sunday to worship and read from the atheist bible :D Hey let me call up my buddies from Atheists Anonymous and ask them, how believing in one deity less than the average Christian makes us a religion lol

So you are saying atheism is a religion and that religions are bad, right?

You still don't know how to do an Internet search to see that many people explain how atheism is a religion, right?

You still haven't figured out how to use a good dictionary or encyclopedia to find out that the definition of atheism shows that it is a religion according to the definition of religion, right?

8)

Finally you are getting the point. People have religions. Therefore people are bad. Even Coincube has shown you that in the Health and Religion thread.

8)

Atheism is not a religion, but a world view that denies religion as a belief in the supernatural.

We all have different views regarding Atheism. But for me it's neither a belief or religion, but more like a perspective. Atheism is more likely directed to having lack of belief in Gods. We should just respect each other's beliefs and don't let these differences tear us apart.

Atheist cannot be classified as another religion. They are contradict. Religion has something on common which is belief for God while atheist is the opposite. And atheist should not be recognize. They are against God. How can you trust people with no God. They can be harmful and fearful. They do not care what ever they do.Atheist must encounter God so that their belief  and mndset will ..change.

If they contradicted entirely, the dictionary definitions would not show that they are similar in some ways - atheism and religion. The way the definitions explain them shows that atheism is a religion.

Google "atheism religion" to see how many people explain why atheism is a religion, and how many others try to show that it is not.

8)

Yet nobody knows how nature came into existence naturally. Some say that they do, but they don't have near enough evidence to show that they might be correct. What this really means is, all of nature is supernatural... at least as far as we can tell.

Since we don't know that all of nature is NOT supernatural at its core, the atheistic belief that nature is not supernatural, is part of what classifies atheism as a religion.

8)

The atheist is a "believer in what you see," or just believe in what "science proves" to be real, to be in the visible world. People are based on this basis to "assimilate" materialistic people, the Communists are atheistic. From these characteristics we immediately recognize their manifestations: Can not accept all false The theory "that science does not prove existed", not just "mythological details" in religious myths.

However, unless you do the scientific examinations yourself, you are simply accepting the word of other people. Such acceptance sounds more like religion to me than it sounds like science.

After all, the scientific study of religion seems to attempt to bring religion into conformity with other sciences. It is not looked at for its autonomy. So, it just might be general science that is the real religion.

8)

because they don't believe in any deity, being in a religion means believing or having faith in a certain deity

Buddhism is classified as a religion. But it doesn't officially have any deity, even though some Buddhists attempt to believe that the Buddha is a deity.

8)

''People have religions. Therefore people are bad'' Sometimes I don't know if you are trolling or you simply don't even understand what you are saying. You are calling yourself a bad person lol.

I believe that it isn't considered as religion because religion is known to be our guide closer to God and it makes our faith stronger. Athiesm is actually being against religion because they don't believe in the exist. They are known to be anti religion so they are another group but they aren't considered as religion because it actually contradicts so in differs from religion.

You don't even seem to want to agree with yourself. You suggested that religions-are/religion-is bad. But take a religion. What does it do? The religion itself doesn't do anything. It just sits there, like a philosophy might. Only when it gets into people does it become bad. Why then? Because people are bad. So, it is people who turn religions bad. And atheism is one of the worst, because it can't be truly followed by anyone, and most so-called atheists lie by claiming that they are atheists, and it is entirely silly for lack of positive evidence.

8)

Actually what I'm saying is that your particular religion is bad and doesn't teach morals. The bible says '' do not kill '' to later say '' kill anyone who works on the sabbath '' and that's just one example of many, rape, slavery, it's all allowed in the bible if you follow certain ''rules''. My ''religion'' doesn't teach me what to do, unlike yours.

Yes it does. You did things this week. You avoided certain activities and pursued others. You followed certain behavioral constraints perhaps by habit, joy, or fear of punishment.

When doing all of these things you are operating within a framework of motivations, goals, and desires. At the bottom of that framework the foundation is your core motivations the essence of you aka your religion.

Now you may or may not know what your religion is. Many people never examine their own foundations. Many others pay lip service to an idea while in reality building their life upon an entirely different or even contradictory foundation. The reality is the foundation not the words.


This is a reasonable line of questioning. However, an honest examination requires you not pick out individual verses in religious text you agree or disagree with but to look at the entire arc of human history.

First you have to define morals which in itself is not a trivial matter.

Then you need to examine slavery how and why you can define it as morally wrong and how humanity developed the awareness that has mostly abolished it.

You need to examine the long terms effects of various religions on human societies over time and the true impact these have on health and progress.

You need to closely and honestly look at societies that have changed their religion and replaced it with new religions. I would suggest a look at German, Russian, and Chinese history over the last 100 years as particularly instructive.

Having looked at the world to the best of my limited ability using the above approach I strongly disagree with your quote above but that is mostly irrelevant. You need to decide for yourself.

It is very simple. Atheism can't be classified as a religion, because it is not a religion. For example, let's take the issue of mental disease. A lot of people in the world suffer from mental disease such as schizophrenia. Do we need to create a classification for people who don't have schizophrenia? I don't think so.

You remind me of those people that want to have unlimited gender identities. You are basically giving the word religion such a broad meaning that you might as well just not use it.

Are you trying to say that you can't look up the definition of religion? Are you trying to say that you can only find one little part of the definition? The definition is pretty broad. All you need do is look it up in dictionaries and encyclopedias.

8)

We are going through a cultural phase where attempts to redefine language often take priority over a search for truth. I think religion is accurate but you can call it your essence, your core beliefs, your foundation if you prefer.  

Where the arguments against religious faith usually go astray is that they attempt to introduce an arbitrary and illogical division between faith in religion and faith in other things. They then attempt to argue against religion while totally ignoring "other faith".

Humans don't live in a vacuum. We cannot like a computer shut ourselves off and stop. We are all ongoing and actively developing entities. Rejecting a faith is never a simple matter of removing a set of beliefs. It is ALWAYS a replacement of one religion with another or if you prefer a replacement of one set of core beliefs with another. These new beliefs whatever they may be are also ultimately just another faith.

Take the hardcore nihilist. If you push him to define and defend his beliefs you will usually after some digging drill down into something like Nihilism = True or "The entirety of the universe including the creation of the universe is random." They can't prove this they simply take it on faith.  It is the core foundation of nihilism. The rock or soggy sand of nihilism if you will.

As I personally lack the wisdom to disprove nihilism the best I can do is point to the dangers in the faith direction of nihilism and hold up an alternative. Nihilism ultimately is based in apriori faith.

The nihilist are honest in their arguments and I respect them. They reject faith in God while simultaneously outlining and defining the faith they are basing their attacks from and advocating as a replacement. Most of the arguments against religion are far less honest. These illogical or dishonest arguments try to limit the conversation to simple attacks on religion without any attempt to define the belief structure they are using as an alternative. These attacks usually go something like "I just don't believe in your flying spaghetti monster and don't want to talk about what I do believe in."  These types of arguments are childish and logically unsound noise.

Questioning one's faith is ultimately a good thing. We need to be introspective and examine what we really believe in and why. If we don't we will never know if we have structured our faith on something solid or something unsound.

I define religion as anything an individual structures their life around either consciously or unconsciously.

I talked about this more here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1373864.msg35126317#msg35126317

I have seen arguments like your before af_newbie. They are often followed by statements like
Life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. There is no inherent morality, accepted moral values are abstractly contrived. The universe and everything in it is entirely random. Ultimately there is no real point to life.

I am familiar with this "religion" this this type of faith if you will. I find it unpersuasive to say the least.

Many religious texts make a lot more sense then you are giving them credit for. I have found Jordan Peterson's lecture series on that topic to be particularily insightful as he goes through one of them line by line.

Biblical Series I: Introduction to the Idea of God
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w

The purpose of life is to survive and procreate.  It is a common purpose in all life forms, including humans.

You are over analyzing it.  It is pretty simple.  People fear death and develop self coping mechanism to deal with that fear.

Have you noticed that poor and uneducated people are more religious than educated and independently wealthy.  Why is that?

Poor and uneducated have more to fear and need some hope (any myth will do) to help them cope with their problems and questions.

Saying that some bronze stone texts have any insights is like saying that Pinocchio fairy tale is a good source of engineering knowledge.

People are killing and mistreating people in the name of those religious texts.  Even today.  How can you say that slavery is a good thing?
You know it causes harm.  People who wrote these texts were psychopaths.

Many religious texts make a lot more sense then you are giving them credit for ..

The biggest sense in the bible is what?   Thou shall not kill ..Now is this because Moses said right everyone lets not kill and everyone said really good idea that Moses lets not kill each other?  OR was it by chance someone got killed like a family member and the pain made them feel so bad that others seen the effects plus they could of been the family member who as been killed and they also feel the pain?..

MOSES or the PAIN?..

So now we get back to religious text making sense ..

I will give you my Religious text from the one true creator our god the EARTH..

Do not put your hand in the fire..
Don't stick pins in your eyes..
Always bend at the knees when lifting heavy objects up ..
Never stick your head in a blender ..

The word COMMON SENSE means it's happened so many times it becomes common   SO SENSE KICKS IN..

So now you all know the 1 biggest thing that makes sense in the bible is THOU SHALL NOT KILL ..And you all needed scholars to tell you this?..

Then you got parts of the bible that just tricks your brains to keep you busy   so you have deep thought over basically NOTHING ..
Example below ..

In the far winds of the west shall there be four eyes   one with deeds of sin to cast thee into shadows ..

Now i just made that BULLSHIT UP  to get you to now start to think what the saying means WHEN really it's just bullshit to sell you my book..

But some SO CALLED SMART ASS looks to deep into shit      BULLSHIT..  Then he thinks of BULLSHIT then tells the world bullshit..

When really SHOW US THE PROOF   then even i will believe ..

Actually I am confident you are underanalyzing it.

If we drilled down into each of your points we would find we disagree on a lot.

We would disagree on the reason the poor and uneducated people are more religious than educated and independently wealthy.

We do disagree on the insights available in religious texts.

We would probably disagree on the nature, source, and definition of evil as well as the root cause of most human suffering.

I don't know where you got the idea I said slavery was a good thing so we would disagree on whatever logic you took to reach that conclusion.

If we debated each of these points to exhaustion and were both honest in our dialogue we could probably in short order trace them back to a difference in basic assumption.

I suspect that at the foundation you have accepted basic premises about the universe such as things are essentially random and that there is no ultimate purpose to life beyond the mechanical act of propagation and reproduction. Such a metaphysical foundation is not something you can prove. It is something you assume apriori your faith if you will. I on the other hand have adopted a very different apriori Truth so we disagree and that is ok.

Once you understand that our primary difference is one of faith you can better understand the pathological hatred of some extremist have on both sides of the division. Not everyone is up to a challenge to their faith. Many of us do not examine it and cannot clearly articulate it. Those most lacking in self reflection deny they have a faith. Disrupt the foundation and the entire edifice of beliefs built upon it becomes unsound. People can and often do lash out rather then face that.

Take popcorn1 for example. He is so riled up that that he is not only swearing but when he quoted my post he took the time to delete part of the link to Jordan Peterson's fantastic lecture series to make it nonfunctional. Some people simply cannot handle challenges to their faith.

Actually, the biggest reason for the Bible is to offer salvation through faith in the crucifixion death of Jesus, and His resurrection. The rest pales in comparison.

8)

You are simply taking things out of context. The laws in Exodus, which are repeated in Deuteronomy, are some of the best laws for living by in the whole world. They couldn't have been put together better.

8)

That's not a bad place to start af_newbie not at all. To answer your question maybe they were updated. Not because they were wrong, but because humanity was failing to properly grasp them.

Matthew 22:36-40
"“Master, what are we to consider the Law’s greatest commandment?”

37-40 Jesus answered him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’. This is the first and great commandment. And there is a second like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’. The whole of the Law and the Prophets depends on these two commandments.”

I will decline your invitation to debate the various religious passages as it does not interest me and would be off topic for this thread. I agree with the premise outlined by the original poster and I have laid out the logic behind that agreement up-thread.

So what is the reason that uneducated people tend to be more religious than educated people? You and badecker have to say slavery is or at least was a good thing, badecker has said that slavery was the ''best'' thing god could have done at the time.

People die because they have degenerated in many ways from the perfection of a little over 6,000 years ago. It could be called devolution.

There isn't any way to upgrade the best.

The correct version is a spiritual thing, existing between the spirit of the man and the Holy Spirit of God. The words of the Bible are only the way that mankind might work with the correct version. Lack of the words of the Bible makes the degeneration of mankind happen faster.

8)

That which is called "education" is often based in technical things that don't answer the basic needs of people... spiritual needs. The uneducated people listen to Bible readings, or read the bible if they have a little education, and are focused thereby on the things that will give them eternal life.

It's a pride thing in the educated people. Or a thing that makes them think that they are finding out what is important, when the complexity of the universe is way beyond any little education they are receiving. Educated people are often self deluding in this way.

However, the strength of spirit is the only thing that affects "more religious." Why? Because according to the complete definition of the word "religion," all people essentially live by religion, no matter the quantity or quality of their education.

8)

You are ignoring the overall effect of one major aspect of your killing idea. Consider this simple point. If you have a serial killer, who will not change, but will keep on killing if you allow him to be free, what is the right thing to do? Allow him to be free, and thereby help him in his killing? Or kill him via execution, and stop the killing by killing him.

You seem to want to run around without much deep thinking, yet at the same time you seem to want to use words that suggest you have some deep thinking. You are missing a lot.

8)

Anti-religion is a religion because it follows the definition of religion is some ways.

Atheism and anti-theism are religions because they follow the definition of religion is some ways.

Organized opposition is a religion, because it has followers who do their anti duties religiously.

See the definition of religion at http://www.dictionary.com/browse/religion?s=t, especially # 6, which shows that all people fall into the classification of religion.

8)

There are religions that don't have a deity.

Atheism is a religion that has a deity. Who is the deity? The atheist, himself is the deity. Why and how? Because he is attempting to set himself up with enough knowledge to infer that God doesn't exist on a planet around the star Sirius. So, he is claiming to know this, by knowing more than mortal mankind could know. Only a deity could know this.

Atheism is a system of attempted belief, not a system of non-belief. Atheists attempt to believe that God doesn't exist, when they couldn't possibly know it for a fact.

8)

''The uneducated people listen to Bible readings, or read the bible if they have a little education'' and believe it without any proof because they are not smart enough. That's why people with higher IQ tend to believe less in gods. It's what it is badecker, the more stupid you are the more likely you are to believe in god. Don't be mad.

And the educated atheists are so extremely far from finding enough education, that they think that they are atheists, when the most that they are is atheist hopefuls. In all their education, they can't even see the self-contradictions in the idea of atheism. Is that education? You atheist jokers have a long way to go to find reasonable education.

8)

Forget about education, we are talking about IQ which requires no previous knowledge. Smart people tend to believe less in god, educated or not. I'm sorry but it's the truth, don't be mad it's a fact.

Most of the countries classify atheism as a religion in their census. I was looking at the religion-based census tables from countries such as New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. Some of them have classified the non-religious and atheists in one category, while some others have combined it.

Actually that is not entirely accurate.

The distribution of atheist intelligence
https://voxday.blogspot.com/2014/01/mailvox-distribution-of-atheist.html?m=1
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cdWtkdMvL_w/UtaQDMOW-eI/AAAAAAAAAqI/gziuZgRHijA/s1600/Atheist+vs+Theist+IQ+distribution.png

Look, you don't have to take it personally, not you or badecker but the fact is that the smarter and more knowledgeable you are the less likely you are to believe in a god. ''Finally, the poll of scientists finds that four-in-ten scientists (41%) say they do not believe in God or a higher power, while the poll of the public finds that only 4% of Americans share this view.''  This is a huge statistical difference. Obviously there are still a lot of scientists that do believe in some god but it's not a surprise when taking in count the level of indoctrination of US. Most people in the US believe in god and indoctrinate their kids that way, it's really hard for anyone to jump out of it when everyone in your life is telling you that god is real, religion is a virus.

I can agree that it isn't 100% accurate to say  "the more stupid you are the more likely you are to believe in god." but I would argue that your chart supports the statement "That's why people with higher IQ tend to believe less in gods.". The hockey stick red line past 100 IQ (the avg IQ) is not easy to miss.

I have a problem with the chart though. Sub 70 IQ is considered dull.  Statistically, above 130 and below 70 have the same % of people (and are a statistically insignificant number of people, less than 5% total).  Why did they leave out the above 130 IQ but leave in sub 70 group, why did they only include part of the "bell"?  I surmise that they needed a big dropping red line somewhere to combat the lower intelligence = more theistic argument and found one the only place they could, in dullards...

To be fair present the proper distribution and remove the sub 72 on that chart and see what it looks like again.  This is so typical of an agenda driven presentation.  lol at using less than 2.5% population to argue anything about what is typical (read average).

It is crystal clear and supported by even your supplied skewed agenda driven chart that "people with higher IQ tend to believe less in gods."

Edit:  I read the chart like this.  As you go from dull to average (70-100) or in other words everyone below average intelligence you are more likely to be theistic.  As you go from average to genius (100-130)  or in other words above average intelligence tend to be less theistic.

This is a truly Legendary answer to this silly statement.
BTW I know a lot of atheists with whom I don't share most of my beliefs, so it is even wrong from this point of view.

I don't take it personally I am just letting you know that if the data I presented is accurate and I don't have any reason to believe it is not your statement is simply not correct.

It is technically accurate only for 50% of the population. For the other 50% the exact opposite relationship holds.


This is the correct reading with the highest probability of theistic belief's and a low probability of atheistic beliefs at an IQ of 100 = your everyday average human being.

In fact it is now classified as another religion. And the catch is that all top priests-preachers of atheism, are not atheists but occultists.

http://tomremington.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/22519481_10155908788062754_6905952353298117185_n-538x303.jpg

The only reason people with higher IQ trust less in God, is because they trust their IQ more. Then they die, and prove their IQ couldn't save them. But the resurrection will prove that God could have, if they had only believed.

8)

Or because they are smarter and it's harder to convince a smart guy with nonsense. As I said though, it's hard to snap out of it when everyone is telling you that the christian god is real just like it's hard for a muslim to ever convert into Christianity.

If you want to place a bunch of jokers who say god doesn't exist, as god above nature and your soul telling you that the God of the universe exists, that is partially your choice... and your acceptance of a lie that you know is a lie.

8)

As an atheist I agree with this.

As of the 20th century, at least, the brand of 'atheism' is most useful as a cover for crypto-{foo} practitioners.  Crypto (Latin for 'hidden') existence is a powerful tool which confers a huge advantage over those who don't practice the technique.  And if a crypto-{blah} practitioner gains control of the educational and media systems such that anyone who suspects crypto- methods is denounced as a 'conspiracy theorist' or whatever, the crypto- crowd can operate with even more safety and effectiveness.

As the decades drift by I find myself more and more convinced that 'radical transparency' is the only realistic solution to a lot of our most vexing problems (most of these brought on by the crypto- operating sleeze-bags.)  At the same time, technology has marched forward such that 'radical transparency' is not only practical, but in use.  Currently it is used by the crypto- crowd to obtain transparency into the goings on among the sheep flock classes.  But it doesn't necessarily have to be this way.

Loving this thread.
Also, if you are religious then BY DEFINITION you are an atheist, because being affiliated with a religion infers that you do not worship the deities of EVERY other religion! The only way to not be an atheist is to be agnostic towards every definition of God - which is still weak atheism. Many atheists take the stance of 'ignosticism' before deciding whether or not to believe in something, reject it, or be uncertain (agnostic). An agnostic does not advocate the existence of a particular deity nor said deity's nonexistence. An ignostic is the stance that a deity must be defined in order to have a meaningful discussion... In order to be religious you must have views on God, or some divine existence. If you include agnostics as atheists then everyone is an atheist. If you do not include agnostics as atheists then everyone who believes in their version of God is atheist towards contradicting definitions of God and everyone who discredits the existence of certain Gods is an atheist. Only people who have never heard a definition of God and decided to believe or disbelieve in any version of God could be considered non-atheists.

To skip the contradiction of theists being atheist towards most other religions, surveys use the category 'Non'. But this is also confusing because 'Non-affiliated' or 'Non-religious' change depending on how you define religion. There are spiritual people reject religion... So for the purposes of classification, atheism means 'secular': attitude/activity/etc with no religious nor spiritual basis

tl;dr - The term 'atheist' assumes that there is only one definition of God. Yet each religion has their own definition, so if you subscribe one religion then you are atheist towards most other religions' versions of God. When discussing God you can be:
1) Ignostic - asking for a definition for God
2) Agnostic - undecided as to whether a particular deity exists or not
3) Hard Atheist - rejecting the existence of a particular deity

Everyone categorizes religious-affiliation and secularism independently of these three stances because there are thousands of deities and a lack of consensus on whether any of these deities exist.

There are atheists who are undecided on the existence of particular deities (e.g. panentheist gods, simulation theory creators, noninterventionist gods, etc). And there are non-religious people who are extremely spiritual and faithful. Atheism is a range of stances towards one definition of God.

many religious people also proffessed themselves to be wise and ended up as fools or monsters, just check the echo of the iranian revolution for example.

even if you claim god/allahu akbar is this or that way you after wards ´dont know what he does what he wants or in what form he wants to be at time x, at point y, to person z

uhm jes i was in all kinds of those statusses mentally,

it all depends how you perceive the world

if you are geting born into a society that is democratic and wealthy and you are being teached in the school that there were once kings that claimed they were appointed by "god" and then surpress and terrorruled their people then you are happy not to have that and become atheistic, you even fear and oppose religion in that case as you are feeling personally threthened by it. these types of atheists exist, i also was one. it all depends on your perceived reality in the end you think what you have learned.

because the humanist survivalist atheist society seeks one thing as most important: survival, security, etc.

today you we can see the successful and wealthy development of the gulf region that was very religious all the time, their religious tolerance was useful to their development this is creating lots of doubts, among atheists,

but: even if there is a god that is almighty and intelligent beeing there is nothing saying it also doesnt has a free will it is not constant, it might leave the world just like that and leave the people alone so fix their issues.

god/gods throughtout human history or at least what i have learned to be history were never constantly reliable things.

Not sure how this maps to my post, but anyway, what about the Iranian revolution?  Seems to me that the Persian people and society in that nation are doing pretty well in spite of the Mullahs.  Relatively speaking of course.  Holding off Saddam back when he was our buddy here in the U.S. and we were supplying him chemical weapons is pretty impressive to me.  If it took suicide squads, that's what it took.  At least they were able to hold their country together and not become the failed state that our crypto-Jew government here in the U.S. tried to engineer for them.  The people of Libya were failed by their more secular leader who tried to suck 'Western' cock.

To my understanding, before we call someone "religious" it means  he has someone to believe on. Or has a supernatural master and here comes the case, atheist don't have a religious master  so they can't be called another religion. You can get them a different name but not "RELIGIOUS"

I'm just saying that statistics show that the smarter and more knowledgeable you are the less likely you are to believe in a god or any religion. Statistics don't lie.

That's because the statistics are put together by the so-called smart people, and they want to call attention to their so-called smartness. It makes them feel good, even though it will destroy them later.

Not believing in God is a rather stupid way to live.

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That's a nice sentence there but you forgot to provide evidence for it. I know it might hurt you to know that stupid people are likely to believe in god but reality is reality, you can't change it.

People believe in God because they believe in the supernatural. This gives them some hope for the future. As they say the proof that God exists then the evidence of a hundred he's not here is the answer to your question.

because an atheist don't believe in the god until proven otherwise imo, so they put they put the onus on religion to prove the existence of god or any supernatural entity. classifying atheism into other religion would make a collection of people who are doubtful & doubt cannot equate with faith so the combination would be a complete absurdity. folklores and mythological stories should always be taken with a pinch of salt. also the debate is quite interesting if religious people bring strong cases in defence.

I think that's quite a difference there. Atheists don't really say something bad against people of religion. You don't often hear them saying that people or religion are stupid or anything like that. Religious people though are very quick to judge a person if they say they don't believe in god. 😛

I know that to be true but can anyone explain to me why atheism is classified as religion? I know that theoreticly its belief in absence of god but that would make every person religious and that makes this term pretty useless

This is a difficult philosophical question, I see that various people here have been hurried to deny or confirm without a real insight into the background of the problem.
The negation of God and, on the other hand, the belief in man's absolute choice is one of the foundations of the liberal political theory.
Of course, some other values, for example, money, profit are put at the level of worshipping.
So one dogma replaces the other.
Atheism is not a religion it's anti-religion, but deeply connected with religion within negation.

First, everyone has religion. Look at the definition of religion at http://www.dictionary.com/browse/religion?s=t.

Second, Google "atheism religion" to see the various points for and against the idea that atheism is religion.

Third, a person who is simply living his life, and hasn't thought about God one way or the other very much, might barely be an atheist. It's the people who claim to be atheists, think that they know that they are atheists, and are proud of it... who are practicing atheism as a religion.

Fourth, there are no atheists. Why? Because everyone knows that he hasn't checked out every location in the universe to see if God is there. This means that all people know that God might be there somewhere. When you know something like this, that God might exist, it's very difficult to believe that He doesn't... for a fact. The thing that atheists are believing is that they can defy any potential God by standing up and stating their cause, mostly without apparent, direct retribution from such a God. Pretty bold of them, if you ask me.

Fifth, when a person is an attempted atheist as in the fourth, above, he is attempting to set himself up as god, stronger than God, by claiming things he doesn't know to be true, and by hardening his mind and heart into maintaining himself in that direction.

Sixth, this all makes atheism to not be a belief, but rather an attempt at liberalism through freedom to do whatever, starting with downplaying God in their lives.

Anyway, you get the idea of what I am talking about. If you consider atheism in depth, you will see that the greater the professing atheist, the greater the liberalism and ideals against the sense that is in nature.

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Not playing sport is not a sport. 

But being a sport by letting others play sports is :D

However, atheism is a religion by the definition of religion, and the adamant attempts of certain of the atheists to classify it as other than religion.

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How can you trust people with a god?  They act not out of morals, but out of fear of eternal torture.  Do what I say, OR BURN!

I trust the atheist - he is good because he is good.

So, you have a religion of ripping people off by trying to get them to think that atheists are good.

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As an Atheist you wouldn't have any external incentive to be good. You have ''incentives'' to not be bad, which is the law and the fact that you can get punished for it. When it comes to doing good, though, you aren't good just because god tells you or because you want to go to heaven, you are good because you are, which is far better.

An atheist is never good. First, because he is not really an atheist, and therefore a liar. But most importantly, because he does not honor God, which is the first step in the direction of good.

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I don't see why it's so important to ''honor'' God. A real god wouldn't care about us worshiping him whatsoever.

A wise person wouldn't continue to attempt to set himself up as God by claiming to know how God thinks and what He would or wouldn't do... especially when it contradicts what God says about Himself.

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while that is true, there is another element lacking why atheism cannot be considered as another form of religion. Religion is not only about belief system and organization, it should be humanity linked to a supernatural or spiritual elements. If this is lacking then we can consider your above statement as definitive of a social movement.

You underestimate nature. Try growing an arm after losing one. Try to scientifically create life in the lab from scratch. People have made a few simple robots that can "reproduce" sort of, but nothing like nature. In fact, the complexity of life is so great, that many scientists now wonder if it is even possible to have come about on earth, to say nothing about some other planet somewhere in the universe.

The point? So far, even with all our great scientific achievements, life is entirely a supernatural thing. We can't make it happen without it having been there first. Maybe all of nature is supernatural.

The greater point? If people do it, they do it by religion. Since we have such a seeming supernatural universe, atheists are the ones who are supernatural, because God is not. God is the real natural.

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Then how can you ever know that he is a god if you never can understand him? How can you worship something that you don't understand? Why trust him to be good if you don't know?

Exactly the other religions all believe in something and that belief or faith is why they are classified as religions, the same however can't be said about Atheist who don't believe in anything at all.

If you are trying to say that atheists don't believe anything at all, you are kinda dishonoring them.

Atheists are people. They have the ability to believe things, and not believe other things, just like all the other people. What are you saying? That they are some kind of inferior creature, like a stupid, dumb animal, by saying that they don't believe in anything at all?

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Turning atheism into religion will only make it pointless, I believe. The purpose of atheism is to neglect the existence of God and to defy religion, so it would make no sense to make atheism a religion. Moreover, a religion requires that you believe in a superior being. So I guess atheists can create organizations and such, but can't call it a religion.

It depends how you define belief. Blind belief is a religious must. You can however believe in things when there is enough evidence even though it's not 100% proved. Religious folks are told god exists without any proof and they simply believe it which is what makes them religious.

You seem to explaining your personal definition of "belief."

We know that earth is the tiniest fraction of a percent of the universe. And we know that nobody has examined more than the tiniest fraction of a percent of the earth. If anybody could ever believe that God didn't exist, he would be doing so with close to blind belief. So, you show us that atheism is a religion.

Some religious folks are told that God does NOT exist. They believe without proof. They are called atheists.

The fact of nature and complexity, the way they exist, shows that God exists.

What in the world are you yammering about? Are your really trying to turn the idea that atheists are not religious, into a religion?

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Dude, stop fantasizing about some God(s) your parents told you about.

You don't even know what God is, never mind showing that it exists.

Nature and complexity has nothing to do with God.  It is what it is.

In the case of God, not knowing what He is, is to be expected. How? Just like we barely know anything about the universe at all. We live in the universe, and we have seen a lot of it, yet we barely know anything about it. So, how might you even expect that we would know about the Guy Who made the universe.

In the "Scientific proof for God" thread, the proof for the existence of God is shown in many posts. The only reason why you don't understand about the existence of God is, you don't want to understand.

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