Statement of belief

[Chris Worfolk]

I'm going to throw this open to debate.

Atheism has no beliefs. Clearly. But that isn't to say an atheist movement doesn't. As Gijsbert says, it would be useful to have some and quite frankly I'm tired of being told I don't believe in anything.

Essentially, we have these beliefs anyway, they are simply unwritten at the moment.

Then having seen Peter's list of Humanist values almost at the last One Life session I think that fits along the lines of what we need.

The first statement no doubt would be that you don't have to subscribe to all or any of these statements. But having said that I believe we can probably come up with some statements for example, we don't believe in God or gods that we could all agree upon (and even if not all of us can, that is covered by the first point).

Secondly, I believe it would be important to phrase such statements in a positive way. We are no better off if we have a statement saying we don't not believe in god than we are just having it unwritten. We need things like "we believe the universe can work without god" or something along those lines (that's just an example, we can do a lot better).

[Ellis Pugh]

The British Humanists have a pretty good summary of Humanist beliefs:

http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/contentChapterView.asp?chapter=309

I think though its important to state that Humanism (like Atheism) is not a religion, we do not need specified rules and values to make us any more viable. Should thinking and evidence change, those guidelines are likely to change also.

[Chris Worfolk]

We could have a set of beliefs without making them dogmatic though, updating them as and when needed.

[Ellis Pugh]

That was what I had in mind, flexi-guidelines, changing as and when opinions change.

For me though Atheism is not much more than an opinion on religion, the opinion that there isn't a god or supernatural figure that created, and is now overseeing and controlling the universe and human affairs.

What do you think?

[norman]

I agree with the sentiment of that - being an atheist says nothing more about a person than their non-belief in a god. However, as Chris rightly says there is a shared philosophy amongst many atheists (almost all that i have met personally) that goes deeper than the mere statement on belief in god.

Having debated this point with Chris on a number of occasions, i am still no closer to an actual decision - do atheists (under some umbrella term) require a positive statement of their philosophy/worldview/belief system? I am still, parden the pun, agnostic about that.

I think most atheists can be labeled with a subtitle - I am a rationalist atheist, Chris is a New Atheist, some on here are atheist humanists (I think the actual term is secular humanists?). Is this enough of a statement?

[grammar king mike]

I think most atheists can be labeled with a subtitle - I am a rationalist atheist, Chris is a New Atheist, some on here are atheist humanists (I think the actual term is secular humanists?). Is this enough of a statement?

Hehe, believe it or not the plot thickens even further in the atheist/humanist discussion on that one. I'll clarify in the dedicated thread rather that take this one off topic.

[norman]

Well I think we all like a thick plot every now and again!

[Chris Worfolk]

Well I think we all like a thick plot every now and again!

I'm sure that's a euphemism ;).

[norman]

I'm sure that's a euphemism ;).

Yes it is!

it is a euphemism for an argument! I like arguing. Especially about humanism.