PaulSacramento wrote:Because, while I do NOT view Atheism as a religion, it most certainly is a belief system.
The moment you have a conviction, an opinion on a matter, you have a belief about it.
So, while atheism may not be a religion in the classic sense of the word, it is a belief system, just like any other ideology or set of principles or convictions.
But you're trying to make the argument that I already disproved again.
1) I say I have no belief about A
2) To say 1), you must believe 1)
3) 1) is a belief about A
4) Therefore, I hold a belief about A
But, you have not demonstrated 4), you've only asserted it through 3), but it doesn't follow because 3) is not true. I hold a belief in 1), but it is not about A, it is about a belief in A or 1). 1) is about my set of beliefs, about my knowledge. It does not have to do with A unless you can demonstrate that my set of beliefs that constitutes my knowledge is the same thing as the subject. Further, 1) hardly tells you anything about what I actually believe (if anything), which makes it hard to establish as a belief system.
Everyone has a set of beliefs. You say this is their belief
system, but not every set of beliefs really constitutes a system, more likely a set. Some are not a consistent set, and none are a complete set (there are proofs which say this is impossible given finite resources/deterministic methods using information theory) - which is to say, no set (assuming knowledge exists, which is hard to disagree with) encompasses all knowledge but most sets encompass
some knowledge, where knowledge is true belief. Now, what constitutes a true belief is a matter of epistemology and logic, but we don't need to get into that. If someone subscribes to the idea of naturalism or physicalism, then there is a system of beliefs entailed by those views, both of which preclude supernatural - this would be an atheistic world view that is a belief system. Since I subscribe to no ontological view, my world view neither asserts nor precludes the existence of God.
What is interesting is that you seem to assert that all beliefs are a matter of faith, conviction, or ideals. Is that so? I'd say no. I'd say a justified belief is more likely (and in some cases, guaranteed, provided the foundational beliefs are true) to be true. A non-justified belief is only true incidentally. A faith-based belief is one based on insufficient justification (usually referred to as a belief without evidence (let's assume evidence has epistemic value) or one based in faulty reasoning (ditto for reason)). These beliefs are more likely to be untrue, so I try to hold as few as possible. The faith-based convictions I hold, as a matter of sanity, would be that I exist, existence is real, evidence/sensory phenomena are somewhat accurate, and so on. I don't have the ability to create a coherent web of beliefs without assuming some of these things, and my web of beliefs, while sound under the assumptions (I think), is certainly not complete. It doesn't seek to answer the questions that would result in or preclude a God. It either circumvents them or leaves them unanswered.
In short, what I'm getting at is.. no, atheism is not a belief system.
