On the basis that no religion has demonstrated any evidence of validity.
Demonstrating evidence of validity has never, and should never, be a requirement for influencing government. The only way to prove political or economic theories is to set up a test country, and that's simply not a good idea. (We can't afford to only stick with what we have seen.)
Religion, by and large, is harmless in government, for the simple reason that the only religions that grow to significant size in a country are those that are aligned with the ethics and morals of said country. If you're going to ban religion, you might as well ban political parties and socio-economic theorists from government as well.
Agnosticism is not a third choice between theism and atheism. There is no third choice.
The definitons that you use are far too vauge for this usage. Strong Atheists share all of the faults of fringe religions, and a "weak atheist government" could in its own way be as bad as a Strong Atheist, or Catholic, or Wiccan government.
Agnosticism deals with whether or not the nature of a god or gods can be understood, not whether or not such entities exist.
Yes, exactly. Government shouldn't, and by and large doesn't, make a stand either way on whether or not deities--or spirituality of any kind--exist. Government is properly Agnostic--it should simply assume that religious questions cannot be answered by government or law, and act accordintly. The law shouldn't care where the ideas of public officials come from, just so long as they're consistent and roughly aligned with the moral compass of the nation.
Your point above seems to suggest that you believe atheism is anti-religion; it isn't
As a practical matter, whenever you find "Atheism" you find it working against religion. As you've said yourself, atheism does very little but say "your religion is wrong and shouldn't have power over me."
Of course, this gets us back to my original point: Atheism should be treated as a religion by government and public society. Government, Science, and Economoics should be agnostic, and essentially ignore the religious questions that Monotheism, Atheism, Polytheism, Pantheism, and Transcednence answer.
Any claim an Atheist makes based on Atheism should be given no more or less weight than a claim made by a Christian based on Christianity, and the religious belief of an atheist or a christian should matter no more than the state and town that they call home. A scientist that draws a scientific conclusion that "there is no god" should be greeted with the same skepticism than a scientist who claims to have found evidence of the soul is greeted with. A business that forbids religious missionary work should simply forbid religious discussion of any kind.
1: Artists, even major artists, often wind up with no leftover income from their record deal. (i.e., Courtney Love's anti-RIAA rant)
2: If a contract was so bad that the artist could not survive off it, a few judges would have tossed it out by now. There's a difference between a 'bad deal' and an unworkable deal.
Knowing these two points, it's easy enough to surmize that artists simply spend too much too soon. They're probably far better off if they mix and produce their own first (or second, or third...) record on their own time, with their own equipment and own studio, and then license THAT to the record company, than if they use the studio-owned equipment to do so.
The members of RIAA don't care about APPLE'S profit. They care about THEIR profit.
$0.60 per song with essentially NO cost to the label--that's got to be something that's starting to show up in the industry.
I kind of wish Apple hadn't invented iTMS, just so I could have watched the music industry die an ignoble death.
Apple is the best chance that we have at the moment for a real replacement for RIAA. When a few big, web-savy bands have their contract expire, and they decide to form a new label that essentially doesn't sell CDs, the old model will start to wither and die its "ignoble death."
Artists do make money off of each sale of each record; it's just that, as a whole, they frequently spend too much too soon, which often results in them being unable to pay even for their share of the cost of the record's production.
My biggest concern is actually the spread of religion into government, where it has no place.
On what basis, exactly, do you make this claim?
The first amendment prohibits government from interfering with religion--it doesn't disallow ministers from weighing in on political actions, or require elected officials to put aside their faith.
Allowing the government to erroneously categorize Atheism as a religion would pave the way for such things.
That's a slippery slope argument. You might as well disallow doctors from spreading into government, based on Dr. Kevorkian. (You know as well as I that for every Roy Moore or Fred Phelps, there are thousands of judges and priests who meld their religion and their jobs and their politics just fine.)
More than that, the argument doesn't even make sense as a slippery slope. How can limiting atheism allow religion greater influence on government? I fail to see any reasonable means that this transition can occur. (The only way I see that it could happen is that atheism's influence would be reduced--but Atheism-as-Atheism shouldn't be a goverment stance. Public contstructs like government are properly Agnostic, neither themselves atheist nor religious.)
The issue being discussed is whether atheism is a religion.
No. My issue is that atheism, be it technically a religion or not, should be CONSIDERED a religion by all public non-religious institutions: the government, all public corporations, and all political parties.
We have laws that prohibit religious organizations from unduly affecting government, and laws that prohibit discrimination based on religion. I believe that these laws should apply to Atheists and Atheist organizations, and I wholly suspect that you do so as well.
One last point:
In order to have a meaningful debate (or conversation, for that matter), there has to be a mutually agreed upon language with clear meanings behind the words.
Not quite. English, as I alluded to before, is a living, fluid language with variying definitions of words depending on context. When engaging in a dialogue off of the evening news, participants in said dialogue are empowered and required to adjust the technical meaning of a word such as best suits the dialogue.
you agree that my revised definition of "God" to "my cock" is valid and meaningful.
I say again: form a good argument for re-defining the technical definition of God to your cock, and it shall be valid in this context. But it is most childish to attempt to re-define the technical definition of a word so far that it is incompatable with its common definition, and this should not be done so save in circumstances where a wholly new world would be needed and cannot be easily constructed.
Defining "religion" as "a catagory the government puts you in based on your stated belief system" instead of "an organized belief system" is easy enough, and defining "atheism" as "the religion of those that believe in no gods" instead of "the absence of an organized belief system" is equally valid.
(On a side point, saying that all who don't believe in God are atheists is like saying that all who aren't Christians are Pagans. While technically accurate, in common usage it's foolish to do so and is only done as a gimmicky way to allow the minor religion to count far more than logic and reason accredit them for.)
I agree with you, although you assume that at least one is correct and I don't agree with that.
Well, yes. But I also believe that Christ was/is the Messiah, and my jewish friend does not. We agree that this is a difference of religious belief.
Sociologially speaking, it doesn't matter if any religion is right--though if we count Atheism as a religion, then one is certainly at least close to being right.;)
But Atheism is merely the absence of religion/a belief in gods. It's not so much an indecision as the recognition that there's no reason to make a decision.
The public actions of atheists disprove this statement. When people who call themselves and identify themselves as atheists bring lawsuits to stop school prayer, or oppose the congressional chaplains, or change how schools teach the Pledge of Allegiance, they're proving that Atheism is more that mere non-belief.
Now, of course, most of the "seperation of church and state" lawsuits are valid, and many of them I agree with--but that's because they favor one religion over another. I don't want the government to favor no religion over membership in a religion--hence, the core reason I want Atheism treated by public instututions as just another religion.
(As far as government and other public institutions are concerned, religion isn't "does the divine exist", but rather "do you believe in the divine?")
As to your points about religion:
1) Religions require faith. Atheism doesn't.
Not all religions require faith. Gnosticism and Bhuddism are good examples.
2) Religions prescribe specific moral codes. Atheism doesn't.
Not all religions prescribe moral codes. Modern Satanism holds no code but self-will; some versions of Christianity have no more of a specific code than "follow the will of God", and expect each follower to find God's will on their own.
3) Religions have followers. Atheism doesn't. Atheists like me may enjoy debating the subject, but we're not followers because there's nothing to follow.
See above: this is a false statement. Atheism does have people who go out and attempt to shape society as Atheists, and people who identify themselves as atheists--followers, if only for lack of a better word.
4) Religions make promises to their followers. Atheism promises nothing.
Satanism and Wicca promise nothing; they merely make a statement about life and have popular interpretations and lifestyle adjustments to that statement.
5) Perhaps most importantly, religions make positive assertions. Atheism (in general) doesn't.
Now, that last point doesn't apply to strong Atheism. Strong Atheism still isn't a religion but it does make a positive assertion and one could argue that strong Atheists should be required to prove that there is no god. Of course that would mean that Christians would have to prove that there is no Odin and followers of Asatru would have to prove that there is no Yahweh, etc, etc. In practice, no one bothers.
Again, I have no interest whatsoever in requiring proof for public society; doing that would wind up creating a new religion, and is generally a bad thing to do if we value the seperation of church and state.
But it sounds like the actual question is "Why do you care if people call Atheism a religion?" The reason that I argue against that assertion is that it leads to misunderstandings about what Atheism is and definitions like Jacques Maritain's "Practical Atheism". According to him, "Practical Atheists" "believe that they believe in God (and... perhaps believe in Him in their brains) but... in reality deny His existence by each one of their deeds." Moronic definitions like this paint Atheists as weaklings and hypocrits and must be fought. Or at least bickered about.
By all means, let us work to stop such false and horrid statements. (Mr. Maritain seems mo
It is a belief in the lack of existence of a supernatural entity in control of the universe. One can be athiest and a member of a religion.
Ah--WHAT?
Atheism is the belief that there is no god--that the Christians, Hindus, and all the others are essentially deluded fools who either believe lies or have seriously misinterpreted reality.
While you can be a follower of a religion and not really believe, that doesn't make you an atheist--just a bad follower of that religion. Atheists are not members of any other religion--if they were, they wouldn't be atheists.
(Which, actually, is a good argument for treating atheism as a religion.)
Both catholics and protestants call themselves "christians"
No, they call themselves Catholics and Protestants. And they started fighting because of the feud between Catholics and Protestants in Europe, which can be blamed on Europe's feudal nature, which can be blamed on the aborted Islamic invasion of Europe via Spain, which would never have happened if the Muslims had considered the Europeans to be of the same brotherhood, as they would have if Paul and Mohammad had instructed their followers that they were all "Jews." (Or some other term.)
Leaving that claim aside, let's get on to something more worthwhile: if atheism should be considered a religion. (We COULD argue the definition of "religion" until we're blue in the face, but that'd be about as worthwhile as debating if the blue I see and the blue you see are the same exact color.)
In affirmation: I didn't say that the OED was irrelevant. Merely that it was not perscritpive--that is, its sufficient to garner the general meaning of a word, but the general meaning of a word is insufficient for ground of ethics, public policy, law, or a host of other things, as I have said elsewhere.
More specfically, Atheism SHOULD be on equal ground with "theism" (and "spirituality" and "transcendence", while we're painting religions with broad strokes)) wherever they meet, so that each belief may win on its merits and not on a mere technicality. The playing field should be level, or else the game will be foul and we as a species and civilization would not advance. ("Advance" to a better understanding of everytyhing or anything.)
Now, there are doubtless religions that are false and wholly incorrect. Pick any given religion, and at least half of the others will strongly disagree with that religion--and for most tenets, they cannot be objectivly disproven. It is for this reason that all religions should be given equal ground in public society; we simply cannot tell which one is right and which one isn't.
Were Atheism a mere absence of religion, an indecision that does not attempt to answer religious questions, there would be no reason to treat it as a religion. But Atheism does answer religious questions--there are proponents and missionaries for atheism, who for whatever reason publicize their faith in the same manner and mediums that the various formal religions of the world do.
It is for this reason--that there are atheists who, as atheists, seek to shape the world just as christians or jews or wiccans seek to shape the world as christians or jews or wiccans--that Atheism should be considered a religion.
As a final rebuttal, can you elaborate on how you feel that Atheism is harmed or wronged by being considered a religion? Atheists are certainly no more disliked by believers of other religions if because they are called "atheists" instead of "unbelievers". And weak atheists are no more wronged by strong atheists being treated like any other religous group than weak christians are.
Come up with a good enough agrument for it, and I'll believe you. But that'd have to be pretty good. (I doubt that your reproductive organ can do enough to even be "a god", much less the Almighty Himself.)
I just know how to use a fucking dictionary
Dictionaries are descriptive and unitive, not perscriptive. For a rather impressive ammount of things, going to the dictionary to specifically define a word is insufficient. (Another poster linked to a website that pulls together several definitions of atheism--and notes that they are imprecise.)
Just to make sure you're getting my point: Whenever the government or a business can ask about or deal with "religion", "atheism" should be treated as just another religion.
The positive belief that there is no god is one type of atheism, called "strong atheism". The other type is the simple lack of belief in any gods (called "weak atheism").
Semantics. Which, of course, all names are--if Paul and Mohammad had both had their followers call themselves "Jews" we wouldn't have the problems we do today in the Middle East, even though the theololgical differences are so apparant.
Getting back to the original point: Atheism is a religion, as much as Wicca or Christianity or Santera. And it doesn't matter what specific words Webster's or the OED use to define "religion"--except when catagorizing religions, or as fodder for some kind of straw-man argument, atheism is a religion and should be treated by atheists and non-atheists as such.
Atheism is a religion in much the same way that baldness is a hair color.
Yes, exactly. And when a man with no hair gets a driver's license, it would be proper to list "bald" as their hair color.
It's simply a lack of belief.
Nope. Atheism is the positive belief that there is no God. You're thinking of agnosticism--the belief that man has insufficient knowledge if there is or is not a god.
It's easy enough to confuse Atheism and Agnosticism, just as it's easy enough to confuse Hinduism, Shinto, and Bhuddism. But there is a difference--and in my opinion, the major reason that agnostics consider themselves atheists is the noisy, zealous, and annoying atheists.
Not to say that all forthcoming and open atheists are annoying. Just a good deal of them.
Only if you define religion such that it isn't. For the purposes of common conversation and the law--you know, two places where we want freedom to believe what we want to believe--I prefer a definition of "religion" that includes atheism, agnosticism, and every other formal or informal system of beliefs.
Or, if you can prefer, we can exclude atheists from the word "religion" entirely--in which case, the first amendment's freedom of religion won't apply, and atheists will be legally discriminated against.:) And, of course, every time some random/.ing atheist tells me that atheism isn't a religion, I wind up laughing that the non-religion belief system has the kind of zealots that Catholics would kill for.
I don't like the implication of this statement. I'm an Atheist, but I still brush.
OT, but I'm anal like this.
Atheism is a religon--that is, it's an answer to the question of "what's up with all this god stuff?". It being a negative doesn't mean that, as far as politics and law care, that it isn't a religion.
(You could, I supposed, call it "theology" or "spiritual beliefs" or "opinion on god" if you really want to--but "religion" is a bit more entrenched and just as easy a synonym.)
The mainstream picks their candidate based on likability and how attractive they are and whether they wear the right colored suit or seem smug.
Yes, exactly.
We are not a direct democracy for most things. Instead, we elect representatives who we then empower to make decisions in our name; when we don't like those decisions, we tell the represenative, and eventually replace them.
It almost doesn't matter what your policies are; you need to be trustworthy to do the job the way we want it done, and beyond that, it's just politics.
My favorite counter example is this: why is Agent Smith desperatly seeking the access codes to the Zion Mainframe in M1 when he should know full well (what with the 6 versions and all) that Zion will be overrun by sentinels anyways?
Because if he wins, then he gets another few decades of not hunting inside the Matrix. It's like finishing all your work at the office so you can go home.
Or, perhaps he was simply programmed to think and act that way. Remember--the agents are part of the Matrix designed to counter incursions within the Matrix, and, if not for the Trainman's links and Exiles, Smith and Neo would have simply obliterated the Matrix and the machines would have began again with the babies.
Although it's always better to have security through you-cant-do-it-because-youd-need-the-right-1024-bi t-key rather than through the lets-make-it-illegal method.
Not always. If it's illegal, then it can be done given proper circumstances. Thus, whenever it's something that is locked down only so it's not always done (like, oh, speeding, or opening your own home when you locked your keys inside), restriction-through-law is better than restriction-through-technology.
mon, this isn't flamebait...name one anime fan YOU know, moderator, who DOESN'T have a SINGLE tentacle porn/me raises hand.
Not a single one. I've seen a few, but they simply don't cut it for me.
The anime target consumer is a child. The reason full-grown adults in America flock to anime is unknown at this time.
The reason "full-grown adults"--which is, of course, a misnomer; we're really talking about 20-30 somethings--flock to anime is threefold.
Firstly, it's originaly targeted at or near the comparable market in Japan.
Secondly, a good portion of the anime watching crowd grew up watching imported animation from Japan, and so it's logical that they'd move on to more complex stories in the same medium.
Thirdly, anime's been a trendy thing on college campuses for years now.
And, of course, there's always that "do something that's not stupid but that mom & dad won't get" drive.
Even the thought of having to defend against such a suit may well be enough to stop a lot of places from doing this.
Not really. Any hospital big enough to do this test right will have a lawyer on-staff or on-retainer, and will be able to file the Motion for Summary Judgement relatively inexpensively.
Hospitals, moreso than any other organization that interacts with a lot of people, need to be ready to defend themselves against lawsuits.
And, honestly, a charitable (non-profit) hospital that can't afford a lawyer can probably just call up their local bar and get some good pro bono counsel.
Waivers be damned, because whenever you beleive something is unthinkable, there is always someone out there who thinks they are entitled to something.
You're obviously not familiar with the law, at all.
There are very clear doctrines in many states regarding Assumption of Risk. So long as the doctor makes it very clear to the patient that the cure is only possible, and it there might be outrageous side-effects anyway, the doc should be fine.
Unless, of course, the doc lied / misrepresented facts to get a new treatment tested--in which case, the doc should pay.
In 1000 years, they'll see America, and they'll say exactly what we say about the Romans
Ah, no. In 1003 Europe was recovering from the chaos of Chalemange's descendants, Chirstendom was furter-cementing, and the Roman Empire was gone. (The splinter Ottoman Empire, which grew roughly directly from Rome, continued through WWII.)
"Roughly" 1000 years ago (+/- 400 years) we had the Crusades, King Richard, Robin Hood, Henry VII, a scattering of Popes, folk who remembered 'King Arthur', and the final wimpering death of the Roman Empire.
So, yeah, in 1000 years I expect to be fairly well remembered. 10,000 maybe not, but definitly a measly 1,000.
People look for a traditional western storyline, and they can't handle characters who are both good and bad, and stories that deal with multiple social issues, without offering panaceas at the end.
You don't read much, do you?
Once you get past the pop tripe, and filter out most traditional fantasy stories, you wind up with a whole bunch of good stories that don't have final solutions for just about anything.
The easiest examples I can think of are FX's The Shield and HBO's The Sopranos. Spend some time in a bookstore, and you'll find even more complex stories by Americans for Americans.
Now, once that's out of the way:
But no one has ever heard of it, because the american public can't understand or be bothered to try and understand an animated cartoon not aimed at children, or that doesn't hinge on humour
The American public doesn't go for animation, by and large, because we have sufficient resources to fill almost all of the niches that are filled by animation in Japan with live-action movies. (One notable exception is comic-book adaptations--which are being done, but not incredibly frequently.)
Beyond this, anime is essentialy just "foreign cinema", which rarely does well in the US, because Americans are awfully picky about lip-sync.
Eep. I mean, talk about misrepresenting the facts.
Whether measured by surveys of crime victims or by police statistics, serious crime rates are not generally higher in the United States than England. (All references to England include Wales.) According to 1995 victim surveys -- which measure robbery, assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft -- crime rates are all higher in England than the United States (figures 1-4 of the report beginning on page 1). According to latest (1996) police statistics -- which measure incidents reported to police of murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft -- crime rates are higher in England for three crimes: assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft (figures 5-10). The 1996 crime rate for a fourth crime (robbery) would have been higher in England than the United States had English police recorded the same fraction of robberies that came to their attention as American police (figure 15).
Feel free to read that again--with the exception of "gun crime", UK residents are MORE likely to be victims of crime than the US.
According to the page you linked to, the U.S. Rape Rate isn't going up--the US conviction rate is, while the UK's Rape-conviction rate is going down.
Protesting that this product blocks access to pro-gun sites is like moaning about a porn-blocking product blocking access to porn. This *isn't* about freedom of speech. Don't buy it if you don't want to block access to anti-gun-control sites.
Sorry, this is a free-speach issue. Norton's Internet Security 2004 says nothing about blocking violence sites, gun-sites, or right-wing political lobby groups. In fact, by its description, it's exactly what libraries will be putting on publicly avaliable computers.
Slashdot Mirror
On the basis that no religion has demonstrated any evidence of validity.
Demonstrating evidence of validity has never, and should never, be a requirement for influencing government. The only way to prove political or economic theories is to set up a test country, and that's simply not a good idea. (We can't afford to only stick with what we have seen.)
Religion, by and large, is harmless in government, for the simple reason that the only religions that grow to significant size in a country are those that are aligned with the ethics and morals of said country. If you're going to ban religion, you might as well ban political parties and socio-economic theorists from government as well.
Agnosticism is not a third choice between theism and atheism. There is no third choice.
The definitons that you use are far too vauge for this usage. Strong Atheists share all of the faults of fringe religions, and a "weak atheist government" could in its own way be as bad as a Strong Atheist, or Catholic, or Wiccan government.
Agnosticism deals with whether or not the nature of a god or gods can be understood, not whether or not such entities exist.
Yes, exactly. Government shouldn't, and by and large doesn't, make a stand either way on whether or not deities--or spirituality of any kind--exist. Government is properly Agnostic--it should simply assume that religious questions cannot be answered by government or law, and act accordintly. The law shouldn't care where the ideas of public officials come from, just so long as they're consistent and roughly aligned with the moral compass of the nation.
Your point above seems to suggest that you believe atheism is anti-religion; it isn't
As a practical matter, whenever you find "Atheism" you find it working against religion. As you've said yourself, atheism does very little but say "your religion is wrong and shouldn't have power over me."
Of course, this gets us back to my original point: Atheism should be treated as a religion by government and public society. Government, Science, and Economoics should be agnostic, and essentially ignore the religious questions that Monotheism, Atheism, Polytheism, Pantheism, and Transcednence answer.
Any claim an Atheist makes based on Atheism should be given no more or less weight than a claim made by a Christian based on Christianity, and the religious belief of an atheist or a christian should matter no more than the state and town that they call home. A scientist that draws a scientific conclusion that "there is no god" should be greeted with the same skepticism than a scientist who claims to have found evidence of the soul is greeted with. A business that forbids religious missionary work should simply forbid religious discussion of any kind.
None. It's just that I know two things.
1: Artists, even major artists, often wind up with no leftover income from their record deal. (i.e., Courtney Love's anti-RIAA rant)
2: If a contract was so bad that the artist could not survive off it, a few judges would have tossed it out by now. There's a difference between a 'bad deal' and an unworkable deal.
Knowing these two points, it's easy enough to surmize that artists simply spend too much too soon. They're probably far better off if they mix and produce their own first (or second, or third...) record on their own time, with their own equipment and own studio, and then license THAT to the record company, than if they use the studio-owned equipment to do so.
Apple can't make any profit
The members of RIAA don't care about APPLE'S profit. They care about THEIR profit.
$0.60 per song with essentially NO cost to the label--that's got to be something that's starting to show up in the industry.
I kind of wish Apple hadn't invented iTMS, just so I could have watched the music industry die an ignoble death.
Apple is the best chance that we have at the moment for a real replacement for RIAA. When a few big, web-savy bands have their contract expire, and they decide to form a new label that essentially doesn't sell CDs, the old model will start to wither and die its "ignoble death."
Not the stores, and (typically) not the artists.
Artists do make money off of each sale of each record; it's just that, as a whole, they frequently spend too much too soon, which often results in them being unable to pay even for their share of the cost of the record's production.
My biggest concern is actually the spread of religion into government, where it has no place.
On what basis, exactly, do you make this claim?
The first amendment prohibits government from interfering with religion--it doesn't disallow ministers from weighing in on political actions, or require elected officials to put aside their faith.
Allowing the government to erroneously categorize Atheism as a religion would pave the way for such things.
That's a slippery slope argument. You might as well disallow doctors from spreading into government, based on Dr. Kevorkian. (You know as well as I that for every Roy Moore or Fred Phelps, there are thousands of judges and priests who meld their religion and their jobs and their politics just fine.)
More than that, the argument doesn't even make sense as a slippery slope. How can limiting atheism allow religion greater influence on government? I fail to see any reasonable means that this transition can occur. (The only way I see that it could happen is that atheism's influence would be reduced--but Atheism-as-Atheism shouldn't be a goverment stance. Public contstructs like government are properly Agnostic, neither themselves atheist nor religious.)
The issue being discussed is whether atheism is a religion.
No. My issue is that atheism, be it technically a religion or not, should be CONSIDERED a religion by all public non-religious institutions: the government, all public corporations, and all political parties.
We have laws that prohibit religious organizations from unduly affecting government, and laws that prohibit discrimination based on religion. I believe that these laws should apply to Atheists and Atheist organizations, and I wholly suspect that you do so as well.
One last point:
In order to have a meaningful debate (or conversation, for that matter), there has to be a mutually agreed upon language with clear meanings behind the words.
Not quite. English, as I alluded to before, is a living, fluid language with variying definitions of words depending on context. When engaging in a dialogue off of the evening news, participants in said dialogue are empowered and required to adjust the technical meaning of a word such as best suits the dialogue.
you agree that my revised definition of "God" to "my cock" is valid and meaningful.
I say again: form a good argument for re-defining the technical definition of God to your cock, and it shall be valid in this context. But it is most childish to attempt to re-define the technical definition of a word so far that it is incompatable with its common definition, and this should not be done so save in circumstances where a wholly new world would be needed and cannot be easily constructed.
Defining "religion" as "a catagory the government puts you in based on your stated belief system" instead of "an organized belief system" is easy enough, and defining "atheism" as "the religion of those that believe in no gods" instead of "the absence of an organized belief system" is equally valid.
(On a side point, saying that all who don't believe in God are atheists is like saying that all who aren't Christians are Pagans. While technically accurate, in common usage it's foolish to do so and is only done as a gimmicky way to allow the minor religion to count far more than logic and reason accredit them for.)
I agree with you, although you assume that at least one is correct and I don't agree with that.
;)
... perhaps believe in Him in their brains) but ... in reality deny His existence by each one of their deeds." Moronic definitions like this paint Atheists as weaklings and hypocrits and must be fought. Or at least bickered about.
Well, yes. But I also believe that Christ was/is the Messiah, and my jewish friend does not. We agree that this is a difference of religious belief.
Sociologially speaking, it doesn't matter if any religion is right--though if we count Atheism as a religion, then one is certainly at least close to being right.
But Atheism is merely the absence of religion/a belief in gods. It's not so much an indecision as the recognition that there's no reason to make a decision.
The public actions of atheists disprove this statement. When people who call themselves and identify themselves as atheists bring lawsuits to stop school prayer, or oppose the congressional chaplains, or change how schools teach the Pledge of Allegiance, they're proving that Atheism is more that mere non-belief.
Now, of course, most of the "seperation of church and state" lawsuits are valid, and many of them I agree with--but that's because they favor one religion over another. I don't want the government to favor no religion over membership in a religion--hence, the core reason I want Atheism treated by public instututions as just another religion.
(As far as government and other public institutions are concerned, religion isn't "does the divine exist", but rather "do you believe in the divine?")
As to your points about religion:
1) Religions require faith. Atheism doesn't.
Not all religions require faith. Gnosticism and Bhuddism are good examples.
2) Religions prescribe specific moral codes. Atheism doesn't.
Not all religions prescribe moral codes. Modern Satanism holds no code but self-will; some versions of Christianity have no more of a specific code than "follow the will of God", and expect each follower to find God's will on their own.
3) Religions have followers. Atheism doesn't. Atheists like me may enjoy debating the subject, but we're not followers because there's nothing to follow.
See above: this is a false statement. Atheism does have people who go out and attempt to shape society as Atheists, and people who identify themselves as atheists--followers, if only for lack of a better word.
4) Religions make promises to their followers. Atheism promises nothing.
Satanism and Wicca promise nothing; they merely make a statement about life and have popular interpretations and lifestyle adjustments to that statement.
5) Perhaps most importantly, religions make positive assertions. Atheism (in general) doesn't.
Now, that last point doesn't apply to strong Atheism. Strong Atheism still isn't a religion but it does make a positive assertion and one could argue that strong Atheists should be required to prove that there is no god. Of course that would mean that Christians would have to prove that there is no Odin and followers of Asatru would have to prove that there is no Yahweh, etc, etc. In practice, no one bothers.
Again, I have no interest whatsoever in requiring proof for public society; doing that would wind up creating a new religion, and is generally a bad thing to do if we value the seperation of church and state.
But it sounds like the actual question is "Why do you care if people call Atheism a religion?" The reason that I argue against that assertion is that it leads to misunderstandings about what Atheism is and definitions like Jacques Maritain's "Practical Atheism". According to him, "Practical Atheists" "believe that they believe in God (and
By all means, let us work to stop such false and horrid statements. (Mr. Maritain seems mo
It is a belief in the lack of existence of a supernatural entity in control of the universe. One can be athiest and a member of a religion.
Ah--WHAT?
Atheism is the belief that there is no god--that the Christians, Hindus, and all the others are essentially deluded fools who either believe lies or have seriously misinterpreted reality.
While you can be a follower of a religion and not really believe, that doesn't make you an atheist--just a bad follower of that religion. Atheists are not members of any other religion--if they were, they wouldn't be atheists.
(Which, actually, is a good argument for treating atheism as a religion.)
Easy enough. I'll start with a rebuttal.
Both catholics and protestants call themselves "christians"
No, they call themselves Catholics and Protestants. And they started fighting because of the feud between Catholics and Protestants in Europe, which can be blamed on Europe's feudal nature, which can be blamed on the aborted Islamic invasion of Europe via Spain, which would never have happened if the Muslims had considered the Europeans to be of the same brotherhood, as they would have if Paul and Mohammad had instructed their followers that they were all "Jews." (Or some other term.)
Leaving that claim aside, let's get on to something more worthwhile: if atheism should be considered a religion. (We COULD argue the definition of "religion" until we're blue in the face, but that'd be about as worthwhile as debating if the blue I see and the blue you see are the same exact color.)
In affirmation: I didn't say that the OED was irrelevant. Merely that it was not perscritpive--that is, its sufficient to garner the general meaning of a word, but the general meaning of a word is insufficient for ground of ethics, public policy, law, or a host of other things, as I have said elsewhere.
More specfically, Atheism SHOULD be on equal ground with "theism" (and "spirituality" and "transcendence", while we're painting religions with broad strokes)) wherever they meet, so that each belief may win on its merits and not on a mere technicality. The playing field should be level, or else the game will be foul and we as a species and civilization would not advance. ("Advance" to a better understanding of everytyhing or anything.)
Now, there are doubtless religions that are false and wholly incorrect. Pick any given religion, and at least half of the others will strongly disagree with that religion--and for most tenets, they cannot be objectivly disproven. It is for this reason that all religions should be given equal ground in public society; we simply cannot tell which one is right and which one isn't.
Were Atheism a mere absence of religion, an indecision that does not attempt to answer religious questions, there would be no reason to treat it as a religion. But Atheism does answer religious questions--there are proponents and missionaries for atheism, who for whatever reason publicize their faith in the same manner and mediums that the various formal religions of the world do.
It is for this reason--that there are atheists who, as atheists, seek to shape the world just as christians or jews or wiccans seek to shape the world as christians or jews or wiccans--that Atheism should be considered a religion.
As a final rebuttal, can you elaborate on how you feel that Atheism is harmed or wronged by being considered a religion? Atheists are certainly no more disliked by believers of other religions if because they are called "atheists" instead of "unbelievers". And weak atheists are no more wronged by strong atheists being treated like any other religous group than weak christians are.
the definition of "God" is now "my cock"
Come up with a good enough agrument for it, and I'll believe you. But that'd have to be pretty good. (I doubt that your reproductive organ can do enough to even be "a god", much less the Almighty Himself.)
I just know how to use a fucking dictionary
Dictionaries are descriptive and unitive, not perscriptive. For a rather impressive ammount of things, going to the dictionary to specifically define a word is insufficient. (Another poster linked to a website that pulls together several definitions of atheism--and notes that they are imprecise.)
Just to make sure you're getting my point: Whenever the government or a business can ask about or deal with "religion", "atheism" should be treated as just another religion.
Exactly. Which is why atheism--"not a religion"--needs to be treated as a religion by EVERYTHING that isn't a private party.
The positive belief that there is no god is one type of atheism, called "strong atheism". The other type is the simple lack of belief in any gods (called "weak atheism").
Semantics. Which, of course, all names are--if Paul and Mohammad had both had their followers call themselves "Jews" we wouldn't have the problems we do today in the Middle East, even though the theololgical differences are so apparant.
Getting back to the original point: Atheism is a religion, as much as Wicca or Christianity or Santera. And it doesn't matter what specific words Webster's or the OED use to define "religion"--except when catagorizing religions, or as fodder for some kind of straw-man argument, atheism is a religion and should be treated by atheists and non-atheists as such.
Atheism is a religion in much the same way that baldness is a hair color.
Yes, exactly. And when a man with no hair gets a driver's license, it would be proper to list "bald" as their hair color.
It's simply a lack of belief.
Nope. Atheism is the positive belief that there is no God. You're thinking of agnosticism--the belief that man has insufficient knowledge if there is or is not a god.
It's easy enough to confuse Atheism and Agnosticism, just as it's easy enough to confuse Hinduism, Shinto, and Bhuddism. But there is a difference--and in my opinion, the major reason that agnostics consider themselves atheists is the noisy, zealous, and annoying atheists.
Not to say that all forthcoming and open atheists are annoying. Just a good deal of them.
Therefore, IT'S NOT A RELIGION.
:) And, of course, every time some random /.ing atheist tells me that atheism isn't a religion, I wind up laughing that the non-religion belief system has the kind of zealots that Catholics would kill for.
Only if you define religion such that it isn't. For the purposes of common conversation and the law--you know, two places where we want freedom to believe what we want to believe--I prefer a definition of "religion" that includes atheism, agnosticism, and every other formal or informal system of beliefs.
Or, if you can prefer, we can exclude atheists from the word "religion" entirely--in which case, the first amendment's freedom of religion won't apply, and atheists will be legally discriminated against.
I don't like the implication of this statement. I'm an Atheist, but I still brush.
OT, but I'm anal like this.
Atheism is a religon--that is, it's an answer to the question of "what's up with all this god stuff?". It being a negative doesn't mean that, as far as politics and law care, that it isn't a religion.
(You could, I supposed, call it "theology" or "spiritual beliefs" or "opinion on god" if you really want to--but "religion" is a bit more entrenched and just as easy a synonym.)
The mainstream picks their candidate based on likability and how attractive they are and whether they wear the right colored suit or seem smug.
Yes, exactly.
We are not a direct democracy for most things. Instead, we elect representatives who we then empower to make decisions in our name; when we don't like those decisions, we tell the represenative, and eventually replace them.
It almost doesn't matter what your policies are; you need to be trustworthy to do the job the way we want it done, and beyond that, it's just politics.
My favorite counter example is this: why is Agent Smith desperatly seeking the access codes to the Zion Mainframe in M1 when he should know full well (what with the 6 versions and all) that Zion will be overrun by sentinels anyways?
Because if he wins, then he gets another few decades of not hunting inside the Matrix. It's like finishing all your work at the office so you can go home.
Or, perhaps he was simply programmed to think and act that way. Remember--the agents are part of the Matrix designed to counter incursions within the Matrix, and, if not for the Trainman's links and Exiles, Smith and Neo would have simply obliterated the Matrix and the machines would have began again with the babies.
Although it's always better to have security through you-cant-do-it-because-youd-need-the-right-1024-bi t-key rather than through the lets-make-it-illegal method.
Not always. If it's illegal, then it can be done given proper circumstances. Thus, whenever it's something that is locked down only so it's not always done (like, oh, speeding, or opening your own home when you locked your keys inside), restriction-through-law is better than restriction-through-technology.
mon, this isn't flamebait...name one anime fan YOU know, moderator, who DOESN'T have a SINGLE tentacle porn /me raises hand.
Not a single one. I've seen a few, but they simply don't cut it for me.
The anime target consumer is a child. The reason full-grown adults in America flock to anime is unknown at this time.
The reason "full-grown adults"--which is, of course, a misnomer; we're really talking about 20-30 somethings--flock to anime is threefold.
Firstly, it's originaly targeted at or near the comparable market in Japan.
Secondly, a good portion of the anime watching crowd grew up watching imported animation from Japan, and so it's logical that they'd move on to more complex stories in the same medium.
Thirdly, anime's been a trendy thing on college campuses for years now.
And, of course, there's always that "do something that's not stupid but that mom & dad won't get" drive.
Even the thought of having to defend against such a suit may well be enough to stop a lot of places from doing this.
Not really. Any hospital big enough to do this test right will have a lawyer on-staff or on-retainer, and will be able to file the Motion for Summary Judgement relatively inexpensively.
Hospitals, moreso than any other organization that interacts with a lot of people, need to be ready to defend themselves against lawsuits.
And, honestly, a charitable (non-profit) hospital that can't afford a lawyer can probably just call up their local bar and get some good pro bono counsel.
Waivers be damned, because whenever you beleive something is unthinkable, there is always someone out there who thinks they are entitled to something.
You're obviously not familiar with the law, at all.
There are very clear doctrines in many states regarding Assumption of Risk. So long as the doctor makes it very clear to the patient that the cure is only possible, and it there might be outrageous side-effects anyway, the doc should be fine.
Unless, of course, the doc lied / misrepresented facts to get a new treatment tested--in which case, the doc should pay.
In 1000 years, they'll see America, and they'll say exactly what we say about the Romans
Ah, no. In 1003 Europe was recovering from the chaos of Chalemange's descendants, Chirstendom was furter-cementing, and the Roman Empire was gone. (The splinter Ottoman Empire, which grew roughly directly from Rome, continued through WWII.)
"Roughly" 1000 years ago (+/- 400 years) we had the Crusades, King Richard, Robin Hood, Henry VII, a scattering of Popes, folk who remembered 'King Arthur', and the final wimpering death of the Roman Empire.
So, yeah, in 1000 years I expect to be fairly well remembered. 10,000 maybe not, but definitly a measly 1,000.
People look for a traditional western storyline, and they can't handle characters who are both good and bad, and stories that deal with multiple social issues, without offering panaceas at the end.
You don't read much, do you?
Once you get past the pop tripe, and filter out most traditional fantasy stories, you wind up with a whole bunch of good stories that don't have final solutions for just about anything.
The easiest examples I can think of are FX's The Shield and HBO's The Sopranos. Spend some time in a bookstore, and you'll find even more complex stories by Americans for Americans.
Now, once that's out of the way:
But no one has ever heard of it, because the american public can't understand or be bothered to try and understand an animated cartoon not aimed at children, or that doesn't hinge on humour
The American public doesn't go for animation, by and large, because we have sufficient resources to fill almost all of the niches that are filled by animation in Japan with live-action movies. (One notable exception is comic-book adaptations--which are being done, but not incredibly frequently.)
Beyond this, anime is essentialy just "foreign cinema", which rarely does well in the US, because Americans are awfully picky about lip-sync.
I suspect the reason why the military has not followed through on this is because the cigarette industry would cut off their supply of smokes...
Actually, I suspect it's because they have a better way of incapacitating or killing the enemy army--bullets.
The CIA, OTOH, probably has "distilled nicotine" as one of their poisons. And they kill people so rarely, we just don't notice.
Eep. I mean, talk about misrepresenting the facts.
Whether measured by surveys of crime victims or by police statistics, serious crime rates are not generally higher in the United States than England. (All references to England include Wales.) According to 1995 victim surveys -- which measure robbery, assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft -- crime rates are all higher in England than the United States (figures 1-4 of the report beginning on page 1). According to latest (1996) police statistics -- which measure incidents reported to police of murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft -- crime rates are higher in England for three crimes: assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft (figures 5-10). The 1996 crime rate for a fourth crime (robbery) would have been higher in England than the United States had English police recorded the same fraction of robberies that came to their attention as American police (figure 15).
Feel free to read that again--with the exception of "gun crime", UK residents are MORE likely to be victims of crime than the US.
According to the page you linked to, the U.S. Rape Rate isn't going up--the US conviction rate is, while the UK's Rape-conviction rate is going down.
Protesting that this product blocks access to pro-gun sites is like moaning about a porn-blocking product blocking access to porn. This *isn't* about freedom of speech. Don't buy it if you don't want to block access to anti-gun-control sites.
Sorry, this is a free-speach issue. Norton's Internet Security 2004 says nothing about blocking violence sites, gun-sites, or right-wing political lobby groups. In fact, by its description, it's exactly what libraries will be putting on publicly avaliable computers.