"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer God than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible Gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." Sir Stephen Henry Roberts

A visitor to my wellness website asked, "Don, what is your religion?" I thought this query a bit of a false dichotomy in that it did not exhaust the possibilities.  Why do some people assume everyone has a religion?  I not only do not embrace any one religion--I have a low regard for all of them.  As a wellness enthusiast, I care very much for the kind of passions that religions seem to obstruct or outright oppose, including but not limited to maximum personal freedoms, democracy, critical thinking, equality of opportunity, tolerance, universal rights, the common decencies and finding your own meaning and purpose. 

I should point out that I am quite aware of a norm in our society that insulates religions from criticisms.  Most who do not embrace Ïfaith-basedÓ thinking have learned to refrain from questioning the validity, worth or rationality of anything having to do with religious faith or faiths.  While religious critics, at least in this country at present, are not burned at the stake for heresy or stoned as infidels, they don’t usually get promoted, celebrated or elected to high (or low) office, either.  Therefore, criticism of religions, particularly the major religions with significant influence, is rather muted. 

Well, as one who endured 12 years of Roman Catholic education during my formative years, I feel I have earned the right not to be muted.  Besides, as I have noted on many occasions, I think religion, like sex and politics, is too important to be omitted from polite conversation. 

Another visitor to SeekWellness.com asked a related question the other day.  She wanted to know if, given that I seemed to be so skeptical about everything associated with revelation, holy books, miracles and the like, if maybe I was not, in an ÏunbelieverÓ sense of the word, a bit of a fundamentalist myself.  I had to think about that for a while.  After at least five minutes, I decided that there are Ultra Orthodox Jews, Islamic Extremists, Christian Political Ideologues and yes--Fundamentalist Infidels.  I suppose, on matters relating to faith/religion of any kind, I represent a variation on Eric Hoffer’s true believer.  I am a "true unbeliever." Nothing, it seems, can shake my disdain for religion.  In fact, my new adopted manta is "God, I hate religion."

Of course this does not mean I hate those who are religious, or even that I have any unkind feelings toward believers.  Instead, it means I don’t share a lot of perspectives with them on matters of faith or religion.  I find discussion about religion with other fundamentalists a bit tiresome. 

Some visitors to SeekWellness.com want me to join their religion, or cult.  Well, I have my own cult, thank you very much.  I don’t really think it’s a cult, but it’s fine with me if someone wants to classify it as such.  Skepticism toward untested claims hardly seems cult-like, but if the faithful want to claim otherwise, thatÌs their prerogative, I suppose. 

Sometimes, a visitor will get frustrated if I do not participate in a continuing discussion of beliefs via a long-running exchange of e-mails.  There are many reasons why I try to limit responses, on any topic, to a post or two.  The main reason is, like lots of people, I have other things to do.  Not that any of them is so important in the grand scheme of things (if there IS any such grand scheme, which I doubt), but other topics and demands of varied kinds do beckon.  In communications, we all have to decide when continuing to address a topic reaches diminishing returns of personal satisfaction.  Who does not, at a certain point, choose to retire from continuous exchanges about anything?  To do otherwise would make one a prisoner to hostile elements who never let up.  Another possibility is I might have a short attention span.

I love the idea of starting if not leading a movement of fundamentalist unbelievers.  However, I don’t want to start another church.  There are too many now.  In my view, two would be too many.  The only church I support is Vonnegut’s imaginary "Church of God the Utterly Indifferent." (See Slaughterhouse-Five)

I don’t know how many reasons I’ve offered for not having a religion, not liking religions or advising others to reassess their religions, but I’m sure it won’t be hard to list at least 101 of them--in future essays.

Whether you are a believer or not, faith-based or given to reason and free inquiry or in some other category of your choice, feedback is always welcomed and appreciated.  Be wellÛalways look on the bright side of life.

Re. the question as to whether atheism is a religion or “cult”:

I like this response I recall reading awhile back (can’t remember the attribution)—“Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.”

I don’t really agree that a strong atheist, pro-science naturalist need be considered “fundamentalist”. If you look at the various definitions of “fundamentalist” around, they tend to cluster around a number of crucial things:

(1) Social conservatism,
(2) Religious conservatism,
(3) Adherence to religious creeds as “fundamental”, e.g., to the Bible as literally true.
(4) Unwillingness to consider arguments from evidence or reason against their “fundamental” beliefs.

Number four is just a clarification of what it is for a creed to be believed “fundamentally”.

Any atheist/naturalist worth his or her salt will be entirely open to arguments against atheism or naturalism based on evidence or reason. Of course, we should be skeptical of such arguments, since so many have failed in the past, but that is different from being closed-minded.

The only thing we are closed-minded about is arguments that are not from evidence or reason—arguments from authority, from passion or romance, good storytelling, et cetera. But those aren’t really good arguments at all, by definition.

Neither are atheist/naturalists necessarily conservative about society. Indeed, if you look at the history of the freethought movement (see Susan Jacoby’s marvellous book Freethinkers), in general, atheist/naturalists were almost all social liberals, in their day; for example, many were anti-slavery, pro-women’s rights when these were not generally allowed in polite company.

And atheist/naturalists are of course not religious conservatives.

So we have it that atheist/naturalists are, in general:

(1) Social liberals,
(2) Non religious,
(3) Not reliant on any creed as “fundamental”,
(4) Open to consider any evidence from science or reason that counters their beliefs.

Hence they are not “fundamentalists” in any sense.

If, on the other hand, by “fundamentalist” you mean that we hold our beliefs strongly, then everyone by definition is a fundamentalist about many things. But that’s not an interesting sort of fundamentalism, and it isn’t what people mean when they say “so and so is a fundamentalist”.

Doug , so right. And religious liberals and agnostics accuse us of being the mirror image of fundamentalists when religious liberals are themselves creationistic- faith - based ! The religious think we are dogmatic in wanting evidence . Kai Nielsn in “Naturalism and Religion” shows how we operate . Notice his inclusion of the Hook- Demos debate.

The term “atheist” is only a necessity because there are SOOO many people who are not atheists.  It’s like calling yourself a non-smoker or non-drinker because you are alocohol and tobacco free. But if you look at other examples, then such terminology seems strange.  There are many people who eat chocolate cake.  But if I have an aversion to chocolate cake then no one would call me a non-cake eater or create any other label for that matter which describes that particular thing which I did NOT partake in.  Like Doug said, you are not a “non-stamp collector” because you don’t collect stamps.  It’s just something you don’t do.

So an atheist should not be an atheist. You should just be a person who doesn’t believe in religion.  Sometimes the term helps describe that more succinctly much like saying “I’m a non-smoker”.  I don’t identify myself as a person who doesn’t do things.  However, a religious person DEFINITELY identifies with their religious lifestyle/beliefs.

The only reason I say that I would call myself an atheist is to use the stigma that religious people associate with the term just to piss them off.  Instead of saying that I don’t have religious beliefs, it ticks off religious people much more when you’re like, “I’m and ATHEIST! Take that!”

I agree with Roger.  It is so useful, when Jehovah’s Witnesses knock on the door, to just say, “I’m not interested because I happen to be an atheist.” Sometimes that involves you in an impromptu discussion, but even then it’s a lot simpler than beating around the bush!