Scruffy, your definition of "religion" as including the tooth fairy is extremely faulty. Educate yourself on what "religion" might be and you must, "from of good conscience", drop the comparison.
Scruffy wrote: No matter how many times you repeat yourself, atheism is not a faith. It is the absence of faith in a deity. Absence.
Belief and faith are not necessarily one and the same there Scruffy. Changing the word in an attempt to win the debate is at best disingenuous. What we were talking about was belief, not faith. Atheists believe there isn't a God. They don't know there isn't a God, they simply choose to believe that there isn't one. How about we stick with the same word we have been using in our back and forth, belief. An atheists beliefs and mine regarding the existence of a divine Creator may be on opposite sides of the same coin, but the coin is the same one - what we as individuals believe to be correct.
ckm8 wrote: You misread what Scruffy was saying. Printsmith was opining that both belief and disbelief in anything = religion.
Not at all true there ckm8. Belief and disbelief are both beliefs. There are personal opinions held without the ability to substantively prove they are right with regards to the existence of a divine Creator. An atheist believes God does not exist. They can't prove He doesn't exist, but that is what they believe. Conversely, I do believe in a divine Creator. I can't prove to you that He does exist, but it is what I believe. At the core of each opinion is belief.
ckm8 wrote: I'd be terrified at the chaos that would be unleashed when everyone who only does the right thing because they're afraid of going to hell find out that they're not being scored.
No it is not. Belief in God requires faith as there is no proof. Some people believe in astrology. Declining to believe in something for which there is no proof is not a religion. Sorry, but your reasoning is faulty.
DaffyDick wrote: What if you found out that there was no God? What would you do, if you learned that everything you had been told about religion is a lie?
How would you feel if you learned that mankind is nothing more than a survival of the species, and that mankind is here by chance, and not by the grace of God?
I would still sit down and ask myself "Why am I conscious?".
A trip to the library would answer that question for you.
Try "Discourse on the Method and Principles of Philosophy" by Descartes who most famously said, "I think therefore I am."
(Daffy, are you ever gonna fix the title of of this thread?)
