Default in terms of logic. Not by which is most probable for someone to believe. Logically, the position you should take by default is to not believe something until it has been demonstrated to you. What is demonstrable to one person may not be the same to another.

It is the "default" position because the claim that god exists is not inherently true. It needs to be demonstrated. The same can be said about the claim god does not exist. Both should be rejected until demonstrated.



I think that religious people should be entitled to religious rights. Those rights are to prevent the government from telling us what to believe. This is important to me because it allows me to not participate in any "belief" since I am not participating thought I am not entitled to the perks of believing. I am however, entitled to the perks of not believing.

This isn't actually how people think. Nor is it a good model for how to think well. If you really behaved like this, you would find that you would not be able to function in society in any real way.

It is better to understand how people actually come to believe and understand things than it is to create an artificial construct for how you think they should behave. At the level that you're doing it, it is really a pop-psychology approach to philosophy, and it just doesn't do very much.

This makes no sense to me. The questions was what rights do believers have that you don't have, but yet you lay claim to the bolded ("it allow *me* to ...").

I'm getting pretty lost on what it is you think you are arguing. Your thread was about THIS legal system, and whether atheists are hypocrites to try and legally argue that atheism is a religion while "socially" arguing that atheism is not a religion. I don't see this as hypocritical, but mainly simply a function of working within a system that gives asymmetric legal roles to religions that many atheists would like to enjoy. Checking back, I see that you haven't really engaged at all about the argument in this legal system, seeming to have been focusing all your attention on some undescribed OTHER legal system and what I would or would not do in that.

As for other legal systems, let me be clear I'm not advocating one. My position is that there WASN"T some big tension here, so I said something like "perhaps it might be nice" if the language was changed, but I also don't really care because I don't think this is an issue like you seem to. The system as is DOES protect atheists appropriately (I think? I"m not aware of major issues of atheists lacking protections, but I wouldn't really know), I'm not concerned by the linguistic tension you are raising, and even if I did care, it would be almost impossible to change the language of the first amendement so this is more or less entirely irrelevant. And I also noted that even if we could imagine some linguistic change we might like, it would take a large legal canon to suss out (ie, even small linguistic changes can potentially have huge ramifications).

So I have no idea why you are asking me questions about some "framework" I have been apparently professing since I am not the one claiming a problem with the current one! If it was the case that atheists were NOT protected the way Christians, say, are, then I might have a problem. But the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that atheists DO get counted for first amendment purposes. This isn't to say our system is perfect, and maybe after a very large amount of effort we could start hypothesizing some superior one that fundamentally changes what is and is not allowed, but if so I wouldn't be motivating that from the claimed "hypocrisy" in the OP.

The court system has considered (i would presume) all sorts of fringe cases and said yes some get religious protections and others don't. My guess is the neonazi prison group is NOT having the court rule in their favour. I might be wrong here (I do know it is generally taken pretty broadly, so maybe even they get the cut). But let's suppose I'm wrong....so what? I don't know what you are trying to argue here.

That's close. You're challenging one of the observations I made:

But I raised a different question:

It's not really about *whether* it's hypocritical. You can challenge that assertion, but that's not the actual question I'm raising.

Your position appears to be saying that you wouldn't.

This is in response to what you've stated and why I started talking about religion (the social construct) and "religion" (the legal construct):

So atheism wants a something or another that religion has access to. That's fine. But then you made the following assertion:

And this is what I'm exploring.

But yet, you are. You advocated one that had a basic principle that you've stated above. The US system does *NOT* actually treat them the same, as evidenced by explicit language that creates such a distinction.

Yes, but that's only true if you look at just the legal construct of "religion." There's *clearly* tension between the legal construct of atheism and the social construct of atheism. If there weren't, there would be no need for all the language to hem in the legal language.

I agree that practically, you're not going to get a constitutional amendment to change the language. However, I wanted to explore your hypothetical construct in which you explicitly suggested it would be nice to change the first amendment.

And so I asked you to suggest what you could possibly replace "religion" with, and you seemed either unable or unwilling to say what that alternative would be.

True, but irrelevant. I ignore your defeatism when considering this hypothetical.

I've explained this above.

Notice how narrow of a statement you're making. Upon considering your broad "atheists and theists should be treated the same" mantra, there's a whole lot of other things that fall under consideration, which is why I challenged you on the concept of separation of church and state. If, indeed, there is to be equal treatment, then what sense is there to explicitly exclude theists but not atheists? In what sense is this symmetric? There are lots and lots of restrictions on religious persons in places like public schools.

If an atheist teacher at a high school says something that challenges the beliefs of a religious student, is that a violation of church and state under your call for symmetry? Because surely, a teacher that says something that challenges the beliefs of an atheist student is in violation. We've seen that even having a Bible in certain places in the room is a violation. Does that mean that we can similarly ban Dawkins' writings from those same places in the classroom?

That's fine. I don't mind drifting from that.

I'm exploring the ideas being put forth in this thread. I've asked a question and based on the answers I've received I'm making observations and asking more questions. There are also some assertions thrown in, of course. But that's how these things get moving.

With regards to hypocrisy, I do think it's hypocritical to insist that atheism is not a religion yet seek religious protection. This doesn't make every atheist a hypocrite because not all of them seek such things. But it does create tension between social constructs and legal constructs.

If it is about what someone had for dinner.. You're right, I dont behave this way. I do however, behave this way when it comes to something like theology and gods existence because the answer to that question is very important in my opinion.



[/QUOTE]This makes no sense to me. The questions was what rights do believers have that you don't have, but yet you lay claim to the bolded ("it allow *me* to ...").[/QUOTE]

I am telling you why I think believers should have religious rights atheists don't. What do you mean?

You're making special rules that you're going to apply to a narrow category of thought in which you have very little experience. There are lots of ways this will go wrong. Not the least of which is that you're creating a special pleading situation. Another thing is that since you lack experience, you have an increased capacity of making intellectual errors in your reasoning.

You think religious believes should have religious rights that atheists don't, but yet you are laying claim to that right. I don't know why you're confused.

In the "not remotely hypocritical" corner, a couple of years back the Freedom from Religion Council rejected the ministerial tax exemption for which the federal government said their leadership qualified:

Atheists Reject Tax Break From Federal Government To Protest Religious Exemption

So I need to apply the same level of skepticism to any claim presented to me or its special pleading? Got it.. So when my kid bring me a coloring book and says "I did the best job on this page dad" I should just say "nice try! We haven't examined your claim yet"

I mean really? lol..

Also, can you have discourse with anyone without sounding like an arrogant jerk?

What do you mean I am laying claim to religious right? please explain..

Right. There are a large range of protections afforded to religious beliefs and I would want those same protections to apply to atheists; at the same time, I'm happy to have the restrictions on government endorsement of atheism be as for religion. I presumed this was obvious from my posting. And for the most part, my understand was that legally this WAS the case, that for the purpose of the first amendment atheism WAS taken as a religion and thus the same protections and government restrictions apply. You, however, seem to be challenging this:

Again, is it not the case that atheism is considered a religion for the purpose of the first amendment? Can you detail specific ways in which atheism and other religions are being treated substantially differently in the law? I'm not following your examples here.

Note that I'm not sure why you are arguing with me here. If it turns out that you can demonstrate that atheism gets all these advantages, that would be a problem with the current legal system, but not with my espoused value.

I'm not really familiar with the law and how much talk about god a teacher is or is not allowed to say, but I would hope (and imagine) it is similar. Where exactly the line is drawn on the fringe isn't particularly important to me, but if we take a step back to clearer examples like, say, requiring students to declare god's existence or nonexistence every day I think the standard should be similar. Am I wrong to think it IS similar?

The implied tone might have been ambiguous the first time, but I just explained it for you. I am NOT explicitly suggesting it. I don't really care about such linguistic changes; I DON"T think this "tension" the linguistic difference results is meaningful and DON"T think we have to worry about this. My "perhaps it would be nice" wans't me saying it WOULD be nice, it was a hypothetical: IF your position on the linguistic stuff was true, THEN it might be nice. If what you really want to have is a debate on how to change the constitution and hundreds of years of resulting legal canon to resolve some linguistic tension...well sorry I"m just not interested.

Why? Justify this position. To me it is just semantics and doesn't create more than a very minor tension. The legal definition of religion is held differently than the philosophical definitions, or whatever, just as the legal definition of marriage is held differently. An athiest is taking advantage of an asymmetric system - whether they like that system or not - that privileges "religion" and interprets this word, legally, broadly enough to include athiesm even if they have various philosophical reasons why they don't call themselves religious in day to day life. What is the hypocrisy? And why is the tension big? It seems like the tension, such that it is, is easy resolved within a couple sentences of typing.

I'm still more or less entirely lost on what on earth your point actually is. Can you make a declarative claim as to what it is you think we are arguing about? Or is it just a few sentence by sentence objections, now?

Since this is being declared a protest move, this is a challenge to the law itself and not a stance taken strictly on the philosophical basis. We see both parts of this from the article:

But they can choose not to take it (as they apparently have done) and not sue about it. Indeed...

What's amusing to me is that by the government extending this tax exemption to them, they *aren't* giving religious groups special treatment. The exemption has been extended to them. It's something they can take. they just don't like the way it's being presented to them.

(Which is fine. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with standing on the principle they're standing on.)

No. It's special pleading because you're using this standard for this thing and nothing else. (Or at least, you haven't presented anything else that you use this standard for.) *THAT* is what makes it special pleading.

You can choose to read it however you want. But for the record, the thing you quoted is among the least "arrogant jerk" ways I've presented things.

You said:

The underlined indicates that the basic right is the right for government not to tell you what to believe. This can exist without any extra "religious" rights. (This appears to be uke's position.) But you're leveraging the right for government not to tell you what to believe in order to choose not to participate in any belief.

There are several things I approach this way. For example, if someone told me there are an even number of stars in the universe I would reject that claim. I would do the same if someoen told me the number was odd. This is generally how I approach claims about existential reality.

I don't however, do it with things that don't matter. Like if someone told me they hate pasta.. What do I care? Accepting that they hate pasta will not influence any decisions I or anyone else makes.



Pretty said dude. You should really work on how you approach people. If this is the only venue in which you do that fine but if you approach people as a know it all ass in real life; I feel sorry for the people who associate with you.


If for example I open a business that is designed to educate people on noahs ark, it is a religious organazation and is entitled to have tax breaks. I can also run this business and choose to not hire muslims if I want, the government can not tell me how to run this business.

If I open up a business that is designed to educate people on errors in the bible for example.. This isn't really a religious orgnazation and does not deserve the same tax breaks. I should also have to follow the same discrimination laws that any other business has to.

Now all this is important to me because for the same reasons the noahs ark business can discriminate, I can choose not to participate in any religion. The government is kept out of it all.

What's more practical than caring about that which directly impacts on your own life? and caring about that which discernibly impacts on your own life?

I cannot discern any practical consequences to my own life from whether the legal status of atheism views it as a religion or not.

One of the issues in that case was whether the guy had a religious right to an inmate atheist discussion group.

I don't think he should, at least not as a religious right. Discussing a non-religious philosophy has nothing to do with practicing a religion.

But for that matter, I don't think forming a Bible study group or whatever should be a religious right. The right to practice a religion should cover things like attending services.

But I don't think there's anything wrong with prisoners being able to have discussion groups for Bible study, atheist discussion, book clubs, etc. I just don't think it should be an issue of religious rights.

You seem to have this exactly backwards. If you hate pasta it would influence by decision to make you a raviolo al ouvo. Which is a shame, because it is awesome. But if you tell there are an even number of stars in the universe, that actually doesn't influence any decision I woulod make.

For aesthetic purposes, killer-whales ought to be renamed to 'sea-pandas'.

There should be minimal room for negative value judgements in our labelling of other species. Its specist.....

...would be the argument used to do something that has no discernible influence on my life.

Newly appointed CEO's and university Deans are especially good at this sort of useless wizardry. As long as you change something, you're making a difference yeh?

I said if someone else told me they hated pasta, this would have no effect on anyones life but their own.. So why should I care if they are lying/wrong? If someone tells me the number of stars in the universe are even, it could potentially effect us.

You don't make decisions based on the food preferences of those around you? Have you never cooked for anyone other than yourself? Regardless, you certainly don't make decisions based on whether there are an even or odd number of stars in the universe.

I think you are worried too much about my examples and not enough with the actual point.

There are two options when someone presents a claim to you.

1) accept the claim
2) do not accept the claim

If someone does not present what you feel is good evidence for the claim, what should you do?

If the answer to the claim is not important to you, this shouldn't matter.

Technically there are three options when someone presents a claim to you.

1) Accept the claim
2) Reject the claim
3) Withhold judgement on the claim

You may think that your 2 covers 2&3 but they are different responses.

This.

Witholding judgment is the same as rejecting a claim. It is a dichotomy. You can not "not accept" a claim and not accepta claim. How can you simultaniously not accept something and not not accept it? It is a logical absurdity.

No it isn't.

Consider the proposition

P1 There is a God.

Denying/rejecting P1 commits one to accept the claim

P2 There is no God.

Withholding assent to P1 does not entail P2.

Let me rephrase it then for you:

1) I believe this claim is true
2) I believe this claim is false
3) I don't know if this claim is true or false. It could be either.

Thank you, this is clearer than my example.