Atheism is a religion

I do want to aknowledge that I accept the definition that “religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe. ” This is the definition that shall be used throughout the duration of this debate. I am going to assume Pro meant “Isn’t it true that atheists claim that the cause of the Universe is not God? ” This is an easy answer…. NO. That is one of the most illogical statements/questions that I have ever heard. To give Pro perspective on why I feel this way, I will apply the same logic. Your religion isn’t Christianity, because isn’t it true that you claim that the cause of lightning is not from Zeus? Therefore you have the same religion as all who do not believe that lightning comes from Zeus. You are azeusians. A better example might be: You think God created the Universe? That means you do not believe in the multiverse theory, therefore your claim IS NOT that God created the Universe, but rather that multiverse theory did not. By this logic, your religion is based on the claim that there are not multiple universes. I hope Pro understands now how insanely preposterous his/her logic is. This is a ridiculous attempt to show that atheism is a religion. In fact, it is the complete opposite. An atheist is someone who lacks belief in a deity or deities. It’s nothing more, nothing less. It is the rejection of the ‘God’ hypothesis. The cause, nature, and purpose of the Universe are completely independent of atheism, as it makes no claims about these topics. My opponent is trying to relate two things that don’t relate. It’s like saying that because you like turkey sandwiches, then your viewpoint on gun control is X. It is nonsensical and thus irrelevent. I am going to assume Pro does not believe in leprechauns. Well then he/she is an aleprechaunist. Technically there would be no difference between an aleprechaunist and an atheist, other than substituting one unsubstantiated claim for another. To support my last point, here is a quote from Sam Harris from his book ‘Letters to a Christian Nation. ’ “In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist. " We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs [1]. ” The term atheist is just a broad term for someone who rejects the unproven claim of a god. There are, however different ‘types’ of atheists. The one that will immediately shoot down Pro’s resolution is an agnostic atheist [2]. A common misconception about the term agnostic is that it lies “between” theism and atheism. Agnostic indicates the lack of knowledge and atheism with the lack of belief. Therefore it is completely reasonable to be an agnostic atheist. They are atheistic because they do not believe in the existence of any deity and they are agnostic because they claim that the existence of a deity is unknown or unfalsifiable [3]. Therefore they make no such claims that a god did or did not create the universe. Agnostic atheists admit that there is no way of knowing, and thus Pro's resolution is refuted. Let's keep going anyway. Buddhism [4] is a religion that follows a specific dogma that includes karma, and reincarnation (or rebirth). I don’t believe that anybody could logically argue against Buddhism being a religion, and I would invite my opponent to try. The interesting thing about Buddhism, and how it relates to this debate, is the fact that it's an atheistic religion. They do not believe in a deity. That brings up a conundrum for Pro. As a result, I have a question that I would like him/her to answer. If atheism and Buddhism are both religions, then what religion is a Buddhist? The answer seems simple enough, however Pro painted him/herself into a corner by stating atheism is a religion. If Buddhists are atheists then isn’t atheism their religion? I can’t ignore my opponent’s last statement. “Since no evidence is possible on the existence or not existence of God, this claim is to be considered a belief. ” This is another logical fallacy that doesn’t take much to disprove. To quote the late, great Carl Sagan, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. ” The burden of proof lies on the theist because they are the one’s making the positive claim. It is also impossible to conclusively prove that no god exists because the premise is unfalsifiable. There is, however, logically two ways to “prove” a negative claim. 1) Show proof of impossibility. 2) Show an absence of evidence [5]. Since I’ve had to put things into perspective for Pro this whole round, I guess one more time wouldn’t hurt. What if I said that I believe there is a miniature invisible elephant living in under my bed? According to Pro’s logic, since no evidence is possible on whether or not this mini elephant exists, it is just considered to be a belief. If this is how we decided fact from belief in everyday life, we could pick apart everything and nothing would ever be considered fact. The purpose of me going a bit off topic to acknowledge this last statement was to show yet another example of Pro's flawed logic. I am very interested to see Pro’s follow up argument and rebuttal. I will be impressed if he/she asserts any substantial affirmation to refute my contention. Sources [1] . http://www.goodreads.com... [2] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] . http://www.merriam-webster.com... [4] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] . http://en.wikipedia.org...