Is Atheism a Belief?

Or even a religion?

Many apologists claim that it is so, and with breathtaking arrogance, try to tell atheists what they think. I have a radical suggestion for you:-

Ask them. And listen to what they say.

• Google defines "atheism" as, "disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods." 

• It defines "religion" as, "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods."
• And "belief" as, "an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof."

You may find other definitions to better suit your prejudice or presuppositions, but dictionaries are repositories of words and their meanings, as used by people.

Some atheists believe there are no gods, but most atheists would say that they just cannot believe. They are agnostic atheists, ones who think the existence of any gods is vanishingly unlikely, but impossible to disprove (but see below).

• "Agnostic" - a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God.

Of course, the "God" of YEC and other flavours of science-denying creationism IS known to be a false god, and this is what I think is behind these apologists' assertions.

In the U.S.A., under the constitution, the state may not endorse any particular religion. This comes from the fact that many European Americans descend from those who fled religious persecution. They did not want such evil to arise in their new land. This resulted in an interdiction against indoctrination in any religion in state schools.

But those who adhere to a literal, kindergarten-level interpretation of scripture believe that the science that falsifies it is equivalent to a religion. They hence conflate science and atheism and claim it is a religion. "Religion (science) is being taught in our schools," they say. "Either it shouldn't' be, or we should be able to teach our beliefs as well."

Bizarrely, apologists will also say that people are atheists because they want to be free to "sin", as if pretending not to believe would free you. It would be like someone saying they don't believe in the police, in order to be free to commit crimes!

A final plea: Apologists, please note that "atheism" is not capitalized, except at the beginning of a sentence, or as above, within the title of a piece of writing. "Atheist", when you are referring to more than one of them, should be plural.

This page's URL:  https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/is-atheism-belief.html

For more, see https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/a-prefix.html

And https://debatingreligion.org/2019/11/26/how-to-debunk-the-atheism-is-a-religion-argument/