Something they have in common with nonreligious groups.
Yes, atheist he may be, but I doubt he’s going to tweet “I just believe in one less god than you” or use the words “magic sky fairy”.
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I get why this news feels remarkable. I also feel like boiling religion down to whether-you-believe-in-exactly-one-specific-thing is something that feels very Christian to me. Christian atheists (like me!) act like atheism is a religion. But my Jewish atheist friends (and notable Jewish atheist comedians) still regard themselves as Jewish. I know a Sikh atheist who is still Sikh. I have a Muslim atheist co-worker who observes prayer times.
Atheism is not a religion. A religion is a combination of beliefs, practices, values, sacred places and/or texts, etc. Atheism is one belief if it is even that. I think mostly we just don’t want to hurt Christian atheist feelings by pointing out that we are, in fact, Christian atheists.
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Pascal’s Wager really should be reframed as Pascal’s Powerball Ticket.
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Most atheists in the western world are to some extent “Christian atheists” whether or not they acknowledge it.
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Unless they do not come from a Christian background, which as @anon50609448 noted, is a thing. Non-Christians have always lived “in the west” as it were.
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… and there are a million different lotteries, and there’s no evidence that any player in any of them has ever actually won…
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Right. Because if they believe in not killing or stealing, loving their neighbor, helping people who are different from them rather than judging, and so on, that’s Christianity.
And if they believe that people should look after themselves, try to be rich, and that America should stop letting in all these non-white people, that’s somehow Christianity too.
By now Christianity has expanded to cover a tremendous range of beliefs, practices, and values. The one they all still keep is the centrality of God and his son Jesus. Take that out and I’m not sure the word means anything. Ayn Rand and Karl Marx are both famously atheist, from Christian traditions, and disagree on pretty much everything that matters.
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Karl Marx was mixed Jewish/Christian. His maternal grandfather was a rabbi, and there were rabbis on his fathers side of the family too.
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There was nothing deliberate about it. I wrote the headline before I wrote the rest of it, and clearly my initial understanding-at-a-glance of the situation was wrong. Then I wrote the rest of it, followed some sources, and tried to provide as much truth as I could.
What happened next was — I kid you not — my toddler woke up early from his nap. So I finished typing and went to take care of him. I ended up submitting the blog without revisiting the headline.
So yes, I fucked up. But good luck proving any conscious or intentional deceit.
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