Talk:Antireligion

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[edit] Linguistics

this should probably be spelled "anti-religious", as an English coinage. A more learned coinage would be (avoiding mixture of Greek and Latin), "contra-religious". Please substantiate that this is even a word. not just a domain name, or else explicitly make it an article about these websites. dab (ᛏ) 23:55, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Notable people

I included Karl Marx because he was a materialist who apparently made some noises against religion in general, including his famous Opium of the People/ Opiate of the Masses scribblings. Thus, he was probably an antireligionist. 204.52.215.107 22:45, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Just because he was "probably" an antigrligionist doesnt mean he actually was. If you wish to include someone in the list that you are unsure of, please first go and find a source that comfirms that they are antireligious (yes even if you put "allegedly" in). Remember we are presenting a collection of information, not our own deductions from information. Just a reminder :-) Jarryd Moore


Also, Brandon Boyd does NOT SAY that he's an atheist. He simply says that he opposes Christianity, and implies that he feels that way about organized religion in general. So while he's anti-religious, he's not necessarily an atheist.--Josh

Wouldn't Lemmy Kilmister from the band Motorhead be on this list too? I thought he hated god and all religions

What about William Blake? Didn't he feel organised religion repressed true spirituality or something? The flying pasty (talk) 21:19, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality

This article is ludicrous, it paints anti-religonists with some kind of generalizing brush that Atheists have been getting away with for decades now. That is, that *we* can refer to ourselves in the 3rd person and apply any positive adjective we wish. I.e. O'Hare and other Atheists claiming "Atheists would rather do X than Y." But when the same generalized tone is applied in a perjorative sense, they scream bloody murder at whoever dares to 'stereotype' them.

I think this article may not be quite neutral, or at least, takes the stand point that antireligion is a strange, minority concept. compare the wording of this article to that of an article on a religion. (30/10/2006, 5:54 UTC))

I agreed with the above comment that this article may not be quite neutral. It most definatly does differ from the tone and such of an article on religion such as Christianity. It is not wikipedia's policy to present an article that places a certain emphasis or tone upon the information it contains. I strongly reccomend that the neutrality, noteably the undertone, of this article be discussed and reviewed. Jarryd Moore 16:03, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

This seem to have been corrected, coz i can`t find any violation as of now Dec 9th 06, as far as neutrality goes, nor any inference to atheism. I`ll therefore remove the Neutrality dispute disclaimer.Slicky 22:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] anton lavey / satanism ?

Two editors just added, in rapid succession, Anton LaVey and LaVeyan Satanism. The first four words of the satanism article state "Satanism is a religion...." I realize that he defines his religion differently than most do, but I don't see how this can be "antireligion". --lquilter 02:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Douglas Adams

Is Douglas Adams really antireligious? There's plenty to say he's an atheist, and he certainly used religion in his humour, but I'm not sure that it extends to antireligion. A lot of statements could be seen as ambivalence ("2000 years after some guy got nailed to a tree"); or even opposition to atheism ("[Man provides] proof of the non-existence of god. ... As an encore he goes on to show that black equals white, and get killed at the next zebra crossing"). Likewise, he also made humour at the expense of democracy ("the wrong lizard might get in"), so is he antidemocratic? I would hesitate to attach too much weight to his comic texts. --h2g2bob 13:05, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I suggest rather than quoting random assortments of Mr. Adams books, you read the interview which is actually linked as the citation on the page (that's what the citations are for; providing evidence.) It does directly address some of your questions. If you still want to discuss this after having read the interview, please do. It certainly never says "I think all religions are destroying the planet", but it does come across as pretty anti-religious to me, esp. for being from a polite Englishman. (I hadn't previously read it, just read it in response to your comment. So I'm basically agreeing with whoever first listed that.) --Jaibe 21:20, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I think the cite pretty much covers it. VanTucky 21:31, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] reversion wars over Scientology

Some people who don't think Scientology is a religion keep making Christianity and Islam the only example religions in the intro to this article. Personally, I think all three are objectionable belief systems serving ulterior motivations, although no doubt important and even life saving for some of their believers. I don't see that the antireligion page is a very good place for having this dispute. But I strongly object to the removal of content which results in the implication that only mainstream religions can cause people to be antireligious. The introduction as it is written now has a very broad definition of antireligion which is quite different from simple atheism.--Jaibe 09:06, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I've just made a compromise revision myself, but I'm not at all sure I like it. The point of that sentence is supposed to be that people can object to either organized religion or superstitions in general. Cults are certainly organized religions.--Jaibe 09:12, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
The point is not about Scientology being organised (as a cult or otherwise) or being supernatural, or that antireligious people object to it. I myself am about as as rabidly antireligious as it gets, and I think Scientology is the biggest load of crap out of all three examples. But the argument is over whether Scientology is a religion at all, even a cult one. To comply with NPOV and the actual definitions on that and the Church of Scientology articles, you can't label it a religion. I tried to think of an NPOV way to label it a pure superstition, but that didn't jive either. This isn't about censoring the antireligious objection to Scientology, it's about keeping in line with NPOV. VanTucky 15:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
How about this version?

Antireligion is opposition to some or all religions in some or all contexts. People who are antireligious may see religions as dangerous, destructive, divisive, foolish, or absurd. This opposition may be confined to just organized mainstream religions such as Christianity or Islam and include minor religions such as cults; extend to organized belief systems not supported by empirical evidence (such as Scientology), or may more generally include all forms of belief in the supernatural.

VanTucky 15:58, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
How is this different from antitheism then? -- 62.143.100.196 15:30, 15 October 2007 (UTC) (an atheist agnostic antitheist)

[edit] Taking Daniel off

It is true that daniel dennett wrote a book about a religion as a natural phenomena, but he does think religion should be discarded. He stated himself that it would be arrogant to discard faith and he is simply trying to understand human nature. The book states that religion should not be offlimits to science. If you don't believe me here is a link.[[1]] Trilobite12

[edit] I have never heard of this term before as distinct from atheism

Could we have some sort of reference or authority for the claim that "antireligion" is distinct from atheism. I am quite interested in atheism, yet I have never once heard of "antireligion" being an alternative. The list of people here seems to be so similar to a list of atheists that it conflicts the opening about how the two terms are different. Epa101 (talk) 17:10, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


OF COURSE they're different. An atheist is a person who doesn't believe in god(s), but they may not see any problem in other people believing. In contrast, this article is saying that antireligious people are, ANTI RELIGION. As in they DO have a problem with other people putting their faith in invisible spacemen who never answer them. The point is... I can not BELIEVE in squirrels, but that is different to if I didn't believe and thought squirellism was an evil that needs to be expunged from society. That would be anti-squirrel. Healyhatman.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.149.114.32 (talk • contribs) 19:43, 24 December 2007

[edit] Should this article be merged?

I'm not going to take any formal measures at this point, but I'd like to ask whether this article should be merged into Atheism. The distinction between antireligion and atheism is not clear; almost any expression of antireligion falls under one or more definitions of atheism, particularly strong atheism. Furthermore, a two-sentence definition of antireligion followed by a long list of people said to be antireligious simply does not seem to merit a separate article. --7Kim (talk) 18:28, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly. I clicked on this article expecting some definition of anti-religion and explaining it as distinct from atheism, but neither issue is addressed. Plus, it's even more confusing when you consider whether anti-religion should be merged with atheism or added to the Criticism of religion page.--Lord of the Ping (talk) 07:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
It's pretty clear really. You could believe that God is about as likely as the tooth fairy but still think it is good that other people believe. Many atheists are like this (see Breaking the Spell, where 'belief in belief' (that is, belief that belief is good, even when you don't believe yourself) is discussed). You must realize that there are many dimensions to religious beliefs and attitudes. Interest (the question of whether there is a God is important grading into who cares?; belief in God's existence (the spectrum of theistic probability); opposition to religion (antireligion, grading into indifference to religion and then "belief in belief" or pro-religion); there are probably more that I haven't thought of too. There may be some causal connection between these continuous variables (e.g. people who are anti-religious are probably unlikely to believe in God) but they are still measuring different things.
I think there is more overlap with criticism of religion than there is with atheism, though the two should probably remain distinct. How this is distinct from antitheism is slightly less clear to me; they seem to be occupying very similar niches. Richard001 (talk) 02:28, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why SOME religion ?

Why not use definition as: "Antireligion is opposition to religion." instead of "Antireligion is opposition to some religion.". It makes no sense there. If it makes sense there, why it's not in the next sentence, eg: "People who are antireligious may see SOME religions as dangerous, ..." XNathanielX (talk) 22:20, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Teller

Penn is mentioned - shouldn't Teller count? 91.84.182.207 (talk) 16:09, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Christian antireligionist?

This article seems to be antireligion = atheism. I'm a man of faith, but I would identify as an antireligionist, and I would see Jesus as antireligionist. Isn't there any prominent theistic antireligionists? 91.107.53.111 (talk) 19:56, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The article already mentions a number of antireligious theists, like William Blake. However, there isn't any basis for the claim that Jesus was antireligious. -Silence (talk) 03:51, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes I was wondering about Christian or other theistic antireligionists. Could it not be made explicit who is a theistic antireligionist and who is not? Seriphyn (talk) 12:43, 7 June 2008 (UTC)