Quote:
Originally Posted by MS Fowler
Au contrare'
But you absolutely do live your liufe according to a system of beliefs, some of which are:
There is no God/ Creator.
The physical world exists.
I can obtain complete information about all that is thru my sense of taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. Nothing else exists.
There is no future punishment or reward for my actions in life.
There is nothing intrinsically different between human, animal and plant life. All life evolved from the same promordial goo.
The universe is based on simple random chance.--It is only thru chance that what exists came into being.
I could go on.
The point is not to insult your beliefs, and I hope I have not done so, but only to show that atheists do live by a set of beliefs--even if you have never codified them. Your actions are goverened by that belief set.
Therefore atheism is a religion, albeit a godless one.
|
These are all beliefs but I don't think they constitute religion. Religions have rituals and if they survive for any length of time, institutions that embody those rituals, typically with a hierarchy and distinct lines of authority. Also, almost all literate religions have holy texts of some kind. They also tend to have special or unusual experiences that are the focus of the practitioners, such as being born again, or experiencing nirvana or entering a trance or speaking in tongues. It's also hard to find religions that don't involve supernatural personal beings.