Murder: the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought

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Agnosticism is the lack of knowledge. If you say that you don't know, but believe on faith, you are agnostic. Same as if you don't know, but don't believe. Gnostic's claimed to know that there was a god.

I thought it was defined as: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god

Faith is firm belief in something for which there is no proof. AFAIK, you are accepting something as true WITHOUT formal proof.

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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.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

There is a large difference between killing and murder, but our lack of education in English makes it easy to blur the distinction.
Killing can be done by the State as a judicial action; Not Murder.
Killing may also be done by the State as an act of war. Soldiers kill enemy soldiers (and civilians).

Murder is a special subset of killing. As mentioned above, it is a person taking a life with malice and aforethought.

All murders are killings, but not all killings are murder.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

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.

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No offense or insult taken, so don't worry. However, I do worry because your view is as prevalent as it is incorrect.

My "belief" doesn't make me not regularly go to church. Doesn't make me pray. That's about it.

It isn't because you are a Christian that you don't pray to Mecca. It's because you are not a Muslim. That you are not a Muslim because you are a Christian is a different issue.

I think you are both confusing the "trappings" of some religions as somehow intrinsic to the definition.

Very simply, as posted above there are "beliefs" associated with atheism that are very similar to belioefs of any religion. Don't get so absorbed in looking for tress that you can't see the forest.

And, as I described those beliefs have some impact one your behavior.

You are acting as if being an atheist is somehow a morally superior postion to those who have religious beliefs, and so you do not want to be part of that crowd. And yet you are.
There are beliefs you have that you take on faith quite as much as the most zealous fundamentalist . Scary, isn't it.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

I'm gonna have to side with Kerry on this one. I mean, who defines what "religion" really means? I'm guessing 99.9% of the population believes in a loose definition similar to what Kerry outlined, belief in a higher power, some sort of ritualistic behaviour and holy text, etc. An athiest simply doesn't adhere to these concepts......some "beliefs" yes and some "faith" in believing those concepts, sure.....but not the traditional confines of "religion".

Do you call a group of fanatical benz enthusiasts a religion? We all pretty much feel the same way about our cars. It's no different.

I suppose I see your point...but really, this has just devolved into hair-splitting semantics.

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1981 240d - 135k - Arlene

I'll have to respectfully disagree with the hairsplitting semantics concept. I think religion is a product of highly developed primate culture. Other animals have 'beliefs' but they don't have religion. My cat 'believes' in the existence of the physical world. It believes that periodically the red bowl in the corner of the kitchen will contain edible material and it carries out its life in accord with this belief. My cat does not have religion. It worships no gods, believes in no afterlife (something I forgot to include in my original list), reads no bible.
Most of the cats beliefs seem correlated with the immediate sensual presence of objects, but it must believe that these objects exist when not in its immediate presence because the cat will return to the room looking for food in the bowl.
I think the fact that we have language expands the kinds of things we can think about. Cats don't have math but we do because we can abstract from our immediate experience. Just because can can create and use math doesn't mean that we have to, nor that we necessarily think that math is good. I think the same kind of situation applies to religion. We can create religion because of our highly developed linguistic abilities and we can use it. But this doesn't mean we have to think it is good nor does it compel us to use it. We can think in supernatural terms, like most religions do, or we can think in natural terms, seeking explanations for events and our lives in material terms. In other words, we can adopt the metaphysics of the cat and reject the metaphysics of religion.
So, if we call the beliefs of materialistic naturalism religion, then we also have to call the cat religious, and I'm not prepared to do that at the moment.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

No, I agree with you Kerry....I was saying that MS Fowler was getting hung up on semantics...on how he thinks religion is defined. I don't think you can call the materialistic naturalism of a furry feline religion nor Forced Induction's "beliefs". Do they both believe in something? Sure....but that doesn't translate to religious participation in my humble opinion.

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1981 240d - 135k - Arlene

I believe that you are projecting your feelings to me, MS, in that you can't see how non-belief could do anything but affect my actions.

It did not take faith to come to the conclusion that I don't believe in a god. It took an eroding of faith. Still, your statement is a popular one with people wishing to belittle atheists.

I don't hold any "morally superior position" because of my disbelief. However, just as you, I think that I am right and you are wrong. Unlike you, I don't expect to find out for sure when I die.

I don't want to put words on MS's post, but we've had similar discussions in the past and I think our differences lie in a disagreement about the ultimate source of religion. MS is a Christian theist who I think believes religion is implanted in us by God and we naturally are theists. So, if people are not theists, they have perverted this natural religion and created a substitute religion because for one reason or another, the natural religion is unacceptable. (MS--correct me if I misunderstand) I think this view has a long history in Christianity and it's correlated with the idea of original sin as a turn towards humanism.
I disagree with this accounting of religion. I think it's historically false because monotheism is a pretty late development in human culture so it can't be 'natural'. I also thinks it sets up materialistic naturalistic humanism as a 'false religion' or a deviant substitute for true montheism. I also disagree with it because it is a supernatural account of religion. I think natural accounts of religion are all we need.
Again, perhaps I misunderstand MS. But I do think our differences are not just semantic but substantial.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Gotcha - I see your point...it's much more than simple vernacular.....forgive my feeble little mind.

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1981 240d - 135k - Arlene

Kerry,
I really wasn't going doen that trail.

The problem, as are many problems, sione of definition. In fact even a cursory look at several dictionaries will reveal a multiplicity of definitions of "religion".
If we cannot agree on the definition, we cannot hope to agree on whether atheism is a religion.

Its like the old argument," If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound"
Again, it depends on the definition--in my 7th grade science class the teacher used the deifintion that there must be a source of vibration (within a spoecific Hz range), a medium to transmit the vibrations, and a receptor to "hear" the vibrations. By his definition, the answer to the above question is "no".
But a different definition that looked at the physics of vibration, apart from the need for a hearer, might well draw a different conclusion.
The point is that apart from agreement on terms we will not resolve this to our mutual satisfaction. ( I'll just contine assuming I am right; you will go on thinking you are right.)

Where else do you get to have discussions like this?

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags