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Wrong. That's a stunning misunderstanding of what atheism is.

Atheism is a religion like health is an illness.

Atheism is a religion like bald is a hair color.

Atheism is the absence of religion... a lack of "theism".

Atheism is not "a belief". It is the lack of a specific set of beliefs.

Atheism's symbol is not "nothingness" any more than the symbol fo those who don't believe Santa Clause is real is "nothingness".

Do you even understand how ridiculous and ignorant you sound?

Religion is one's view of God. Athiests have a view of God, and that is that he isn't. Therefore, athiesm is a religion.

Bigfootism is one's view of Bigfoot. Abigfootists have a view of Bigfoot, and that is that he isn't.

Leprechaunism is one's view of leprechauns. Aleprechaunists have a view of leprechauns, and that is that they aren't.

The interesting thing about theism, is that once you're outside of it, belief in God really doesn't look like anything special.

Your commitment to your self-importance aside, it does not undermine our faith. Particular theological notions, along with all notions about anything, are continually challenged. That one adjusts one's understanding based on new data, again, about anything, is unproblematic, and in the particular case of theism the majority have made adjustments to their understanding (be clear, -their understanding-, not the essential content of this or any other view) a long time ago. Note the official stance of the Catholic Church, among many others.

It doesn't "undermine" it. It merely trolls it, and this process will probably persist as such until Natural Selection systematically eliminates you and every single person holding your views, down to the very last troll in your mind the very last corresponding one in every single person you consider yourself "allied" with.

As you demand for yourself, naturally.

I think you are confusing science with science-ism.

If you are wondering if I as a theist am worried that science will be hostile to my faith, I do not. Science rests on the assumption that physical laws will remain the same. They aren't hanging in mid-air. That's basically an assumption for a law-giver/maker/sustainer. Theism is built into the foundation of science.

Now, those who run around claiming that if we can't prove something scientifically we can't believe it, that's another matter. But I'll worry about that when they prove that belief scientifically.

I'm sorry, but YOU are in fact the moron. Athiests took over in the 70's? Since when? What delusional world are you living in?

Atheism isn't a "belief". It's not a religion. It's a rejection of THEISM. It is the very definition of rational thinking.

You clearly have no clue what you're even talking about. Which is just sad.

No. There is no issue with saying "sin" is defined as disobedience to God, and regardless of how many pre-Adam hominids there were, they had no directive from God, and hence did not sin.

This does not, however, mean they were not philosophical notions of "immoral". It also does not mean we cannot consider them within a non-moral-agent "animal" framework (as is comfortable on at least a factual level to all stances of evolution), and consider them amoral.

In such an overall metaphysical construct, pre-Adamics had no possibility of "sinning" in a theological sense, nor was the issue of eternal salvation relevant to them. As one might gather from the remarkably sparse references to an afterlife, that is, reading the book, they would simply be a class of being that was given their lifetime Earthly existence, and that's all that was offered, and all that needed to be offered.

I'll leave it here, though, there is much, much more insight to be gained should you choose to ponder this a while, and it won't take even that long to realize you are in precisely the definitional box you demand, and the only issue with science is -your- irrationality in insisting that even in a Darwinian model, you have some justification for considering yourself a morally-unique collection of DNA, while simultaneously denying it with respect to what God "should do".

In brief, theism has no issues here. Yours is a teetering, unworkable construct that only works momentarily by you mentally evading your own necessary inferences of your own position.

Still Slashdot and similar sites try to twist "Anonymous" into being "Someone" as desperate as others try to twist "Atheism" into (just another) "Theism" or refer to Gervernments as is they were countries or the population of a country.

If we would use language to its fullest potential all this wouldn't even be news.

A lifelong Education helps.

Theism and Atheism make ontological statements about the existence resp. nonexistence of deities.

No, atheism doesn't. There are no gnostic atheists.

Atheism is the belief, without evidence, in the lack of existence of any deity. Theism is the belief, without evidence, in the existence of some deity or deities or their rough equivalents. Both are unproven and (probably) non-falsifiable beliefs.

Wasting mod points to comment: The first claim is not entirely correct. As is, in certain ways, the second. In both cases, a collection of empirical facts can be stacked just so to support either statement. If one accepts the general epistemological rules for building consensus data through empirical observation (and the surrounding baggage), then the theist position is the more convoluted one. Every day things happen without miracles (or anything demonstrable as such), and every day more observations get added to the evidence pile for an atheist position.

If one doesn't accept or follow the general epistemology of science (particularly in the modern, Kuhnian and Popperian way) then one likely sees what might be miracles all the time, and those observations get added to the theism pile.

Disagreements about what constitutes evidence are where we are, not two incommensurate positions that are entirely untestable. Well, I suppose someone could be in that third position, but they'd be the third person out in any debate. I prefer the a priori assumption that the universe is comprehensible until, well, it's not.

It is not even that. Atheism and Agnosticism exist on orthogonal axes. Theism and Atheism make ontological statements about the existence resp. nonexistence of deities. Agnosticism, on the other hand, makes an epistemological statement about the possibility to know about said existence. It is perfectly possible to be an agnostic theist as well as an agnostic atheist.

As for the scientific validity - in absence of evidence, the default assumption is non-existence. It is simple as that. Do we need that debate every single fucking time the weekly religion vs. atheism thread pops up?

Several of the arguments you're making do not hold up.

Atheist is impelled by conviction fuelled by external evidence, or lack of evidence. It's incredibly compelling to note that the two largest theist franchises claim their deity possesses three qualities - omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence - and that the state of the world is completely at odds with any entity with all three qualities existing. It's also compelling to note that the more we discover about the universe, the more things we discover that work just fine without any kind of deity.

Your first assertion is the equivalent of the common, "why would a perfect god allow X?" That is not a refutation of the existence of God. It suggests that God doesn't exist OR we have an imperfect understanding of either God or the universe. The second point is a note that there is a lack of evidence, which again doesn't point one way or the other.

Atheists don't make a positive virtue of unshakable faith. If anything we use this as an argument ad-hominem about how childish theists are. If you proved that a particular deity existed with actual evidence, most of us would probably a) pee ourselves b) recant our position.

You claim that if real proof of God's existence were offered then most Atheists would recant their positions. But you also seem to be assuming that the inverse is not true. I see no basis for thinking that a religious person would not recant his position if the opposite one were proven. Neither position is currently proven, and I don't foresee that happening any time soon.

Many of the the most prominent atheists in the media are scientists, a kind of person who by definition delves into mysteries to see how they actually work. I personally find that atheism arises most in those with a questioning mind, the kind of mind that finds that understanding, for example, how the transition of electrons through particular quantum states governs the colour of the light emitted, does not diminish the beauty of phenomena like their aurora borealis, but instead enhances it.

Does the scientist delve in to the mystery because he dislikes it? I think you'll find as many scientists claiming to like the mystery he's exploring as you'll find theologists with the same claim.

I don't think atheists have a woody for the absence of a deity. I don't think you can be sexually excited about the absence of something. I think atheists, just like everyone else, can have displacement of their sexual urges in a fetishistic style for other things, but I think the main difference is that we get excited by things we chose, or happened upon by chance, or had advertised to us, instead of something we were told to find exciting by a preacher man.

The idea of God's existence and the idea of God's inexistence are just two more "things." Either can be and are fetishised, as you note humans sometimes do,or not. As for how you come across them I think you're making a distinction without a difference. You can chance across a "preacher man." You can choose the religion. You can choose the atheism. And it seems to me that from a non-religious point of view the advertiser and the "preacher man" are markedly similar.

Atheism is the belief, without evidence, in the lack of existence of any deity. Theism is the belief, without evidence, in the existence of some deity or deities or their rough equivalents. Both are unproven and (probably) non-falsifiable beliefs.

Indeed, atheism has as little support in science as theism. Agnosticism is the only scientific viewpoint.

I've had this conversation more than a few times with people over the years and I believe that your idea of what atheist means is wrong.

I believe an atheist is someone who believes that there is no god, while an agnostic is someone who believes that it is impossible to say definitively one way or the other whether there is a god and therefore doesn't believe in a god (or the non-existence of god).

Your point about

To believe something exists, you need proof it exists. To believe something doesn't exists, you need proof it doesn't exist. To not believe something exists, you just need to not have proof it exists.

is way off the mark. You absolutely do not need proof to believe, you only need faith. Belief plus evidence equals knowing, which is different again.

I think that in your elephant example, your non-belief makes you an elephant-bathtub-agnostic. You don't know of the elephants existence or non-existence, but you choose not to believe with the expectation that you may be proven wrong by further evidence.

To sum up, atheism is the belief in non-existence of god, just as theism is the belief in the existence of god. Agnosticism is the lack of belief in god. And you sir are an agnostic in my estimation.

Insanity can be restricted to a limited range of contexts, and insanity exists in varying degrees. For instance, phobias. To the extent that a person does not recognize reality and behave accordingly, he is insane (That's not a definition, it fails on some edge cases.). Theism meets the "recognize reality" criterion.

It's quite possible for atheists to hate the religion, even if they don't hate the God.

...don't make no sense.

Philosophy of religion, the concept of it alone, is the most significant terrorist act ever afflicted upon humanity. You believe in and maintain faith for a deity? You're an idiot. Your very existence and beliefs actively contribute to the unending conflicts, bloodshed and hatred that are spawned of your selfish theisms. That is all I've come to say.

how does zeus fit into this?

Or Odin? Or the old man Gilgamesh meets? Perhaps they are all founded in the same myth or even true story. Perhaps there is a 2 feathers -> 5 chickens effect here as well.

But oh no. You are clearly of superior intellect to all those religious-y types that have been thinking about this for the past few millennia and the comment section on /. is the right place to debunk all that superstitious nonsense. If only everyone saw the one truth that you do, it would be paradise.

I would advise you to maintain just a little bit of the humility in yourself that you demand of others. I am so sick of you holier-than-thou atheists who demand to not only take part in the discussion but be the arbiter of it as well because you just can't -stand- the fact that others might disagree with you and have good reason to do so. The assertion that there is no deity is just as asinine as the assertion that there is one. the only rational position is that we don't know either way and the burden of proof still rests with those who choose to believe in such a deity if they try to convince others. Militant anti-theism is a religion in its own right even if its adherents claim it isn't so.

Well, technically religion can be about any belief which is not supported by evidence and which has to be accepted on faith alone, but most religious beliefs tend to be about some kind of supernatural, unobservable, entity or phenomenon.

An obvious point of clarification is needed in the way this has been reported. "Religious Belief", as has been posited, is belief with respect to the existence of supernatural entities. But isn't Religion about collective belief, rather than supernatural belief? I would have thought "Theistic Belief" would have been a more appropriate target for the authors to address.

There are many shades of Agnosticism but there is only one of Atheism and that is "There is nothing supernatural."

Disagree:

There are many shades of atheism, from the denial of the existence/divinity of a single aspect of a single god while accepting other aspects; through the denial of the existence/divinity of a single god or a pantheon while accepting other gods in the pantheon or other pantheons; through denial of the existence/divinity of all but a single pantheon, small set of gods (i.e. Trinity), or single god, to denial of any god while believing in a universal "spirit" to denial of any gods whatsoever. All of these are historical perspectives that have resulted in charges of atheism. Socrates was convicted, among other things, of atheism, though referencing god/gods in his defense. Christians were executed for atheism during the days of Rome, though believing in a single God. Catholics and Protestants accused each other of atheism during and long after the Reformation, though believing in the same God.

Nowadays the term is often used as a catch-all for a denial of or disbelief in the supernatural, a further shade beyond the "a - theism" of its original meaning; and yet I have met soi disant atheists who would not enter a "haunted" building alone or who claim some sort of spirituality. Some would claim that these are not atheists, but I would say that they do not meet the requirements of a particular shade of atheism.