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Is Atheism a religion?
Is atheism a religion?
"Atheism is just another religion." or "It takes faith to be an atheist."
There are several errors in such an assumption. Primary among them is that atheism is descriptive of a singular characteristic: a lack of belief in a god or gods. Quite literally anything else is negotiable. It's possible for an atheist to believe that ghosts exist, for example, so long as those ghosts aren't gods. Theism, the counterpart to atheism, is also not a religion. Religion requires doctrine, rituals, and other bells and whistles.
That, however, may not be enough to convince someone inclined toward the belief that atheism is some sort of religion. Luckily, there are many other common characteristics of religions:
Sacred objects, sacred places, sacred times or days
There is no concept of "sacred" inherent to atheism.
Rituals focused on the above
Being atheist just is. There is nothing that needs to be done to become an atheist or remain one save not believing in gods.
Making statements on existence, either current or origin
These things are often claimed by religions in the form of creation myths. Atheism has no such thing.
Providing a philosophy
"Lack of belief in a god or gods" doesn't speak to how to live. The society one lives in does.
Providing a world view
The religious version is often basically "God did it" and builds from there. Atheism has no such thing.
Providing a moral code
These things are inherent to humanity in general. Most people regardless of belief (or lack thereof) will agree that it's wrong to shoot someone in the face, for instance. Atheism itself makes no statements on morals or behavior.
Do you have to be X to be an atheist?
Do you have to be a rationalist, materialist, skeptic, humanist, freethinker, secularist, and/or naturalist to be an atheist?
Simply put, no. You can be an atheist and believe in almost anything -- except a theistic god. There are certainly atheists who are spiritual, believe in the supernatural, accept mind/body dualism, and so forth. You will find, however, that most self-identified atheists will take a rationalist approach to defending their beliefs on a philosophical level. For this reason, you will find a predominance of skepticism and naturalism and a general rejection of the supernatural in most godless forums of discussion, including this subreddit. This predominance of rationalism is reflected within this FAQ. Indeed, many common questions directed at "atheists" should be more accurately described as questions directed toward freethinkers, or rationalists, or materialists. It is a possibility that many of the questions might be answered by atheists would would attribute it to some kind of spirit, alien, or other poorly founded response.
The atheist stereotype
Often times people who aren't atheists have arrived at a stereotype in their head of an atheist as someone who must be anti-theist and is often rude, arrogant, outspoken or angry.
While there aren't any hard statistics to back this stereotype, it's most likely the result of the 'Toupee Fallacy'. Everyone thinks that they can spot a toupee wearer because they only see the shoddy toupees. The convincing toupees go by undetected. To this extent, people think they know that atheists are often outspoken, arrogant, etc. because those are the most easily noticed atheists.
If there is a prevalence of these attitudes, it can be understood by simple comparison to any fictitious entity. Were the world's population killing itself over firm commitments to various breeds of invisible centaurs, one should hope that any logical person would be angry and outspoken, or that they should be susceptible to arrogance and rude behavior.
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