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June 29th, 2009
05:49 pm - Quote of the day... "Atheism is a belief system like bald is a hairstyle." —Sally, Surbiton, Surrey, commenting on this Times article
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![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/62129068/1348946) | From: | greybar |
Date: | June 29th, 2009 10:28 pm (UTC) |
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Witty, but doesn't seem to hold logical sense. A belief system is independent of the existence or nonexistence of divinity. I think you probably could find lots of things worthy of being called "belief systems" that either span multiple religions or are orthogonal to religion.
"Atheism is a theology like bald is a hairstyle." would have made sense, I think.
But perhaps "belief system" has a technical meaning inside of theological circles that makes it work... Indeed. I have a fairly well-established belief system that has nothing to do with deities. For instance, I believe that force equals mass multiplied by acceleration.
Also, bald can be a hairstyle, if you can grow hair but choose to do without it anyway. (Sorry, Doug.) I don't think the claim is being made that atheists can't have belief systems. I think the point is that atheism, which is simply a rejection of a specific set of beliefs, is not itself a belief system. (It's more of an "unbelief system".) From: | kazmat |
Date: | June 29th, 2009 10:36 pm (UTC) |
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And all bald people are atheists? Or is that all atheists are bald? No, wait, I know that one's not true. Bald is a hairstyle, as many people who shave their heads for no other reason than they like the look can attest. Michael Jordan is perhaps the most famous example.
That was the last haircut I actually had. I'm trying to come up with an analogy of naturally-bald people as so-called "weak atheists" and head-shavers as "strong atheists"... it's not quite coming together, though. |
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