# Define Religion and Atheism.
**URL:** https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370
**Category:** Religion and Spirituality
**Created:** [December 28, 2012, 5:37am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370 "2012-12-28T05:37:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@bobgo](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/bobgo)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/21 "2013-01-01T14:48:51Z")
> [@James S Saint](#):
>
> > [@bobgo](#):
> >
> > in reality nobody is able to know the Truth.
>
> You know that is the truth, do you?
Not even that.
Also that affirmation is an act of faith, that comes from the Faith in Truth.
A necessary act, however, because if someone knew the Truth, it should be objective. And in the case of an objective Truth I would not exist!
I am, because I am free (free will), and I am free, because there is not any objective Truth.
If there was something of absolutely true the universe would collapse.
And this can already have happened too…
---
### Author:  [@Mr\_Reasonable](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Mr_Reasonable)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2013, 7:24pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/22 "2013-01-01T19:24:16Z")
> [@emptiness](#):
>
> I hope for peace.
Then don’t claim certainty about things you can’t be certain of while pointing guns at people.
---
### Author:  [@emptiness](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/emptiness)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2013, 8:10pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/23 "2013-01-01T20:10:35Z")
Now that would just be plain foolish, everyone knows that rationality has a bigger gun.
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### Author:  [@Mr\_Reasonable](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Mr_Reasonable)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2013, 8:24pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/24 "2013-01-01T20:24:19Z")
You mean the capitalists who use that sort of money oriented rationalization of morality that allows them to afford all those big nuclear bombs and submarines and planes an stuff?
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### Author:  [@Jayson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Jayson)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2013, 8:47pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/25 "2013-01-01T20:47:41Z")
> [@bobgo](#):
>
> > [@Jayson](#):
> >
> > Yes, but they must be the rigid assertion to be the pillars by which the blending by those like yourself is possible by reflection of their idealized absolution.
> > They are the walls to which the space is made between.
> >
> > I will always be found to admire a rigid adherence.
> > It is good that such is represented, so that it is known what it is in purity.
>
> I think that it is necessary by now to reach the heart of the “rigid assertion”.
>
> It is not the time anymore for objective truths, because nothing of objective can be really the Truth.
> We have to reach the heart of the Faith. That is not faith in something of objective.
>
> Which is the only necessary faith indeed?
>
> It is Faith in Truth!
>
> This is the only essential pillar.
>
> Truth that appears in our world as nothing.
> But it is through this faith that I become aware of my Transcendence.
A rigid assertion is one that asserts an unverifiable matter to an absolute measure.
For instance, another way this is said in other fields of life would be, “a strict vegetarian”.
It’s not about truth, and if we accept that there are no objective truths then we shouldn’t mind people asserting that they hold a truth, even if to them it is a universal absolute for everyone.
Instead of being about truth, it’s about knowing, for instance, what is in its purist form due to the strict adherent’s (who make rigid assertions) existence.
---
### Author:  [@emptiness](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/emptiness)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2013, 10:02pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/26 "2013-01-01T22:02:12Z")
No, no, no. We are not capitalist, we are democratic.
Please remember that the war is between Athens and Jerusalem.
There is no need to throw in a third party.
The ram and goat is enough, no need to add a pig — let us avoid WWIII.
---
### Author:  [@Mr\_Reasonable](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Mr_Reasonable)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2013, 4:06am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/27 "2013-01-02T04:06:27Z")
One side of every distinction there is is more aligned with one side of every other distinction that is it with the other.
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### Author:  [@Twilight\_of\_the\_Idol](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Twilight_of_the_Idol)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2013, 1:58pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/28 "2013-01-04T13:58:42Z")
> [@bobgo](#):
>
> Religions are a remedy to the existential anguish.
> Atheism is the refusal of the remedy.
>
> Religions pretend to know a transcendent truth.
>
> However, religion and atheism are founded upon the same belief.
> In fact both believe in the becoming.
>
> For them it is existent only what it is now here, while what was or it will be it does not exist, but it existed or it will exist.
> For them the Becoming creates and destroys the Being.
>
> The moment has come to put this in discussion.
I love this post.
---
### Author:  [@Moreno](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Moreno)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2013, 4:16am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/29 "2013-01-05T04:16:51Z")
> [@bobgo](#):
>
> Not even that.
> Also that affirmation is an act of faith, that comes from the Faith in Truth.
>
> A necessary act, however, because if someone knew the Truth, it should be objective. And in the case of an objective Truth I would not exist!
> I am, because I am free (free will), and I am free, because there is not any objective Truth.
>
> If there was something of absolutely true the universe would collapse.
>
> And this can already have happened too…
i dunno but this seems very cake and eat it too when it comes after…
> [@](#):
>
> in reality nobody is able to know the Truth.
---
### Author:  [@Moreno](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Moreno)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2013, 4:27am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/30 "2013-01-05T04:27:56Z")
> [@Abstract](#):
>
> and discuss.
Right off, I don’t think religion and atheism are antonyms. Theism and atheism would be.
Religion seem to refer to an organized set of practices, texts, social relations and beliefs with some fundamental explantion of ontology that may be intended to be accepted by all members, but in fact they need only accept some portion of the practices, texts, social relations that are connected to this ontology. They can have all sorts of motives for being members.
Atheism refers to the state of not being a theist. There are two stated varieties of this, one with a belief there is no God, the other simply lacking a belief. The latter could be called ‘the unconvinced’ the former ‘convinced au contraire’.
One can be both religious and atheist. I know many Jews who are like this, for example. Many Buddhists, and mystics in many religions, including Hinduism, can be both, though many other Hindus might challenge their claim to be Hindus, but the mystical utterances of some Hindus, it seems to me, paint a picture of an ultimate reality that has very little to do with Abrahamic conceptions of a deity. More like a universe of conscious quantum foam.
One can also be an anti-religion theist.
You can have religious agnostics and agnostic atheists.
I think the term religion should take in systematic set of practices, social actions and beliefs that include (somewhere near the center) textural (scriptural) claims about the ultimate nature of reality. So, not necessarily at all must a religion be theist.
---
### Author:  [@Moreno](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Moreno)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2013, 5:03am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/31 "2013-01-05T05:03:29Z")
> [@Jayson](#):
>
> It’s not about truth, and if we accept that there are no objective truths then we shouldn’t mind people asserting that they hold a truth, even if to them it is a universal absolute for everyone.
It seems to me this conclusion, that there are no objective truths, is built on axioms and conclusions that are held to be objective and universal. You know that the universe, perception, human knowers or believers are X,Y and Z and therefore anyone’s claim of objective truth is ruled out as possibly correct.
Note: I am not saying the claim of yours above (or claims) are claims to complete knowledge of the universe, perception, etc. Just that it is/they are objective claims about whatever facets of these things they claim to cover.
---
### Author:  [@felix\_dakat](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/felix_dakat)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2013, 6:48am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/32 "2013-01-05T06:48:43Z")
> [@](#):
>
> However, religion and atheism are founded upon the same belief.
> In fact both believe in the becoming.
>
> For them it is existent only what it is now here, while what was or it will be it does not exist, but it existed or it will exist.
That isn’t necessarily true. Eternalism takes the view that all points in time are equally “real”, as opposed to the presentist idea that only the present is real.
---
### Author:  [@bobgo](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/bobgo)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2013, 10:26pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/33 "2013-01-05T22:26:25Z")
> [@felix dakat](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > However, religion and atheism are founded upon the same belief.
> > In fact both believe in the becoming.
> >
> > For them it is existent only what it is now here, while what was or it will be it does not exist, but it existed or it will exist.
>
> That isn’t necessarily true. Eternalism takes the view that all points in time are equally “real”, as opposed to the presentist idea that only the present is real.
You are right.
I have done a simplification. However, also eternalism is a remedy to the becoming. It is a remedy, to me, because nobody can really avoid believing to exist in the present only.
What I would like to observe, however, it doesn’t concern so much the becoming by itself but the Truth.
The becoming is in fact only a case among the so many.
Another case can be the objectiveness in itself.
It is the believing that something exists of absolutely True, that needs a remedy. And the remedy… is another Truth to be contrasted to the first one.
It needs a remedy, because the absolute one cannot be in the relative one (our world). In this way we must force it.
Every time we reach the limits of our world, that is when we find us in a situation that shakes us in the depth, we may warn that everything still has to be definite: nothing is absolutely true. And that it is only up to us to choose, without the support of any objective truth.
And choosing… we become ourselves.
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### Author:  [@Jayson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Jayson)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2013, 12:48am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/34 "2013-01-06T00:48:53Z")
> [@Moreno](#):
>
> > [@Jayson](#):
> >
> > It’s not about truth, and if we accept that there are no objective truths then we shouldn’t mind people asserting that they hold a truth, even if to them it is a universal absolute for everyone.
>
> It seems to me this conclusion, that there are no objective truths, is built on axioms and conclusions that are held to be objective and universal. You know that the universe, perception, human knowers or believers are X,Y and Z and therefore anyone’s claim of objective truth is ruled out as possibly correct.
>
> Note: I am not saying the claim of yours above (or claims) are claims to complete knowledge of the universe, perception, etc. Just that it is/they are objective claims about whatever facets of these things they claim to cover.
Of course it’s an axiom.
That’s why it reads, “If we accept that there are no objective truth’s then…”
And this was in context to a post by Bobgo who was making the claim that no one could know a universal truth, “It is not the time anymore for objective truths, because nothing of objective can be really the Truth.”
To which, I granted as the axiom so to convey the point aside from debating over the useless squabble of whether there are or are not universal truths.
And that point was that IF (key word) we accept (axiom) that there are no objective truths, then we (while accepting this axiom) shouldn’t mind claims to objective truths as they are equally valid subjective truths under this axiom.
---
### Author:  [@Moreno](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Moreno)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2013, 1:24am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/35 "2013-01-06T01:24:04Z")
> [@Jayson](#):
>
> Of course it’s an axiom.
> That’s why it reads, “If we accept that there are no objective truth’s then…”
Ah OK.
I took it as ‘If we accept X…’ which we or at least I do. Given the later us them in your post. More rhetorical than deductive. Got it.
> [@](#):
>
> And this was in context to a post by Bobgo who was making the claim that no one could know a universal truth, “It is not the time anymore for objective truths, because nothing of objective can be really the Truth.”
>
> To which, I granted as the axiom so to convey the point aside from debating over the useless squabble of whether there are or are not universal truths.
> And that point was that IF (key word) we accept (axiom) that there are no objective truths, then we (while accepting this axiom) shouldn’t mind claims to objective truths as they are equally valid subjective truths under this axiom
[/quote]
I get it now, sorry. And nicely put.
yes, if it is a subjective truth that there are no objective truths
it doesn’t function as an argument (at least a good one) against someone else asserting X is objectively the case.
it’s more like an assertion of not being convinced. (here’s my belief again)
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### Author:  [@Jayson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Jayson)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2013, 2:19am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/36 "2013-01-06T02:19:21Z")
Not so much about convinced or not: it’s more about whether it makes sense to condemn those who claim an objective truth if the condemnation is coming from a vantage point claiming that only subjective truth is the state of truths.
I can’t rationalize the idea of such because at the very least, the only thing being condemned is a subjective truth, which is odd since subjective truths were just condoned as permissible.
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### Author:  [@Tralix](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Tralix)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2013, 2:31am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/37 "2013-01-06T02:31:27Z")
Religion is science and atheist is sorcery. There I defined them.
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### Author:  [@Jayson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Jayson)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2013, 2:36am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/38 "2013-01-06T02:36:58Z")
Was that a sarcastic conveyance of a rhetorical sneer regarding the futility in definitions of human categorization?
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### Author:  [@Tralix](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Tralix)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2013, 3:27am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/39 "2013-01-06T03:27:41Z")
> [@Jayson](#):
>
> Was that a sarcastic conveyance of a rhetorical sneer regarding the futility in definitions of human categorization?
Not exactly although I can see why you think it might be and you would be right I think to do so; it’s more a dig at some posters on this thread, and or the thread in general. But I am prepared to go further and explain why I said that if anyone is remotely interested. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Jayson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Jayson)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2013, 11:13pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/define-religion-and-atheism/35370/40 "2013-01-06T23:13:32Z")
I’d be interested, sure.
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