The Atheist Blogger

I’m taking a short break from writing lengthy articles so I thought I would write some small pieces on issues that annoy me. One of the major things I find when browsing religious websites / forums is atheism being referred to as a “religion”, and I object to this for some very good reasons:

• The definition of “religion” according to Dictionary.com is
  

  a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

  Atheism has no set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, we simply do not believe in a God, and follow what science tells us about the world around us. One can claim that all scientific deductions break down to a core “belief”, but everything in science is backed up with evidence to suggest that belief, and so it is well founded. Religious beliefs are wholly different, and the majority depend entirely on faith, not evidence.

• Theism isn’t a religion, therefore atheism cannot be either. The definition of theism is “the belief in the existence of one or more divinities or deities”. Granted, most religions in the world are based on the idea of theism, and their members are described as “theists”, but theism itself does not dictate a set of beliefs for people to follow. Indeed, it can be said that theism is one of that very same “set” of beliefs that defines religion. To put it in simple terms, we can say that Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc. are all theists, but not vice versa (unless I come across a Christian Jew Muslim, etc. hybrid to prove me wrong). Theism is an attribute of people with a belief in a God, just as atheism is an attribute of people who do not believe in a God, nothing more.
• If we were to call atheism a religion we would have to start calling the disbelief in the Loch Ness Monster a religion as well, and the disbelief in a celestial teapot on top of that (to quote the well loved Bertrand Russell /Richard Dawkins analogy). In fact, we would have to call every single disbelief in anything a “religion”, which means there would be an infinite number of the things, and the entire concept of religion would be destroyed in an instant. It is far simpler to define a religion as a concrete belief structure, i.e. a belief in something, not a disbelief in something. There are far more things that we could possibly disbelieve than we could believe.

I am sure a lot of people will argue that (in respect to the final point) atheism can be defined as the “belief that there is no God” and not the “disbelief in God”, but surely the two are the same? If a person says they are an atheist, then they have come to the conclusion that God is not in any realm of existence, and so believing in “no God” and disbelieving in “a God” are the same thing.

If you think about it, the same thing could be applied to any religion. Muslims both belief in the existence of Allah, and disbelief in the non-existence of Allah. A Muslim has come to the conclusion that Allah exists, and there are two way of expressing this. However, it is far easier to say that they believe in the existence of Allah, since the other is a double negative and is harder to say in normal conversation.

Suffice to say, the phrase “belief that there is no God” is almost as bad (in a literal context) as the double negative phrase “disbelief in no God”, and whichever way you are inclined to think, neither has any affect on the pure and simple truth that atheism does not break down to a set of beliefs, and therefore, like theism, is not a religion.

Finally, I should point out that just as theism is the basis for Christianity and Islam, atheism is the basis for Buddhism, which can be described as a religion (although that is a totally different topic).

Hopefully this article has provided some insight into the reasons why I personally do not think atheism is a religion. Please be invited to criticise / comment, and above all, suggest ideas for other small articles you want me to cover.