A tired, old trope that undermines true faith and blocks the path to common ground.
Some Atheists ... assert that Atheism is not a religion but instead is the total absence of religion.... But this is like saying that "black," (which physicists define as the total absence of color) is not a color.... In common practice throughout the world, "black" is understood to be a color, despite the technical definition of the physicists. Likewise, "Atheism" is a religion, despite any technical definitions to the contrary. If black is a color, then Atheism is a religion. —Rev. Bill McGinnis, The Religion of Atheism…
Article comments
176 - nugget
Leslie Bohn:
#158: I'll paraphrase instead of copy and paste = "nu uh, I ain't gonna waste my time. Yer wrong tho'. Peace."
Don't waste my time with emotionally charged responses.
177 - Leslie Bohn
Dear nugget:
You seem to just love to argue, and you do it very poorly, often resorting to silly analogies that you cling to even when it's repeatedly pointed out that they're hilariously inapt. You also don't know what "dicta" are.
It's getting boring, because you just plain don't understand half of what people post here, so I'm giving up.
You just keep making comically wild generalizations and driving your magic car that runs on "gut instinct" and hope it gets you to Cairo.
178 - Joel Pelletier
To Nugget #174:
Yes, this thread astonishes me as well.
You seem to missing the point entirely. I don't need proof love exists - I know it does. I don't require proof for everything to live my life, hence I don't need to know if god exists to be ethical and kind, nor the "meaning of life," who created it all, etc. It's a common misconception amongst the secular science types that everything can be reduced to a math equation (it seems they may be simply projecting based on their personality type). My Atheism, which I call Humanism, is to me not just apathy over the whole "god" discussion, but a celebration of "the humanities", which involve all creative endevours of the human race. Although science is part of this, so are the Arts, which rely on intuition, inspiration and other such intangibles. You can't reduce Picasso or Beethoven to mathematical equations, and it would be as fruitless to try as it would be to try to "prove" god.
It's just as common for people of faith to think that, without knowing there's a god, there would be no reason to be kind, ethical (they would probably prefer "moral"), etc. That says much more about them and their unspoken urges than it does me. I don't WANT to kill anyone, steal anything, hurt anybody, etc (or even have sex with another man, for that matter, although if I did that would be OK). It's the carrot vs. stick thing - do unto others because that is what you would want them to do to you, instead of obeying rules to avoid punishment (oh, that golden rule thing, imagine that? BTW, this was written and taught by many other theologies and philosphies centuries before Jesus is claimed to have said it, not a new idea, but Christians do like to take credit for it - whether they practice it or not).
To sr #173:
I keep seeing this question - "If I can prove god exists, would that change your mind?"
Oh my...
These hypotheticals are meaningless. The fact is you can't. No one can. That's why gods are metaphysical and supernatural by definition. If you could PROVE gods exist, then they would not be "gods". And which god? Zeus? Allah? A loving forgiving god, or a vengeful terrible god? Do I get to choose?
Put 10 "people of faith" in a room, ask them if god exists, and they would all say yes. Ask them which god, what he believes, and if everyone in the room is chosen to go to heaven, and less than 10 will leave the room alive.
If a hypothetical gun was placed to my (hypothetical) head to force me to answer this hypothetical question, I would say that my life would change only if he/she told me it must, since I would be in the position to once and for all ask god about all the ethical/moral contradictions that exist between and within all world religions.
BTW, if you're setting up the meeting, I'm home from work tonight after 6pm. Maybe god can bring a nice dessert or something (I don't drink wine).
179 - Bertus
religion - system of faith...
faith - ...belief without proof
Since you cannot prove the existence or non-existence of god, then surely an unprovable belief in the non-existence of god constitutes a religious belief if not a systemised religion.
180 - duane
Around in circles.
181 - D'oh
a Perfect Circle?
182 - duane
Good call, D'oh.
183 - D'oh
What's so funny...?
184 - Les Slater
Joel #170
“…the idea that there is some sort of universal instruction manual that answers these questions for everyone is trivial at best, arrogant at worst.”
My #163 said the questions could be answered. The answer to, from your #160, ‘is there more than what we see?’, is, of course, yes.
I am not exactly sure what you mean when you ask, ‘why are we here?’, but I am confident it can be answered. As we go into the future, as we know from our trip from the past, we will have answers to questions previously not answered. We will not find them in instruction manuals though.
Les
185 - XaurreauX
The U.S. Constitution mandates separation of church and state whether or not the phrase specifically appears in writing. As with the issue of "Intelligent Design" which they disingenuously claim is another scientific theory, superstitionists understand that they can't win the argument legally or scientifically so they label atheism as just another "ism" in an attempt to level the playing field.
Secularism is for adults.
186 - Temple Stark
"As a believer, it's not my responsibility to prove to atheists that God exists in any sort of mumbo jumbo explanation. If you don't believe in God, it's not my problem. It's yours."
If only more were so ... enlightened. World history would be so different, and an interesting Thing to contemplate.
"I don't know" ? belief.
I had a piece here on this subject sometime back, and I wrote it to see how I explain to myself why I have never held any interest whatsoever in following a religion or a belief in God. It's good to test yourself to check yourself (TEmple STark).
Also, the fact that aethists have trouble defining belief at all should tell you something. Ask me what belief is and I'd have to ask you.
187 - Steve Brungard
The absence of the criteria given to define a religion underscores the absence, among atheists, of anyone trying to manipulate the behavior of others or lever advantage from a pretense of knowledge that no one can disprove.
188 - Tom Anderson
Huh. I see atheism as a means for humanity to dissolve the borders between our animal selves and our human-side. Wouldn't an an ancient philosopher along the lines of Plato or Socrates say the same?
How could it be said differently than this?
First of all, according to the introduction to this topic in the very top most post,
it mentioned that, among other things, an atheist is to not heed a system of law, indicating that perhaps they have their own sense of disorder (rather than order) aside from legal boundaries.
Really?
The only reason (as I can whole-heartedly put it), that humanity has survived over the ages, is simply because of some amount of trust, whether it be through commerce or law, or some structural backing of any sort. Not just a friendship between two people, as a matter of speaking.
What greater force other than Atheism can determine:
A. how we act
B. what we say
C. what we think of
D. what we believe/do not believe
Pick a religion and tell me this, will it COMPLETELY (specified) affect all four of these attributes of our lives?
I'm not picking cherries on this one either. Assume you have a man/woman who attributes to Islam, and that only.
This man/woman would likely lean towards D, as I have learned that Islam is a matter of belief and dedication to that belief, which may or may not involve their emotion.
Assume another person who attributes to Christianity, as it were.
Since the days of the Puritans, who originated from the Old World, the Christians of the world would most certainly go with A, and B.
The saying "your actions speak louder than your words", may come into play.
Many scholars, even the ones who do not back the Christian doctrine or faith, have observed the Bible reinforcing the idea that your actions/words are equally powerful.
Whether you believe/know that they can bring you to some paradise or death is of your own destiny.
Tom A.
Web researcher
Surely
Tom
189 - Hong Lei
Is Atheism a Religion?
What is a religion? A set of beliefs and practices often centred on specific supernatural and moral claims about reality (Wikipedia). The word's original etymology carries the notion of what one relies on, or a particular system of faith. Faith is trust (not belief without proof, that's credulity). So you might define religion as a particular system of trust.
Now, is atheism not a religion because it trusts in nothing? No, in fact it makes specific claims about reality, holding them to be truth, e.g. there is no god or gods, everything eventually can be explained in terms of natural laws, the universe appeared uncaused and for no reason, life as we know it similarly appeared purely by undirected natural forces, etc.
So we have specific claims about reality. Already we have enough information to categorise a particular system of belief, a religion. But how about supernatural? Supernatural refers to effects not produced by any explainable, re-producible laws: literally, "above" nature. As it happens, atheism makes specific supernatural claims too!
Natural laws cannot explain how life came from nothing. Natural laws cannot explain how natural laws themselves arose from nothing! Therefore, big bang cosmology from which sprang matter, energy, time and all the laws of physics invokes the super-natural; dark matter and energy which shapes and binds the large-scale order of galaxies, super-natural; abiogenesis where life springs from chemicals without natural explanation, supernatural. All such components of belief live in a supernatural world!
Of course, the atheistic answer is we don't know yet, although we only know that the belief is right anyway. Although in fact, we actually don't even know how to find out the explanations to big questions like how can living things pop out of non-living things, and what is known suggests that the belief is fragile at best. If you applied Occam's razor to the resulting Darwinistic tautologies, there would be little if any meat left to chew on.
So here we have a belief in explanations outside nature with specific claims about reality. A religion by any other name. (Atheism just suffers from brand snobbery!)
190 - boggle`d
"They get hung up on the last remaining absolute: Atheism is not beautiful. It is so depressing.
If there is no God and this physical realm is all there is, life is pretty much pointless."
Was posted on this blog.
Whos getting hung up on the last absolute? Without any gods life still seems pretty full of purpose to me looking after kids or doing whatever you got to do. Whats depressing to me is that without god these people would see no purpose. Amagine it !guess they`d just stop eating and stave the kids and mope around depressed if he didnt exist.
Its just not easy with this godly mindset to believe non believers can be happy without needing a belief in any god. And they may be the actual ones that are getting "hung up on the last remaining absolute".
191 - Scott - South Carolina
Athesim is NOT a religion! I know theists want to refer to it as one but it simply is not. It's the lack of a religion.
If a person does NOT collect stamps as a hobby, is there a term for that?
How about a person that does NOT believe that the earth is flat?
Atheism is the LACK in a belief in any god. The one of Abraham or all the ones that came before or after him/her/it.
That's all it is.
Sorry Theists.
192 - Hong Lei
"Methinks the lady doth protest too much"
"Hamlet, William Shakespeare
The analogies you draw don't fit because the person who does not believe the earth is flat still has a belief: that the earth is round, presumably! A person who does not collect stamps might collect something else.
The term 'atheist' literally means "without god." But it does not mean without "belief!" Quite the contrary. Atheists do have beliefs. They are not agnostics. Wikipedia describes it as "an explicit position" affirming the non-existence of gods or rejection of theism. In other words, atheism opposes belief in god.
Actually, many atheists do not like the label since it defines their beliefs in negative terms, i.e. in terms of what they do not believe in"any higher intelligence or power. Instead they often prefer to describe their beliefs in terms of what they do believe in, e.g. humanist.
But this just turns out to be a fallacy. In truth, atheist beliefs only exist to oppose belief in a god, typically a-priori. There is nothing about the natural world or human experience that automatically rules out rational belief in a higher power. That's why most rational people do believe in a higher intelligence. Atheistic commitments to promisary materialism exist specifically to rule out intelligent causation for explanations of origins of life and the universe. But this commitment is based on subjective opinion and the resulting beliefs form a meta-physical position requiring considerable faith, even a religion of beliefs commonly known as atheism!
193 - Brunelleschi
Hong-
Atheists don't NEED to believe there is no God.
All they need to know is you have no proof there is one, and no reason to believe something that is never seen, heard, or detected exists and has super powers. God is simply a myth invented by people.
Natural history DOES explain how "life came from nothing." It didn't happen that way. It came from natural processes and did not require "design."
194 - bliffle
"The analogies you draw don't fit because the person who does not believe the earth is flat still has a belief: that the earth is round, presumably!"
But I don't believe the earth is flat nor that it is round. IMO it's sort of squashed. I suppose you could say that I'm an Oblate Spheroidist.
But that doesn't work either, because the earth is not symmetrical.
Oh dear.
195 - Hong Lei
Dear Brunelleschi,
I agree with you, disbelief in a god is not needed. But it *is* wanted.
Proof is an subjective concept. Only mathematics offers proof in the true sense. Belief that life came from natural processes (undirected) is only that"a belief, and one that requires considerable faith.
The atheist puts his or her trust in something that cannot explain the origin of life. Evolution does not seek to explain the origin of life. Its supporters often ring-fence the problem to preclude explanation of the first life. Evolution theory assumes pre-existing life on which natural selection can operate. Hence the atheist must believe that somehow DNA appeared, carrying all the necessary digital information, and at the same instant appeared all the immensely complex cellular machinery necessary to decode the information, act on it and even to reproduce itself"code to reproduce the code. And all at the same time. Darwin proposed that lightning struck a mud puddle and presto! The first life. Chemical precursors of life do not exist except in the imagination. It takes a lot of faith to believe in them. So much so, I would argue it takes credulity not faith.
To find an answer, the atheist must resort to just-so stories. It happened this way, or could have been that way. These make fallacious reasoning (formally called ad hoc fallacies). Such stories typically begin with "it *must* have happened this way..." But therein lies the issue: the conclusion simply restates the assumption. Yes, it must have happened this way because my devotion to materialistic explanations require it. That's the atheist position.
Origin of life notwithstanding, the basic problem with the "natural process can design stuff" explanation is that it hasn't been demonstrated, or even shown how it can bridge the monumental distances between different kinds of living things.
Within the cause-and-effect nature of the universe you can easily identify three possible causes: change, natural forces and intelligent agency. There's a pile of leaves outside the door. Possible cause #1, wind blew them there"chance. Cause #2, they fell down by gravity from the tree outside"natural forces. Cause #3, someone put them there. Now, most open minded people would accept one of these explanations, even atheists. But atheists are forced by a-priori beliefs to reject Cause #3 as a possible explanation for life and the universe. This is not a rational rejection, but one born of subjective opinion.
Note that natural selection is not a cause! Natural selection only selects, or more accurately de-selects, i.e. destroys. It kills those who cannot survive. It's not called natural generation, it's called selection. The designing process that atheism must attribute everything to is Cause #2, chance. But again the atheist runs into fallacious reasoning. Chance is not an explanation; actually, it amounts to blind faith in unique events that have no explanation and can never be repeated. Now, that's a religion if ever there was one.
Interesting discussion.
Regards, Lei
196 - Dr Dreadful
Lei,
What you argue is true of some atheists, of course. But for others, it's not a question of belief or disbelief, because the question of a god simply isn't relevant. As I said on another thread, many people also do not believe there's a planet-sized Ford Focus orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Why would they?
197 - Hong Lei
Dear Dr. Dreadful,
I take your point. Useful comment and you are right, beliefs are very personal. Same goes for all systems of belief, atheism or any other. There's a wide range of views within atheism, just as within Catholicism or Islam say. Wouldn't you say that makes the point about subjectivity though?
Holding the question of a god as irrelevant is an *agnostic* viewpoint, not an atheistic one. That is, the question cannot be resolved and therefore does not matter. That's quite different from atheism which says that the question can be (or even is) resolved.
I would argue that, at the very least, the question is open. I'd go further. There is now sufficient reason for any open, rational mind to conclude that life and the universe have an intelligent source.
Chance and natural selection are woefully inadequate explanations. They don't even begin to account for the origin of life; and consequently fail to meet a basic coherence test. The contemporary "scientific" account simply provides a creation myth for the atheistic faithful.
By a substantial margin, atheism also tends to be the most bigoted of religions.
Regards, Lei
198 - Christopher Rose
Hong Lei, may we assume that you are a faithist? In my experience it is almost always a faithist that tries to make the case that atheism is a religion. I guess that proves that misery loves company!
199 - Hong Lei
I'd be interested to read any replies to my arguments. Please correct my thinking if you reckon it needs adjusting, though I feel it's pretty close to the mark or as close as one can get within limits. But I'm not keen to go down the ad hominem path with you. That typically occurs when you touch a nerve! My personal answers to the "big" questions aren't the issue here, are they? Surely, they're irrelevant.
Not all atheists are so bashful about calling the spade, a spade. While trying not to over-generalise (Dr. Dreadful's careful point) atheism requires irrational faith in the unseen, unfathomable, quasi-mystical forces of natural selection operating on random mutation to account for all life springing unbidden from chemical soup.
Note that atheists are not the most rational folk on the planet. Quite the contrary. Statistically, empirically, they are among the least! See Wall St. Journal. As Chesterton put it, "When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing"they believe in anything!"
200 - Christopher Rose
Hong, you are still both confused and confusing.
Firstly, I didn't make an ad hominem argument against you, so that comment is irrelevant.
Secondly, as far as I can tell, you have just made a few unsubstantiated statements and provided a link to an interview with somebody who decided to become a faithist at the age of 81 on a site from a Christian university, which is not much of an argument.
Thirdly, we can be confident that you are prejudiced, as you are clearly starting from a committed point of view.
finally, atheism does not require "irrational faith in the unseen, unfathomable, quasi-mystical forces of natural selection", it simply requires the ability not to believe in the assertion that the monotheistic god does not exist, a point which has never been proven in the 6 or 7,000 years that have passed since somebody came up with the idea.
201 - Mark Eden
Note that atheists are not the most rational folk on the planet. Quite the contrary. Statistically, empirically, they are among the least! See Wall St. Journal.
Hong, please. Had the Gallup folks added the question: 'Is there a God?' (God being the prototypical paranormal actor) to their credulity study the results would have been dramatically different proving that 'church goers' are suckers for the irrational.
Mark
202 - Hong Lei
Dear Chris,
Thanks for your reply. Very quick! You must be on-line, like me!
Anyway, whenever someone addresses issues relating to the person, e.g. by saying I'm confused, rather than addressing the question itself, i.e. is atheism really a religion? It misses the point. That's what I'm referring to as the ad hominem path. You're also falling into this trap when you refer to Flew as 81 and the university as Christian. Effectively, you invalidate any arguments based on the source. It's a poor approach to reasoning.
Finally, for Chris, atheism as opposed to agnosticism positively denies existence of a god or gods. Therefore, atheism does not simply require disbelief in a monotheistic god. You're creating a false dichotomy. I've met people who disbelieve monotheism but aren't atheists!
Dear Mark,
Thanks too. Only, "Hong please" is not very persuasive! The Gallup poll asked some pertinent questions: dreams foretelling the future; Atlantis existing; haunted places; communicating with the dead; big foot, Loch Ness monster, leprechauns, ghosts, etc. Agnostics and atheists "beat" others by roughly 4-to-1 for credulity.
Finally, I'll wait for some good reasons why faith in life and the universe popping into existence by accident does not constitute superstitious religious faith, before answering again. I'm quite open-minded about the question. But all you've convinced me of is that atheists remain rather irrational and respond somewhat emotionally when challenged.
Bye for now, Lei
203 - Christopher Rose
Hong, It was you that put forth Flew and that Christian Uni as sources, I simply said that they lack credibility, which they clearly do.
I'm not sure what you mean by faith in life but, just because we do not yet know what happened to trigger the Big Bang, does not mean it didn't actually happen, nor does it support the emergence of gods billions of years later.As to atheism, as I've said before, the word itself is part of the faithist armoury to define those who oppose these cults and is usually used to shape the debate. There is not really any need for such a word, just as there is no word for those who don't believe in astrology.
Agnostics are basically just wimps and want to avoid taking a position.
You're really just playing word games whilst ignoring the central truth here, that there is absolutely zero evidence to support any theory that any gods of any type actually exist.
Equally, you are not showing that you do actually have an open mind nor are you really taking the words of either Mark or myself seriously. So far you've just dismissed them with unsupported statements like
Reacting emotionally to superstitious drivel doesn't undermine an argument either. When people try to persuade me to take astrology more seriously, I am openly derisive too.
204 - Al Barger
Atheism is not necessarily a religion. Simply not believing in God would be pretty much the opposite of religion.
But for many people who use the word "atheist" to describe themselves, it very much is a religion in the practice. It provides the basis of an ideology and belief system. They are just as sure of their worldview and fit everything to it as any crazy Jehovah's Witness.
Madalyn Murray O'Hair, for example, was a devout believing atheist intent on imposing her (anti)religious vision on the country, suing NASA to try to prevent astronauts from reading the Bible in space. Our own BC alumni Brian Flemming is a militant believer in his Godless world. People getting their little panties all up in a bunch over a nativity scene on the courthouse lawn - they're quite adamant about their religion, and not wanting to have their beliefs contradicted.
And Ann Coulter is EXACTLY correct to label liberalism as a secular religion. Again, this does not necessarily describe everyone who votes Democrat - but the whole socialistic idea of making heaven on Earth is absolutely religious. There's no missing the distinctly charismatic religious faith and fervor behind many supporters of Obama.
205 - Brunelleschi
Al
Liberalism can't be a secular religion. That's an oxymoron, and Coulter simply is a moron...
That's like saying religions are made up of atheists that believe there is a god... sheesh
"Liberalisms" dreams of heaven on Earth (if that's what they are) don't need religion. Every philosophy has come kind of concept of the ideal. God is not required. Maybe liberals just want to make the best of things here and now. Big deal.
206 - Brunelleschi
#195, Lei-
That's a lot of nonsense!
It's clear you don't want to agree with or understand evolution, so you are free to get it wrong and make strawman arguments against it, but that doesn't help your case.
Religion's contemporary attacks on science/evolution are foolish. Science is solid and it works, every day.
If i thought you cared, i would pick apart what you have wrong, but I suspect it would be a waste of time.
207 - Alyson
I think that categorizing beliefs as separate because of the nature by which they proven are disproven is dangerous territory.
A belief is a belief and in that sense, Atheism could be called a religion. But that in itself would detract from the meaning of the world religion. It wouldn't hold the same significance.
But anyway, my point is that you can't label any random belief a religion without losing the significance of what religion is. By it's most simple definition religion is "the service and worship of God or the supernatural."
Atheism may even have a number of the qualities of a religion, but the argument that these similarities make it a religion does not hold water. If anything atheism is the antithesis of religion. Maybe I missed something important here, but those are my two cents.
208 - Dr Dreadful
Alyson, if you accept the idea that religion - or theism - is based on belief in a god or gods, then atheism is by definition not a religion.
By the same token, someone who is apolitical cannot be said to have political views. That person simply doesn't participate in politics.
To be sure, some atheists do defend their position with the same degree of fervor as people of faith. A few even evangelize (for want of a better word)! But it's not the same thing at all.
Those who believe often have trouble grasping the notion that someone might not believe in anything. So they confuse belief with non-belief.
209 - duane
Of course, the latest one-liner that many evangelistic types are throwing around goes something like, "Those who claim not to believe in God are willing to believe in anything."
210 - benjamin
i have been asked my religion multiple times. and when i tell that person im an atheist, i get a lecture about atheism not being a religion.according to most dictionaries, religion is a common belief or set of beliefs. the belief that there is no god is still a belief. its not so much that i disagree with you completely, its just that i tend to get pissed off getting a lecture from someone i barely know.
211 - Dr Dreadful
A religion is a lot more than just belief. The members of Greenpeace also share a set of beliefs, but Greenpeace isn't a religion.
Actively disbelieving in a god does exist as a philosophy - as I observed before, there are atheists who act in ways that can only be described as evangelism - but for most atheists, not believing in a god is as creedless as not believing that there is a Ferrari parked in your driveway.
212 - Ruvy
It is so much fun watching atheists argue interminably over that which they do not believe in. Indeed, if there is a hell for unrepentant atheists, it will be arguing interminably over their common lack of belief - all the while not realizing that centuries are going by as they continue to rehash the same arguments - and get absolutely nowhere....
213 - Dr Dreadful
Isn't rehashing the same arguments and getting nowhere pretty much what Blogcritics is all about, Ruvy? :-)
214 - duane
Ruvy: It is so much fun watching atheists argue interminably over that which they do not believe in. Indeed, if there is a hell for unrepentant atheists, it will be arguing interminably over their common lack of belief - all the while not realizing that centuries are going by as they continue to rehash the same arguments - and get absolutely nowhere....
I've heard this before [except for the reference to "centuries"(?!)]. You're spinning your wheels, Ruvy.
Why don't we have an argument over whether or not it's beneficial to argue? I'll take the "pro" side. You first.
215 - Ruvy
Duane writeth,
Why don't we have an argument over whether or not it's beneficial to argue? I'll take the "pro" side. You first.
I'd be happy to.... But I have other wheels to spin. Four of them, in fact, will be spinning me off to the metropolis of J-lem in a little while to get me a haircut and get some bureaucratic business done, for example.
The person you should have this proposed argument with was my father, z"l. He loved to argue, just for the sake of arguing - so unlike his son. But, as you may imagine, a man born in 1908 who passed to the of the veil in 1976 may be hard to argue with....
216 - benjamin
ok, i do agree with you, but if atheism is not a religion; then what is it? (im not trying 2 argue, hopefully i didnt sound like it. ive just been wondering that)
217 - Dr Dreadful
Benjamin,
As I hinted at in my #211, it can be either an active philosophical position or it can be nothing. My nephews, for example, were brought up without a religion: I doubt it's something they devote much thought to at all. They don't have a religion in much the same way that you probably don't have a favorite lacrosse team* - it's just not a factor in their lives.
Perhaps you could call them areligious rather than atheist. But I still think active atheism is a philosophical position, rather than a religion. The latter usually involves a ritual element and/or some sort of creed: aspects which are conspicuously absent from the former.
* Yeah, yeah, for all I know you could be a mad crazy lacrosse fan. I just didn't think that example was a long shot. :-)
218 - Simple Simon
The problem I see with established religion, and even this article, is ambiguity. EVERYTHING has multiple meanings and interpretations.
For instance, "Common disbelief in god" can be seen as "Common belief that there is no God". Keep that in mind most when you deal with Religion and Women.
There are Athiest "scriptures", they just aren't widely accepted by Athiests. The Athiest Manifesto.
"God is Dead Day" is suggestive that there was a god, I don't get that from any Athiests I talk to.