[ExI] atheism

[Mike Dougherty]

On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 11:06 AM, Max More <max at maxmore.com> wrote:

>
> 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).
>
> 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?
>

If we're attacking the meaning of words and their use, can I point out that
religion and spirituality are different ideas too?  Inasmuch as religion is
a group behavior of people professing to feel the same kind of spirituality,
I would claim that devout atheists (an observation of the group) seem
compelled to defend the inherently anti-religious nature of their core
principle.  I find it to be a boring topic.  I understand Max to be making a
different point, but arriving at the same conclusion:  it really doesn't
matter.  For the only commonality of a population of people that they do not
share a single idea that is believed those outside their group do share is
not really much of an identity.  As an indistinct label with almost no
expressive power to convey a specific import, why the obsession with
professing "atheism" as anything at all?
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