Atheism is a Religion . . . . but a good one.

[Buddhist Alternative]

"I don't know what caused the Big Bang and I don't know why there is something instead of nothing and that means you don't know either" – Bill Maher. "I prefer Rationalism over Atheism because the question of God is unknowable. As a Rationalist you don't have to waste your time either attacking or defending either position" – Issac Asimov. "You should be skeptical of everything, including yourself" – Bertrand Russell. I had to preface this article with the above quotes because, although I am a Buddhist and believe in a Supreme Being, I am a great admirer of the above people. My two B.A.'s are not in Philosophy or Physics, so feel free to tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about. You may be right. But I would like to open a discourse with my Atheist friends who have a Philosophy that I also admire. That philosophy is: 'Your Heart should not accept what your Mind rejects'. One of the tenants of Buddhism is that you should not accept anything without thinking. But, I do have a rebuttal for at least two of the statements by some well known, highly intelligent, Atheists:

"If God did not require being created, logic dictates that the Universe did not require being created either" – Michael Shermer. My rebuttal is that the Universe is composed of Matter, Energy, Gravity, Time and Space; all of which require being created. Consciousness however is still a mystery. In fact, if you're a follower of the Niels Bohr Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, it is Consciousness that creates Matter. A Supreme Consciousness may very well indeed not have required being created. To those whose explanation of Consciousness is that the Human Brain is so complex that Consciousness 'somehow' evolved; you should know that using the word 'somehow' poses a lot of philosophical problems and questions. For example, Immanuel Kant in 'The Critique Of Pure Reason' surmised that Space and Time are only the relationship of one object to another; but, if we did not have the concept of Space and Time 'A Priori' in our Minds before we were born, we would not have been able to relate one sense impression to another. There would be no Awareness or Consciousness.

"Quantum Mechanics allows for a Universe to come into existence out of Nothing" – Lawrence Krauss. I have several rebuttals for this. First, Quantum Mechanics has become all things to all people. Physicist Fred Alan Wolfe in 'The Spiritual Universe' claims that Quantum Physics proves the existence of the Human Soul. John Wheeler believes that the strange results in QP experiments suggest that someone is observing the Universe. Secondly, when Dr. Krauss (if I understand him correctly) talks of something coming from nothing – He is talking about Gravity affecting Negative Energy is such a way that virtual particles 'pop' into existence which then become real particles. The problem with this, as even physicists who are atheists have pointed out, is that this occurs in Space and in Time within the Universe. The Big Bang occurred in a no-when, no-place, no-gravity. Krauss's reply is that a true Nothing (no space, no time, no gravity) is unstable. And like all unstable systems, it will eventually collapse in on itself and produce something. I'm not sure how to answer that. In a no-time, how does nothing 'eventually' collapse. It should be noted that by the year 2017, there may be satellites in place (according to the Science Channel – 'How The Universe Works') that might be able to detect Gravity Waves from a Universe that existed before the Big Bang. One theory is that a part of 2 separate Universes (each as a wave-like membrane) in a Multi-verse, collided, causing the Big Bang. If these Gravity Waves from a previous Universe are detected, that would obliterate Stephen Hawkings and Lawrence Krauss's assertion that the Big Bang came from nothing. Of course, that still leaves the question: 'What caused the first Big Bang ?'. And if the continuous Big Bangs go back in Infinite Regression – the question is: 'Why is there something instead of nothing ?'

When I talk with some of my Atheist friends, who I highly regard, I always assert that both positions on the existence of God require a Leap of Faith. Whenever I state that I always get what I call 'The Tooth-Fairy' rebuttal. My friends will state that they cannot prove or disprove the existence of the tooth fairy. However, they are still not going to believe in the existence of the tooth fairy until there is substantive scientific evidence. My answer to that is: If you want to stay up all night outside your kid's bedroom after one of them loses a tooth; and the tooth fairy never shows up – you can reasonably assert that there is no tooth fairy. What you can't do is to go back in Time to the Big Bang and from a position outside the Universe observe the Big Bang and then state: 'I was there at the Big Bang and I can tell you that there was no Supreme Consciousness. The whole thing was a product of Spontaneous Creation'. Since you can't do that, comparing the question of God with the question of the tooth fairy or the spaghetti monster, or whatever, is quite disingenuous. This is why Issac Asimov preferred Rationalism over Atheism and why Buddhists, although they believe in God, assert that the Nature of God is unknowable.

The bottom line is that if you are an Atheist and you state that you don't belive in God; that is absolutely and perfectly fine. However, if you state, as a matter of fact, that there is no God, you are taking a Leap of Faith and crossing over into the world of Religious Dogma. If you state that a God-belief is stupid, you are a religious fanatic.

If the Question of God or the Nature of God is unknowable, then why do I believe in God ? Well, for me, God is not something I believe in, God is a Supreme Being that my Consciousness is aware of. Of course, what I think I am aware of is not Scientific Proof. So, as a Rationalist, I am willing to place this 'Awareness' down as a Belief and put it down in the category of Faith.

[Plu]

Quite a wall of text, but everyone here already understands the difference between gnostic atheism and agnostic atheism. As far as I know, everyone on the forum is an agnostic atheist.

You're also going to have to define what you call "god" if you want us to have any kind of meaningful reaction to it. Right now it's just (again) some word being thrown around that means everything to everyone and cannot be reasonably discussed in a useful fashion.

So feel free to nail your definition of what a god is, and we'll talk about him/her/it further.

And welcome to the forums! :)

[stromboli]

Welcome. We've been down this road before. We have one on here who identifies as a pagan, but the rest of us, like Plu said, are agnostic atheists. And we do not fit the definition of a religion, regardless of how you try to pin that on us.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Speak for yourselves.. I don't buy into agnosticism and if there is some woo, which I don't buy into it's totally irrelevant to me.
If you want warm and fuzzy go buy a snuggie robe..you know..those crappy blankets with feet. :roll:

[leo]

Welcome !  Buddhists don't believe in a creator god. Infact according to Buddhist doctrine the creator god idea is a wrong view.

[leo]

And atheism isn't a religion either . Atheism is the lack of BELIEF in gods.

[josephpalazzo]

What you can't do is to go back in Time to the Big Bang and from a position outside the Universe observe the Big Bang and then state: 'I was there at the Big Bang and I can tell you that there was no Supreme Consciousness. The whole thing was a product of Spontaneous Creation'.

It looks to me that you've built a strawman here. I doubt very much that many atheists are making that kind of argument. But one thing can be said and that is a 100 years ago, and before that, we had no scientific theory of how the universe began. That question was left to philosophers, theists and apologists. Today, we have a viable scientific theory of how the universe started out some 13.7 Byrs and how it expanded to what it is today, going through an inflationary epoch, a radiation-dominated universe, followed by a matter-dominated and now the universe is dominated by Dark Energy. We know that we live in a flat universe, we can explain nucleosynthesis and the Cosmic Microwave Background. We don't have all the answers but we are certainly in a better position than 100 years ago.

That leaves the question of God. My question is: why do we need one? Most of what is out there can be explained by natural laws.  So it becomes more of a psychological need than anything else. Most atheists have been able to shrug off that last stranglehold and are capable of living full life without the need to worship some entity that no one can give convincing arguments to its existence.

[stromboli]

God is the result of encountering something you have no explanation for and supplying one, by creating a personified version of a human with supernatural capabilities to account for the creation of that something. Atheists assume there is a cause that is explainable, just not known. That is why we call ourselves skeptics.

[kilodelta]

leo beat me to the Buddhist comment. I know there are theistic Buddhists, but it is not part of Buddhism I encountered in Thailand, and Korea.

Welcome.

[Mister Agenda]

Welcome, B.A.! I hope you like it here and am looking forward to your second post. Maybe if you first establish that theism is a religion, you can then tackle the claim that atheism is one.

Also, I suggest you tackle one topic at a time. You have enough material for three or four separate threads in your OP, which makes it a chore to reply substantively. You do bring up some interesting points though, so I hope you will break it down a bit for us.

[mykcob4]

"I don't know what caused the Big Bang and I don't know why there is something instead of nothing and that means you don't know either" – Bill Maher. "I prefer Rationalism over Atheism because the question of God is unknowable. As a Rationalist you don't have to waste your time either attacking or defending either position" – Issac Asimov. "You should be skeptical of everything, including yourself" – Bertrand Russell. I had to preface this article with the above quotes because, although I am a Buddhist and believe in a Supreme Being, I am a great admirer of the above people. My two B.A.'s are not in Philosophy or Physics, so feel free to tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about. You may be right. But I would like to open a discourse with my Atheist friends who have a Philosophy that I also admire. That philosophy is: 'Your Heart should not accept what your Mind rejects'. One of the tenants of Buddhism is that you should not accept anything without thinking. But, I do have a rebuttal for at least two of the statements by some well known, highly intelligent, Atheists:

"If God did not require being created, logic dictates that the Universe did not require being created either" – Michael Shermer. My rebuttal is that the Universe is composed of Matter, Energy, Gravity, Time and Space; all of which require being created. Consciousness however is still a mystery. In fact, if you're a follower of the Niels Bohr Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, it is Consciousness that creates Matter. A Supreme Consciousness may very well indeed not have required being created. To those whose explanation of Consciousness is that the Human Brain is so complex that Consciousness 'somehow' evolved; you should know that using the word 'somehow' poses a lot of philosophical problems and questions. For example, Immanuel Kant in 'The Critique Of Pure Reason' surmised that Space and Time are only the relationship of one object to another; but, if we did not have the concept of Space and Time 'A Priori' in our Minds before we were born, we would not have been able to relate one sense impression to another. There would be no Awareness or Consciousness.

"Quantum Mechanics allows for a Universe to come into existence out of Nothing" – Lawrence Krauss. I have several rebuttals for this. First, Quantum Mechanics has become all things to all people. Physicist Fred Alan Wolfe in 'The Spiritual Universe' claims that Quantum Physics proves the existence of the Human Soul. John Wheeler believes that the strange results in QP experiments suggest that someone is observing the Universe. Secondly, when Dr. Krauss (if I understand him correctly) talks of something coming from nothing – He is talking about Gravity affecting Negative Energy is such a way that virtual particles 'pop' into existence which then become real particles. The problem with this, as even physicists who are atheists have pointed out, is that this occurs in Space and in Time within the Universe. The Big Bang occurred in a no-when, no-place, no-gravity. Krauss's reply is that a true Nothing (no space, no time, no gravity) is unstable. And like all unstable systems, it will eventually collapse in on itself and produce something. I'm not sure how to answer that. In a no-time, how does nothing 'eventually' collapse. It should be noted that by the year 2017, there may be satellites in place (according to the Science Channel – 'How The Universe Works') that might be able to detect Gravity Waves from a Universe that existed before the Big Bang. One theory is that a part of 2 separate Universes (each as a wave-like membrane) in a Multi-verse, collided, causing the Big Bang. If these Gravity Waves from a previous Universe are detected, that would obliterate Stephen Hawkings and Lawrence Krauss's assertion that the Big Bang came from nothing. Of course, that still leaves the question: 'What caused the first Big Bang ?'. And if the continuous Big Bangs go back in Infinite Regression – the question is: 'Why is there something instead of nothing ?'

When I talk with some of my Atheist friends, who I highly regard, I always assert that both positions on the existence of God require a Leap of Faith. Whenever I state that I always get what I call 'The Tooth-Fairy' rebuttal. My friends will state that they cannot prove or disprove the existence of the tooth fairy. However, they are still not going to believe in the existence of the tooth fairy until there is substantive scientific evidence. My answer to that is: If you want to stay up all night outside your kid's bedroom after one of them loses a tooth; and the tooth fairy never shows up – you can reasonably assert that there is no tooth fairy. What you can't do is to go back in Time to the Big Bang and from a position outside the Universe observe the Big Bang and then state: 'I was there at the Big Bang and I can tell you that there was no Supreme Consciousness. The whole thing was a product of Spontaneous Creation'. Since you can't do that, comparing the question of God with the question of the tooth fairy or the spaghetti monster, or whatever, is quite disingenuous. This is why Issac Asimov preferred Rationalism over Atheism and why Buddhists, although they believe in God, assert that the Nature of God is unknowable.

The bottom line is that if you are an Atheist and you state that you don't belive in God; that is absolutely and perfectly fine. However, if you state, as a matter of fact, that there is no God, you are taking a Leap of Faith and crossing over into the world of Religious Dogma. If you state that a God-belief is stupid, you are a religious fanatic.

If the Question of God or the Nature of God is unknowable, then why do I believe in God ? Well, for me, God is not something I believe in, God is a Supreme Being that my Consciousness is aware of. Of course, what I think I am aware of is not Scientific Proof. So, as a Rationalist, I am willing to place this 'Awareness' down as a Belief and put it down in the category of Faith.

I really don't have the time or will to deal with all the bullshit that you posted on your OP, but it is safe to say that YOU are making pretty outrageous assumptions that just are not facts.

1) Why would you assume that because there is time, space, matter, and gravity, that there is a need for them to be created. The optimum term being "created." Hawkings already proved that something can come from nothing and does.

2) An atheist doesn't assume that there isn't a god. You have that backwards. An atheist just doesn't assume that there is a god in the first place. And theres the rub. All this speculation and all these assumptions of a god isn't an answer to why things exist, and it isn't the resposibility of anyone to disprove any of these speculative assumptions.

I gather that YOU don't and cannot comprehend what atheism is, because you have accepted that there must be a creator, in otherwords accepted an assumption. That acceptance was  programmed into you through culture, peer pressure, and indoctrination undoubtably. Now for some unknown illogical reason you come on this site and want us to explain away years of brainwashing that you have accepted.
I am not a buddhist, nor do I respect it beyond the point that I consider any mythology. There is no god, no creator. If there is or you think that there is you are going to have to prove it. It is just not good enough that you prove that there could be a god or whatever, you are going to have to prove that there IS before I can accept that assumption.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Atheism is a Religion

That's where I stopped reading. Once you've said something that stupid, nothing that follows can possibly have any value. "Not believing in deities" is no more a religion than "not collecting stamps" is a hobby.

[mykcob4]

Oh BTW trying to pigeonhole Atheist into a religion is irresponsible and just plain wrong. Atheism isn't a religon at all. I am tired of people like you, because you have such a low level of comprehension, trying to redefine Atheism to fit what YOU want. It's like the republicans trying to hijack patriotism and American, and redifining it to fit what they want. It's childish and stupid.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Let's just get this out of the way.

Please remember these general guidelines while you're giving us the "atheism is a religion" spiel:

• Every argument you make about your position is one we have heard a thousand times.
• Most of what you say will be dismissed out of hand. (See above.)
• If we're in a good mood, we'll answer your arguments.
• If you answer our counterpoints by repeating your assertion, we'll make fun of you.
• If you're a good boy and we're feeling exceptionally generous, we might actually take the time to explain our beliefs and the reasoning behind them to you.
• Should you demonstrate the latter point to be a waste of our time, we usually start calling for the banhammer.
• Besides you, we have exactly one theist on the forum at the moment who has not either left or been banned.

Have fun, now. :-D

[leo]

leo beat me to the Buddhist comment. I know there are theistic Buddhists, but it is not part of Buddhism I encountered in Thailand, and Korea.

Welcome.

Many people claim to be Buddhists without knowing enough about this religion. I think Buddhistalternative  is one of them. And he doesn't understand atheism either , saying atheism is a religion. Lmao