[thechat] Religious dependance

[aardvark]

> From: "deke " <web at master.gen.in.us>
[...]
> Atheism is a belief system. That is the definition of a religion. It
> is based in the doctrine that there is no god or gods. That is  a
> teaching.
>
> Whether it's a movement or not depends on whether you are sitting on
> the Group W bench, playing with the pencils.

actually, for me, atheism is decidedly *not* a belief system...

i have a belief system, and it so happens to not have a god...
others call it atheism, and as such, assume that my belief system
revolves around that lack of a god...

for me, it's a belief system that happens to also be an atheist
outlook...

a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not necessarily a
square, right?

a belief system without a god is atheism, but atheism is not
necessarily a belief system unto itself...

this, i've found, is hard for non-deists to comprehend simply
because a deist belief system revolves around a central theme or
concept, whereas mine doesn't -- at least not in that way...

now, those atheists who *push* atheism and try to disprove god
and are a little zealous, yeah, *that's* when atheism is a belief
system unto itself...

--
my latest book project:
  Web Graphics for Non-Designers
  http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904151159/evoltorg02-20
  ISBN: 1904151159