I'm curious- this is something I've discussed with many people, as well as with myself, and I sometimes get drastically different answers. Tell me what you think atheism means and what it is to be an atheist. I want to hear both stereotypes you've heard and your honest opinion, even if they're the same. I'd love to have a great discussion with you guys about this. Next week I think I might do a similar subject (what does Christianity mean to you), so we can see another side of the issue.
For me personally, I view the word atheism as nothing more than the term I use to describe my lack of belief in a high power. There is no attached system of beliefs (hence atheism is not a religion). Rather, my belief system is entirely separate from my religious views, meaning I would have the same beliefs regardless of my views on the afterlife or creation. I don't even like calling myself an atheist because too often do people apply beliefs to those who bear that label, which I think is actually slightly insulting since it implies we are not able to objectively form our own beliefs.
What do you guys think?
-Moses
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athesim... you trust your sences... thats what i think it means... if you cant touch it, feel it, see it, smell it, nor hear it. it is not woth beleaving in.
Easy, they dont believe in God. Thats how it is plain and simple, but people dont like to just accept things, they have to associate it with something, and to someone that believe in God, is pretty easy to label them as a outsider, or someone you dont want to associate with cause, some "goths" are athiests, and some stupid stuff like that.
An atheist doesn't believe in any higher power or afterlife. There is nothing religious involved with being atheist.
Nichole Elise*
I would say Athiest implies a rejection of the idea of a god like entity controling the Universe. It doesn't imply any particular beliefs other than the one that there is no god, which is really the definition of athiesm. Myself for instance would be an agnostic person. Whether there is a force or thing acting on the Universe or Not, I don't know. Neither does anyone else regardless of what they believe. So that is why I don't believe either way, and therefore wouldn't be called an Athiest. Does that make sense?
I think that atheism is a religion. I think of myself as an atheist and what it means to me is that there is no higher power. So following that logic, it is a belief system that human beings are the highest power and therfore constitutes a religion.
Atheism and agnosticism vary greatly from person to person, as I'm sure you've alrady seen.
It's more or less the rejection of a deity (or deities) system, though.
I personally believe that atheism is the belief in no higher power. I believe that atheists just think that they are here on earth to live whatever they think is right and then die and be buried. Almost every religion has some kind of ultimate goal that they are reaching for. One religion may say their belief is that when you die, if you've been a good person you'll be given a second life as a cow, or another may believe that if you do what the Bible tells you and try to obey it then you'll ultimately die and go to heaven or if you don't go along with the teachings of the Bible you'll end up in hell. People who believe in atheism don't trust or believe any of these things, they just seem to think that ,"hey, I'm here, i'm gonna live my life, and in the end die." Just a personal reflection of what I've been taught.
Eh, I'm atheist/agnostic, and I don't think you're just worm food. Recycled, really; used as something else.
This may seem like a semantics argument, but instead of saying atheists believe in no higher being, I would phrase it atheists have no belief in a higher being. I don't think atheism is an active belief- rather it's a lack of belief.
-Moses
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http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/mouse-clicker
The stereotype I have heard is that anyone who does not believe in God is an atheist. This is not true, as many of them are agnostic. Too many people get these two confused. Agnostics are the ones who believe only in their senses, as bdouglas mentioned. Agnostics are the ones who have the lack of belief in a god, as Moses mentioned. Atheists are the ones who actively believe there is no god.
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I may be sleeping but at least I dream
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Atheism is not believing in religion and god. Thus it is NOT a religion I must say passionately. Just because you believe there is no god, does not put you under a religion. A religion has the belief of a higher being, which in atheism, there isn't one or more than one. Others may say that atheists believe in themselves, being like god, well thats not true because the belief in self is merely confidence and esteem. As an atheist, I rely on science and logic because they have proved to explain the events in my life which religion and god could not do.