Imagine a world without organised religion, where it doesn’t affect people’s lives, but atheism still exists. What purpose would atheism fill in this scenario?
Imagine a world without organised religion, where it doesn’t affect people’s lives, but atheism still exists. What purpose would atheism fill in this scenario?
It feels like you’re coming at this from the position of religiosity being the “default” and non-religiosity being abnormal, which I think is a flawed premise.
It also feels like you think of atheists as being anti-religion, which is also flawed.
Atheism is an identity only insofar as Christianity is an identity. Christianity isn’t what a person believes, it’s the word we use to describe their beliefs, to give a general idea of their culture. Atheism is just a way to describe the absence of that particular aspect of thought. The labeling isn’t important in and of itself, it’s just an identifier.
Are you suggesting that being atheist is unnatural? What do you mean by “actual purpose?”
Is this a high thought? It sounds like a high thought.
Yes, that would be a flawed premise, but I hope I am coming from a position of neither being a default for the sake of the discussion.
Anti-religion is just a subset of atheism; one could frame my question also as what remains in atheism without anti-religion.
Of course it is unnatural or do you believe apes have strong opinions about theism? Same goes for theism. Naturality is mostly irrelevant for complex sociocultural views, IMO. I find atheism beneficial, though.
I wish.
I think this puts a point on your confusion with the descriptor.
Do you believe ducks are convinced a god exists? If not, they’re atheist.
Are rocks convinced a god exists? I’d argue they aren’t sentient and thus not able to - they’re atheist.
Atheism doesn’t require an act of will, isn’t an identity, it only describes one particular thing (which we have a need to describe as religious people get all tizzy about it), just like “blue”, “tall” or “dizzy”. And to belabour the point, it actually describes the absence of a thing, and thus covers all options but one.
An analogous term for someone not believing in aliens could be analienist, you can be analienist regardless if there are aliens or not (as it only addresses the belief). It doesn’t also mean you’re anything else (like tall, handsome, or mysterious). It doesn’t require you to campaign against aliens, throw rocks at the sky, or go to analienist meetings.
As long as you don’t believe in aliens, you’re analienist.
Heh, anal ienist.
A lack of belief in gods. Which is what atheism means. You can be an atheist and pro-religion. My mother is an atheist but still goes to temple every week.
You really need to understand the meaning of the word.
A = lack of
Theism = belief in a god or gods.
That’s all it is. A lack of belief in any gods.