I find it odd that when filling out a form that asked me what my religion is one of the choices is Atheist.

What now? That is the that opposite of religion.

  • mechoman444@lemmy.worldEnglish
    211·
    3 months ago

    Atheism is not a religion or worldview.

    Atheism is the lack of a belief in a god or God’s.

    Many atheists including myself adhere to the statement of simply being unconvinced that there is a God or having no credible evidence to indicate a God’s existence.

    Maybe the form we were filling out legitimately needed that information but typically outside of a very specific set of data. I don’t see why any form would ever ask you what your religion or lack of religion might be.

    • RubberDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

      In the medical world plenty of religions forbid certain things… like blood transfusions. I can’t really think of other places but I’m sure there are other legitimate use cases.

      But I usually just trike out stuff that is irrelevant. If they seem it relevant they can press the issue and explain why.

      • Bahnd Rollard@lemmy.worldEnglish
        71·
        3 months ago

        Sorta, break down the roots of the words. Atheists activly deny that there is are gods (anti-theism), Agnostics (a-gnostic) are those who dont know, are unconvinced or those who simply dont care. If you really want to be pedantic (annoy your religious friends), point out that most theists are also atheists in a sense as they deny all gods, except for their own.

          • Bahnd Rollard@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            3 months ago

            The issue is that in conversation its hard for theists to tell the difference between the two. To them it dosen’t matter if I say “I think your wrong” or “I simply dont care”, a lot of them will see someone who needs to be “saved”. A non-zero number of them will be very annoying about that or be obstructive because of it, so its best to handle all religion based conversations with kid-gloves.

        • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          2·
          3 months ago

          Atheists activly deny that there is are gods (anti-theism), Agnostics (a-gnostic)

          Wild to me that you would put these so close. A-theist, as in “not a theist”, you got it right with gnosticism

          The etymology of the word through French, Latin, and to Greek all mean that, too, “godless”, not “against god”