I find it odd that when filling out a form that asked me what my religion is one of the choices is Atheist.

What now? That is the that opposite of religion.

  • echo@lemmings.worldEnglish
    121·
    18 hours ago

    Atheist is not a statement about your religion at all. I’m also an atheist and my ‘religion’ is basically secular humanist. Yours could be none, Unitarian Universalist, Buddhist, secular humanist, or any others that are compatible.

    • Halasham@dormi.zoneEnglish
      122·
      17 hours ago

      I don’t intend this to be harsh or negative but I don’t know how to phrase this nicely;

      Secular Humanism is a philosophy, not a religion. Religions are faith-based while philosophies are based in some logical argumentation. The muddling of religion with philosophy linguistically serves only to tarnish philosophy and lend undue credence to religion. That language is so flexible can be beneficial but it can equally be detrimental when used like this.

      • echo@lemmings.worldEnglish
        55·
        17 hours ago
        1. I put religion in quotes to try to appease this take.
        2. You are being exceedingly literal and selective in your definition of religion.
        3. Ceding all rights to the word ‘religion’ to the xtian fundamentalists is not a good strategy.
        4. Your extreme position limits your ability to bridge with others which also limits your ability to affect change.
        5. I’ve had my ‘militant atheist’ phase and shared your inflexibility in the past. It wasn’t healthy for me and it wasn’t helpful for anyone.
        • EvenOdds@lemm.eeEnglish
          5·
          7 hours ago

          I don’t think there is anything “militant atheist” in the post you replied to.

          I also consider myself a secular humanist, but would never describe myself as religious.

          I think that normalising not having a religion would help to bring tolerance for people who have differing opinions, while calling secular humanist a religious view may reinforce a bias in some people that “you can’t be good without religion”.

        • Halasham@dormi.zoneEnglish
          5·
          16 hours ago
          • Thanks.
          • The differentiation I used wasn’t my own words, I got it from here, I figured I shouldn’t go off just my own take. I suppose I should have specified that from the beginning.
          • I suppose there’s a case to be made for that.
          • I don’t see how you’ve got that I have an extreme position from ‘Religions are faith-based while philosophies are based in some logical argumentation.’
          • Noted. I suppose I could try to find something not abhorrent about faith. I’ve long since stopped being angry about it but I’m still very much an Antitheist.
          • Ookami38@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            1·
            5 hours ago

            Regarding the last point, I’m not at all religious, but I’ve accepted that even from a purely logical and scientific standpoint, you have to just accept some things on faith. Our capacity for knowing is limited, there are certain “unknowable” things that we just have to accept.

            The easiest example of this is what’s going on in another person’s head. You have to take on faith that the things they’re saying to you is what’s actually going on. More broadly, a lot of the things about the physical universe and the fact that it exists at all are things that, at least with our current level of science, we just can’t know. We can make best guesses, but from there it’s a faith.

            I’d say faith is only a bad thing when it’s used to make you so things you wouldn’t want to do otherwise. The more I examine the church specifically, the more I realize it’s not the faith based approach to understanding that I have issues with, it’s the leaders using that to manipulate. Faith is, and should be, a very personal thing not subject to some governing body with very real biases and objectives.

            • Halasham@dormi.zoneEnglish
              1·
              1 hour ago

              I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. We can determine to some degree what’s going on in the mind of other people without having faith in their self-report, it’s just impractical to do to everyone or frequently; FMRI can show us their brain activity and we already have a reasonable sense of what the different bits of brain do. Would we be able to get fine specifics of their thoughts from it? No, not yet but given that out ability to detect and measure has a general tendency to improve with time I believe that it is a ‘yet’ and not an ‘if’ barring Extinction Level Events.

              Could you elaborate on the second point? I don’t see cause to have faith regarding that subject. We don’t have all the knowledge about the subject but neither would we know, for example, the exact ordering of a deck of cards immediately after a thorough shuffle. We know enough that we’re not going to see an Ace of Fives if we shuffled a standard deck and we’ll be able to determine the order they are in if we pay attention.

              Most of the faithful that I know personally aren’t involved with a governing body of their faith. They still use it to be bigots. When pressing them on the issue I’ve yet to get a response as to why they’re bigots other than their faith. They have, or at least are aware of, secular reasons to be good and kind but not when being bigoted in some ways (they have secular reasons for the kinds of bigotry their faith opposes).

    • Kintarian@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      17 hours ago

      Wow, I just read about secular humanism, and it seems to be pretty much exactly how I feel about things. The human race could, through science, understanding, and cooperation, solve most of the problems that we are faced with. I like that.