So I kinda started this big dicussion in class today...

On Atheism, atheism, and theism, and science. Katrina's take on Atheism (and please correct me if I've misinterpreted) is that scientific beliefs can replace traditional religious beliefs and generate a sort of mysticism. As the only valid belief, they hold a deeper significance than they would to a person with a different theist frame.
I would consider myself an atheist and a scientist. Scientific beliefs do not hold any mysticism for me. Does this make me a "half assed" Atheist? I appreciated what Ted said about Atheism. By the definition of the word, Atheism is the belief that there is no god.

Emily S said in class that she thought there was some ambiguity and blending of the concepts of atheism and agnosticism. I agree with Emily and would add, that there was a blending of athiesm with science. The brought up that science is not exclusive to athiesm, but I would go farther and explicitly say that science has no special tie to athiesm whatsoever. In many ways, the Rastafari movement and Haile Selassie can be compared to Athiesm and science. Just as some rastas proclaim Haile Selassie as God, some Athiests proclaim science. Though some Christians may think this Rasta belief foolish, we can recognize that we certainly should not blame Selassie. In the same way, theists disagreeing with athiest beliefs should not place blame on science. To me, this seems abundantly clear, but somehow a religion vs science debate does tend to crop up in uncontrolled environments outside the classroom.

I also agree with Noelle in that, just because an Atheist doesn't have faith in a deity does not mean they don't have tests of faith. If anything, in a world where most uncontrollable and unexplainable events are attributed to divine influence or some higher order beyond human perception, I would think it more of a test of faith to maintain a positive demeanor while believing in the vast universe, rather than a guiding hand and watchful eyes.

Finally, a final question and answer. The lowercase atheist. What is his religious frame? Not capital Atheism, and not a kind of theism. Could nationalism stand in, some other group identity? How is nationalism not a religion in this case? Does nationalism not share group identity myths with war stories and the founding of our country? Manifest destiny! My answer to this question is that nationalism, in this instance can act as a religion. This is not to say it always is, or that it always isn't, or that we can find religion in everything or anything horrific like that. Rather, the definition of religion we have come to is beyond being something tangible. Nationalism is a level more tangible. It is strictly tied to countries, the people contained within a border on a map. Religion however, can encompass nationalism, or any ism really. We can reevaluate the associations we made between culture and religion. Culture heavily influences religion, because religion is part of culture, they are not two separate things. Religion is made up of culture. It is an abstract label for culture. Sometimes for nationalism, sometimes for theism.

Complete throwing the last finally to the wayside, the hardware software metaphor from the beginning of the term also ties into this. In our metaphor religion is software. Software is built in levels, ultimately data is stored in ones and zeros, but strings of on's and off's are decoded into letters, and letters are compiled to run higher level code. Different data structures to hold data for computer systems have strengths and weaknesses, and different uses. Some data structures though, are not fundamental, but template others. For example a priority queue is a structure that organizes data by importance. The data itself is stored in a different structure called a heap where "larger" things (e.g. higher numbers, characters closer to the beginning of the alphabet) are stuck on top. The priority queue is just a set of rules and restrictions a access methods that gets wrapped around the complicated heap structure, so that it is easier to use! In the same way, religion is a wrapper for cultural objects to make them more "user friendly". Religion is a nice interface for familiar users. Conflicts crop up from poor documentation and users working in other architectures. Miscommunication.

The End