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by drugsAreBad0001
3890 days ago
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Yours is a common misconception, but atheism is absolutely a belief system. "I don't believe in god" is not the same as "I believe god doesn't exist". The latter statement is of atheists. As an agnostic, I think agnosticism is the only actual "lack" of a belief system, since I don't hold a belief either way (for/against god's existence). |
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I've touched upon this in a reply, but atheism asserts the former - not the latter.
Additionally, atheism itself does not posit any assumptions, so I don't understand what this alleged system of beliefs would consist of. I'd really like to hear a sound argument for the assertion that it is, though.
Atheism is not an alternative to religion, so much as a rejection of religious claims – absence of belief. It might, for instance, be formulated in one personal case as something like "These claims are dubious and unsubstantiated, so I see no reason to believe in them."
This would be an atheist concluding that they do not believe in (a) god, by way of atheism (the lack of belief).
A tired analogy would be that of a lack of belief in unicorns or pixies; neither of which would constitute a "belief system".
Agnosticism states [4-6] that it is unknown (and perhaps unknowable) whether or not the supernatural exists – so one could argue that agnosticism is not really a lack of a belief system, but a lack of taking a stance or excluding any supposition.
In my own case, I'm an agnostic atheist – in the sense that I don't think that many religious claims can be tested (by their nature). I also don't think that this is a sign of a good argument, or that they should therefore be taken at face value.
[1]: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/atheism
[2]: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheism
[3]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atheism
[4]: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/agnosti...
[5]: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agnosticism
[6]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/agnosticism