Dawa Lhamo
December 5th, 2005, 03:32 PM
Viewpoint: The religion of atheism (http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20051202-110857-7838r)
The situation of the atheist with respect to religion is similar to that of the logical positivists in philosophy, who declared that metaphysics is meaningless and should be eliminated. The problem is that this statement or declaration is itself a metaphysical statement, so the logical positivist program could not succeed because it was internally inconsistent and possibly even incoherent. In a similar way, the religious fundamentalists who declare, for themselves, "I have nothing to do with philosophy," do in fact have something to do with philosophy because their statement is itself a philosophical one. It is the same for atheists: Their statement, "I do not believe in any religion or any god," is itself a religious statement.
Interesting... Granted, I have a definition of religion that is slightly different than the author's. I think that an essential element of religion is community of some sort, so I would replace "religion" with "spirituality".... but even in the case of the prison inmate, I would consider it religious, because the person sought to form a group.
lol. Though I have encountered people who will try to prove that something is not a religion by applying a strict and narrow definition of religion to it. lol. My poor unfortunate roommate got scored down on a paper (her first religious studies class) because the teacher assigned us to argue whether or not this ancient Korean group was religious based upon *our own* definition of religion, whatever that may be. She argued that religious people were necessarily peaceful, and got scored down because her definition was too narrow. (The whole assignment was flawed, though, because there were *no* guidelines as to the definition of religion, so the argument necessarily hinged upon the openness or narrowness of the personal definition.... )
Anyway, your thoughts?
Tashi delek!
Dawa Lhamo
The situation of the atheist with respect to religion is similar to that of the logical positivists in philosophy, who declared that metaphysics is meaningless and should be eliminated. The problem is that this statement or declaration is itself a metaphysical statement, so the logical positivist program could not succeed because it was internally inconsistent and possibly even incoherent. In a similar way, the religious fundamentalists who declare, for themselves, "I have nothing to do with philosophy," do in fact have something to do with philosophy because their statement is itself a philosophical one. It is the same for atheists: Their statement, "I do not believe in any religion or any god," is itself a religious statement.
Interesting... Granted, I have a definition of religion that is slightly different than the author's. I think that an essential element of religion is community of some sort, so I would replace "religion" with "spirituality".... but even in the case of the prison inmate, I would consider it religious, because the person sought to form a group.
lol. Though I have encountered people who will try to prove that something is not a religion by applying a strict and narrow definition of religion to it. lol. My poor unfortunate roommate got scored down on a paper (her first religious studies class) because the teacher assigned us to argue whether or not this ancient Korean group was religious based upon *our own* definition of religion, whatever that may be. She argued that religious people were necessarily peaceful, and got scored down because her definition was too narrow. (The whole assignment was flawed, though, because there were *no* guidelines as to the definition of religion, so the argument necessarily hinged upon the openness or narrowness of the personal definition.... )
Anyway, your thoughts?
Tashi delek!
Dawa Lhamo