I am an Agnostic. If I decide to accept Atheism, am I not just accepting another religion?

It’s not about science or character in my book. Those are just labels. I don’t feel like it is atheists against theists. I feel I have a belief system even though I am an atheist, so in a way that is like religion. But, I decided for myself what I believe, I don’t just follow along with my group and someone who heads up the group. It is the organizing behavior of religion that makes it so different from atheists.

Are you sure you think absolutely there is no God? Or, have you just decided God is not a part of your life and you believe he doesn’t exist, but no one can know for sure.

@JLeslie I am an agnostic. I have decided that so much is unknown I have to be humble. What does it take to jump to Atheism?

Atheism isn’t a religion, no. Nothing is required to be an atheist except a lack of belief in a deity. There is no dogma, no particular set of rules to follow, no worship, etc. Nothing at all ties atheists together, beyond a lack of belief.

As to agnostic vs atheist: One isn’t better or worse than the other, they are just different. Agnostic is a label for those who believe that the existence or non-existence of a god is probably unknowable. Atheist is a label for people who simply don’t believe that a god exists. Not all atheists claim to know for sure that there isn’t a god. I certainly don’t…I just don’t believe there is one, based on the lack of evidence. I could certainly be wrong.

@augustlan What was the tipping point when you said “I am an Atheist” vs. I don’t really know, I will be an Agnostic?

I was raised in a strictly religious home. For example, my hours of TV-watching time were regulated based on the hours of bible-study I did. In the first grade, I remember debating some religious issues with a Jehovah’s Witness in my class. I was a baptized born-again Christian.

When I was a teenager through my early 20s and I rejected the religion of my childhood and the “God” who allowed me to be sexually abused, I felt confident saying there is no god and all religions are wrong. I believed that much of life was the roll of the dice, and that it is up to the individual to chart their course through the chaos.

As I got a bit older, and especially once I gave birth, I realized that there are questions about human existence that have yet to be answered and that probably are unanswerable. I also found that there have been several occurrences in my life that seem too remarkable to simply chalk up to random chance or coincidence.

I have come to believe that it is somewhat arrogant of humans to claim that they are certain about how we came to exist, whether or not there is a purpose (and if so, what that purpose is), and what will or will not happen after our bodies die. On the other hand, I am somewhat envious of those who have such confidence or strong faith in their beliefs that they have a sense of peace about the unknown.

Atheism. A-the-ism.

@Jeruba I sincerely apologize. I spell checked several times, but it still wouldn’t give me the correct spelling. Sorry.

I would worry less about labels (atheist, theist, agnostic, secular, whatever) and more about which beliefs you feel most comfortable with.

To me, it’s about finding a combination of values and morality that you can relate to, and NOT about how it happens to be named.

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought People seem to define it in different ways. We have had debates about it on fluther. I call myself an atheist, because I never look to a God; it never occurs to me. I don’t think to pray to God. My life is absent of God. So, I feel I live my life as an atheist. But, I don’t tell other people there is no God and they shouldn’t believe, I just say I don’t believe in him. Some people interpret that as agnostic. I don’t, but I understand why some might. Mostly, I think religious people want to think people in the end turn to God. Like the foxhole example.

I’m a non-practicing Agnostic/Buddhist/Catholic/Baptist/Lutheran. Mostly depending on the quality of pot luck and conversation.

Atheism isn’t “being absolutely sure that there is no deity.” That is just one level of atheism, called gnostic atheism. It’s very uncommon because it requires a pretty steep assumption, which most atheists are not prepared to make.

Agnostic atheism, which is what I consider myself, is when you lean towards thinking there is no god but you won’t go so far as to say you’re certain.

Pure agnosticism is when you walk the line right in the middle – thinking it’s equally likely that there is or isn’t a god – or when you believe that there will never be any way to know whether or not there is a god, so speculating is pointless.

Some would argue that all agnostics are actually atheists. The question is, do you live your life as if there is a god? If the answer is no, then frankly you are already an atheist. You don’t believe that there is a god.

What about us apatheists? Don’t we count?

only to ten mudhead

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought I was raised as a Christian (theist). When I read the bible the first time through (I was 11), it made no sense to me whatsoever. At that time, I dropped the idea of religion altogether, but not necessarily a god. I had one brief fling with born-again Christianity when I was 13…I think it lasted about two weeks, but after that I wavered between being a deist (basically believing there is a god/creator, but not one who intercedes, or requires worship, or manifests miracles) and an agnostic.

So, what tipped me over to atheism? Mostly it was thinking of human history, and all of the many gods humanity has believed in at one time or another. We readily recognize the gods of the past as myths, and there is no more evidence of a god today than there is of any god from mythology.

The way I see it, we are currently living at the tail end of a future myth. The gods of today will someday be regarded with the likes of Zeus.

I’m of the opinion that they are not mutually exclusive.

Everyone knows what it feels like to be an atheist. What does it take to make the jump into not believing in Thor, Osiris, or Huitzilopochtli? Not much, eh?

I’m an atheist. I have no belief in any deity.

I’m agnostic. I do not know whether there is a god that is as yet undefined in existence. I think it’s unlikely enough to feel comfortable and justified in ceasing to actively search for or attempt to please any deity.

delete

What @Mariah and @Seek_Kolinahr said. Ultimately, this is just a language game. It depends on what you choose to label your belief. Most atheists I know do not hold the position that they are 100% sure of the non-existence of a deity, and yet they call themselves atheists. Since words are defined by how they’re used, I think that that definition is largely invalid. It could describe a certain type of atheism, as @Mariah pointed out, gnostic atheism. But that is not the position of most atheists that I have come across. For them, it’s about a stronger conviction than a true agnostic, e.g. “there may or may not be a deity” vs. “there probably isn’t a deity, but I can never be truly sure”.

And some people are so agnostic that they believe everyone is agnostic, because no one has the power to know whether a deity exists or not and anyone claiming they know is kidding themselves.

If you make me have a god, I choose Oztotl.

You go get your own.

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought I understand your question. But I believe you ask it with flawed logic.

The flaw is the “religion” part.

Religion is not required to be a Theist. Thus Atheism would not require a religion.

“I am absolutely sure and those who don’t agree are wrong?”

Some of us are absolutely sure, but don’t necessarily believe that those who disagree are “absolutely” wrong.

It is possible for a Theist to accept evolution, like Atheists do. But they may believe the roots of it are different.

Likewise, it is possible for an Atheist to believe that Jesus Christ actually lived. But they may believe he was just an ordinary man… perhaps teacher.

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought Just a week ago I asked “Where are you on the Theism to Atheism Scale?” You answered it here. Read the question details and you will see that very few atheists are that fit the definition in your OP. It is healthy scientific skepticism that leads most of us to reject the often grandiose, unsupported and illogical claims of the world’s organized religions. To declare oneself a Gnostic Atheist, claiming to absolutely know there is no god, one has to abandon healthy skepticism and accept a belief based on faith alone just as solidly as the most fundamentalist theists do.

I would be stunned if any of the various interventionist gods humans currently revere actually exist and intervene in the affairs of humanity, suspending cause and effect. It that were happening we could detect it. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Universe itself is a massive intelligence, or is some entity set the Universe in motion, ordaining the laws that govern it, then sat back to observe. This is the watchmaker god of the Deists and Einstein. It’s equally possible there is no god, and the Universe either sprang from nothing, or is infinitely old and goes through rhythmic phase transitions called Big Bangs.

@Seek_Kolinahr What does it take to make the jump into not believing in Thor, Osiris, or Huitzilopochtli? Not much, eh?

you take that back

Atheism isn’t a religion because you don’t follow a creed, rules, nor do you expect anything. It also has nothing that defines it, that is, as religion would. You just don’t believe in anything. Whatever morality or ideas that atheists have don’t come from strictly being an atheist, unlike religions. It’s nothing practiced, that’s kind of the point too. you need gods to have religions, so far as I know Agnosticism is also not a religion.

Religion, as far as I can make out, is about finding a spiritual home. Yours is already found & it has a name & that name is Fluther. I’m sure you’ll both be very happy in your little corner of the internet.

It means you are accepting an extreme. Atheism is the denial of a personal god or a higher controlling principal. Agnosticism is realizing that the question about whether or not there is a higher power lies outside of human conclusion.

I would say that atheism is limited, but agnosticism can have many shapes and colors. You can be an agnostic and believe in god and you can be an agnostic and not believe in god. You just recognize the difference between believing and knowing.

Atheism is not a religion.

Think of your favorite atheist (me, 90% of the atheists here, or some famous person). You’re now thinking of an agnostic atheist. Theism/atheism concerns belief. We’ve had discussions about this in the past, and I still think this is the most critical part of this…

The ghost of Elvis Presley is currently clinging to your left hand.

Do you believe this or not? Remember, if you don’t believe it, it doesn’t mean that you necessarily believe that the ghost of Elvis is not clinging to your left hand.

^ Think about this for a second.

Ok, now you understand that whole theism/atheism thing. Theists make god claims. An atheist is simply someone who has not accepted any of these claims, therefore they do not believe. This says nothing about the certainty of that belief. You can add qualifiers, such as agnostic use the weak/strong distinction. But whatever terminology you use, make sure the language is useful enough to be able to isolate the belief from certainty and knowledge. Also, pay attention to the positive claims and the tendency for people to shift the burden of proof.

Also, I forgot to ask…

Is theism a religion?

No, it’s not. It’s simply means the belief in a god or gods. Don’t complicate things here. Start with belief. Then work towards certainty. Then, if you’re up for it, you can bring religion into the conversation.

“Accept atheism”?

Not to beat a dead horse but (as mentioned above) atheism is not a religion.

Religion is an organisation of theists. It has doctrine, membership rules, a heirarchy of leadership, a system of worship, and so on. Atheism has none of those things, so no, you’re not joining another religion.

@tom_g Very good point. You are so right, theism is not a religion and I think people forget this too often.

I wish I could remember who said this, and how exactly they said it.

“The only difference between me as an atheist, and you as a theist, is that you don’t believe in 2,999 of the gods out there. I don’t believe in all 3,000.”

@GoldieAV16 That quote is strange to me.

I believe the punch line is actually “some of us just go one God further.”

Can’t remember who coined it, but Dawkins repeats it often.

Great quote @GoldieAV16. I can relate to that.

If we’re trotting out oft-used phrases, I’ll add:

“Atheism is a religion like abstinence is a sex position.”

There is another way of looking at all these gawds. Some feel they all are simple attempts to describe the same indescribable agent. A layer of the onion, or another facet of the gemstone. Not one man made gawd is capable of encompassing the essence of a being which is supposed to have created space/time itself.

Consider the term God to be like the term Government. Some feel a federal republic is more truthful. Some feel a socialist republic is more truthful. Their constitutions are their bibles. At the heart of them, is the well being of their nation. Men butcher the heart of each, and make them into something that other men grow to hate with passion.

You think it’s a bucket. But I turn it over and it becomes a stool. We refer to the same object, but we might kill each other to protect our personal usage of it. Were I to take yours away, you grow thirsty. Take mine away, and I grow weary. We’re offended if the other uses our gawd in some other way than we see fit.

Some, like myself, feel that all these different gawds are simply attempts to describe an agent that we feel exists beyond us. They all refer to the same agent. In that sense, I believe in all the gawds. Just as one might believe in both classic physics and quantum physics simultaneously. Or how one might exchange classic Darwinism for neo Darwinism.

If one believes those sciences are any different than the many gawds because they can offer real world proof, then they suggest that we know all we can know about them, and no room for further observation/description is to be tolerated.

When humans attempt to describe anything that they do not fully understand… and I mean fully understand, then they revert to poetic descriptions of that agent or phenomenon. That’s where the religion begins… the dogma. Although not as apparent, science suffers the same offense with The Pathetic Fallacy.

fixed ^^that^^ link

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Very interesting and truthful post, thanks!!

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Ok, I’ll bite. Why are you spelling the perfectly adequate word “god” as “gawd”? Does this have some special meaning for you?

southerner?

@GoldieAV16 I said that in so many words on several discussions on Fluther. As far as I know, the original idea comes from here.

Kudos to you for asking instead of presuming @glacial. The world would be a better place if more folks followed your lead.

Yes I’m from the midwest @rojo.

I use the term gawd or gawds to denote any one of three different archetypes.

1.) The religious theist view of other “false gods” beyond what they believe is the one true God.

2.) Atheists strawman god which presents paradox confined to the physical realm.

3.) Atheists attempt to use supposedly dead gods like Zeuss to reject any contemporary theism.

@ETpro I’m beginning to hate the gawd of Google. A few days ago, here on fluther, I told the tragic story of when I suffered a catheter procedure. Now the gawd of Google thinks I want a better catheter. I went to your link, and the Googagawd put a link to this ad smack dab in the middle of the article. I’m sure to suffer these ads for the next few weeks.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I think I understand what you’re doing there… but we already have a word in our language for that: god, without the capital “G”. Do you find it offensive to use that word as it is defined? If so, I’m curious to know why.

No, I don’t find small g offensive. But established definitions only go so far. My use of gawd instead of god better relates the often desired intent of applying subtle mockery by those who discuss these topics.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies It’s funny, because I actually thought that your use of “gawd” was meant to be mocking the “big g god” – I had to read what you wrote twice to see that it wasn’t.

I would never mock the big G. He/She/It might mock me back.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Heh, interesting. Not really related, but when I use ’‘gawd’’ it’s usually to mock people who are always saying ’‘oh my god’’ or God! to everything. Like…valley girls or something. Lol.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – I know I’m slow, but I still can’t figure out what “gawd” means. Language is useful when it reduces confusion.

@tom_g “I still can’t figure out what “gawd” means. Language is useful when it reduces confusion.”

Yeah, to be honest, I’m still there, too. I suspect this usage is not having the effect you desire, @RealEyesRealizeRealLies .

Yes, that’s how I see it too @Symbeline. Very related. Gawd is a God that neither atheist or theist should believe in at face value.

Hi @tom_g. I defined my terms in order to reduce confusion. Check the three points in my previous post. Apply a tad of sarcastic mockery to each. Those who argue those points are often not simply rejecting other dead gods. Their argument often attempts to mock the idea of such a thing.

ehrmagerd

Would anyone mind if I used their bucket as a stool?

I don’t have a bucket, sorry.

I like that link @Symbeline. It t.o.t.a.l.l.y depicts the unconscious disrespect for the term God, putting it on the same level as profanity.

Like when someone says… “Jesus Christ that hurt!”… or “Jesus H. Christ what an asshole!”

They aren’t talking about any Jesus I know of. They’re talking about Jeebus, his evil twin.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies: “I defined my terms in order to reduce confusion. Check the three points in my previous post.”

I know. I had responded that I was confused after reading and re-reading that post. I am not claiming to be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I can’t seem to grasp what you are talking about.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies: “1.) The religious theist view of other “false gods” beyond what they believe is the one true God.”

Not sure why “god” is insufficient here. And what more does “gawd” add?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies: “2.) Atheists strawman god which presents paradox confined to the physical realm.”

Not entirely sure what this means, but it seems likely that “strawman god” would likely get us closer than “gawd” – especially if we still don’t know what it means.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies: “3.) Atheists attempt to use supposedly dead gods like Zeuss to reject any contemporary theism.”

Again, why doesn’t the word “god” apply here?

You didn’t give any account to the mockery aspect @tom_g.

When the Discovery channel talks about ancient gods, they usually keep it professional, with no sarcasm or disrespect intended.

But forum discussion on the same topic are rife with subtle mockery. It’s not the same use of the word.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I wonder if the word ’‘gosh’’ was created to replace god, so that the same expressions could be used without offending people so much. Like oh my gosh. Mind you, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard anyone use that one.

That’s funny. I just wrote a song using as many versions of gosh as possible.

Gaul Dernit
Gosh Darnit
Gawd Dang’it

Of course these are polite attempts of God damn it.

I love ’‘gaul durnit’’ lol.

You get my gaul dern mine carts back! There comes a time in a man’s life when he needs his mine carts back, dag nabbit!

Haha^^

Cheese ‘n rice, folks, let’s get this gorram show on the road.

Gorram? Hahahaa OMG funny!

you tend to come up with interesting fake-cursing during church-camp

When the Southern Babtist Whooping Preacher says Gaawwwwd wonts me ta sind sum monay… I really don’t know who’s he’s talking about.

I assume he thinks he’s talking about the God who wrote the boo of Malachi. Bring the tithes unto the storehouse and all.

Don’t be talkin’ bout Malachi’s boo like that now!

my phone’s an idiot.

[standing in the corner of the room, more confused than ever]

You know what’s funny to me. The author of The Pathetic Fallacy commits the same fallacy on his tag line.

“The Pathetic Fallacy…Animism masquerading as science in education.”
________

I don’t believe that “animism” has the faculties necessary to “masquerade”.

Finally read that link.

The author uses a strawman fallacy in order to define the pathetic fallacy. At the very least, they fail to cite where they read the supposed “animism” quote. We’re all guilty of anthropomorphising the inanimate to make conversation easier. No one, least of all the representatives of NASA, believes that inertia operates according to the individual aspirations of inanimate objects.

The whole thing reads like a parody, actually.

I remember the writer Jack Douglas, who had a Japanese wife, claimed he used to use “Jesus H. Christ” all the time. On one occasion their young son asked him what the “H” stood for? Thinking quickly, he told him “Hashimoto”, thus bringing both sides of his cultural heritage into the picture.

I haven’t read through all the responses as I’m lazy, but my story is relevant to the question asked.

I am Jewish. When I was a kid I was a fervent believer in God, and I felt I had more common with my Christian friends. I had a couple of openly atheist friends, but that was rare, and they were seen as a bit odd.

When I grew up, I had a hard time letting go of my theism because it was a crutch to me. If I didn’t have God to believe in, what would I believe in?

Then, almost overnight, I had a “revelation” and I became an active atheist. I had an active disbelief in God. More recently, however, my stance has softened a bit and instead of saying, “I disbelieve in God”, I say, “I see no evidence of God, and since I don’t believe in anything I do not have evidence of, I do not accept the existence of God.” There is still a possibility that God exists, it’s just that I have no evidence. So to make a long story short, technically now I am an agnostic. But I still tell people I’m atheist.

I’m still Jewish, though.

Atheism is the same mentality as religion, accepting something without knowing something. None of you atheists know, none of you theists know and I sure as hell don’t know. I’m a firmly planted agnostic until I learn otherwise. Also, my idea of “god” may be/is different than the god of theology. In that strict definition I could be considered an “atheist” by rejecting theology but not the idea of “god” in an abstract sense.

What are atheists accepting @ARE_you_kidding_me?

If your god is different than the god of theology, how could you be considered an atheist? It’s still some kind of god, isn’t it? Perhaps the religious would view you as heretical.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Tell me about it. As an ecommerce Web developer, I visit tons of sites selling this or every time I book a new client. I want to see what the best of breed are doing. Google thinks I want to buy whatever it might be. Believe it or not, their even holds true for a site I’ll start soon that specializes in trashy lingerie. It’s gotten to the point where it doesn’t even bother me anymore, it amuses me.

@Rarebear You fit perfectly into the description of an agnostic atheist. A true agnostic is someone who either says, “There is a 50/50 chance there is a god, and I don’t know which side of the fence to be on.” (soft agnostic) or, “God’s existence or nonexistence are equiprobable, and I know that it is impossible to ever know whether there is or is not a god.” (hard agnostic). On the Theism to Atheism scale, you sound like a 6.

@ARE_you_kidding_me As an atheist and active member of the Boston Atheists Meetup group, I can tell you with certainty that your assertion is wrong in my case, and wrong in the case of our 1,000 plus members. We have nobody in the group that fits that model. You may have bought into a common strawman fallacy theists push forward in their attempt to discredit atheism. Refusing to believe in something there is no evidence for is NOT a belief system.

For instance, suppose I meet you on the street and I tell you that I am psychically gifted, and that I can see that the ghost of Elvis Presley is holding your hand. Would you believe me? I should certainly hope you would not. But would you be able to say with certitude that there are no ghosts, and there are no people with the ability to see them. All you could say with certainty is that you see no evidence to make you believe that Elvis’s is standing next to you and holding your hand, and until evidence comes along, you won’t believe he is. That is all that the vast majority of atheists are saying with regards to Yahweh, and Zeus, and Osiris, and Wotan and the multitude of other gods man worships now or has worshipped. Most theists, by the way, are atheist to at least 2,999 of the 3,000 odd gods man has invented.

Where does that figure of 3000 come from, @ETpro? When I look at Hinduism alone, I see numbers ranging from 330,000 to 3 billion.

Considering some 200,000 years of Homo sapiens’ history, with any number of small and scattered human societies spread out across six continents, many or most of which were polytheistic, it seems impossible to think that a pantheon of 3000 gods would be enough.

@Jeruba The 3,000 estimate is a VERY conservative tally of the posited all-powerful creator gods man has invented to explain what he feared and did not understand. I say very conservative, because it deals only with recorded history, and we have evidence to suggest that various forms of religious worship go back at least 150,000 years and probably more like 300,000. Nobody has any idea how many great creators man has invented over all that time, but 3,000 is a fuzzy number for historically known creators. It’s fuzzy because it isn’t always clear which of a pantheist’s gods actually did the creating, and fathered (or mothered) the rest of the gods.

I see, @ETpro. If you’re speaking only of creator gods, that’s different. Even at that, just intuitively that does sound low, but I have no better information.

I get your allusion to the famous and very popular quotation attributed to Stephen F. Roberts:

“I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one less god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

I don’t think that will do for all believers, however. I don’t think that Baal worshippers were atheists with respect to Yahweh, or Amon-Ra’s with respect to Zeus. That seems to me to be a deliberate misapplication of the meaning of “atheist.” “I don’t believe in that god” is not the same statement as “I don’t believe in any god.”

Noting also that polytheism and pantheism aren’t the same thing.

@Jeruba Point well taken on the meaning of atheist. And thanks for pinning down the source of that thought. I’ve heard it stated multiple ways, but never quite like that, and never with attribution.

So far as I know, that’s the original; people have been pretty liberal in their wording of restatements of it, sometimes changing the sense of it significantly. I first encountered it about fifteen years ago, sent to me by someone who’d seen it on the Internet.

I just found this 1997 source claiming it. I notice also that the author says “one fewer” rather than “one less.” I wish he hadn’t.

Care to enlighten why “fewer” is wrong? I thought it was for countable things.

Somehow I just knew someone was going to call me on that. I was careful not to say it was wrong. I said I wish he hadn’t. In my opinion this is not an idiomatic use of the expression and sounds strained. In my opinion (again) there are some technically inaccurate expressions that are preferable to their strictly by-the-book equivalents. Those rules (such as the “countable” business) are made up after the fact to explain patterns and did not give rise to the expressions in the first place. Since this remark was going to get quoted all over the place, I just wish he’d said it the other way.

@ETpro I’m with @Jeruba in his definition if that clarifies my position on the issue to you. There is no evidence for a theological god that I have seen but the fact that you and I can sit here and talk of god is enough evidence for me to leave open the idea of an abstract “god” If it’s just the god of theology real athiests reject and not the abstraction of god then I’m an athiest and not an agnostic.

@Jeruba I can follow your concern with the wording of that inital quote, but that’s still a terrific link, and Stephen F Roberts writes some profound stuff.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Aha. Thanks. I properly call myself an atheist. I have no idea whether there is or isn’t a creator. I believe that at this time, we do not even know enough about that to assign a probability to it. But I am as certain of the falsity of the Abrahamic God as revealed in the Torah, the New Testament and the Koran as I am that reindeer can’t fly and Santa doesn’t actually come down the chimney that doesn’t exist on my house and spread presents under the Christmas tree. And yes, I celebrate the Winter Solstice that Christians adopted, including having a decorated evergreen tree.