Atheism is not a religion - or How 5 is like pie... (or NOT)

From Wikipedia:
"...most agnostics see their view as distinct from atheism, which they may consider no more justified than theism or requiring an equal conviction.[43] The supposed unattainability of knowledge for or against the existence of gods is sometimes seen as indication that atheism requires a leap of faith.[44] Common atheist responses to this argument include that unproven religious propositions deserve as much disbelief as all other unproven propositions,[45] and that the unprovability of a god's existence does not imply equal probability of either possibility."

Arguing that Atheism is a theism, is akin to arguing that "5" is a "fruit". It is not, by its very nature, and cannot possibly be. One can confuse the issue and make confusing observations such as "there can be 5 fruits, 5 fruits taste delicious, my favorite pie has 5 fruits in it..." and so on. But you're simply confusing the issue... not proving that 5 is a fruit, or fruit is a 5.

A person could, to my mind, spend all eternity positing unprovable possibilities, and then engaging in the pointless exercise of trying to prove or disprove each of them until he or she collapsed with their last breath. Such a life is, to my mind, wasted. I much desire to avoid that fate. To give credence to the argument that in order to not believe in god - to outright claim that it doesn't exist - requires such a meaningless waste of a lifetime is tacitly buying into religion's frame of reference - the very world-view that leads to so much human suffering.

I reject outright any such frame of reference, so I don't need to waste my life disproving every possible proposition, no matter how ridiculous. And any argument that requires that we limit our minds to that frame of reference has already lost - has already proved itself a doomed enterprise, by failing to recognize the absurdity, the suffering, the pointless waste that it is to try to disprove every goofy thing that could-possibly-be-but-there-is-no-reason-to-think-it-might-really; and by that, proves the questioner to be profoundly confused and ignorant of the underlying truths - essentially to be ignorant of the most important thing: their frame of reference.

New Atheism - the kind that doesn't piss-around with useless "we cannot know therefore we cannot really say", or the equally mealy-mouthed "we don't think it's likely, but we respect every goofy thing everyone might believe no matter how destructive to society and the very health of this planet" - is not trying to win hearts or minds or play the stupid game that religions do. New atheists acknowledging what is inevitable, indisputable, fundamentally true. What science shows to be fact.
All religious beliefs are by their very nature mental masturbation and wasteful of life, mind, and existence, due to the fact that they don't have any error-correction mechanism. They can posit any ridiculous notion and because someone believes it - it is sacred and indisputable.

I don't mind others having all sorts of goofy religious beliefs, per se. But I don't need to waste my time on them, insofar as they don't curtail my own life, or insofar as I don't care about the poor schmuck who's so abused him or herself with those blinders.

However, I take passionate unction towards anyone who tries to shoe-horn the conversation of atheism into one that can only support the untenable world-view that proof of the ridiculous is required in order to dismiss the ridiculous.

I understand that emotionally and culturally (and even humanly) that folks often find that they are afraid. Afraid of death. Afraid of the unknown. Afraid of pain, loss, suffering. Human beings often feel the need to appeal to a higher authority, someone they feel they can trust to tell them what is the right thing to do.

This is a need to feel that there is a parent-figure watching over them so that they can feel confident that everything is okay.

However, that is an emotional short-coming on their part, and by no means requires that I, or anyone else, participate or prove to them anything, nor justify my own rejection of such stupidity and short comings for any purpose whatsoever.

Again, the perspective that a world-view, or frame of reference need prove itself to be "good" is already devolving into the blinders of religious dogma and foolishness.

Atheism doesn't try to justify itself. It doesn't acknowledge a connection between one's religion and whether you're a good or bad person. Goodness and badness are relative to who benefits, who suffers. People's behavior is far more motivated by our basic biological necessities and circumstances than by such ephemeral minutia as religious beliefs. We're the product of millions of years of trial & error, of brains that got eating and shitting right, and later mastered social grouping behaviors. We are quite literally layers of minds - deep down we have our lizards stems, and above that a much larger mammalian layer, and above and to the fore of that we have our uniquely Human frontal lobes.
Atheists have a wide variety of spiritual beliefs, have a wide variety of "goodness" or "badness" or "charisma" or "bluntness" or any other characteristic you wish to name. None of those traits has anything whatsoever to do with Atheism per se, any more than 5 has to do with pie. They're not related. At. All.

What sparks me about conversations with religious folk is that I see you as requiring that we speak in religious terms: goodness, badness, beliefs. Atheism doesn't doesn't exist inside of any of those. It is not a belief, nor is it a faith. It is, inexorably, incontrovertibly, the search for that which honestly, truly is. It is in fact the very essence of 'reject that which has no evidence,' and simply trying to find 'that which is.'

This is quintessentially why atheism lends itself to science. Not the magical pseudo-science that most religious and laypeople believe in - but rather in the actual, provable, incontrovertible, inescapable, what-is (or in Buddhism, suchness: Tathātā/Dharmatā).

It is also worth awakening your mind to the fact (not belief, not faith) that Buddhism is not a theism, and should not be lumped into religion anymore than Enlightenment or Humanism or Secularism should be. Philosophy is better term, because it is better grounded in an honest desire to discover the truth, rather than the deceitful desire to hide the truth from oneself in order to conform to the will of others and "fit in".

I would posit that the word belief is inappropriately applied to Atheism by religious folk. Atheism is not a belief - it is not subject to the "might be true, might not be". It simply rejects that which has no basis in reality. Religion exists within the world-view of belief - it might or might not be true, and it desperately tries to hide the truth and divert people's attention away from even thinking about the truth or falseness - the likelihood of what it posits to be truth. If you don't look too hard, don't think too much, you can stay happily ignorant in the fold of religions.

But science looks for what is, what is repeatable, what can be observed by everyone, consistently, repeatably. Its only "belief" is that these things constitute solid evidence of what is, and that there is something that-is in the first place. i.e. that there is a reality that we all share that is independent of our desires for what it should be, but simply is what it is.

I certainly believe in science (i.e. I have no way to prove the existence of existence). Science is the most useful philosophical point of view I have encountered in my life, and requires the least faith of any philosophy. Again - only the belief that there is something real that we're learning about.

But atheism is even simpler: It only rejects the silly magical invisible guy in the sky stupidity. It makes sense from multiple logically self-consistent frames of reference, and I know it equally from several coherent spiritually satisfying frames of reference.

But what you choose to believe, or come to know for yourself, is your own business. And I couldn't care less (other than a basic desire to see you not force the suffering upon yourself that comes part & parcel with all theism and religion in general).

But please do not limit your thinking so drastically that you insist that 5 is a fruit - that atheism is a theism. It is not, nor ever will be.