[ExI] atheism

[Max More]

Flemming
>To be an atheist is exactly just another religion. You can believe 
>that there is no god, but you can not prove it. Therefore atheism is 
>a religion based on belief.

Atheism is a-theism -- an absence of belief in a god. The absence of 
belief *cannot* be a religion. In addition, as others have pointed 
out, atheism has none of the rituals or other marks of religions. 
It's absurd to call atheism a religion.

I cannot prove that the Tooth Fairy doesn't exist, but I don't 
believe in a Tooth Fairy. Not only do I lack belief in the TF, I 
would pretty confidently say there is no TF. Does that make me part 
of the A-TF religion? If you answer "yes", then you are committed to 
saying I am part of an infinite number of religions, since I lack 
belief in an infinite number of other claims.

>  If you want to distance yourself from religion the right ism is 
> agnostisism. To be an agnostisc is to decclare that there is not 
> enough data to settle the question if there is or is not a god.

That is one form of agnosticism -- the weak version. In that sense, 
you can be an agnostic atheist. It's also possible to be an agnostic 
theist if you choose to believe despite acknowledging that you don't 
really know. (This might seem weird, but many religious people's 
brains probably are doing something like this at a level below the 
conscious... just my speculation.)

The other, strong, form of agnosticism says that you *cannot* know 
whether or not there is a god. That's an equally legitimate form of 
agnosticism: it is a-gnosticism -- a lack of knowledge. You can lack 
knowledge because (a) you don't have sufficient information or 
haven't given it sufficient thought, or (b) you believe that you 
cannot know -- gods are not possible objects of knowledge.

Atheism and agnosticism are not -- or need not -- be distinct 
alternatives. The former is simply a statement about a lack of 
belief; the latter may be a statement about what you think it's 
possible to believe, or what you think you have *reason* to believe. 
Unfortunately, not everyone bases their beliefs on what they have 
reason to believe.

But, whichever way you take the meaning of "agnostic" or "atheist", 
atheism is clearly *not* a religion. You can't have religion without 
a set of beliefs (not lack-of-beliefs) and some accompanying markers 
(typically rituals and the like).

Flemming and James Choate do seem to be seriously confused on this 
issue. I second Fred's recommendation to study pancritical 
rationalism. It might help.

This should be 101 on the Extropy-Chat list. We have plenty of 
genuinely controversial and difficult issues to discuss. Can we now 
get back to them?

Max


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Max More, Ph.D.
Strategic Philosopher
Extropy Institute Founder
www.maxmore.com
max at maxmore.com
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