Is Atheism a form of religion?

Question

1. If you say yes, then shouldn't it be banned from school along with their Creed of Evolution? The State should not promote any form of religion. Correct?

2. If you say no, then should they not voluntarily ban themselves from this site. This is called "religion and spirituality" , after all?

Answer 1

Nero,
"Is Atheism a form of religion?"
Yes.

"1. If you say yes, then shouldn't it be banned from school along with their Creed of Evolution? The State should not promote any form of religion. Correct?"
No. I do not think that learning about different religions in public schools is a violation of Separation of Church and State.

"2. If you say no, then should they not voluntarily ban themselves from this site. This is called "religion and spirituality" , after all?"
Freedom is the issue here. The First Amendment.

Answer 2

Religion is a system of social coherence based on a common group of beliefs or attitudes concerning an object, person, unseen being, or system of thought considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine or highest truth, and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions, and rituals associated with such belief or system of thought.

So yes, so long as someone actually actively believes there is no God (as opposed to someone who just doesn't think about the subject period), they obviously share that belief with others and atheism is a religion.

And of course atheism should be excluded from schools. Teachers who can't teach Jesus walked on water can't be allowed to teach that he didn't. The Supreme Court has recognized atheism as equivalent to a "religion" for purposes of the First Amendment on numerous occasions, most recently in McCreary County v. ACLU. 125 S. Ct. 2722 (2005). The Establishment Clause itself says only that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," but the Court understands the reference to religion to include what it often calls "nonreligion."

Evolution, however, is not a creed of atheist. Many Christians and other believers see evolution as the mechanism through which God brought man into being. Evolution is a scientific theory, like the Big Bang, which happens to be the current best guess at how the world came into being and how it works. So it has no particluar religous bias. Schools used to teach that Columbus was the first European to discover the Americas, but they now teach that the Vikings reach the Americas first.

Extending your question you find the obvious crazy results. If you take a belief like Scientology, which believes aliens put humans on this planet, to be a valid religion then history teachers would basically be cut off from teaching ancient history.

Schools cannot be prohibited from teaching anything which may disagree with a religion. They can only divorce themselves from the context of religion, agnostistism or atheism, when teaching what they currently believe is the truth about the world.

Answer 3

You are trying to impose a strict mathematical logic on English terms that are vaguely defined. Notably, religion is a difficult word to define. Thankfully, we all intuitively understand what the law means when it talks about, for example, the separation of Church and State.

And Atheists can still participate in discussion about religion, regardless of whether or not you define atheism as a religion.

Now, no school that I know of teaches atheism, so I don't have any problem with you banning it. Luckily it has no prayers or obvious religious jewelry associated with it, so it makes no difference if you ban the practice of ritual atheism or whatever you are talking about.

Evolution is separate from atheism philosophically. One can certainly be an atheist who believes in evolution, or an atheist who doesn't, or a theist or deist who believes in evolution.

I hope this helps. I guess you're not looking for help, though, eh?

Answer 4

I say NO, and I'm not banning myself from anywhere. First, I'm a spiritual person (even if not religious). And it's sad to see the only kind of spirituality you recognise is religious spirituality. You must have a very poor life.

Besides, religions are invasive of all aspects of society. I'm here in self-defence.

And besides, are you voluntarily banned from all categories that don't have anything to do with you?

Answer 5

No, its not. Atheist are against religion and that is the reason they are in the religion section to refute it. This site doesn't say "religion and spirituality believers only" its for anyone who has anything to say about religion. I'm not for atheism, in fact I'm a Christian, I just don't think we have a right to say who should and should not be here. Take care and God bless.

Answer 6

I don't think it is a religion, although a lot of die-hard atheists sure do act like it is...pushing their 'beliefs' on other people as much as a lot of 'christians' do. I don't think they should be banned from this category because atheism is a sort of belief system, which falls under spirituality. Not to mention that this is open for anyone and everyone to discuss whatever they want.

Answer 7

Religion is a system of social coherence based on a common group of beliefs or attitudes concerning an object, person, unseen being, or system of thought considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine or highest truth, and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions, and rituals associated with such belief or system of thought. So yes, so long as someone actually actively believes there is no God (as opposed to someone who just doesn't think about the subject period), they obviously share that belief with others and atheism is a religion.

Answer 8

1. It is not a religion.

2. All the atheists who write in this section are writing about religion. Do you think atheists should be banned to even speak about religion? When an atheist has a question about Christianity, in what other section should he post it?

Answer 9

1. The state does not promote Athiesm.

2. Who bans themselves from this site according to what they believe?

Athiesm is not a religion, it's a school of thought.

Answer 10

Evolution is not the "creed" of atheism, you idiot.

But keep showing how miserably ignorant of the first elements of your supposed "argument" you are. And you'll get all the similarly benighted morons agreeing with you.

To answer your non-question:

YES, atheism is a form of "religion," because it's simply the reverse of theism: that is, it's a "belief" for which one cannot have any rational warrant. We can't prove OR disprove the existence of God. Therefore atheists, in saying that God doesn't exist, are taking a "leap of faith," just as so-called "religious" people are in saying that He does.

It's sheer vanity that prompts disbelief in phenomena just because they happen to lie outside the gamut of one's own personal experience, just as it's sheer credulity to believe in phenomena for which one has no demonstrable proof.

But as I said before, evolution is NOT and never has been the "creed" of atheism. Evolution theory is utterly apart and aside from any religious consideration whatever. It makes no claims on behalf of OR against religion. The fact that religious literalist nutbags have observed that the findings of evolution happen not to jibe with their fairy-tale view of the universe simply means that they're putting their eggs in the wrong interpretive basket, so to speak. Science is not out to "disprove" religion.