Mailbag: Atheism & Religion, Part 1

From: Lin
Subject: Atheism: not a religion

If atheism is not a religion (as one section of your area asserts) - why is there such a large amount of space devoted to atheism in the Religions & Spirituality section of About.com? ... Allowing the atheism and agnosticism sections to remain in Religion & Spirituality appears to be the height of hypocrisy.

I get this question every so often and it’s a fair one — at least, it’s a fair question so long as the question is made as a genuine inquiry from a curious person, as opposed to an arrogant and self-righteous declaration from someone like Lin.

It’s not my choice or decision to have the Agnosticism / Atheism site in the Religion Channel. I didn’t originally create either site or the channel; the site’s placement in the Religion Channel was the decision of About.com (back when it was The Mining Co.).

Since there is a lot of material on the site that deals with critiques of religion, though, this placement ensures that it reaches an audience reading about religion. Who says that the “Religion Channel” must consist only of sites that are themselves religions or religious? Why can’t a site in this channel also be one dealing with religious issues in some fashion?

Ultimately, there is no other channel on About.com where the Agnosticism / Atheism site would be better (electronics? Cars?), so religion/spirituality is no worse than any other available option, is it? The only way I would ask to have the site moved is if there were a channel that were more appropriate, and that doesn’t seem likely to happen. Off the top of my head, I can’t even think of a channel that would be more appropriate.

 

Surely the thing to do would be to start a new section called “Personal Philosophies” under which to explain atheism and agnosticism?

No, this would not be “the thing to do” because atheism and agnosticism aren’t philosophies, personal or otherwise. Even if atheism and agnosticism were philosophies, though, I suspect that my site would be the only one in that channel — I don’t see there being enough interest in other “personal philosophies” to create entire sites around them.

I find it interesting that Lin appears to assume that I somehow have the power and authority to create a channel, though. If Lin genuinely thought that a new channel would be an improvement, why write to me instead of the people at About.com who actually deal with that sort of thing?

 

Perhaps I should define what I meant by ‘philosophy?” MerriamWebster.com lists several definitions, but the ones I was thinking of were:
(in order of my use of the term in this instance):
4a : the most general beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group
3b : a theory underlying or regarding a sphere of activity or thought
2c : an analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs
2b : a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means
1c : a discipline comprising as its core logic, aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology

Wouldn’t atheism and agnosticism fit this general definition of philosophy?

No, atheism and agnosticism would not fit any of these general definitions of philosophy. Atheism is the absence of belief in gods. Agnosticism is the absence of knowledge of whether gods exist or not. Neither fit under any of the above definitions. They aren’t general beliefs and attitudes, they aren’t theories underlying all of a person’s beliefs, nor are they anything similar.

Quite a few people imagine that such things are true about atheism, but they haven’t really taken to the time to study an understand atheism. Funny how a person so ignorant of the topic could then turn around and presume to instruct me on what is and is not the appropriate categorization of a site on atheism and agnosticism.

Mere atheism is no more a philosophy than is mere theism — and at least theism is a belief. There are atheistic philosophies and religions, just as there are theistic philosophies and religions, but by itself it just can’t qualify. This is an important fact to understand because when people imagine that atheism is a philosophy, it allows them to also imagine all sorts of beliefs on the part of atheists; once people realize that how little atheism really means, though, attributing beliefs and attitudes to all atheists becomes very difficult.

 

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