﻿ IAmAnAtheist » Lack of God doesn’t make atheists

Lack of God doesn’t make atheists

From the IAmAnAtheist.com feedback form:


2. atheism and morals.
You bring moral as something outside of yourself. Moral is related to the type of animal you are. You happen to be a human being, so you have the human being morals. A lion should kill to eat and maybe a human being has to lie an cheat whenever he/she can.

3. I’m not a buddhist, but this doesn’t turn me into an atheist. I’m a mortal being. This is what I am: a mortal being.

In a way religion is about life an death: I didn’t create myself and neither I like to die

As we have brains but we understand nothing about life and death we are religious.
So religion is not releated to a Superiour Being, but to our ignorance and or inabilituy to cope with life.

The simple fact that God doesn’t exist doesn’t turn us into atheists.

no no.

Responding to your points:

1. Atheism isn’t a religion. It isn’t an organized system of belief, it doesn’t include the supernatural, it isn’t based on faith, and it has no rituals. So far as I’m concerned, that discounts it from all definitions of religion that are useful in our discussion.

2. I agree that morals are to some extent dependent on biology. For example, if human women had millions of children instead of one or two at a time, it might be immoral not to kill some of your children. However, your example of lions is erroneous, in that lions are incapable of making moral decisions, and humans having a tendency to lie or cheat (so far as they do) does not make lying and cheating moral goods.

3. You are right that not being a Buddhist does not imply that you are an atheist. I also agree that you are mortal. These do not seem like controversial statements.

You say we understand nothing about life and death. I disagree. There is a vast amount of scientific knowledge on this subject. If you do not equate understanding with science, then I assume you are assigning attributes to life and death that cannot be investigated scientifically, and that sounds a lot like assumption of the supernatural to me.

I agree that religion isn’t related to God but to humanity’s reaction to being unable to cope with certain truths (such as the finality of death). You’re also right that God not existing doesn’t turn people into atheists — if it did, then the fact that not everyone is an atheist would be evidence that God exists.

On the other hand, not believing in God (or any other deities) does make one an atheist. If you say it doesn’t, then I want to hear your definition of atheism.

In: About atheism

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