Church of the Athiest

The tensile strength of nothing is indefinable, thus atheism is indefinable, lacks dogma or fundamental truths and as said there is a serious challenge as to whether its a religion or ever could be.

As an example of a religion founded on few beliefs, secular humanism, before the church failed the first hit on Google was for the church of secular humanism. I was sad to see it go, but it did make no sense. Secular humanism really just is a moral philosophy.

Nope just the certainty.

If its any consolation on first reading you broke my logic bone, but in a good way. I agree, there aren’t enough logical positives to enforce a logical negative into being a logical positive by consequence.

Let’s make that Adogma 2:

Atestify, abrother!!

Atheism does not imply worship of any kind, certainly not worship of “nothing.” Is belief that unicorns don’t exist an “extant lack”? How can we differentiate “Aunicornism” from Buddhism? These are rhetorical questions.

Again Buddhism is a religion because it is a belief system/worldview. Atheism is not.

Halelujah abrother, respect the lack of a lord and join with me in a prayer to no one never. :smiley:

Ramen, and noodle be his indistinct name you fool. Gotta love pirates even if you never believed they existed or were related to global warming. Ninjas are better, hallowed be there lack of being seen, observed, or even heard of.

good FSM when anything is possible anything that is impossible is sidelined without a care for consistency. :unamused:

We agree it was only a semantic issue anyway I think we’re all on the same train now? If that’s not too much of a suggestion of fact before the evidence is in.

No I think the term “religion” is to be reserved for belief systems that include a fundamental belief in higher power (God). Secular humanism is…“secular.”

Secular humanism is a worldview/belief system. But this thread is concerned with religion and whether atheism is one. We already agree that atheism cannot be a religion. Done.

The certainty of what…?

EDIT: And atheism is not a religion on at least two counts: (1) no belief in higher power (2) no belief system
Either of these by itself is enough to disqualify atheism from being a religion.

Yes indeed, but we are presently in the act of creating within the negative space, as per my previous thought:

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All we need worship is presence. This will radically transform Xmas!!

Is Evolutionary Psychology a religion? (…not that I necessarily want to go there…)

The perniciously spurious speculation of this thread, I’d suggest, is to undergo (for the purposes of intellectual treadmilling) the process of making atheism into a religion… plenty of misguided disbelievers already do. Perhaps there’s call for guidance in that respect (on the assumption that it’s unavoidable), doused with a jerry can of sarcasm naturally… [-o<
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We agree. We have to anyway I have to go and don my ninja robes soon and speak to an imaginary crowd of imaginary adherents about a religion that does not and could not ever exist.

Short story short, there’s no way atheism is going to become a religion unless oughtist sorts out his cult and dies at a Wako like place.

Atheism is just an idea not a religion, but religion is just an idea. What distinguishes it, is that they make articles of faith into truth, an atheist cannot and will not do that, because obviously their only article of faith is up to revision if God smites them. In that sense of course it can’t become a faith unless all atheist are strong atheists, and they most certainly aren’t, some atheists couldn’t give a damn if God exists or not until there’s something to talk about, nor even want to talk about it.

Are you saying there’s hope for me yet!!! Actually, I wouldn’t want to assume actual ownership of the cult… I think Pav has copyright privileges on this thread. :laughing:

If you or he has stripper factories and beer volcanoes in the after life I’m in otherwise you can shove it. :laughing:

Right, as I already said to Sidhe, “religion” is to be reserved for belief systems that include a fundamental belief in higher power (God).

Atheism is not a religion on at least two counts: (1) no belief in higher power (2) no belief system
Either of these by itself is enough to disqualify atheism from being a religion. A religion must have both.

Hi, Fuse.

Thank you for your compliments.

Will you not be buying the DVD, then?

Just kidding, we’ve established that Atheism isn’t truly a Religion at this point, though.

In this case, you do. OK, an Atheist basically accuses a Christian of not being able to prove that God put us here, while at the same time, the Atheist himself is unable to prove (or in some cases speculate) as to how we did get here. Because the Atheist does not know how we got here, saying it has nothing to do with God is a matter of belief and faith.

Belief and faith are words that describe a specific type of thought.

Why not? I think everyone should be sales-tax exempt. Sales tax is bullshit. I’ve already been income taxed and I have no choice but to buy certain things…

Money.

There is plenty to preach. To be a very successful Atheist, you don’t just have to be able to defend against Christianity, but every Theistic Religion there is.

We’ve already been through this.

I already lost that argument.

That’s why we’re making it an NPO.

Either supply is endless or there is no supply whatsoever.

Either way, I’m glad to have you on board. I’ll tell you what, now that you are siding with me, I’ll go 20% off.

Sidhe,

You are four times more hilarious than I thought, and I already thought you were pretty funny!

Oughtist,

You have been doing a fantastic job in my absence. I’m going to make you my VP, but you have to do a better job pushing this DVD.

20% off nothing!! Come on, Pav, I may be atheist, but I still have my dignity!! I insist on paying the full tab!!!

Ok boss! Has the cover been designed yet? It’s all in the packaging, y’know. Content isn’t what I’m going to be relying on, after all.

The cover is ready to roll!

Of course we’re not relying on content, if they know what the content is that means they’ve already bought it which is all I need them for.

Of course it is a matter of belief. And let’s be clear, faith (how you are using it) just is belief. E.g.

Oxford English Dictionary
faith, n.
I. Belief, trust, confidence.
b. Belief proceeding from reliance on testimony or authority. (secondary)

The secondary meaning here is the kind of faith that is used to overcome a lack of evidence. It is a blindness overlooked. You take someone else’s word because you trust that person, not because there is any real evidence. You don’t have that with atheism.

Whatever, I do not believe in extra political benefits for religions.

Sorry. Find another way to make money…if that’s what you really want.

A successful atheist is someone who does not believe in God. An atheist may need to give reasons, but does need to defend herself against religion. You have no positive claims. “But if you’re an atheist you are saying that God did not create man/the world/etc.” Fine, then be agnostic. This is small potatoes. Religion has to defend itself from atheism.

Do you really think “preaching” to the religious is going to make them change their entire belief system? Do you like when theists preach to you? You want to become like them in this respect?

No one likes to be lectured into changing their opinion, much less all their beliefs about the world. Most people will resist. Almost all of us did that with our parents. I am sure this isn’t the way to go.

Preaching is, in the end, just stand-up. People pay good money to listen to Stand-ups. The Atheist preacher is blatantly a Stand-up. Ex-sistence is a Stand-up. People LOVE for their existence to be put into question, so long as it’s done with a light heart and no serious agenda intended. Minds have been changed by laughter. Good can be done through humour!! Ideas, even, can be originated through the cognitive break that is comedy. Religion proper, on the otherhand, is famously tragic, despite its attempts at levity and use of libations. So, no downers allowed! :stuck_out_tongue:

This is comedy. Anyone can make money as a comedian if your punch-lines are good enough. You don’t need to be part of a religion to make money doing comedy.

“Minds have been changed by laughter.” Sure, but entire belief systems gone? And with a subject as serious as religion? No…my “money” is against it.

I take faith to mean confidence in a belief in this case, because, Atheists are generally confident that there is not a God. That’s where your whole Pascal’s Wager thing would otherwise come into play again.

Do you believe in them for NPO’s? Because that is pretty much what a Religion is, same tax breaks, different category.

Not really. I don’t know if you read the whole OP, you probably did, but this whole thing was pretty much a joke. Not even pretty much, it just was a joke.

That depends on who the aggressor is, does it not? It seems to me that when you have people coming to your door, taking you aside, giving you pamphlets, putting books in hotel rooms, and AND practically owning the media for a time (not so much now) yeah, you’re the one on the defense.

Who said I am not a Theist? I didn’t.

I didn’t say I am an Atheist either.

Nor did I say I am Agnostic.

It may or may not make them change. Actually, nothing can make them change, an Athiest will impart information and then they decide whether or not to change. In any case, we’ll make our money off of Atheists, but if we can get more people to be Atheists, then that is more money.

Ultimately, the Chruch itself is Secondary in terms of money making, it might even take a small loss. If it does that’s fine, because one of our Merchandise Corporations can make a tax deductible donation to make up for it. We’re going to make most of our money off of Merchandising, but we need the actual Church to lend an air of legitimacy to the Merchandise.

It’ll be Ok. Even if we fail to convert one single Theist, I still think the Market is there for this venture to be profitable.