Theism, and other belief systems. [View all]

[guillaumeb]

First, what are they?

Obviously a belief system is a method of looking at the world and interacting with it. As one definition suggests:

The belief system of a person or society is the set of beliefs that they have about what is right and wrong and what is true and false.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/belief-system

So a belief system can be based on theism, or patriotism, or any other system that one might use.
I have previously suggested that atheism is also a belief system, and a few self-defined atheists at DU have strongly disagreed with me, insisting that atheism is merely the absence of any theistic belief.
My argument was that if a person used atheism as a way of defining truth and falsity, that constitutes a belief system. And I was told, quite strongly, that I was attempting as a theist to define atheism for atheists.

So when I read the following passage, from one of the self-defined DU atheists, I was confused.

The passage:

So, there it is. Belief in the "divine" is a belief in the existence of deities. Atheism is the disbelief in deities or the certain belief that no deities exist. The two things are incompatible, by definition.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1218287061

Now that sounds like a belief system to me, and it also sounds like a definite assertion of what is true and what is false, at least according to the one atheist who wrote it.

Perhaps atheism, like theism, has a variety of positions?