Freedom From Atheism

And if I believe and have faith that atheism isn't a religion, is that a religion?

 

what action is attached to it?

 

It doesnt to those who like myself understand its meaning.
The constitution applies to actions in public, not private, hence freedom of religion applies to actions in public and private is not part of the contract-trust.
Secondly you cant fill anyones heads with 'religion', you can fill them with beliefs that may or may not result in or where the associated actions result in being a religion.
The state like most states has in fact established itself as a religion contrary to organic law.

 

if your beliefs and faith are limited to science then science is your god.

does believing that people drive to work on monday in any way require a determination of conscience, qualitative or moral concern? If it does it may qualify, you tell me.

 

Doesn't any strong belief require a determination of conscience? You can't argue that your beliefs don't alter who you are, even though we don't normally think of beliefs such as these as changing who we are. Obviously they must, though. And who I choose to be is always a matter of conscience. So I guess I am making a moral decision to believe that people will drive to work on Monday rather than choosing to believe they won't, or choosing to believe I can't know if they will or not. Which is the most honest position is a moral matter.

Would you say there's any fundamental difference between practicing a faith in God and not practicing faith in God? Obviously there must be, or we wouldn't want freedom from atheists, right? Therefore, since everyone is technically religious, we still need a different word to distinguish those who have faith in God from those who don't. Or we could, reasonably, say that having faith in God is what makes people religious and not just putting strongly held faith into action. Especially since, in practice, being religious has come to mean having faith in God. Really you're trying to change the definition as the vast majority of people understand it, but I bet if you had it your way the only "truly" religious people would be those who have faith in God.

Otherwise it's a great equalizer, isn't it? If I'm as religious as you, but believe different things, I'm still as religious as you. And how can you say that being religious in one way is superior to being religious in another way when you yourself are only practicing religion? I think you're being disingenuous, because you're setting up atheists to believe they are religious, when we all know that word has the connotation of believing in God. There would be really no way to separate the two beliefs in the mind of an atheist if they were all to admit that they were religious, because they would constantly have to deal with people thinking they meant they have faith in God. Do you really think it's fair to set them up in such a way?

 

I am religious about psycadelics. In my experience deities come and go. None are more or less real than any other. Being creators ourselves. Most people have't experienced their minds capacity for imagination. To really know the power to you must experience that.

I just get pissed that my religion is illegal and a stupid debate exists because other religions can't fucking let go. They have to have everything their way all the fucking time.

Beliefs are dangerous!

 

I'm not quite sure what you're asking but if you mean what could you do with that belief to promote it as a religion, then obviously just what other religions do now.
Start a big campaign to say atheism isn't a religion.No doubt one could even coin some kind of name for it.

 

Talking to people like you.

 

Not sure what you're trying to get at here. I accept that there is such a thing as solipsism, and regard it as erroneous, so I'd say that I don't accept it as "valid" at all. I think metaphysics is a useful enterprise of providing conceptual frameworks for interpreting the facts around us. I think "supernatural" is what we call phenomena for which we haven't yet discovered a "natural" explanation. I tend to follow Hume's advice in preferring natural to supernatural explanations of phenomena, since belief in extraordinary happenings requires extraordinary evidence. Since I regard God as the source of the laws of physics. I suppose God can be considered to be "supernatural". in the sense of being prior to or "outside" the natural order (at least analytically)..

 

So then you accept both metaphysics and the supernatural as a platform for drawing or coming to rational reasoned conclusions.

I would argue that one deals with things theological and the other with things secular, otherwise no difference.

Belief in extraordinary happenings requires extraordinary evidence is a nice catch phrase and this is a good read on its meaning:

The problem of course is that we in the western world have atheists at the helm enforcing their beliefs on the rest of the world in several venues, typically some form painted as humanist secularism.

Since people who dissent are punished and destroyed through their methods we get right back to the op, how do we free ourselves from the atheists?

 

How are theists being "punished and destroyed" by atheists? How are we "enforcing" our beliefs? From what do you need freeing?

I look around and I see a planet utterly dominated by religion and superstition, even in the halls of power of a supposedly secular nation.

 

I guess their religion teaches them to hate us.....and want to rid themselves of us.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-religion-atheists-idUSBRE9B900G20131210

In 13 countries around the world, all of them Muslim, people who openly espouse atheism or reject the official state religion of Islam face execution under the law, according to a detailed study issued on Tuesday. And beyond the Islamic nations, even some of the West's apparently most democratic governments at best discriminate against citizens who have no belief in a god and at worst can jail them for offences dubbed blasphemy, it said. The study, The Freethought Report 2013, was issued by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), a global body uniting atheists, agnostics and other religious skeptics, to mark United Nations' Human Rights Day on Tuesday. "This report shows that the overwhelming majority of countries fail to respect the rights of atheists and freethinkers although they have signed U.N agreements to treat all citizens equally," said IHEU President Sonja Eggerickx. The study covered all 192 member states in the world body and involved lawyers and human rights experts looking at statute books, court records and media accounts to establish the global situation.

A first survey of 60 countries last year showed just seven where death, often by public beheading, is the punishment for either blasphemy or apostasy - renouncing belief or switching to another religion which is also protected under U.N. accords. But this year's more comprehensive study showed six more, bringing the full list to Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. In others, like India in a recent case involving a leading critic of religion, humanists say police are often reluctant or unwilling to investigate murders of atheists carried out by religious fundamentalists.

Across the world, the report said, "there are laws that deny atheists' right to exist, revoke their citizenship, restrict their right to marry, obstruct their access to public education, prevent them working for the state...." Criticism of religious faith or even academic study of the origins of religions is frequently treated as a crime and can be equated to the capital offence of blasphemy, it asserted.

The IHEU, which has member bodies in some 50 countries and supporters in many more where such organizations are banned, said there was systematic or severe discrimination against atheists across the 27-nation European Union. The situation was severe in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Malta and Poland where blasphemy laws allow for jail sentences up to three years on charges of offending a religion or believers.

In these and all other EU countries, with the exception of the Netherlands and Belgium which the report classed as "free and equal," there was systemic discrimination across society favoring religions and religious believers. In the United States, it said, although the situation was "mostly satisfactory" in terms of legal respect for atheists' rights, there were a range of laws and practices "that equate being religious with being American." In Latin America and the Caribbean, atheists faced systemic discrimination in most countries except Brazil, where the situation was "mostly satisfactory," and Jamaica and Uruguay which the report judged as "free and equal."

Across Africa, atheists faced severe or systemic violations of their rights to freedom of conscience but also grave violations in several countries, including Egypt, Libya and Morocco, and nominally Christian Zimbabwe and Eritrea.

 

But let's not forget that many atheists and nearly all agnostics are not in any way militant.

 

I am not militant...I hate any extremists forcing their whatevers on anyone......ok...I hate that action..maybe not them,....but maybe I do hate them...when it gets into extreme behaviors........that really cause people harm.

 

Nonmilitant?

I could swear that I posted this well known atheist





His mother wanted him to go to school and become indoctrinated with religion, instead he studied marx and as I said we all know how he turned out.

Maybe I just had a brain fart and thought I posted it.

Atheists are responsible for over 100 million dead compared to all the religious wars combined which hardly reaches 100 thousand.

Militant is force by any method, including a legislative pen.

 

freedom of conscience?

So then atheists finally admit that atheism is in fact a religion.

 

I'm genuinely curious Mr. Writer.
Do you make a distinction between the idea/concept/existence of God and religion/the antics of it's practitioners?

I ask because often in these threads you counter the concept of God with the stupid shit humans do in god's name.
there is a difference between the two.

If God exists, it existed before we came up with religion to try to define it.
so why get so hung up on all the secondary bullshit instead of looking into the actual thing if Gods existence is the question?
it's like studying the sun by only looking at shadows.

BUT if your concern is primarily with the asinine shit humans do, I fully understand that, just realize all the stupid shit we do doesn't negate nor prove if God exists, it's just asinine behavior.

do you consider yourself an atheist and if so is it because you fully do not believe in the existence of "God" or is it because the antics of religious practitioners disgusts you?

 

So what? Who has said otherwise?