Atheism/Forum

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== Welcome to the Atheism forum ==
Welcome.
:Rev Bem 01:13, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
== Nature vs. Nurture ==
I like the last line of the article: 
:"...thus many people choose to not believe in any god. It is a simple matter of lack of evidence."
I also like to think about why it is that some people require evidence, and others do not. Obviously we are hugely influenced by our early years of life. That is when we learn (or not) phobias, such as an irrational fear of mice or bugs or heights ... or eternity. And many religions are based on a fear of (or at least an uneasiness about) eternity.
The things you learn early are your foundation. They become your "common sense". They generally do not require evidence. They feel like "nature", but nature is actually just your ability to learn and experience fear. The fear you learn is nurture. My own nurture did not include fear of eternity, so I was freer than most to reach my own conclusions. And the only evidence I have is the eternity prior to my birth. I expect the next one to be the same.
--Bob K 19:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
== Atheism - religion? ==
It seems contradictory to say "not religion" is religion. While this article is appropriate among religions, I don't think you have to call it a religion for it to be here.
:I agree with many of the comments above. Atheism is a lack of belief in God(s) - it is not a religion. This lack of belief is frequently caused by the fact that there is no evidence for the existence of god - or any other supernatural entities for that matter. Religions, on the other hand are based (so I believe) on faith - the absolute antithesis of evidence-based investigation.
:Apart from their belief in some sort of higher power or other, religions also have rituals, holy books and churches. These are all glaringly absence in Atheists´ lives.
:It is obviously in the interest of religiously motivated people to try shoe-horn athiesm into a religious context either by trying to claim that some form of faith exists somewhere in athiesm; that some religions are more like philosophies; or that somebody somewhere may have invented an atheist church. But this is wishful thinking on their part.
:Religions have faith and churches - atheists have evidence and logic.
::R Fitzroy 12:48, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
::I would have to disagree regarding evidence. No one has conclusively proven the existence or non-existence of a deity. Believing in either direction is an act of faith. So far as I can tell, only the Agnostics take a fully evidence based approach. And that approach seems to say that evidence is totally inconclusive leaving us knowing nothing.
:::Kirk 20:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
::Moving from discussion to forum. Interesting thoughts. In regard to atheism not being a religion, I guess that can be true, but it is definitely a religious term, without theism the term atheism would not exist. Religion can be whatever you make of it, personally I would define it as a common belief system. People in the west seem to overly equate religion to Christianity, but religion is not merely the belief in God, there are many religions, some with no gods, some with many gods, some with concepts entirely different than God. If nothing else this wiki is a tribute to that.
::I would classify religion more as as magnitude than a thing, I would say the stronger someone believes in something the more religious their belief is. In that respect I would have to regard some of the evangelical atheists out there as being very religious, perhaps even more so than some of the evangelical Christians.
::Anyhow, I think having a page for the atheist belief (or lack of belief, call it what you wish) here is very important.
::In regard to the argument on evidence I'll let someone else argue that point, perhaps the standard invisible pink unicorns answer (i.e. the icon of the Atheism page).
::Thanks for you thoughts.
:::Rev Bem 21:12, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
::actually, atheism is like religion in the sense that they're certain that god doesn't exist, just as "religous" people are certain of god's existance.--Ninfan 01:22, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
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