Bladesman87

You are ignoring the fact that James J. Kaufman (the atheist) filed the lawsuit for his religious rights and that the appeals court agreed with him that his religious rights were being denied. Why? Because Kaufman's atheism was of "central" importance in his life. Below is part of what is stated at Findlaw, at paragraphs 5 and 6.

Without venturing too far into the realm of the philosophical, we have suggested in the past that when a person sincerely holds beliefs dealing with issues of "ultimate concern" that for her occupy a "place parallel to that filled by ․ God in traditionally religious persons," those beliefs represent her religion. Fleischfresser v. Dirs. of Sch. Dist. 200, 15 F.3d 680, 688 n. 5 (7th Cir.1994) (internal citation and quotation omitted); see also Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 340, 90 S.Ct. 1792, 26 L.Ed.2d 308 (1970); United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163, 184-88, 85 S.Ct. 850, 13 L.Ed.2d 733 (1965). We have already indicated that atheism may be considered, in this specialized sense, a religion. See Reed v. Great Lakes Cos., 330 F.3d 931, 934 (7th Cir.2003) ("If we think of religion as taking a position on divinity, then atheism is indeed a form of religion."). Kaufman claims that his atheist beliefs play a central role in his life, and the defendants do not dispute that his beliefs are deeply and sincerely held.

The Supreme Court has recognized atheism as equivalent to a "religion" for purposes of the First Amendment on numerous occasions, most recently in McCreary County, Ky. v. American Civil Liberties Union of Ky., 545U.S. 844, 125 S.Ct. 2722, 162 L.Ed.2d 729 (2005). The Establishment Clause itself says only that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," but the Court understands the reference to religion to include what it often calls "nonreligion." In McCreary County, it described the touchstone of Establishment Clause analysis as "the principle that the First Amendment mandates government neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion." Id. at *10 (internal quotations omitted). As the Court put it in Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 105 S.Ct. 2479, 86 L.Ed.2d 29 (1985):
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-7th-circuit/1467028.html

The point, according to numerous court rulings, is that one does not have to believe in a God or gods in order to belong to a religion. As long as the belief is of central importance in the person's life, it is considered RELIGION. Buddhism, for example is a religion in which there is no god.


Alter2Ego


________________
"That people may know that you, whose name is JEHOVAH, you alone are the Most High over all the earth." ~ Psalms 83:18

This is the same as you telling me companies are people because US courts have ruled that they are. Okay, but they aren't people like you and me.

I don't think anyone's going to dispute either what the court ruled. I don't think anyone cares whether Kaufman considers their beliefs around atheism to be "religious" or not. None of that is in contention.

What's in contention is this equivocation you're pulling to say that because in some specific legal context in some specific part of the world that someone's atheism can be considered their "religion" that therefore all atheism is a kind of religion. That doesn't follow at all.

So I'll repeat what I said in another post:
To me, atheism is a single proposition. I believe the proposition "A God exists" is false (some people will define atheism differently, of course). That's atheism to me. Is that what your religion is to you? Is it reducible to some single proposition like that? Or is it some broader, much more important thing to you? Does it not have historical claims, allegory, poetry, ritual, redemption, all that other stuff?

I don't think your religion is that small to you. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe your religion is that tiny.

Bladesman87:

You are not disputing? Really? Then why are you up in this thread insisting that atheism is not religion--despite numerous court rulings that says it is?

By the way, Kaufman was not the only atheist that filed lawsuits over his atheist religious rights being violated. Numerous others have done it, and many of them won their lawsuits.


Alter2Ego


________________
"That people may know that you, whose name is JEHOVAH, you alone are the Most High over all the earth." ~ Psalms 83:18

Bladesman87:

I'm not the one "pulling to say" anything. Atheists have used their Religion to conscientiously object to war, just like people within theist religions have been doing.

In United States v. Seeger (1965), Daniel A. Seeger (the Atheist), used his Atheist Religion to conscientiously object to war.
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment...tates-v-seeger

Alter2Ego

________________
"That people may know that you, whose name is JEHOVAH, you alone are the Most High over all the earth." ~ Psalms 83:18

I just explained that to you. It's equivocating. I'm not bound to the various legal definitions of the US Supreme Court. I don't nor have I ever lived in America. And, even if I did, it would still be equivocation.

The question that you refuse to answer, however, is still whether your religion is as small as my atheism? Is it really the case that your entire religion is reducible the the proposition "God exists"? Because my atheism is nothing more than "No God exists", and I suspect your religion means something much more to you. You're diminishing it with this dishonesty.

Bladesman87:

I'm just getting back to this discussion with you since I've been gone from this website three years.

Notice the portion of your last response within this thread where I bolded it in red. That response is laughable. You're attempting to give the word "religion" in and of itself have a sacred meaning, when it is not. I previously gave one definition of "religion" from Collins Dictionary at Post #11 within this thread. Here is the weblink:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...3&postcount=11

Religion is defined as anything that is very important to a person. Below is another definition of "religion" from Oxford online dictionary. You will find it as definition #3 at their website.


"​3 [singular] a particular interest or influence that is very important in your life
For him, football is an absolute religion.
Football has become an alternative religion for many people."
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionari...glish/religion


To an Atheist, non-belief in a God of gods is very important. True or False?


Alter2Ego


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"That people may know that you, whose name is JEHOVAH, you alone are the Most High over all the earth." ~ Psalms 83:18[/QUOTE]

W0X0F:

Look at definition (3) in your own response. See that? It's one of the definitions of religion.




Alter2Ego


________________
"That people may know that you, whose name is JEHOVAH, you alone are the Most High over all the earth." ~ Psalms 83:18

[/QUOTE]

Chocolat is very important to me , it’s a religion .
I just need to create a diety and name it …

Ps: what is the name of god in the religion of football I wonder …

PSs:
A religion has a deity at its top , no diety = no religion.
Now if u want to say atheist is a form of philosophy about the meaning of life ? Yeah ok.

One’s actual religion is about what they do religiously, about what they practice daily. It’s not about what you do in a pew on Sunday, or what we profess with our mouth. It’s not about our magical thinking, our being rescued by the supernatural, our claims of supernatural realms for which there is no support other than a myriad of conflicting stories. It’s much more about our nature than claims of supernature, much more about the nature of being human and trying to experience fulfillment.

What we emphasize in our actions and our living as being supremely important … that’s what religion is when it’s not being run through some supernatural magic-type story. What is important to us in life as actually demonstrated in our activities and lifestyle.

That can be a lot of different things. For Ben Hogan, it was golf. He revered the game, the competition, the beauty of the manicured courses, nature, the experience, the improvement, the demands on character … THE PRACTICE.

In this Hogan example we can see a principle from Buddhism that has struck me as profound: that of practice. There’s no supernatural stand in, no magical savior … just you and life. You live your values and the highest values as demonstrated by your life are your religion. Likewise with any pursuit that reaches spiritual levels – that is fulfilling to the human spirit – there is the element of the self facing the predicament of existence and the experience of hosting a consciousness … searching the landscape of reality for what is important, even supremely important/sacred.

Superstitious magic-believing cultures invented untold numbers of supernatural gods to fill this slot, this need. When we choose one of these doctrines, its archetypes in effect come alive in our consciousness; are “there” to be related to and with, given reification by virtue of our imagination and our abstraction capacities. And we have an experience with it. Zeus, Ra, Loki, Yahweh, Ganesh, Shiva, Oden, Allah, Vishnu, Buddha, Krishna, hundreds more … all are and were equally real in the minds of the believers.

When we come into the natural and secular realm, there is still the issue of one’s highest values. This hierarchy of importance does not disappear because we remove it from the supernatural realm. Then we begin looking into the nature of human consciousness and reality, and the interplay between the two, for establishing the hierarchy … this instead of ceding it into magic realms.

So, where our practice is, there our religion is. Consumerism and materialism tends to be the religion most strongly practiced in the west, even while huge lip service is paid to other things. In that dynamic the right hand is all about piety and devoutness, while the left hand and the life is all about the cookie jar. If we can wake up to the hypnotic spell cast by formal supernatural religions, we are face-to-face with a starker issue. How we live in this life is the religion we are practicing.

For example, many of us on this forum have put a thousand times more energy into poker, winning chips, etc, than into helping others. It hardly matters that we can then say, “Yeah, but I believe in so and so …” That’s lip service, not religion. That’s self-deluding and virtue signaling, not religion. Of course religion has become synonymous, nearly wholly conflated with this type of “believing.”

Atheism is not a religion. Humanism certainly could be said to be a religion, with an implied set of tenets and prescriptions for living. “I don’t believe that god story” – whether it be about Thor, Zeus, or Jehovah – is hardly a religion in and of itself.

Montrealcorp:

That's false. Some of the people who have adopted Buddhism are atheist who do not believe in any gods.

https://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/buddhism_atheism.html


Alter2Ego

________________
"That people may know that you, whose name is JEHOVAH, you alone are the Most High over all the earth." ~ Psalms 83:18

It’s a highly debated opinion to claim Buddhism is a religion instead of philosophy…

Try again .

Montrealcorp:

Highly debated or not, Buddhism is a combination of philosophy and religion.

The U.S. Supreme Court says Buddhism is religion. Notice how this is stated at Footnote 11 of the TORCASO v. WATKINS lawsuit in which the atheist, Torcaso, sued for his religious rights.


"[ Footnote 11 ] Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others. See Washington Ethical Society v. District of Columbia, 101 U.S. App. D.C. 371, 249 F.2d 127; Fellowship of Humanity v. County of Alameda, 153 Cal. App. 2d 673, 315 P.2d 394; II Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences 293; 4 Encyclopaedia Britannica (1957 ed.) 325-327; 21 id., at 797; Archer, Faiths Men Live By (2d ed. revised by Purinton), 120-138, 254-313; 1961 World Almanac 695, 712; Year Book of American Churches for 1961, at 29, 47."
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us...t/367/488.html


Encyclopedia Britannica says its both philosophy and religion.

"Buddhism, religion and philosophy that developed from the teachings of the Buddha (Sanskrit: “Awakened One”), a teacher who lived in northern India between the mid-6th and mid-4th centuries BCE (before the Common Era)."
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Buddhism


It doesn't matter which of the above you go with, they both use the word "religion" in their definition of Buddhism.


Alter2Ego

________________
"That people may know that you, whose name is JEHOVAH, you alone are the Most High over all the earth." ~ Psalms 83:18

So what ?
Some say it’s a religion other says it isn’t .
Point is a religion in 99.99999% needs a diety .
So in Buddhism there is no word of a god .
That is why it’s more of a philosophy of life then a religion .
But some people think when the beliefs is in , it is a religion shrug .
It’s man words

All of this stems for thinking atheism is a religion where atheism negates the existence of god .

Atheism do not believe in god .
How can 0= something ?

Now if everything for you can be a religion it’s fine .
Doesn’t mean it share by most people .
Anyway if u want to denigrate of the importance of religion with a diety by allowing almost anything to be considered a religion without a diety , it’s fine by me !
It just reduce the importance of god itself .

He's probably just going for the "atheists HAVE a religion too" ... even though the atheism itself isn't a religion. "I don't believe that god story" can't possibly be a religion. One's humanist of naturalist philosophy can of course be akin to a religion in its doctrine and prescriptions for living. Meanwhile the fools who speak for a specific god are legion in all the religions, and they just can't fathom extricating themselves from the indoctrination, presupposition, and assuming so inherent to true belief, and begin to wake up to the realization that the religions are all pretty much trying to accomplish the same thing, thus can actually be integrated with each other instead of presuming the "mine has the exclusive" claim.

A whole lot of presuming going on and very little, "Let's start from scratch. What is true here? How do we know that it is true? Is it borne of the same impulse as most of the rest of the supernatural religions, and with the same reliability? What is the difference between a religious doctrine and reality (for my religion as well as for the one's I don't believe)? Is it really moral to kill every child and infant on earth, or is that kind of a barbaric claim?" They just don't do those kind of things ... actually put the reality and morality of the thing to the test and instead just cede all morality to barbarian times and stories.

I mean, atheists can't even define morality in their world. They also can't answer for language, or many things. I think if evolution is true... and i'm not saying the Earth is 6000 years old. I'm saying, the Early Church Fathers thought the Earth was old. I tend to lend my mind to a longer period for kinds and everything to play out. We know floods are in every area of recorded history. I think it's bizarre, even language. Like, ask an Atheist to tell you how... and we have no signs of the things that were responsible for getting to "Science Humans"... I think chance is preposterous. I think atheists are just playing to their emotions. They got their lucky nothingness ego to deal with hard times. BTW.. I'm done posting here. LOL alcohol and weed get me banned.

That just didn’t make no sense at all .

I'd love to believe there is a loving god who provides me a path to eternal life, but too often the people who try to convert me use obviously misleading or irrational arguments like yours. If these are the best arguments christians have, then I don't have any good evidence or reason to believe.

First, you quote court rulings that concur that atheists have the same rights as christians under our constitution and laws, to misleadingly claim it proves "AThEiSm Is A RElIGion!". Secondly, whether one or two judges believe atheism is a religion doesn't mean it is, that's an argument from authority. Lastly whether atheism is a "religion" or not is immaterial if love of the NFL can be considered a religion the definition has broadened to the point it ceases to have much meaning.

Theism: "belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures."

A-theism: Not accepting the claim that god exists.

It's as simple as that, and it's not a religion. Atheists just believe theists haven't met their burden of proof. Give me reasonable evidence and I will immediately become a believer.

Quote:

Atheist religionists frequently attempt to take the higher ground by insisting that because of belief in God, Christians and other theists have committed all sorts of human rights violations in the name of "cultish religions." According to the many atheists I have debated at other websites, it is the belief in God that has caused people to commit the various atrocities common to sinful mankind. Remove religion, belief in God, and belief in the Bible--the atheists frequently argue--and the world will be a better place. This latter conclusion is flawed for the following reasons:

1. Atheism is itself a religion.

2. Atheists have committed human rights violations en masse throughout history and have killed far more people than have those claiming to be theists. For instance, Joseph Stalin--the atheist--ordered the deaths of between 40 million to 62 million of his own Russian people (20 million of whom were everyday Soviet civilians). Compare that to the 9 million or so killed by Adolph Hitler, the Roman Catholic who merely claimed he was a Christian. The point being, anybody can claim they are a theist.

As you pointed out, Adolph Hitler was raised a Roman Catholic who frequently cited god in his speeches. But he didn't commit genocides because the church or the bible told him to, just as Stalin didn't murder millions because he was atheist.

Quote:

In reality, the problem is not the Bible or God. The problem is false religions that have failed to teach the masses Biblical truths. Blaming God for the crimes of people whose behaviors he himself rejects is an attempt at passing the buck.

But there have been many genocides and massacres throughout history that were directly sponsored by Christian leaders for religious reasons, and many referenced in the bible itself. Obviously we have the Crusades as an example, and earlier once Christians captured the seat of power in the Roman Empire with Tiberius, they turned the tables on the Pagans who once oppressed them with their own massacres and forced conversions at the point of the sword.

And then there is all the genocides Christians claim God committed or ordered in the Bible, the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Egyptian firstborn, the Canaanites, and the Amalekites. In all these cases the bible itself claims women, children, and infants were all murdered by gods hand or command. That's what I struggle with reconciling when Christians claim their god concept is "all loving" or that their god provides an "objective" basis of morality.

Cool story bro, and Harry Potter claims Tom Riddle was an evil sorcerer of immense powers.

A book makes a claim, but we have no evidence to believe any of the books supernatural claims, and have strong evidence that it gets significant historical events wrong or makes them up completely. So why should I believe the book knows anything about the "true god" and what they intended?

Atheists don't have to. Atheism is just not accepting the claim there is a god, doesn't mean you have answers for morality.

But secular humanists have defined morality in terms of human well being, you don't have to accept that definition, but it makes a lot more sense than claiming an "objective" morality derives from the opinions of a mythical god who is also claimed to massacre innocents regularly, endorses slavery and murder of gay people, and created hell to punish us so he could be born in a virgin and crucified in order to forgive us for a rule he created and setup mythical forebears to break by leaving a talking serpent he knew would talk them into breaking.

I guess this word salad is referring to evolution, but there is no "chance" in evolution. Evolutionary change is directly selected by the most successful variations in genomes.

"I'm atheist but not religious" is the new "I'm spiritual but not religious".

Atheists cannot give an account for where morality, logic, reason, etc...comes from let alone define it. And yes, you do have to have answers for morality if want to use the word in an argument.

And your last paragraph is a low tier misrepresentation, misunderstanding and mockery of what Christianity is. It's beyond stupid. You have no ability to define "well being" since your worldview is entirely relative.

Atheism IS a religious belief. Claiming it's not doesn't make it not so. I can just say that believing there is a God just means I don't believe in secular humanism and that it's not religious. It goes both ways.

I suggest listening to Jay Dyer on YouTube if you want to see how the Christian worldview destroys atheism in a debate format. Atheism is the easiest worldview to destroy. It's comical how bad their best debaters do against Christians.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BtBzAuDc8w

You already lose when you claim atheism is a "worldview". It's merely not yet accepting god claims, nothing more. Atheists can believe many different things about the world, just like the thousands of Christians sects can believe many different things about God and Jesus.

And if you think atheists lose debates to Christians, then you are blinded by your own "worldview". Pretty sure Jay Dyer was "destroyed" by Matt Dillahunty.

But in reality "debates" are meaningless. You can "win" a debate with emotional arguments that appeal to your audience without factual or rational support for them. If you are unwilling to question your beliefs, you are biased to reject every Dillahunty argument, no matter how well founded and rational, and accept all Dyer arguments, no matter if some are emotional and poorly founded.

If you really had good reason to believe Christianity is true, then you wouldn't need to appeal to an authority like Dyer, just like I don't need to appeal to an authority like Dillahunty to justify my confidence in atheism.

Instead why don't you tell us the rational reasons why you think atheism isn't justified and why we should be Christians. Not only are you obligated to if you are a true christian under Paul's edict, but no one here wants to go to hell if it truly existed, so you could easily convert some of us.

My definition of morality is treating others as they want to be treated, and expect them to do the same for me. That's all I need, and I think innately we all evolved to understand that as social animals who need to live and work together to prosper.

I understand how difficult it is for you to deal with the numerous documented acts of evil the bible claims your god committed, ordered or endorsed. You want to believe that "absolute" morality exists, but you base it on the opinions of a god you can't show exist, and if he does exist, did many immoral things.

So instead of describing in detail why what I wrote was wrong, you just call it "beyond stupid" because its an impossible hill for you to climb.

Atheism IS NOT a religious belief, claiming it is does not make it one. We can play this game all day, so instead why don't you what you define as "religious belief', and why you think saying "I don't think there is reasonable reason to believe god exists" is adopting a religious belief.

PS: Also F that midget Putin and his bankrupt third world nation with an economy smaller than Italy.

That sounds like a Buddhist .

Philosophy of life without an imaginary friend is a real thing .
You should try it sometimes .