Atheism

I think you're probably right.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Sure.

I take it you mean adjective, and yes atheist can probably be used as an adjective as well.

I've seen it written in a few books and articles, and I didn't think it was an actual dictionary word. It seems that you can informally make anything an adjective by arbitrarily adding "ic" as a suffix to any word.

Yeah, I meant adjective. (I suppose you could make it a pronoun, if you wanted to be really disrespectful by calling someone "Atheist" as if it was their name)

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
I've seen it written in a few books and articles, and I didn't think it was an actual dictionary word. It seems that you can informally make anything an adjective by arbitrarily adding "ic" as a suffix to any word.

Yeah, I meant adjective. (I suppose you could make it a pronoun, if you wanted to be really disrespectful by calling someone "Atheist" as if it was their name)

Shows up on dictionary.com. Honestly though, English dictionaries record usage they don't dictate it. The "ic" suffix is much clearer.

"An atheist man" could be a man with the characteristics of an atheist but it probably just a man who is an atheist. "An atheistic man" is clearly a man with just the characteristics.

Originally posted by Digi

Sadly, the biggest determining factor in what anyone is religiously.

We are pretty awesome.

313

i know, thinking about it just pisses me off.

and yes, you guys are 👆

digi ID like an example of the bIble is full of paganism or god being evil. you cant, because hit false none of what you said is biblical. prove me wrong by showing whha you can

Originally posted by long pig
digi ID like an example of the bIble is full of paganism or god being evil. you cant, because hit false none of what you said is biblical. prove me wrong by showing whha you can

I thought you were joking. I don't mind taking you up on the challenge, but I prefer to save my efforts for those who are being serious, not doing it for the lulz. My time on KMC is far more limited than it once was...I have to choose my battles.

I think Atheism is a religion.

A religion of disbelief.

Originally posted by AsbestosFlaygon
I think Atheism is a religion.

A religion of disbelief.

But it's clearly not, though people might follow it "religiously". Atheism is just a single belief, or a particular lack of belief.

There are no rituals. There are no claims about the origin of the universe. There are no prescribed morals. There is no stated purpose to the universe.

Atheists will have most, or all, of those things but they tend to come from places like Secular Humanism, Utilitarianism, Libertarianism, Egoism, Deontology, Nationalism and so on.

I mean mathematics is closer to a religion than atheism is at least it's a whole system of beliefs.

You could argue that Atheism is a belief system like Theism is.

except there is no centralized "system."

Originally posted by Deadline
You could argue that Atheism is a belief system like Theism is.

How can you have a belief system without a system? It's like saying that my sink is a "plumbing system". Not, its one element of a the system.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
How can you have a belief system without a system? It's like saying that my sink is a "plumbing system". Not, its one element of a the system.

Its like this, people have said that Theism is a belief system because believing in god leads to other beliefs and actions eg heaven, hell, judgement etc. You could say the same thing for Atheism no afterlife, no judgement etc.

Well, I'd argue that atheism isn't a belief system, and that theism isn't either. Christianity (or it's many subgroups) is a belief system, so is Islam, etc.

Originally posted by Deadline
You could argue that Atheism is a belief system like Theism is.

if that were true, then there would be a system of beliefs, that I, sym, ordo, digi, Bardock, etc all ascribe to.

I think you would have a lot of trouble connecting our beliefs through atheism. Materialism, Empiricism, etc, sure, those are "systems" of belief that we probably have in common and that would convey the connections in ideology we each have. Atheism, and i would argue theism (as opposed to specific religion), does not do this. Aside from simply recognizing that we each don't believe in traditional Gods, being an atheist really doesn't convey a system that people adhere to...

EDIT: which, i guess, does mean that atheism is a belief system like theism, only that neither really are

Originally posted by Deadline
Its like this, people have said that Theism is a belief system because believing in god leads to other beliefs and actions eg heaven, hell, judgement etc. You could say the same thing for Atheism no afterlife, no judgement etc.

the problem there is that, if you look at the stories people tell about their road to atheism, or even if we talk about the psychology of beliefs, atheism seems to follow the acceptance of things like empiricism and materialism, rather than preceed it.

Originally posted by inimalist
if that were true, then there would be a system of beliefs, that I, sym, ordo, digi, Bardock, etc all ascribe to.

I think you would have a lot of trouble connecting our beliefs through atheism. Materialism, Empiricism, etc, sure, those are "systems" of belief that we probably have in common and that would convey the connections in ideology we each have. Atheism, and i would argue theism (as opposed to specific religion), does not do this. Aside from simply recognizing that we each don't believe in traditional Gods, being an atheist really doesn't convey a system that people adhere to...

EDIT: which, i guess, does mean that atheism is a belief system like theism, only that neither really are

No offence but are sure you're not overcomplicating this? Athiests don't have a bible or commandments. All I'm saying is that if you don't believe in God this may make you act in a certain way eg if I don't get caught it doesn't matter or there is only one life therefore make the most of it. Now I'm not saying this is the case for everybody but its certainly possible for somebody to behave like that. Is it really neccessary to have a detailed discussion about Materialism and Empiricism?

Originally posted by inimalist
the problem there is that, if you look at the stories people tell about their road to atheism, or even if we talk about the psychology of beliefs, atheism seems to follow the acceptance of things like empiricism and materialism, rather than preceed it.

Sorry don't see how thats a problem.

Originally posted by Deadline
Its like this, people have said that Theism is a belief system because believing in god leads to other beliefs and actions eg heaven, hell, judgement etc. You could say the same thing for Atheism no afterlife, no judgement etc.

But theism isn't a belief system either, it's a particular belief ("god exists"😉. It just happens to be at the core of things like Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Norse Myth etc

Originally posted by Deadline
No offence but are sure you're not overcomplicating this? Athiests don't have a bible or commandments.

EXACTLY!

Originally posted by Deadline
All I'm saying is that if you don't believe in God this may make you act in a certain way eg if I don't get caught it doesn't matter or there is only one life therefore make the most of it. Now I'm not saying this is the case for everybody but its certainly possible for somebody to behave like that.

But atheists aren't commanded to behave like that by atheism, in fact it seems that most of them don't.

Theism doesn't imply "judgment" either by the way. Look at Calvin's concept of predestination.

In fact what is the point of the "its certainly possible for somebody to behave like that" claim. Based on that I could divine that believing in god makes you eat people because it happens to be possible for a theism to eat someone.

Originally posted by Deadline
Is it really neccessary to have a detailed discussion about Materialism and Empiricism?

If you're going to claim Atheism = Materialism and/or Empiricism then yes, I think we do need to talk about that.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
But theism isn't a belief system either, it's a particular belief. It just happens to be at the core of things like Christianity, Hinduism, Animism and so on.

Well at any rate you can have beliefs that stem from both atheism and theism.

Originally posted by Deadline
Well at any rate you can have beliefs that stem from both atheism and theism.

Absolutely. That construct is a belief system and I'd say can reasonably be called a religion if it has multiple followers. Neither theism or atheism are systems or religions on their own.