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Comment by tonymet | Hacker News Reader

Atheism is actually polytheistic.

The Gods can be identified by answering these questions: “why am I here?”, “who am i?”, “what should I do?”, “what is true?”, “why should I suffer & die?”, “what will happen tomorrow?”, “who matters more: myself or others?”.

The deities of the secular religion would be “the self”, your parents, “the government/state and its figureheads“ , money (and the institutions controlling it), the earth / ecology/ the environment , “science”

These are deities because they are the object of irrational fear, worship, rituals & sacrifice.

To be clear, these gods are also worshiped by formally religious people (christians, muslims etc).

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This is a standard argument most Christians make. It is not really true. You do not have to believe anything. You do not have to have answers.

Let me give you an analogy. Imagine growing up in a militaristic society, and the expectation is that you join the military and fight in whatever wars your imperialistic country engages in. Now suppose you do not feel like doing that. Then your community starts asking you, "but then, if you don't fight with us, then who will you fight for?". Do you feel in your life that you have to fight for one particular empire?

In your analogy, by not fighting for the empire you are making choice, and arguably it’s to support the enemy.

But you’re missing the larger point he’s making and the point the article is making, many ppl who claim to be atheist do have a belief system, it’s simply ill-defined. Most atheists arguing in this thread will give answers and do think they know the truth (it’s that there is no god and life is a hedonistic pursuit). And those beliefs build on others and are built on by other beliefs/ideas as well.

You’re making the same argument many make when trying to build on wedge issues: take a tiny portion of a group that is in no way representative of the larger group and then make generalizations to prove your point.

Aside from you (I’m taking you at your word), I’ve yet to meet an atheist who really had no beliefs.

Atheism is actually a species of the gnostic heresy. Absolute certainty of the nonexistence of God is gnosis.

> Absolute certainty of the nonexistence of God is gnosis.

Absolute certainty of any spiritual truth is gnosis, but that of the nonexistence God is not one of the Gnostic heresies (which are specific heresies associated with the specific Gnostics, not a anything which happens to fit the definition of gnosiss.)

I think in order to convince yourself to give your life for something, you have to have a religious belief in what you are making the sacrifice for (greater good, community, progeny, greatness of your leader, virtue of your country – or for money if you are a mercenary). That would identify the god of your religion

I think dying for your own children might be the only exception

>You do not have to believe anything.

I think part of the confusion is there are multiple definitions of "atheist". One definition is someone who believes there is no god. That itself is a belief, so in that case your description doesn't match atheist. But another definition of atheist is someone who lacks a belief in god. So then your description would match atheist.

Also there are multiple definition of "agnostic" making the situation even more confusing.

Atheism does not imply specific belief in any of those, only a lack of belief in God's with specific characteristics.

Just because I bathe myself in sheep's blood every time the Federal Reserve changes interest rates doesn't mean I think they are a god.

Infidel! Everyone knows you're supposed to perform ritual sacrifice at the next full moon, not bathe in sheep's blood.

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying, but it's a little bit odd to me that a non-religious person would necessarily have an irrational fear of anything you mentioned. Where, in your world view, is there room for someone who can think critically and make rational decisions? Why must all of these totally reasonable things that make up our world be feared?

They can also be worshipped / loved.

There could be rational worship & love e.g. loving your parents because they care for you and they have direct impact over your wellbeing.

Irrational worship/ love is loving and icon or demagogue : extreme example being Kim Jong Il – when he is hurt or sad, everyone is heart broken.

Even in the free world we worship these demagogues. When trump is president many panic, some are elated. When the next president comes, the roles reverse some are relieved and some are sad.

A lot of those questions would be answered by "I don't know", and I don't know how that could be considered a god or similar to religious thinking. "I don't know" is a concept religions seek to avoid.

You seem to have some motivation to bring non-religious people away from their thinking, or looking down on them in some way, and making strange and spurious arguments in order to do so.

This could be useful as a metaphor, as an aid for some religious people to help them understand atheists and agnostics.

Imposing that metaphor as a truth when interacting with an atheist is not useful though. If anything, insisting on defining an atheist as religious shows an elementary lack of respect.

i found this insightful - that there are also the same set of 'gods' for both the religious and the athiest

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