[djgreedo]

Originally Posted by ahi

Atheism as an abstract concept may lack a set of beliefs. Atheism as a real world organic paradigm individuals subscribe to tends to look pitifully homogeneous in some ways.

Nearly everybody I know is an athiest and they all have completely unique beliefs, values, and attitudes. You cannot define a group of people by something they don't believe. It's nonsensical. You can group people (however crudely or stereotypically) by a belief or set of common values they do hold (such as a religion). Any group of Christians will have similar beliefs and values (by definition). Any group of athiests could be as diverse as any group of people selected at random from the world's population. You can not determine anything about an athiest based on their athiesm. You can determine quite a lot about a Christian based on their religion (e.g. they believe in God, believe in Jesus, probably have Christian parents, probably live in a 'western' country, etc.)

But only if one takes the loudest (and often less than brightest) followers and generalizes them to be representative of the whole. Which is something we'd no more do with atheists than we'd do with christians... right?

- Ahi

That's true, but you can't compare a group that has no defining characteristics with a group this is defined quite specifically by a set of beliefs and values.

No more grating, to be sure, than the endless parade of atheist caricatures about religion that have been parading the internet for the last few years now.

Fair or not, caricatures of relgious groups are based on reality, regardless of how distorted or selective they are. You can't create a caricature of athiests because you cannot define a group by a belief they don't have. By all means think of a way to caricature people who don't believe I'm wearing green socks or people who don't collect stamps or who don't believe there is a magic teapot orbiting the sun.

I don't defend such caricatures. The fact that you're trying to draw parallels between athiesm and religion hints that you don't know the difference.

But back to the point: athiesm is not a religion, and athiesm is not a belief any more than not collecting stamps is a hobby.