Is atheism a religion or philosophy?

[mathinspiration]

What do you think?

 

[miknik5]

Atheism is not a religion as religion has to do with belief in God or at the least, a higher power

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

I think it can be both but is more commonly philosophical whether formal or informal, and includes many variations from a plethora of isms. One common tie is secular humanism, which assumes man as the highest authority of knowledge in the known universe. This is related to one of the big questions of philosophy, is knowledge possible? How is it possible and many other questions which follow from these.

 

[Sparagmos]

What do you think?

Neither. No more than not believing in Mormonism or Allah is a religion or philosophy.

 

[NothingIsImpossible]

Its a religion in my mind. They may not believe in a higher power but you have to believe in something to believe in nothing. They worship what atheism says and does. They repeat it like scripture. Like any religion they get annoyed when someone disagrees with them because "science". You could science is their form of a god. Whatever science says is truth.

They don't like to admit all this but its true. And actually many atheists do believe in God. If God was truly not real then why would atheist argue with us "crazy sky fairy" people? It is like arguing with someone who says there are whales flying in the sky, you wouldn't do it because you know they are "out there".

 

[ViaCrucis]

What do you think?

Atheism is the position that God either doesn't exist or that there is simply no way to know if God exists and therefore one cannot say that God exists.

It's not a belief, but the absence of a belief.

It's hard to call the absence of a belief a religion or a philosophy.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

Atheism is not a religion as religion has to do with belief in God or at the least, a higher power

There are atheistic religions in the world. Some forms of Buddhism are atheistic. So belief in a higher power isn't the chief defining feature of religion. The chief defining feature of religion is as a system of beliefs and practices. Which gives the definition a bit of fuzziness.

Atheism itself isn't a religion, but atheists can or could be religious if they want to be. Such as in the aforementioned example of some forms of Buddhism, there are a number of historic religio-philosophical schools which are non-theistic in the world. As well as there are modern organizations and "religions" such as they are, which are in a sense a kind of religion, "atheist churches" are a thing for example.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Jonathan Walkerin]

And actually many atheists do believe in God.

That is like saying many celibate people enjoy sex with their partners.

Since the concept seems hard lets recap it. If you are having sex you are not celibate, if you believe in God you are not an atheist.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Atheism is not a coherent philosophical position - most intellectual Atheists, like Bertrand Russell, would philosophically call themselves agnostic. The position of Ontological Materialism is hard to hold, so most opt for it only as a pragmatic approach to justify their Atheism otherwise.

So Atheism is either an Ideology or a Paradigm of looking at the world, I think. I wouldn't call it a philosophy nor a religion in a strict sense of those words. It does have many similarities though, in that holding it is coupled to confirmation biases and knee-jerk psychologic defensive mechanisms and such.

 

[oldhermit]

Atheism is a philosophical approach to the idea of God, so basically, atheism is a theology. It is a theology that insists there is no God.

 

[Norbert L]

What do you think?

It's both when you look at the possible behaviors some atheists demonstrate. They also have groups that congregate on a regular basis to celebrate this belief and discuss life's issues. Just Google "atheist church".