What do DUers that defend mocking religious beliefs think of these pictures?

[beam me up scottie]

157. Not really.

But I'm going to try to clarify because I hope you're not getting my point due to misunderstanding, not because you're being deliberately obtuse.

An officially atheist state persecuting people for not being atheists has absolutely nothing to do with atheism,

Sure it has to do with atheism, but only the state's promotion of it as a part of its official doctrine.

Atheists have no deity, no doctrine, no pope, no church, no central authority. We have NOTHING to follow.

Atheism is simply the lack of belief in gods. It's not an ideology, not a belief system, not a position on anything but the existence of gods.


Period.

a religious state persecuing people for not following its official religion is totally religion's fault.

Not what I said. Just like state sponsored atheism, it has to do with a certain religion because the state is promoting it as a part of its official doctrine.

It could be considered that religion's "fault" if the state is basing its policies on religious tenets which require adherents to persecute people for things like non-belief, blasphemy, drawing cartoons of prophets, etc. The state would be basing its policies on established religious dogma.


So this isn't about atheism vs theism, it's about atheism vs religion. It's about definitions, not "fault".


Maybe some info from other sources will help, here's a broad, inclusive definition of 'religion' found at religioustolerance.org:

Wikipedia defines religion as: "... a system of social coherence based on a common group of beliefs or attitudes concerning an object, person, unseen being, or system of thought considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine or highest truth, and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions, traditions, and rituals associated with such belief or system of thought."

http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_defn1.htm

And here is a broad definition of atheism from wikipedia:

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1][2] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[3][4][5] Most inclusively, atheism is the absence of belief that any deities exist.[4][5][6][7] Atheism is contrasted with theism,[8][9] which, in its most general form, is the belief that at least one deity exists

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

Now let's contrast the two:

Atheism is not an "Ism":

When people talk about "isms," they are referring to some "distinctive doctrine, theory, system, or practice" like liberalism, communism, conservatism, or pacifism. Atheism has the suffix "ism," so it belongs in this group, right? Wrong: the suffix "ism" also means a "state, condition, attribute, or quality" like pauperism, astigmatism, heroism, anachronism, or metabolism. Is astigmatism a theory? Is metabolism a doctrine? Is anachronism a practice? Not every word that ends in "ism" is a system of beliefs or an "ism" in the way people usually mean it. Failure to realize this can be behind other errors here.

Atheism is Not a Religion:

Many Christians seem to believe that atheism is a religion, but no one with an accurate understanding of both concepts would make such a mistake. Atheism lacks every one of the characteristics of religion. At most, atheism doesn’t explicitly exclude most of them, but the same can be said for almost anything. Thus, it’s not possible to call atheism a religion. It can be part of a religion, but it can’t be a religion by itself. They are completely different categories: atheism is the absence of one particular belief while religion is a complex web of traditions and beliefs.


Atheism is Not an Ideology:

An ideology is any "body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group." There are two key elements necessary for an ideology: it must be a group of ideas or beliefs and this group must provide guidance. Neither is true of atheism. First, atheism is by itself just the absence of belief in gods; it's not even a single belief, much less a body of beliefs. Second, atheism by itself offers no guidance on moral, social, or political matters. Atheism, like theism, can be part of an ideology, but neither can be an ideology by themselves.

http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/p/AtheismReligion.htm

I'm not blaming the world's ills on religion, I'm just trying to explain the difference between two completely different things.