The Religion/Faith of Atheism

[kelltrill]

I've been an Atheist by definition all of my life, but I've only been an Atheist through rationalising and making an educated decision in the last couple of years. As such there are still a few aspects of religious arguments against atheism I am unfamiliar with.
What is a decent rebuttal when someone tells you that Atheism takes faith, or that Atheism is itself a religion? I haven't ever had this question tossed at me before and it's a topic I've never seriously considered until recently. I struggle with answering the "religion" part of that question more than the "faith" aspect, although both bewilder me to some extent.

Here are some interesting articles I found that illustrate what I mean more directly:
http://www.carm.org/religion-of-atheism
http://www.christian-faith.com/html/pag ... in_atheism

[SSY]

Religion, defined as 1.

a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.

Does not cover atheism, though, how you define it, can of course vary. Atheism is certainly a belief system, but I would not consider it a religion. When this is put forward, simply ask them to define religion and go from there.

The faith one is far easier, faith, defined as "belief without evidence" obviously does not cover atheism, as we don't believe full stop. Not believing in something you have no evidence for is the most rational, least faith based position.

Some of my favourite, cookie cutter responses are
"Atheism is a religion like "not collecting stamps" is a hobby"
Atheism is a religion like bald is a hair colour"

[Whitney]

Faith is belief in something without evidence.  Therefore, not having a belief in something can't be a faith based position.  Saying it takes faith to be an atheist is like saying it takes faith to not believe in unicorns.  

Now...defending gnostic atheists from the faith claim is a different story.  I'll let one of them try to explain that one.

[AlP]

On the question of religion, it depends on how you define it.

Religion:

1.   a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2.   a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
3.   the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.
4.   the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion.
5.   the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith.
6.   something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience: to make a religion of fighting prejudice.
7.   religions, Archaic. religious rites.
8.   Archaic. strict faithfulness; devotion: a religion to one's vow.

I think it's reasonable to argue that, by the commonly accepted definition, for something to be a religion, it has to involve a belief in god(s) or supernatural entities, ritual practices and some kind of code of conduct. There is some truth in the article on atheism as religion above. However, I think the kind of atheism that the author observed would have been better described as a social movement than as a religion.

The idea that atheists need to have faith to believing the Christian God doesn't exist is absurd. By that argument atheists must also have faith to not believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn.

[curiosityandthecat]

Whenever someone tells me atheism takes faith/is a religion/whatever, I usually grab the nearest magazine or newspaper, roll it up, hit them on the nose with it, and say, "No! BAD."

[Kylyssa]

Whenever someone tells me atheism takes faith/is a religion/whatever, I usually grab the nearest magazine or newspaper, roll it up, hit them on the nose with it, and say, "No! BAD."

I recommend keeping around a tin can filled with pennies so you can shake it to make a loud noise and startle the subject instead.

[pinkocommie]

I used to work with a really nice Mormon kid who felt that atheism was a religion and the ensuing conversation we had was pretty interesting.  Basically I feel all you can do is ask the person what their definition of 'religion' is and then go from there.  My friend, for instance, claimed that any belief pertaining to existence was a religion.  I asked him if he felt evolutionary biology was a religion and he said said no, but the fact that atheists believe that there isn't a god when it's impossible to prove specifically that god DOESN'T exist makes it a religion and not in the same category as a scientific study.  So, he was already moving the goalposts, so to speak, on his definition.  I pointed this out to him and he agreed that he had changed his definition but maintained that his position remained firm.  Then I brought up the legality of what a religion is.  I pointed out that it wasn't possible for atheist organizations to attain the same tax status as religious organizations (at least not in Washington state as far as I'm aware) and he said he thought that wasn't fair but he still maintained his position.  Finally, I asked him why he would consider atheism a religion, given that atheists can't attain the same tax exempt status as religious organizations, that the definition of religion seems to exclude atheism, and that even his atheism-inclusive definition of what a religion was seemed to fall apart instantly under a slight amount of scrutiny.  His response was that he didn't like how critical atheists are of religion when, in his opinion, atheists have no more earthly validity to their position than anyone else.

I'm writing this all out because this is the part of the conversation that I found really interesting.

Like I had mentioned, my friend is a Mormon.  I asked him how he felt when people would call Mormonism a cult and he rolled his eyes and said that that was ridiculous.  I said that I felt that people who classified his religion as a cult were doing the exact same thing with Mormonism that he was doing with atheism.  Calling Mormonism a cult is a way to underhandedly insult the religion by expanding the definition of an unsavory term to include the religion.  Calling atheism a religion is the exact same practice in that atheists have the same negative reaction to being called religious as Mormons have being called cult members.

My point is this - if someone claims that atheism is a religion I feel like it's more of an expression of their insecurity and lack of understanding of atheism rather than an actual position.  Whether you want to spend any of your time dealing with it is your choice, but it's an easily refuted assertion if dealing with the established definitions of atheism and religion.  If the conversation goes beyond that, I would probably assume the person is being passive aggressively insulting.

[kelltrill]

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/1786
This is an interesting site I found discussing exactly the same topic. People's responses are actually quite humorous, like SSY and curiosityandthecat's descriptions.
Thanks for all the answers, I've enjoyed reading all of them and they've been extremely helpful.  

[Dagda]

I think where things become interesting is when we move away from the central point and move into specifics. Atheism is a catch-all term to describe a group of people who do not believe in a deity. Apart from this central pillar, different groups of atheists have little in common. Whereas the term atheism cannot be called a religion, there are groups with atheistic aspects (e.g. a lack of a god) which most certainly could be termed as a religion. The most obvious case would be Taoism or Buddhism; although there are some sects of these movements which do not believe in a deity (therefore are atheists), I think it would be hard to define these sects as anything other than religious organisations. As such although atheism itself is not a religion, that is not to say that atheists are not religious.

I think the problem has arisen from the mistake of describing a world-view as ‘Atheist’. Atheism means just the lack of belief in a God: if this is the complete absolute of a person’s philosophical world-view then I find it hard to see how they can possibly negotiate the moral conundrums which a sane human tends to come across. Obviously most people will have a wider philosophical perspective than just ‘atheist’- that could be anything from Platonist to Communist-and it is when this wider philosophical perspective is taken into account that we begin to see self-confessed atheists as religious figures. Those that declare atheism as a religion probably recognise this, but communicate it in a rather crude and philosophically muddled manner.

In an attempt to further illuminate my point I will use myself as an example. Although I could be described as a Theist, I have not stated my world-view as such. This is because, like atheism, theism is not an acceptable world-view; the fact that I am a theist tells you little about me other than that I believe in some form of deity. Again like atheism, theism cannot be described as a religion because of the complete lack of unifying principles between those who can describe themselves as theists- a Hindu and me are both theists, but do not share much beyond that. As such I describe myself as Roman Catholic so as to give my fellow forum users a better picture of my philosophical and religious beliefs, and in the same way I think it would be entirely possible for atheists to further compartmentalise their beliefs, and I think from this new compartmentalisation it would be far easier to ascertain the religious nature of your beliefs; I think it will probably surprise many forum users to learn how religious many so-called secular belief systems are when we look beyond the dogmatic whitewash.

I break off now to allow others to come in with their comments.

[Whitney]

I think it will probably surprise many forum users to learn how religious many so-called secular belief systems are when we look beyond the dogmatic whitewash.

examples?   Religions involve, worship, ritual, dogma etc....what secular philosophies include that? (I won't be surprised if you provide Secular Humanism as an example but that's the only secular philosophy I can think of which has any hint of religion to it; and i think it would be a stretch to call it a religion)

Anyway, I agree theist and atheist are not worldviews; while a belief or lack of belief in god certainly affects how one might view the world there is a lot more that goes into forming a full worldview.

[Dagda]

Although the example is a little extreme, it is probably best as in it is easier to see the argument when it is as clear cut. Bolshevik Communism must be described as a secular and atheistic philosophy. However, I would argue that it was just as religious as the Christianity it attempted to supersede.

The most glaring example of religious themes would be the belief among Bolsheviks that it was only a matter of time before the glorious dictatorship of the proletariat spread throughout the world, destroying the oppressive capitalist regimes. This belief went in the face of all the evidence, and can be described as little other than a Revelation/End Time prophesy not dissimilar to those found in Christianity. In this they placed an inordinate amount of faith in a belief which had no or little grounding in physical evidence; religious belief in action.

The Bolsheviks also took to the idea that their leaders where almost infallible-gods among men. This, of course, is rather close to the traditional religious view of their leaders being God’s representative-in this case God was merely removed from the equation. They even had religious texts in the form of the writings of Marx (in China a better example would be Mao), and these became as unquestionable as the leader of the party. Some believers even began going on a sort of pilgrimage to the preserved bodies of Lenin and Stalin as well as the major landmarks of the life of Marx (one church in Konigsberg was left untouched by the party apparatchik because it held the body of a good friend of Marx-hardly the act of a secular/logical non-religion).

Although I have been rather basic with the above outline (people have written entire books on this subject and I don’t want to be here all day), I hope you will agree that Bolshevism has all the hallmarks of a religious belief, complete with dogma, shrines and religious texts. The only thing missing was a deity, but as per my Taoist example, this hardly disqualifies the Bolsheviks from the status of a religion.

This kind of patter appears anywhere that the traditional religions fail. In Nazi Germany the Bibles in Churches were replaced with copies of Mien Kamp, and the Nuremberg rallies were really mass religious events with the emphasis on the party and the people rather than a deity. In North Korea (the most atheistic country in the world) their leaders have become points of devotion; what else would allow a dead man to stay on as head of state? Even in this country (UK) we are seeing a revival of tarot and mediums just as God begins to fail; in the absence of the traditional font into which the human pours their faith new avenues are created. Some place this in political philosophies, others in mystical sect, and still yet more in science, technology and progress.

Religion is like sex; there is an evolutionary need for it, and few will truly escape. Even if God could be proven to be a figment of the imagination, religion would survive in new forms.

[Justme]

i found this [youtube:2hacrk95]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SCgnaCbgK0[/youtube:2hacrk95]  a good and figurativ explaination (but you can skip the first 3 minutes). easy to use for everyone if a pen and a napkin is at hand. a bit akwardly presented in that video, but nevertheless an interessting take on that issue.

if atheism is a religion, every newborn would be extremely religious.

[Tom62]

In Nazi Germany the Bibles in Churches were replaced with copies of Mien Kamp,

That is actually not true. The Bible was not abolished or replaced by Mein Kampf in the German churches during the Nazi regime.  The only element of truth in the story is that the couples at church weddings got a free copy of Mein Kampf instead of a Bible.

[Dagda]

In Nazi Germany the Bibles in Churches were replaced with copies of Mien Kamp,

That is actually not true. The Bible was not abolished or replaced by Mein Kampf in the German churches during the Nazi regime.  The only element of truth in the story is that the couples at church weddings got a free copy of Mein Kampf instead of a Bible.

A 1933 speech by Reinhold Krause advocated the removal of the Bible as a Jewish superstition, and in a rally of the same year the Deutsche Christen passed a motion to omit the Old Testament from Church Bibles. Although I may be wrong about Mein Kamp replacing the Bible, the Nazi party certainly became involved in religious affairs, and my point still stands about the political religions.

if atheism is a religion, every newborn would be extremely religious.

Perhaps I was not clear. Atheism is NOT a world-view. Although atheism cannot be a religion (neither can theism) there are religions which are atheistic. Nazism and Communism are political religions. Ancestor worshipers could quite happily be atheists. I am saying that a religion does not need a deity.

[Kylyssa]

In Nazi Germany the Bibles in Churches were replaced with copies of Mien Kamp,

That is actually not true. The Bible was not abolished or replaced by Mein Kampf in the German churches during the Nazi regime.  The only element of truth in the story is that the couples at church weddings got a free copy of Mein Kampf instead of a Bible.

A 1933 speech by Reinhold Krause advocated the removal of the Bible as a Jewish superstition, and in a rally of the same year the Deutsche Christen passed a motion to omit the Old Testament from Church Bibles. Although I may be wrong about Mein Kamp replacing the Bible, the Nazi party certainly became involved in religious affairs, and my point still stands about the political religions.

if atheism is a religion, every newborn would be extremely religious.

Perhaps I was not clear. Atheism is NOT a world-view. Although atheism cannot be a religion (neither can theism) there are religions which are atheistic. Nazism and Communism are political religions. Ancestor worshipers could quite happily be atheists. I am saying that a religion does not need a deity.

[sarcasm]Yeah, and capitalism is a Christian religion as is the Republican party[/sarcasm]

Communism is not an atheist religion.  Communism is a political concept.  Christians can be communist.  Neither is Nazism an atheist religion as most Nazis were Christian - Catholic or Lutheran, mostly - it is also a political concept.  Neither is evolution an atheist religion, it is a scientific theory supported by scientific facts.  Nor is science a religion, it is a systematic investigation and categorization of reality through the use of the empirical method.

Religions are religions - you can't (well, you can say it, and you probably will, but it's incorrect to say) just say that every social structure or concept is a religion.