[ExI] Tolerance

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 11/12/2009, jameschoate at austin.rr.com <jameschoate at austin.rr.com> wrote:
> ---- Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Atheism has no shared culture, ritual, tradition.
> > It doesn't even have metaphysical belief, it has a lack of
> > metaphysical belief. Unless you think that not believing in Santa
> > Claus is a religion, you cannot also call not believing in
> > supernatural entities a religion.
>
> Irrelevant, religion has nothing to do with some conceptual metric of distance in a religious phase space. Whether one believes in Santa Clause is irrelevant, you are confusing the the with the name for the thing. A serious conceptual error.

Do you believe in Santa Claus? Santa Claus is a minor deity in the
Christian pantheon, so if you don't believe in him, you are a Santa
Claus atheist. Is that a religious belief? If so, then your definition
of religious belief is very broad, and perhaps atheists should not
take offense when you apply it to them.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou