this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Why are people answering atheist here? OP is asking for religion. It's like if OP was asking what colour your basketballs are and having people respond (at length for some reason) that they don't have one.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Any survey of people's religions will have a category for people to answer "no belief/atheism". OP seems interested in what people believe and what led them to have that belief. I don't think answering with Atheism is going against that.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

This one does not have a category for not being religious. It only asks what religion people belive in.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I'm totally down for the atheist response, although it technically isn't a religion in itself as much a position on whether you believe in a deity or not. A N/A response is totally cool in my book and I actually appreciate it. But def would prefer if people would describe what led them to it in more depth

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Atheism can be considered a "religion". In fact, it's the "religion" of people who believe there isn't a God.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It absolutely can not be considered a religion, because it is the absence of one.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Believing in nothing is still believing

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not collecting stamps is still collecting something.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Completely unrelated. Obviously if you replace words by other random words, it will make no sense

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It was an analogy.

I am an a-stamp-collector. I do not collect stamps. This does not necessarily mean I still collect something.

I am also an atheist. I do not believe any claim I have heard about a god. This does not necessarily mean I still believe something (about a deity, or indeed about anything else).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You (we) believe there is no god, which you cannot prove. Come on

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You can of course believe whatever you want, but please don't tell me what I believe, because you're clearly confused.

I will make this as clear as I can: I absolutely do not make the claim that there is no god. For each of the positive claims for a particular god that I've heard, I don't believe the claims meet their burden of proof. Think of it like a jury in a courtroom: for each god claim I've heard presented, thus far I have found that deity "not guilty" of existing. This is not at all the same as asserting that no gods exist.

There are plenty of specific gods that are claimed to exist (Zeus, for example) where I do assert that particular god doesn't exist. But there are other god claims (a deistic god, for example) where I don't feel the proposition presented is falsifiable. For that reason, while I do not believe those claims meet their burden of proof, I also feel I cannot honestly assert that the deity doesn't exist.

The presence of even one deity in the "unfalsifiable" category, IMHO, prevents me from making the claim "no gods exist." But I am still an atheist, because I hold no theistic beliefs.

Hope this makes sense.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

That's what you believe...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's like calling baldness a hair style

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm bald. I have to shave my head to achieve the look, shave my hair into a style if you like. Even if that style is the absence of hair.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Right? Nature is cruel and lazy. It can’t even make me completely bald, I have to finish the job to get that streamlined look that brings all the boys to the yard.