Exactly. So by analogy it's not totally irrational to place books on atheism in the religion section of a library as after all they discuss religion or things connected to religion even if they don't promote it. So such a book would be a book on religion. So its author would be a religious author. So his teachings would be religious teachings ....

Okay, I know you don't like where that's heading and I can see a number of places where you can pick a hole in the argument. But still, at the end of the day, why do you object so much to it being called a religion? There are religions that don't have saints. There are religions that don't have songs or dances. There are even religions that don't have proper teachings or theology but just a general sort of common direction that people agree about. So why shouldn't there be a religion that doesn't have teachings and doesn't have any supernatural stuff but is still a religion because it upholds that certain things are true.

Why shouldn't there, indeed?!?!?


Have you talked to any buddhists or hindus recently?

Because really, atheism is as much of a religion as theism is. Maybe atheists deserve it, I certainly see little difference between the worlds religions and mostly think of them as interchangeable.

There are some atheists who do want atheism to stand for a set of principles, but I don't think it will ever work like that. Because while atheists are fairly united in knocking god botherers, they may not accept other things and there's plenty of infighting. But the funny thing is that noone ever asks about that, you're just an atheist. I would say a fair number of atheists are humanists, which does say things on how one should leave a life, and you probably wouldn't get too many objections calling it a kind of religion. Many would also call themselves skeptics over atheists, as that is a more descriptive of their views, not only don't they believe in gods, they don't believe in all sorts of grandiose claims presented without evidence.

If it's one thing that unites atheists, it's believing that people who claim divine insight are full of bullshit, apart from that, you might have a hard time defining any kind of teaching, leaders, morality or anything else and be able to call it "atheism".

Well, my grandfather started a stamp collection, which my mother maintained and continued until about 2006, with the advice of a good friend of her. I have it now, with a cupboard full of the stuff. I like it, but do not have the time required.

I can imagine that I one day airfreight the whole stuff to Gibsons London to either auction the whole stuff or to sell it piecewise.

Because he BELIEVES that there is no God. And so, alright, let him PROVE his notion. Otherwise, his notion is just another faith

Not true at all Wolli. The most basic and universal philosophy subscribes that there is no belief in an absent entity and that the epistemological onus of proof is on the believer/the person making a claim. There can be no claim of a negative - one might ask you to prove that there is no country called Chipan. No - the onus of proof is on the claimer.

Ah, we'll make a proper theological noncognitivist out of Wolli yet

The difference here is whether you postively believe there is no country called Chipan and build your philosophy on that assumption - in which case it is fair to demand proof or at least support for that basic assumption, or whether you don't really care, in which case the onus of proof is on the person who says you are wrong to not really care. The two situations are totally different

1) Religions cannot agree on what God is like, requires of his believers, etc.
2) They cannot all be right
3) The only logical outcome is that they are all wrong. Humans generally feel better if there is an omnipotent being looking after them, so they invent one, or adopt a ready made one that is locally available.

To discuss...

If you were correct, I would agree with you.

The bold means you don't understand logical inference. They cannot all be right does not infer that they are all wrong. It's possible one is right, or that they're all almost right and there is a god that's somewhere near what they all think God is. Also it's possible that there is no god, but this cannot be inferred from your assertions.

I don't either "situation" changes the burden of proof here. What is built from an assumption, or who cares, is irrelevant to the assumption.

Congrats, you're an atheist militant.

What a silly thing to say. Imagine if we all thought like this, you would have to believe absolutely everything you're told, unless you could prove otherwise.

Doe this mean you think there an infinite ammount of faiths? Of all the people who don't believe in all the things that people just make up. What do you call them all? aunicornists, afarieist, amanonthemoonist, the list is infinite.

But we do believe a hell of a lot of stuff just on word of authority. Most of the science we know we haven't really seen proof for but we believe celever boffins in laboratories and trust they haven't made a mistake in their reasoning. We also believe on authority that Napoleon existed or that the moon is actually very big and far away and not just a piece of cheese in the sky. And there are individuals who do not believe such things on authority. Hence we have flat earthists and Holocaust deniers and homeopaths. But they don't have proof either. They just choose to reject the stuff that most of us choose to accept, and replace it by their own imaginings, which in the face of real accessible evidence are neither more nor less plausible than the majority consensus. So everything is really just a system of belief.

Nice you group all those together on equal footing to make your point, where the reality is very different.

The reality, or the reality you choose to believe in?

Ah, of course I forget. The stuff you believe is THE TRUTH.
Remind me again what the difference between that and religious dedication is.

Let me get this straight. In order for you to make any point about god existing, you're first saying that all ideas are equaly valid, that the idea of god is equaly as valid as physics or 2+2=5, because, really, we have no real 100% proof of anything.

Someone wrote here once that atheism leads to nihilism. Looks like it's the only logical conclusion to beliveing in god.

Tell me, when you choose to believe in a different reality, do the laws of physics no longer apply?

I stopped there. Epic fail, most of the science has had proof, that's why it is "peer reviewed".

The earth not being flat. Proved. Went around the earth. You can also go around the earth, if you happen to fall down at the edge then you can prove that it is flat.

Everything boils down to munchausen's trillema, but the Gap required to reach there between scientific facts it's enormous compared to religious BS.

Because one we can test and can be shown to be true. The other can't be tested, because it's just the magic man in your head.

Honestly, if you can't grasp that, you really don't live in a reality, you live in an imagination.

No no no. There are objective measurements and empirical studies. You don't have to see things to know (or be pretty sure) that they're true. After all - your eyes are just one method to collect data and are not more or less reliable than other ways. There's a reason why, when you cross the road, in order not to get run over you look, listen etc but don't consult and palm reader or pray. The first two are rigorous methods of evidence collection and the second two aren't and we all, even believers, know this (I've never seen a priest walk across the road with his eyes closed).