An argument we are having at work...

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by ahammer

did not want to go down this path....

You may want to re-read that definition again....

... and no, you don't want to go down this path.

[djgreedo]

Originally Posted by ahammer

did not want to go down this path but it look like it to late to stop

it depends on how you define Religion

like lets at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/religion


does Athiesm met this yes.
what we can say for sure is it is not a organized religion.

what there can be no question about is that it is a belief.

as I see it is not the absence of belief in the existence of deities
but the belief in the absence of the existence of deities

that in and of it self it what make it a religion in my book.

Athiesm is excluded from that definition of religion by the first three words:

"a set of beliefs"

Athiesm is a lack of belief in deities. Simple as that. Athiesm is not the belief in the absence of deities.

Athiesm is as much a religion as not believing in magic slippers is a religion.

Even the (completely wrong) definition of athiesm as a belief in the absence of deities doesn't qualify it as a religion any more than 'belief in God' is a religion in and of itself.

Let's look at that definition:

a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects

This excludes athiesm as a religion. There is no set of beliefs or practices agreed upon by athiests.

the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices

as above

the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion.
5. the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith.
6. something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience: to make a religion of fighting prejudice.

None of those include athiesm either.

That last point relies on there being some kind of 'athiest ethics' that all athiests agree on, which there isn't.

How is athiesm any different to not believing in walking trees? Would you assert that everything everyone doesn't believe in forms a religion?

[Ea]

Originally Posted by ficbot

...
And he told me that it's all pretend anyway so it doesn't have to make sense. I say fiction or not, it still has to make sense and if there is some special explanation for something illogical, they need to clue the reader in. So, what do you think...it's all pretend so who cares, or I am right to demand an explanation.

I agree. It has to have internal consistency. I tend to notice details like this, too, and it really irks me when it doesn't add up.

Originally Posted by djgreedo

...
How is athiesm any different to not believing in walking trees? Would you assert that everything everyone doesn't believe in forms a religion?

My daily absurdity-ration have already been met - and it's only 10 am...

[sony_fox]

Other examples:
Athiesm is a belief as a much as not stamp collecting is a hobby.


Internally consistent is a must.
I don't care what rules are broken in the setting up of the world ( and the degree to which it departs from our reality defines it as SF or F for me) - providing they are somehow explained during the course of the text. But the logical consequences of those rules must be adherred to.

I'd have no problems with Manhatten being a spared zone in a nuclear war. Yes it's not likely, but it's the author's basic premise so that's ok. BUT the inhabitents must be able to support themselves, so eating escaped zoo animals in central park is fine, buying stuff from supermarkets isn't. Surviving for years/decades on what was left in the supermarket shelves also isn't!

Many fantasy books are particularly rubbish at this. A small country that's nearly all inhospitabal terrain, with very very few farmers, markets etc to support he villages and towns that the hero conveniently passes through.

[Xiaopanda]

As long as it's internally consistant..... Does it NEED to be explained by munchkins working in tunnels under the city, using Star Trek like replicators to create stuff from waste and pushing it to the surface? Not really..... Again, sometimes it's enough that something just is...... Not often for me, though....

My "Life word" is Why?....

[pdurrant]

Fair point. Bad example.

Originally Posted by tompe

But anachronisms does not have to make a book internally inconsistent. It just makes the book a bad history book.

Personally I think that an internally inconsistent book nearly always is very bad but a historical book with anachronisms can often be fun to read and sometimes good.

[igorsk]

I think Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams describes the need for internal consistency quite well.

"Say you're a die-hard romantic who wants to design a pre-technological universe full of color and adventure. Say you want high, craggy mountains, because they're beautiful and wild and inspiring and also because you can hide lots of orcs in them. Say you also want a mountain loch to reflect your beautiful high-Gothic castle, and a fertile plain to provide lots of foodstuffs that you can tax out of your peasants—many of whom are brain-clones of yourself, by the way, with a lot of the higher education removed, and inhabiting various specially grown bodies of varying styles and genders."
"You know," said Daljit, "I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when the medieval scholars and the Compulsive Anachronists, or whatever they were called, discovered that they couldn't afford their own universe without financial aid from the fantasy gamers, and that their tidy little re-creation was now going to be full of trolls and dinosaurs."
Aristide grinned. "Perhaps you're underestimating the percentage of medievalists who play fantasy games."
"Perhaps."
"But in any case, the fertile valley has to be adjacent to the ocean, because the river's got to go somewhere, and in the meantime you've got this mountain range with its romantic tarn over here . . . so what goes in between?"
She looked at him. "You're going to tell me it's a squinch."
"Bingo. By the time you've got all your computations done and dumped all the energy into inflating a wormhole from the quantum foam . . ." Aristide made little rubbing gestures with his fingers, as if he were sprinkling alchemical powders into an alembic. " . . . and you've stabilized the wormhole gate with negative-mass matter, then inflated a soupçon of electrons and protons into a pocket universe complete with a flaming gas ball in the center . . . Once you've got your misty mountain range and your moisty river valley, what goes between the mountain range and river valley is implied by the architecture, and is in fact a high desert plain, like the Gobi, only far less attractive . . ."

[yvanleterrible]

The word is atheism, athe-ism... :grumblegrumble:

[tompe]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

The word is atheism, athe-ism... :grumblegrumble:

I have never seen the word split athe-ism so what is your point? The correct split is a-theism. Like amoral.

[Lady Blue]

Originally Posted by tompe

I have never seen the word split athe-ism so what is your point? The correct split is a-theism. Like amoral.

I believe it's the spelling he was pointing out: Athiesm (incorrect) as opposed to Atheism (correct.)

Like the difference between nucular and nuclear. One is correct, the other is not.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by tompe

I have never seen the word split athe-ism so what is your point? The correct split is a-theism. Like amoral.

I was pointing out the two last words from which that one is derived, to explain why it is spelled that way. It has been spelled athiesm about 50 times in this thread.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by djgreedo

Sorry to nitpick, but it is grating to hear athiesm called a religion when it is no such thing.

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.

- Ahi

[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.

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

[wayspooled]

Originally Posted by ficbot

And he told me that it's all pretend anyway so it doesn't have to make sense. I say fiction or not, it still has to make sense and if there is some special explanation for something illogical, they need to clue the reader in. So, what do you think...it's all pretend so who cares, or I am right to demand an explanation.

For me it has to make sense within it's fictional context. The context may be waaay.. on out there, but then the author has to make it work. Sounds like it doesn't work.

I enjoy character driven fiction. That sounds like what you're reading. But at the same time, I like the world in which the story is taking place to be thoughtful and make sense. I can barely tolerate the ones where someone had a great world idea, it all fits together brilliantly but no story in it, they're just using 90% of the book to share their great world. There are a bunch of those too.

Lots of writers Lots of reasons people become writers. They're not all good writers. We vote with our discretionary spending. heh, I think I wouldn't regret the time I lost reading it as much as I'd regret having encouraged them to write another book or the publisher for having no sense.

Like I've mentioned, that's the thing about sci-fi and fantasy. If it's good writing, most of the stuff written in roughly the last 35 years and some beyond that - could have been written and published last week.

[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.