so the GD thread got locked, but atheism as a religion?

[Phillip McCleod]

64. i happen to agree that there are philosophical implications of atheism..

..when considered as a concept rather than a worldview. i think that's a conversation that's been had before without any real resolution, and i kinda doubt that any resolution is to be had. my nemesis/bff put it well.. 'philosophy is an endlessly debatable topic'. *any* endlessly debatable topic.

generally we aren't talking about teh abstract concept of atheism however, but the personal worldview.. in many ways a different animal. a cosmos sans imperative values, to borrow kant's term, is not just ethically neutral, it's downright hostile to civilization. indeed i think much of the fear motivating a godless cosmos as a concept is rooted in socialized fear of anarchy. from plato to hobbes the 'republic' and 'leviathan'.. the utopia.. is built in contradistinction to anachy. it is better to be ruled by a tyrant, to paraphrase hobbes, than to live by tooth-and-claw.

is the universe moral or amoral? are there universal imperative laws governing human behavior or are they all contingent on social context? these are great questions and the concept of atheism seems to answer with an implied 'amoral' and 'contingent'.

this places the burden of creating social order, harmony, justice.. the whole shebang.. on us. we can't rely on the cosmos to force us to do the right thing, either as individuals or as a species. it's up to us to create order in this chaos, each and every day.