Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!sbcs!debray From: debray@sbcs.UUCP Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Some questions on religion Message-ID: <392@sbcs.UUCP> Date: Fri, 17-Jun-83 11:11:19 EDT Article-I.D.: sbcs.392 Posted: Fri Jun 17 11:11:19 1983 Date-Received: Sun, 19-Jun-83 04:41:07 EDT References: flairvax.133 Lines: 36 Ravi asks: " What is Atheism?. Is it another religion?. Preaching and practicing how not to believe in religion?. In which case it is another religion again. What is the purpose of atheism?. " It depends, I suppose, on what one defines a "religion" to be. Some people I've spoken to feel that belief in a divine power is a necessary part of religion; in which case, atheism wouldn't qualify. Others have viewed religion as an integrated world-view encompassing one's life, but not necessarily including a deity; in which case, atheism might be a religion. I don't know if philosophy texts treat atheism along with all the various other "-ism"s; I myself would tend to call atheism a belief system. The atheists I have known (and that included me) based their rejection of god and the established religions primarily on logical inadequacies of theologies; these have been discussed and debated on this newsgroup extensively, so there's little need for us to go into them again. What I found interesting was the fact that atheists need at least as much faith as theists: faith in the scientific method and the power of the human mind and the power of reason and logic. When we get down to the absolute basics, what qualitative difference is there between belief in God, and belief in Logic/Science ? The differences, in my view, are just a matter of degree: belief in god might make things easier in some ways (e.g. in times of trouble), belief in science in some other ways. Each approach has its absolutes, each has its limits. Goedel's incompleteness theorem, once I *really* understood it, jolted the foundations of my rationalistic world-view ... I mellowed out to a tolerant agnostic pretty soon after that! Saumya Debray ...philabs!sbcs!debray