Why is Atheism not a religion?

Question

It's rooted in secular humanism (which is a religion) and atheist claim to have "faith" in something other than God... so why is it not a religion?

FYI... Secular humanism was declared a "religion" by the Supreme Court in the early 1960's.

Excellent points to consider "eigelhorn" concerning dogma, scriptures, and leadership

I'm inclined to agree with you "biblestuden07"... actions often speak for themselves. Good point!

Answer 1

Even if the athiest says it isnt a religion. Their action proove that it is. Just think. Your question really prooves it is a religion becasue look how all the athiest come running to the defence of athiesm, just like we christian run to the defence of the gospel.

Answer 2

I also don't believe in unicorns, is that a religion? And I don't believe in faeries, or elves, or leprechauns. Does that give me another three 'religions'?

Secular humanism was not 'declared a religion' by the Supreme Court. That is absolutely ridiculous.
I assume you're talking about Justice Black's obiter dictum from 1961, right? Well this was in reference to a case in which a specific organisation, the Fellowship of Humanity, was considered to fall within the definition of a religion in the context of a specific piece of legislation.
I draw your attention to a statement made in the case Peloza v. Capistrano School District (1994) that "[...] neither the Supreme Court, nor this circuit, has ever held that evolutionism or secular humanism are 'religions' for Establishment Clause purposes."

The fact that you consider it to even be possible for the Supreme Court to 'declare' something a religion, shows that you really don't understand the concept of statutory interpretation.

Answer 3

I think you are terribly confused. First of all, Secular humanism is a philosophy, not a religion. This is obvious because secular humanists are not required to worship anything or anyone. (Although most secular humanists are atheists, the great majority of atheists are not secular humanists.) Secondly, atheists avoid using words like "faith," or "belief" because those words imply accepting a proposition as true without substantiating evidence. Atheism is a philosophy and not a religion because nothing must be accepted without proof and because atheists are not required to worship an imaginary deity.

For the record, I must again repeat that it is logically impossible to prove a negative. This means the burden is on believers to prove that their deity exists. Atheists have no logical obligation to prove God does not exist.

Answer 4

Atheism is simply the belief that there is no god. That, in itself, does not amount to a religion.

If you want to make that kind of label stick, you have to select atheist philosophies, and they don't all adhere to the same philosophies. We may legitimately say that Marxism had all the properties of a religion. We may argue that many of the modern secularists have a religious zeal.

We can do those things, but we must be very specific. Atheism, itself, is not a religion. It's too small a belief. You have to select an entire philosophy to target, and there are many atheist systems, not just one.

Answer 5

The claim that "secular Humanism," whatever that may be, is a "religion" is false.

In 1961, the case *Torcaso v. Watkins* was heard in the Supreme Court. The court found unanimously in favor of Torcaso, a decision in defense of your freedom of religion from having one forced on you by government.

Justice Hugo Black affirmed that there are belief systems deserving of the rights given to religious bodies whether or not they assert the existence of a God. That is, for example, they should be able to conduct weddings.

The judge listed some examples to illustrate his point. He included Buddhism, etc. Here are his actual words:

"Among the religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism, and others."

That footnote is just a dictum, which has no legal force, a point which apparently escapes the comprehension of the fundies who claim a footnote dictum by one judge somehow establishes "secular Humanism" as a religion.

Who knows why Justice Black attached the adjective "secular" to "Humanism," a word in use since the Renaissance. But whatever it means, the term "secular Humanism" was picked up by the fundies to beat up on Humanism with.

So the fundies gave a lot of free publicity to this so-called "secular Humanism."

In 1979, the editor of THE HUMANIST lost his job and decided to start a new movement of his own, and he was astute enough to hitch a ride on all that free publicity provided by the ranting of fundies. That's how "secular Humanism" was born, organized in 1980.

A mistake of the fundies is their presumption that morality somehow depends on belief in a supernatural God - and it's always *their* God, of course. This is sheer ignorance. "Religion" is about binding of people to each other, or to whatever they believe in. It is not about the existence of anything supernatural. The binding is the point, from the Latin *ligare*.

So Humanism is not about either asserting or denying the existence of any God. This is specifically made clear in the 1973 "Humanist Manifesto 2". Humanism is not a metaphysical system but an *ethical* system through which we can rise above and beyond the beliefs and dogmas of past religions - and above and beyond denying their assertions. Humanism is about what is human.

Atheism is another ball of wax. Humanism and atheism are quite separate.

You refer to people claiming to have "faith" in something. Well, there is nothing particularly noble or desirable about having "faith" in anything. The idea that faith is in and of itself a good thing is pure propaganda from institutions with an agenda. Plenty of thoughtful people such as Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson and Percy Bysshe Shelley have seen through this scam, and pointed out that faith is a really bad idea. Humanity makes progress through skepticism, not through faith.

Answer 6

Atheists do not have faith. We LACK faith. Just like cold is not a force or form of energy, it is a lack of it. To say that cold is a force is as misdirected as saying atheism is a religion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion
A religion is a set of beliefs and practices generally held by a community, involving adherence to codified beliefs and rituals and study of ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and mystic experience. The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction.

Atheists do not have rituals, mythologies, or mystical experiences. Atheists do not pray or worship any diety in hopes that it will intervene on our behalf, and those that do are not true atheists. We don't believe in channelers, card readers, psychics, prophecies, miracles, gods, saviors, messiahs, Santa Claus, or fairies.

It would be accurate to call atheism a belief system. Chess players have a belief system about which openings and defences are the strongest, but it wouldn't be accurate to call every belief system a religion.

Answer 7

As a philosophical view, atheism is the belief in the nonexistence of gods,[1] or the rejection of theism.[2] In the broadest sense, it is the absence of belief in the existence of gods.[3]

The term atheism originated from the Greek ἄθεος (atheos), which was derogatively applied to anyone thought to believe in false gods, no gods, or doctrines that stood in conflict with established religions. With the spread of freethought, skeptical inquiry, and subsequent increase in criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope. The first individuals to self-identify as "atheist" appeared in the 18th century; today, about 2.3% of the world's population describes itself as atheist, while a further 11.9% are described as nontheist.[4]

Atheists may share common skeptical concerns regarding supernatural claims, citing a lack of empirical evidence for the existence of deities. Common rationales include the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, and the argument from nonbelief. Other arguments for atheism range from the philosophical to the social to the historical.

In Western culture, atheists are frequently assumed to be irreligious or unspiritual.[5] However, religious and spiritual belief systems such as forms of Buddhism that do not advocate belief in God or gods, have been described as atheistic.[6] Although some atheists tend toward secular philosophies such as humanism,[7] rationalism, and naturalism,[8] there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

Answer 8

Who pronounced Atheism is a faith? Atheism isn't a faith. Come accurately...''Atheists are the girls and adult men human beings who don't have faith something without suitable info''. Who worried approximately them or their concern or their standards? First, there is not any atheists right here in india. Atheists are greater in christianity, and contained in the western international locations. There are as many motives for being an atheist as there are atheists: the line to atheism has a tendency to be very very own and individual, based upon the concentrated circumstances of a character’s life, stories, and attitudes. whether, this is a possibility to describe some commonplace similarities which tend to be customary between particularly purely some atheists, particularly atheists in the West. this is a stunning question; regrettably, it isn’t rather basic to respond to. Many atheists discover their physique of techniques to disbelief via way of technology. Over the centuries technology has come to contemporary motives of sides of our word that have been as quickly as the unusual component to religion. considering that scientific motives have been greater effective than non secular or theistic motives, the aptitude of religion to call for allegiance has weakened. hence, some persons have come to honestly reject now no longer maximum effective faith, yet additionally thought contained in the life of a god. For them, gods are ineffective as a proof for any functionality of the universe and supply no longer something worth investigating. have you ever ever heard of 'sensible atheists'? this is a form utilized via some non secular theists to describe a large number of those theists who technically experience in a god, besides the indisputable fact that who behave immorally. the assumption is that ethical habit follows quickly from genuine theism, subsequently immoral conduct is an rather end results of now no longer rather believing. Theists who behave immorally have have been given to particularly be atheists, in spite of what they think approximately.

Answer 9

Etymology: Middle English religioun, from Anglo-French religiun, Latin religion-, religio supernatural constraint, sanction, religious practice, perhaps from religare to restrain, tie back -- more at RELY
1 a : the state of a religious b (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
2 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
3 archaic : scrupulous conformity : CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
- re·li·gion·less adjective

Answer 10

Neither atheism or secular humanism are religions, since religions require belief in the supernatural, require a god figure of some sort, and require a set of dogma. Neither of these qualify.

Answer 11

Atheists do not claim to have "faith" in anything. They claim that the facts rule, not fiction. And not all Atheists are humanists. Humanism is NOT a religion. Religions require a god. Which is why Buddhists are sometimes denied the term "religion" because it has no god.