atheistliberty said,"However, Atheists have ethics, morals, and principals (sic) that guide their lives."
This proves it. Straight from an atheist's mouth. Atheism IS a religion. Let's ban the religion of atheism from influencing our government. Separation of church and state issues apply to the religion of atheism as well. So if the religion of atheism is banned from government, that means the government has to acknowledge a god, otherwise government is practicing the religion of atheism. This would default us back to the way things used to be. We wouldn't have a state or national church, but government would acknowledge again that we are a Christian nation.
Fundies are trying to get the USA separation of church and state to work against atheism as it works against theism. They confuse secularism, which is required only to not make laws for or against any stance on religion, with atheism. Generally, atheists are not calling for religion to be banned. Theists are calling for Jesus to be legislated into being. Secularism just wants the laws kept neutral.
What is a religion? Some say it is a 'way of life' or a 'life stance'. For me, this definition lacks clarity and doesn't tell the whole story.
As outlined in this wikipedia entry:
A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendent quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, God or gods, or ultimate truth. It may be expressed through prayer, ritual, meditation, music and art, among other things. It may focus on specific supernatural, metaphysical, and moral claims about reality (the cosmos and human nature) which may yield a set of religious laws, ethics, and a particular lifestyle. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and religious experience.
This is different to the soft "way of life" description. There is a lot of baggage in the name religion. Baggage that atheism doesn't carry.
Atheism is not a way of life. Atheism is nothing. On top of atheism you need to define a moral system. Humanism is a good system as a starting point. But humanism doesn't really tell us how the world works so then we look to science to describe the world around us. There is nothing dogmatic about science, when it is wrong it just accepts it and moves on. When it is right it can seem dogmatic. The difference is that a scientific theory is supported by so much evidence that many arguments against it have already failed. Science then goes on to make accurate predictions. Religion doesn't tell us how to build a plane, only fly it into a building.
I've lost direction on this post and it's late so I'm gonna put it up and fix it later. No-one reads this blog anyway so it wont make any difference. This is a topic I'm working through.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment