I'm aware that I'm treading on sensitive ground, but if it helps... maybe it signals that the OP-er was interested in what religions people are, and not what religions people aren't. If atheism is an absence of any belief in God, not being included in a survey of this kind would be a natural consequence... There's a very dry, perhaps unsympathetic logic about it, if one thinks on: if you consider yourself as not having a religion, then a survey called 'What religion are you' just wouldn't apply to you. I have met many atheists adamant that their atheism is not be classed as an additional worldview with the status of a religion - I come from a family of them! It is frustrating to feel that one is not being represented, that one's voice is not being heard, I do understand that. But as much as everyone of wants to have their cake and eat it (and not just atheists!), it is not possible to exclude oneself and include oneself at the same time. Either atheism is represented as an option on the same level as the religions, or it isn't. Personally, I would include it, because I think it's more helpful from a sociological perspective to consider 'ideologies' or 'worldviews' rather than religions. For example, there are some atheists who believe more passionately in the philosophy and ideals of Karl Marx than many self-professed Christians do in those of Christ. They believe that once they have gathered enough recruits, they and like-minded folk can use their beliefs and ideals to transform the world - and they actively set about trying to do it! I have seen parodies of them comparing them to Christian street evangelists. Then there are passionate Buddhists who do not believe in any God or spirit beings. There are atheists who self-identify as Humanists and go to a Humanist assembly regularly, as one might go to a church. There are atheists (usually teenagers or people not accustomed to intellectual pursuits who are dazzled by the scientism as much as the science of the New Atheism movement) who quote Dawkins or Hitchens chapter and verse with greater devotion than many God-fearing folk can quote their holy books. They seem to trust these writers to the point that their default position is to believe everything that they write and read little that does not confirm the presuppositions of that movement. I have seen the same in some Christian readers. For example, I talked God with one atheist who was adamant that God was an 'unfalsifiable hypothesis', without knowing what an unfalsifiable hypothesis even was. Then there are atheists who adopt no particular ideology - but there is still one thing that they love, and that they trust above all else, and their behaviour around that thing can sometimes be compared to a devotion or a trust of religious proportions. Many Christians place other objects of devotion above their God, which makes one ask whether they really treat their God as a God at all, and devote themselves to some material thing or human relationship instead, more like an atheist or an agnostic. Basically the more one looks at it from a behavioural perspective, the more the lines become blurry, I think. It seems reasonable to me that when it comes to classifying people, a behavioural perspective (how human beings interact with their ideals and values in general) ought to be of more interest to naturalists, than the theological perspective (the existence or non-existence of a God or gods), anyway.
What religion are you?
← View full post
I'm aware that I'm treading on sensitive ground, but if it helps... maybe it signals that the OP-er was interested in what religions people are, and not what religions people aren't. If atheism is an absence of any belief in God, not being included in a survey of this kind would be a natural consequence... There's a very dry, perhaps unsympathetic logic about it, if one thinks on: if you consider yourself as not having a religion, then a survey called 'What religion are you' just wouldn't apply to you. I have met many atheists adamant that their atheism is not be classed as an additional worldview with the status of a religion - I come from a family of them! It is frustrating to feel that one is not being represented, that one's voice is not being heard, I do understand that. But as much as everyone of wants to have their cake and eat it (and not just atheists!), it is not possible to exclude oneself and include oneself at the same time. Either atheism is represented as an option on the same level as the religions, or it isn't. Personally, I would include it, because I think it's more helpful from a sociological perspective to consider 'ideologies' or 'worldviews' rather than religions. For example, there are some atheists who believe more passionately in the philosophy and ideals of Karl Marx than many self-professed Christians do in those of Christ. They believe that once they have gathered enough recruits, they and like-minded folk can use their beliefs and ideals to transform the world - and they actively set about trying to do it! I have seen parodies of them comparing them to Christian street evangelists. Then there are passionate Buddhists who do not believe in any God or spirit beings. There are atheists who self-identify as Humanists and go to a Humanist assembly regularly, as one might go to a church. There are atheists (usually teenagers or people not accustomed to intellectual pursuits who are dazzled by the scientism as much as the science of the New Atheism movement) who quote Dawkins or Hitchens chapter and verse with greater devotion than many God-fearing folk can quote their holy books. They seem to trust these writers to the point that their default position is to believe everything that they write and read little that does not confirm the presuppositions of that movement. I have seen the same in some Christian readers. For example, I talked God with one atheist who was adamant that God was an 'unfalsifiable hypothesis', without knowing what an unfalsifiable hypothesis even was. Then there are atheists who adopt no particular ideology - but there is still one thing that they love, and that they trust above all else, and their behaviour around that thing can sometimes be compared to a devotion or a trust of religious proportions. Many Christians place other objects of devotion above their God, which makes one ask whether they really treat their God as a God at all, and devote themselves to some material thing or human relationship instead, more like an atheist or an agnostic. Basically the more one looks at it from a behavioural perspective, the more the lines become blurry, I think. It seems reasonable to me that when it comes to classifying people, a behavioural perspective (how human beings interact with their ideals and values in general) ought to be of more interest to naturalists, than the theological perspective (the existence or non-existence of a God or gods), anyway.