Islamaphobia?

"science is almost unique as a form of knowledge in that it regards history as the history of error, and sees only current knowlege as true"

I'm sorry but what nonsense! Science is always correcting itself. Religion is the one that thinks it has the monopoly on the truth and has literally killed those who don't adhere to it.

Atheism isn't a belief system Buffy.

At its strongest it means someone who believes there is no God. That is a single belief.

At its weakest it has not have any belief in a God. That is not a belief at all.

Neither of those things is a 'system' of beliefs. You attaching it to other belief systems in a sentence like science doesn't make atheism in itself a belief system.

I think Buffy is right, that there isn't a 'science' that you can abstract from what scientists actually do. As the philosopher of science Bruno Latour has argued, science isn't about ideas but about practices - 'science' is the sum total of all the different practices (the doing of science) by all the people involved in it (scientists).

And, of course, all those practices are compromised in particular ways - by funding, by influences and biases and starting points, by chance, by power structures within the institution, by guesswork and happenstance, fashion ... so that, as Buffy says, science is a powerful language for describing the material world that we live in, but not a pure source of truth.

And, of course, there is much that science is not competent to tell us about. It is incompetent when it comes to history, to metaphysics (questions about what existence is, for example), to ethics and to aesthetics. And most scientists cheerfully accept this.

Thinking that science can tell us everything that is worth knowing is Positivism.

So, Bertrand, what I'm saying is that there isn't a thing called 'atheism' that is different from what atheists believe. Your definition is a reductive one, in that it reduces atheism to its most minimal possible level. Other ideas about atheism are possible - Nietszche for instance said not that he didn't believe in God but that God is dead. That's a rather different thing. But I don't think there's much to be gained by a discussion that simply goes round and round. If you want to hold to your definition, that's fine.

Hermione, I've tried to explain above why I think you are idealising science. Regarding your claims about religion, in brief: a) people have very good grounds for believing in God, and their belief is based on evidence. Whether you accept testimony and experience as valid kinds of evidence depends upon your theory of knowledge, of course, but testimony and experience are certainly valid kinds of evidence in a court of law. b) to say that belief in God continues blindly is to ignore the central place that debate and doubt have in the history of religious thought. Did you know, for example, Rabbis are trained by having to argue their ideas out point by point? c) science is almost unique as a form of knowledge in that it regards history as the history of error, and sees only current knowlege as true. No other way of knowing the world has so little regard for the past. Of course religious ideas and practices have changed over the millennia of human existence; but a key feature of religious thinking is that some things are always true - for example the way God has revealed herself/himself. The essential truths are timeless but the interpretation of them is a matter for each age.

Scientists who do not adhere to the scientific method are bad scientists. This does not mean that science is wrong- just that it is not being used properly.

I can't see a similar mechanism for this happening in a religious context - in fact doesn't it generally lead to a new religious group being set up?

Usually. But with religion, as nothing can be proven except maybe what is in a religious text or is not, one would not expect this sort of mechanism. It is mostly opinions.

My point with regard to science is that the proof has to be overwhelming and/or may not threaten people's financial interests in order to become widely supported. By which time it may be already too late for lots of people.
People are people, and thus, science is not all that it could be.

There are also many people whose belief in science is religious in its nature.

Patriarchy supports rape culture inside or outside any religion, including Islam. That does not mean that all men, or even all men of a particular religion, are rapists. It means, for example, that the subset of men who are rapists are treated more favourably than they could be treated or should be treated.

I thought everyone knew this by now.
Shocking, how little effort some people put into educating themselves.

CoteDAzur wrote - "Islam is not "an actual rape culture" and it is not only offensive and inflammatory but also silly to say that over 800 million Muslim men in the world are rapists."

Patriarchy supports rape culture inside or outside any religion, including Islam. That does not mean that all men, or even all men of a particular religion, are rapists. It means, for example, that the subset of men who are rapists are treated more favourably than they could be treated or should be treated.

but surely science doesn't claim to give "real truth"?

Science does not. Scientists do. You are correct in that it is not scientific to do this, but it is done.

While science should be like "You have a new theory that disproves everything we thought was true? How interesting!" it is "You have a new theory that proves we were wrong all along? You asshole! You must be wrong!"

Sorry to jump in, just been following the whole thread, and apologies if this is very dim... but surely science doesn't claim to give "real truth"? Science gives the current best explanation/theory with the understanding that this may change in the future with further investigations. Or have I completed misunderstood? Anyone who uses science to claim a definitive unarguable truth is mistaken about what science is, and using like a religion. But that doesn't mean science is a religion, does it?

niminy I'm obviously not as educated as you are on these matters, can you explain more about why my explanation of science is idealised and how my views show a total ignorance of religion?

OP - Nobody is more anti-religion (of any kind) than me, but you are shockingly ill-informed and your OP is filled with nonsense:

• Islam is not "an actual rape culture" and it is not only offensive and inflammatory but also silly to say that over 800 million Muslim men in the world are rapists.

• Mohammad is not a "paedophile" since he did not lay a finger on his 'wife' until she had her period and "became a woman" as was the practice at that time, and not only among Arabs. You might like to look into what life expectancy and age at marriage was around the world around the year 600.

• God is not "male" in Islam. I have no idea why you think so. It seems to be male in Christianity, though, with all that talk of Jesus calling God "Father".

• Female Genital Mutilation has nothing to do with Islam. It is a local African tradition. Most Muslim countries don't practice it. Some Christian African countries do.

FYI I grew up in a Muslim country and don't need to read books written by an ex-believer Somali woman who used to sympathise with Muslim Brotherhood and agreed with the fatwa declared on Salman Rushdie's life to learn about Islam.

"I think that's logic-chopping but I don't wish to pursue it."

Fair enough. Does that mean you are only prepared to discuss with people who accept your own, incorrect, definition of atheism?

Hermione: that's one of the purest expressions of dogma I've ever seen.

Not only does it utterly misrepresent and idealise science, which you have confused with positivism, it betrays a facile view of and almost total ignorance about religion.

I would be extremely disappointed if our understanding of science and technology hadn't moved on in 100 years. That doesn't mean it's a "belief" system - it questions, tests hypotheses, seeks to find repeatable results, and invites challenge and alternative explanations. It is because of this continuous quest to find the best explanation which fits the evidence and to explain and learn new things that science keeps moving forward.

It is the very opposite of religious belief which blindly continues regardless of a complete lack of evidence, and hasn't moved forward much in a few millennia.

My atheism is a belief system only in the sense I don't believe a god exists. The skiing analogy is quite good as far as I'm concerned. I literally spend all my time not skiing. So far as a god, other than conversations like this, I spend no time at all thinking about him/her/ whatever.

It is of little interest or concern to me if other people go skiing or believe in a god as long as they do not try to force me to go skiing or believe in their god or tell me I am wrong or deluded in not wanting to go skiing or not believing in their god.

I don't thin my utter lack of interest in skiing (or all sport for that matter) or utter lack of any belief in a god is the only true world view for anyone other than me.

I have no idea what people mean when they say they enjoy sport or that a god is a part of their lives or that they have a relationship with a god. Good for them if it means something to them. As long as they accept these things mean nothing to me.

I don't however see what the point is in a consideration of whether or not religion is oppressive to go "yeah but some atheists are horrible too"

We may well be, but atheism is not supported by the sort of structures which support organised religion. One might find Dawkins unpleasant but he does not speak with the authority of the Pope.

He may think say burning a copy of The Origin of Species is a bit silly but he will not , I would guess, take personal offence, nor consider it an insult to the book nor want anyone punished for burning it.

I think that's logic-chopping but I don't wish to pursue it.

atheism is defined exclusively as an absen of belief in a god or gods. Nothing more, nothing less.

What an individual atheist goes on to say or do or believe does not change that definition. There is nothing "Platonic" about that- it is just affording words their proper meaning.

Bertrand, I'm thinking of people who have written histories of atheism and have identified different forms and periods of atheist thinking. You seem to be making a claim that there's some Platonic form of atheism separable from the ideas of actual atheists. That seems quite a strange claim to me.