Will Atheism Replace Religion?

[Rhizomatic]

Buddhism, for example, calls itself a religion. In fact, it is essentially an elaborate form of self-help psychotherapy that prescribes a certain state of awareness to alleviate suffering. How that qualifies as a religion escapes me.

Engagement with a sacred reality and centuries of self-identification as a religion go a long way. Outside the Euro-American West the idea of a godless religion isn't really that strange; we just have dominant prototypes of religion that are heavily theistic and tend to consider the category primarily in terms of supernaturalism and theism.

In any case, just because any kind of belief system can be called a religion, doesn't mean anything can be atheism. Because atheism isn't an ill-defined ambiguous word. It's definition is clear as a bell. It is nothing less than the absence of theism, and nothing more. To repeat and expound upon this definition: atheism has no beliefs; it is the absence of belief in one thing, theism. It does not associate itself with any assertions or beliefs. Yet by entangling it with religion, by insisting there are atheist religions, you are (unwittingly?) doing just that - associating atheism with assertions and beliefs.

I'd first re-iterate the distinction between atheism, a noun, and atheist, and adjective, that I've drawn on several times in this thread. It's important to distinguish between my point, that some religions lack belief in gods, and the point that "atheism is... [religious/ beliefs/ embedded in assertions/ etc.]".

Past that, the fact that a belief system can be described as lacking belief in gods in no way implies that lacking belief in gods involves any assertions. If someone says "there is no god," he is an atheist. The reason that he's an atheist isn't because he holds the belief that there is no god, it's because he lacks the belief that there is a god. The fact that, in addition to lacking belief, he holds a positive disbelief does not compromise the fact that he is an atheist or require our understandings of atheism to be modified to encompass belief. He lacks the specific requisite belief and thus earns the label despite also having other beliefs.

Well, plants and and animals lack belief in deities, so do you assert there are atheist plants and atheist animals? Why not? Because they aren't a complex system of beliefs or thought? Well what about Geometry; this is a highly complex system of thought, lacking in beliefs about deities.

Generally speaking we only use the term "atheism" where theism is a reasonable possibility, just like we wouldn't describe a toaster as amoral because, though it is not immoral or moral, we would never assume that it is either and need to make that distinction.

This sounds a lot like Buddhism, which also offers mind-body healing techniques which do not involve belief in deities. Yet no one would not dream of associating atheism with these healthful "teachings".

It's pretty much universally-accepted in academic religious studies that Buddhism is (or rather, can be--there are plenty of theistic forms of Buddhism) atheist. Every person I've ever encountered with even just an undergraduate degree in religion that deals with Buddhism (which, in my school, is pretty common) has "dared" to do just that.

The answer is obvious. Religions are generally associated with the belief in god - theism. You dispute this and contend that many religions do not embrace theism, but most searches for a definition of religion will produce answers such as this:

In the Euro-American West, sure. If you were doing that search in India I doubt that you'd have the same problem. Any primarily English-speaking country (at least that I can think of) is going to have Abrahamic religion as its predominant prototype; most Americans don't even know what Jainism is, that Hinduism is often atheist, etc.

Remember, dictionaries don't give objective definitions of words. To make a dictionary one doesn't arrive at an objective, true, stable, understanding of a word (as if that exists), but rather examines previous uses of that word. A dictionary is a tracker of common usage, so of course when English-speakers are largely isolated from the world's largest and oldest atheist religions English poorly reflects the diversity of religion beyond theism.

I do not discount the fact that there are certain organizations that prescribe ways to achieve a more fulfilled life without theism, but I do question the rationale for describing these non-theistic organizations as religions. At the very least this seeming contradiction creates considerable confusion as to what exactly constitutes a religion.

Only if you're locked in a paradigm that religion can only be what religions that you are most familiar with are. If you're willing to accept what has been historically considered religion across the globe as religion it hardly poses even the slightest of challenges.

Why not call a spade a spade and refer to these non-theistic religions as "non-theistic religions"? That is exactly what they are, and this reference avoids the false impression that atheism has the any affinity to religion, (i.e., an atheist religion).

I am referring to these religions as exactly what they are. They lack belief in gods, and the word for something that lacks belief in gods is "atheist".

I can live with "atheistic religion". I do much prefer "non-theistic religion", which is far less contentious and misleading, but if either of these suggestions is acceptable to you...let's toast to an acceptable compromise, or agree we can't agree.

We've largely digressed to semantics (though I do think that there is something left in the idea that religion should not be defined around Euro-American, Abrahamic prototypes when other forms of religiosity have been booming for quite some time now), so I wouldn't be bothered by agreeing to amiably disagree.

 

[andys]

Engagement with a sacred reality and centuries of self-identification as a religion go a long way.

I appreciate the impressive duration for which the self-assigned descriptor "religion" has been assigned to Buddhism, but that does not validate its applicability. As for the "sacred" reality young Buddhists seek, this is a non-theistic reality. So it further begs the question (to me) what qualifies Buddhism to be considered a religion.

I'd first re-iterate the distinction between atheism, a noun, and atheist, an adjective, that I've drawn on several times in this thread."

Incorrect. "Atheist" is a noun, (e.g., "Andy is an atheist").
The adjective is "atheistic", (e.g., "Andy has an atheistic brain").
So the term "atheist religion" is grammatically incorrect. (Goodbye!)

a-the-ist:
–noun a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

a-the-is-tic:
–adjective -pertaining to or characteristic of atheists or atheism; containing, suggesting, or disseminating atheism: atheistic literature; atheistic people. [atheistic religion]

Atheist | Define Atheist at Dictionary.com

So much for "atheist religion" and "atheist Buddhism".

You'll also have to concede that the definition for the adjective, atheistic, truly captures the meaning you intended all along; that atheism is a characteristic of a non-theistic religion; that such a godless religion contains, suggests, or disseminates atheism.

So I trust future references to an "atheist religion" will be replaced with the grammatically correct phrase "atheistic religion".

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Could one even call UU religion though? I mean, if you have absolutely no unifying doctrine or set of beliefs, what makes you more than just a social get together?

But the UUs do have unifying beliefs. They just happen to be about the process, not the end result.

 

[Jordan St. Francis]

I doubt it. While atheism is on the rise, as far as I can tell, there is still a plethora of new emergent spiritual practices and systems, many of which acknowledge higher powers, transcendental states, proffer cosmic meanings and offer unscientific therapies, and whose practitioners engage in a number of practices that strict materialistic atheism would or should deem superstitious.

The fate of so called traditional religion seems to be its continued marginalization, while the religious landscape continues to burgeon and diversify as new syntheses and configurations emerge. Look at the rise of Christianity, say in Africa, as it melds with many indigenous beliefs. I wonder how popular atheism is in the nations who look to be the up and coming world powers and largest populations.

Frankly, I think the Enlightenment concept of sola ratio is increasingly in dire straights.