“…I found these EXQUISITE dates from Jordan,” and the following lines are the most teeth grating things I’ve encountered in some time. For the REST of the movie and even just a few moments after those lines, she’s great, but right then and there nearly made me hate her portrayal of that role.

“A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position. To “attack a straw man” is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the “straw man”), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.”

For example, you point out that since one branch of Buddhism doesn’t have belief in a god, therefore atheism is a religion too.

Huh?

Just because someone who is an atheist can *also* follow some particular religious tradition doesn’t make atheism itself a religion.

Tax-exempt status?

Irrelevant.

You cite a definition by George A. Lindbeck, and even acknowledge that it may be rather vague, but – oh boy! – you get to use it to even call anything a “religion” you want to call a “religion”:

| It is in finding our own personal answer that
| religions begin to arise. The answer is to the
| asker their own form of enlightenment; such a
| feeling of purpose and truth awakens that as a
| result we feel the uprising need to Spread the
| Word! This word may be that of god, it may be
| that of many gods, but it also can be that of
| science, or that of yoga or a balanced diet or
| even that of the truth behind flying spaghetti.

So now science is a “religion”!

Yes, that proves the definition you’re using is too vague or out of context.

Stamp collecting can be called a “religion” too (look up the word “religion” in the dictionary), but context is important and the meanings of words in context are important too, and basing claims and arguments on words by equivocating on the *different* meanings for which a word is used in different contexts is a sure-fire way to get things wrong and merely confuse an issue.

Agnosticism is not the correct term for a lack of belief in something. Being agnostic about something refers to the idea that you don’t know about something. Atheist technically means “without belief in a god”, and typically in reference to a volitional thought process (rather than to, say, a two year old child who’s never even thought about it). Indeed, a person can be both an atheist and agnostic at the same time. None of this, of course, makes atheism a religion.

Atheists have a strong tendency to support critical thinking – i.e., the idea that our beliefs are subject to critical scrutiny, bringing rational analysis (reason) and testing by relevent factual information (science) to bear. You then portray these concepts of critical thinking themselves as beliefs, and so atheism is a religion.

Huh?

A belief is not “religious” merely because it is believed. Some beliefs are religious beliefs, and there are all kinds of other beliefs that have nothing to do with religion. You don’t get to masquerade something as a religion merely because there are beliefs involved. I “believe” that the earth orbits the sun, because that is what makes sense (reason) in terms of the relevant evidence (science). So now – according to the word games you’re using – I’m involved in religion (religious belief) because I “believe” that the earth orbits the sun.

That doesn’t make any sense at all.

Oh, and should atheists get together in groups on a regular basis, because they’re atheists and want to associate on that basis and discuss issues of common interest to atheists, that means atheism is a religion because this is “akin to heading to Church on Sundays”. So I guess chess is a “religion” too because some chess players meet together on a regular basis, and sometimes even form clubs, to play chess.

Wow.

And on the basis of these horrible arguments, we have the coup-de-grace: “there is no reason that I can find to continue to exclude Atheism from being a religion”. In other words, those who can’t really come up with a *good* reason to call atheism a religion, but who want to do it anyway, can easily generate a rhetorical facade to make doing so not look so obviously bad. Of course, when you mangle words to mean anything you want, so that everything becomes a religion (even stamp collecting and chess!), it just doesn’t make any real sense.

Atheism is a religion like bald is a hair color.

And no one yell at Pat for taking so long to release the second book. His blog gives very good reasons, and he’s really great to his fans, so shush.