“If black is a color, then Atheism is a religion”

3 May 2007

Oh dear, yet another one of these ridiculous assertions that atheism is a religion. However, this one stands out for its amazing incoherence. This time it’s from the desk of the very busy Rev. Bill McGinnis, who is not only pastor, but editor/director/webmaster/writer of what he calls the Internet Church of Christ.

McGinnes describes himself thus:

Rev. Bill McGinnis is an Internet Christian minister, writer and publisher. He is Director of LoveAllPeople.org, a small private think tank in Alexandria, Virginia, and all of its related websites, including InternetChurchOfChrist.org, CommitteeForTheGoldenRule, CivicAmerican.com, and EssaysAndCommentaries.com. His agenda is to help maximize the happiness and well-being of all people.

From small private think tank I’ll presume that he’s alluding to the opinion of himself, and possibly his dog if he has one, and by agenda … to help maximize (sic) the happiness and well-being of all people I’ll take that to mean that he wants people to he happy as long as they agree with him and his conceptualisation of reality, which seems so far off the beaten track that I’m trying not to burst into fits of laughter. His comments on the “golden rule” are particularly amusing.

Anyway, McGinnis has decided to reinvent some terms, melded them with an argument only suitable to convince a four-year old, and come to the conclusion that atheism is now the state religion of, presumably, the USA and it must be stopped! I’ll let McGinnis’ words speak for themselves:

A person’s religion is the sum total of his beliefs about God and the supernatural. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are the three largest “monotheistic” religions, with belief one God, Creator Of The Universe.

Some religions are “polytheistic,” with belief in many gods, each with different functions.

Atheism is the religion whose belief about God is that there is no God.

Some Atheists, for their own political reasons, assert that Atheism is not a religion but instead is the total absence of religion. This allows them to spread their Atheistic beliefs freely in societies which insist on “separation of church and state.”

But this is like saying that “black,” (which physicists define as the total absence of color) is not a color. The car I drive is a big, old Chevrolet, whose color is black. In common practice throughout the world, “black” is understood to be a color, despite the technical definition of the physicists. Likewise, “Atheism” is a religion, despite any technical definitions to the contrary.

If black is a color, then Atheism is a religion.

And bald is a hair colour, empty is a Starbucks coffee syrup flavour, and interstellar vacuum is a building material suitable for skyscrapers. Back to the rev.:

If Atheism is a religion, then it must be subject to the same legal restrictions imposed by governments on all other religions. In particular, in the United States, the teaching of Atheism must be prohibited wherever the teaching of Christianity is prohibited.

But where is Atheism being taught? Atheism is being taught, by default, in all places where other religions cannot be taught, particularly in the public schools.

When the State mandates that the Theory of Evolution be taught as fact, that is establishing the religion of Atheism, because the Theory of Evolution asserts that all life forms are created not by God, but by pre-existing natural processes. This is pure Atheism! If we are not created by God, then there might as well be no God, for all the difference He makes.

The mere fact that many scientists are Atheists does not entitle them to establish Atheism as our State Religion!

When the State prohibits free discussion of God in the classroom, that is establishing the religion of Atheism. Wherever the State permits Atheistic ideas to be spread but prohibits Theistic ideas, that is establishing the religion of Atheism.

Therefore I urge you to understand clearly in your mind that Atheism is a religion, just as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are religions. And any restrictions placed on Christianity, Judaism, or Islam must also be placed on Atheism. Atheism must not be allowed to slip through its little loophole any longer, by pretending it is not a religion.

Blessings to you in the name of the One God, Creator of the Universe.

I’ve not been well recently, so I’m not feeling up to deconstructing this in its entirety, but I thought that I’d share this comedic example of christian woo for your edification Feel free to play your own game of ’spot the fallacies’ if you so desire.

Remember: atheism is the new black — apparently. If there wasn’t so much of this phantasmal nonsense and it wasn’t written with such certitude, I would be convinced that it was a spoof.

No other posts are likely to be like this.

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22415 Responses2007-05-03+18%3A11%3A50nullifidian to ““If black is a color, then Atheism is a religion””

Intergalactic Hussy on May 3rd, 2007 7:10 pm

Religious folks claim to “get” atheism. If they did, then we wouldn’t have these misunderstandings. I’d mention the flawed logic, yet one’s logic must be flawed to be religious and/or a theist.
nullifidian on May 3rd, 2007 7:43 pm

Indeedy! As many times as I’ve heard them say that they “get” atheism, the very next sentence out of their mouths usually completely puts the lie to their claim.
Lynn on May 3rd, 2007 8:21 pm

Funny, I was just thinking about this ridiculous argument myself just recently.

A pretty telling statement by McGinnis, I thought: “When the State prohibits free discussion of God in the classroom, that is establishing the religion of Atheism.” They’re so transparent – but effective, sadly.

Love the Starbucks comparison. Another favorite is, Atheism is a religion in the same way that NOT collecting stamps is a hobby.

Great blog!
nullifidian on May 3rd, 2007 8:26 pm

Hi Lynn, and thanks. I’m quite new to mybloglog (where I saw your blog) but I’m still trying to work out how it works.

I do notice that you’re not on the atheist blogroll yet… :-)
TW on May 4th, 2007 4:42 pm

The amount of woo these wingnuts can generate still amazes me. You could start a game of “logical fallacy bingo” …
Jesus on May 9th, 2007 1:52 am

Black is totally a color. It’s the darkest color God made. Refer to John 6:18-22 – “Black, being as the color of dark and the color of night and the color of the crack betwixt the cheeks, be made by God for the heavens and he smiled”

It’s right there in Bible.. so.
MC on May 9th, 2007 7:26 am

The theory of evolution does not discuss creation. That is the misunderstanding that I think need to be quelled the most.
Gareth Edwards on May 9th, 2007 5:28 pm

The Reverend says that Atheism should be subject to the same restrictions as religions.

Therefore by his own arguments, Atheist groups should also get the same tax-exemption privilages as churches. I have a feeling that he would not be too keen on this.
Dennis Yates on May 9th, 2007 6:02 pm

I like the quote: “If atheism is a religion, then health is a disease.”
Tiryon on May 9th, 2007 11:32 pm

While you’ve obviously thought this through, I would not recommend starting off anything of this sort with ad hominem. It adds nothing to what you have to say, and is quite useless.
TurboFool on May 9th, 2007 11:40 pm

But, as even the reverend admits, black is NOT a color; it’s merely referred to as one. Just because we all call it a color doesn’t make it any more correct.

There’s many things we mislabel on a constant basis. Someone on a forum recently pointed out how the phrase “emptied the clip” isn’t accurate, as they’re nearly always referring to a magazine, not a clip. Or how about the number of people who refer to their computer tower as their hard drive or their CPU? How about how nearly every person on earth refers to the vulva (the collective term for the external female genitalia) as a vagina (the first two to three inches inside, which is rarely visible, and therefore rarely referenced)?

The fact that a term is commonly misused does not make it factually accurate. Black is not a color no matter how much any of us refer to it as one. So atheism, by his logic, can indeed be called a religion by lazy people who don’t understand or care about the difference. But laws should be above poor English or laymen terms.

Atheism is not a religion, it’s a complete lack thereof. I hold no belief in anything I cannot prove, unlike religion. The closest they can come is the fact that I believe there is no god without proof there is no god. But without proof (or even evidence), why should I even entertain the thought? By that same logic I should, in fact, refer to myself as a schizophrenic because while a schizophrenic hallucinates, I cannot prove that I am NOT hallucinating, therefore I should accept the possibility that I may be hallucinating at this moment and simply don’t realize it. Because apparently, to derail one of their favorite quotes, absence of evidence is not evidence of anything important whatsoever since I should just take their word for it and accept that I may be wrong no matter how outlandish their claims simply because I can’t disprove them.

Don’t you just love arguing with the equivalent of a four-year-old with her fingers in her years yelling, “I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you!”?
nullifidian on May 9th, 2007 11:42 pm

And which ad hominem would that be? If you mean my comparing his “think tank” to consisting of “him and his dog”, I would hope that people would see this as humour — it can get rather dry in having to repeatedly repudiate ridiculous arguments from people who have no idea what the hell they’re supposedly authoritatively talking about. Besides, as far as I can tell, he is the only member of his think tank:

Bill McGinnis Internet is a tax-paying, profit-making, free-speech business, owned by William E. McGinnis, of Alexandria, VA, (Rev. Bill McGinnis). It is classified as a “sole proprietorship” and is duly registered with the Internal Revenue Service of the USA and the Department Of Taxation in the state of Virginia.

and

In his work on the Internet, Rev. Bill McGinnis operates as a completely independent voice, answering to nobody but God alone. (In his regular job, previously, he worked as a normal employee, answering to his supervisor, like most other employees in the real world.

Otherwise, I have no idea what you mean.
CrowsSong on May 10th, 2007 3:38 am

I find it awfully convenient that the right wingers refer to atheism as a religion when it suits their argument (such as this one), but then refuse to acknowledge it as protected by our First Amendment right to freedom of religion. (I’m sure you’ve all seen the angry redneck with the poorly written sign stating “Freedom of Religion, not Freedom from Religion”.
Marc on May 10th, 2007 3:27 pm

Bwahahah. Atheist is the new black-eh? Let us all dress in the stylishly handsome attire of a priest and pose quaintly for the camera.
bipolar2 on September 8th, 2007 11:33 pm

** Atheism is not a religion . . . **

>> The word ‘theism’ is an abstraction about an abstraction ‘religion.’

‘Theism’ is an abstract noun which collectively refers to every religion (another abstract noun) which espouses the existence of at least one god, usually one having a personality, which interacts meaningfully with human beings.

The set of theistic religions would include: Xianity, Judaism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, ancient Greco-Roman polytheisms. It would not include: Theravada Buddhism or Chinese ancestor worship. These are non-theistic religions.

Theist and atheist alike can agree about which religions are theistic. Religions are reasonably well-defined “objects” which can be discriminated and counted. Such agreements, shared by supposedly antithetical camps, are for me “the salt which never loses its savour.”

Atheism is essentially a viewpoint which denies that any theistic god whatsoever exists. For the so-called Big-3 Near Eastern monotheisms, the atheist claims that of God, Yaweh, and Allah, not one of them exists. These fictional figures have no greater status than Zeus, Sherlock Holmes, or Batman.

Let’s be clear. Theism is not a religion. Atheism is not a religion either.

>> A religion is a praxis.

One defining characteristic of ‘religion’ is that it form a recognizable social unit sharing common practices, identifiable from within and without. (Despite its theistic stance, the Boy Scouts is not a religion. It is a voluntary association.)

Atheism embodies no common praxis — it has no affirmations, no rituals, it has no common symbols, no outward means of identification. (Atheism is not a voluntary association. Of course, there are voluntary associations which espouse atheism.)

Having an opinion that gods do not exist can not mean that one has an opinion “about” gods. There is nothing, according to the atheist, about which to have an opinion.

One of the great clarifications within Logic is to distinguish an existence claim from a claim that some existing thing has a property. (”Existence is not a predicate.”)

>> Speaking clearly about non-existent, but well-known fictional characters.

I can have opinions about a fictitious character named ‘Hamlet’ as presented by Shakespeare in his play, ‘The Tragedy of Hamlet.’ I can also have opinions about a mythological being named ‘God’ as presented in the synoptic gospels of ‘The New Testament.’

All I can know about these characters is what I read in pages devoted to them. I can no more find the synoptic “God” by doing astronomical research than I can find “Hamlet’s bones” by excavating in a chapel at Elsinore.

No interpretation of Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet” makes someone called ‘Hamlet’ more likely to exist. No interpretation of the synoptics of the “New Testament” makes some being called ‘God’ more likely to exist. Theology is so much fan fiction.

Bipolar2
copyright asserted 2007