Are believers reduced to manipulating the definitions of terms, to give their position the appearance of credibility? No amount of syntactical or semantic gymnastics, will absolve them of their burden of proof. If faith is the only support, then the entire construct will crumble under any critical scrutiny. Faith is not the best building material to use.
Atheism is a view, a conclusion, a supposition, an opinion, an assumption, a level of certainty, a logical deduction, and the supposition that a God(s) does not exist. A conclusion based on the fact, that throughout all of human history, no empirical evidence can demonstrate that a God(s) has ever or does exist. This argument of faith vs. facts has been waging for centuries. Atheists require just one piece of objective evidence to demonstrate the existence of anything supernatural, spiritual, mystical, or paranormal. A resurrection, a miracle, an answered prayer, a fulfilled prophecy, or even a confirmed paranormal activity would do. So far, zilch, nada. Believers need only faith, and the application of top-down logic to sustain their conviction.
Theology is the study of the nature of God, or other religious beliefs. Atheism is not the study of either. Atheism is not a theological position on theology, it is a personal position about an aspect of theology. It is supported by the highest level of certainty. I think that Atheism is more of a choice than a position(religious or otherwise). You can choose to accept the evidence that suggests that a God(s) can't exist within our reality. Or, you can ignore/dismiss the evidence, and believe that a God(s) can exist without any need for empirical justification(faith). Atheist chose the former.
Atheism is level of certainly not a religion. No matter how many ways you try to spin it. No matter how many words you need to redefine. What do Atheists worship-- their non-belief Atheism? This is silly, fallacious(circular), and irrational. There are no holy tenets, no deities, no inherent practices, nothing to worship, no required devotion, no religious teachings, no faith required, no religious or Atheistic hierarchies, Nada. So what is your logic on this logic?
Atheism is not a religion, because Atheists don't believe in a Deity
Many other religions, also don't believe in a Deity, and are still called religions
Therefore, Atheism must also be a religion.
How about,
Church is a place where people meet, worship, and pray to some form of Deity or some religious supernatural belief
Atheist do not believe in a God(s), or worship some form of religious supernatural belief
Some Atheists attend a church
Therefore the church becomes an Atheist Church
Can anyone spot the glaring logical fallacies in both constructs? The biggest difference between Atheists and Theists, is that, it would only take one objective, observable, verifiable, and falsifiable bit of evidence to change the mind of any Atheist. But God Himself couldn't change the mind of a Theist. As one poster stated, "You can bet your bottom dollar on that. Likewise, you can show me 1,000 false prophets but I will still know that there can be a true prophet. This has absolutely nothing to do with my *need to believe*. It is logic 101 stuff, because it is the fallacy of hasty generalization to say that because most psychics are frauds all psychics are frauds" What he fails to understand, and ignore, is that the evidence and results are predictable, unbiased and justified(scientific). Therefore, not a hasty generalization fallacy. If one hundred pigs are push off a tall building to see if pigs can fly. If all 100 pigs fail to fly, is this still a case of hasty generalization? Will you still believe that eventually one pig will fly? As you can see, cognitive dissonance is a very powerful at controlling our beliefs, attitudes, and behavior.
