Fascinating

I read today about an atheist blogger that has just converted to Catholicism.  Twisted, I know.  I first came across it at Blag Hag on Freethought Blogs.  I then went to the blog itself and read through her post and the comments and her responses.  I recommend checking it out here.  It is very interesting.  This is the first I have heard of an atheist converting (reverting?) to a religion.  I mean, I am sure it happens, I just haven't seen it before myself outside of the occasional guy who says he was an atheist demon summoner.   Anyhow, looking at it, I think I agree with her atheist friends that her problems started when she decided to be a virtue ethicist.  Looking for absolute morality will get you every time.  I actually think that believing in absolute morality is a dangerous thing in a very real sense.

If you go, check out the comments; the ones she has replied to anyhow.  Reading their arguments, I really feel like the "mysteries" of religion, the things that make the religious go, "whoa!", really are what you get when a rational person seriously attempts to wrap their brain around a concept that makes no sense.

A long absence

Sorry, it has been ages since I have posted anything on here.  I will try and rectify this.  In the mean time, I saw this video.  As if I needed another reason to love Eddie Izzard:

Atheism the religion?

Whenever I read any comment threads in which non-religious folks and religious folks are debating (to put it very nicely), it seems that eventually a religious person will come right out and declare atheism a religion.  I am not sure where this confusion comes from.  It may be that people who come from religious backgrounds do not have the experience required to understand a life without religion of some sort.  It maybe that some religious group out there is pushing this idea in order to frighten, confuse, or otherwise influence people. Or maybe some group is pushing this idea because it is what they really believe.

But none of that is important.  It is not important for one important reason.  Atheism is not a religion.  I repeat, atheism is not a religion.  Look, I didn't even capitalize it.  To illustrate this point, I have prepared a simple analogy.  Theism is a belief in a god or gods.  Atheism is the belief that there are no gods.  If you have a house, and I do not have a house, we are not different kinds of homeowners.  If you play baseball and I do not, we are not different kinds of baseball players.  But wait it gets better!  Not only is atheism not a religion, theism isn't a religion either!  Now a theist is probably a million time more likely to be religious, but that does mean that every person that believes in at least one god also belongs to a religion.

So, not only are people who claim atheism to be a religion confusing two very different things, but are by accident creating not one, but two religions (theism and atheism) where none exist.  Please say it with me now: atheism is not a religion.