Can you believe it?

"That’s because people of faith should be challenged and think about their beliefs. Critical thinking in all areas makes the mind sharper and your philosophy stronger."

-Bill O'Reilly

However I think he was trying to turn this argument onto atheists, which is fine with me. But he seems to be assuming that atheists have "faith". As if a philosophy can be lumped into religion willy-nilly. I think this is a misguided notion. Correct me if I'm wrong, but (and I am guessing here) philosophy is about thinking about thinking about conscience and the role conscience plays in our surroundings.

Okay, I better look that one up...

...here's what I got wiki:
Philosophy is the discipline concerned with the questions of how one should live (ethics); what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic).
The word itself is of Greekorigin: φιλοσοφία (philosophía), a compound of φίλος (phílos: friend, or lover) and σοφία (sophía: wisdom).

A religion is a set of beliefs and practices generally held by a community, involving adherence to codified beliefs and rituals and study of ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and mystic experience. The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction.

Right, then. So, religion can be defined as philosophical at its core, but a philosophy such as atheism should not be defined as a religion, as [atheism] does not meet the requirements; such as a doctrine or dogma.

Atheists do not require and indoctrinate people to be atheists. Rather I would think that atheists seek to open the channels of thinking that lead to free-thought. Because it seems clear that organized religion would have none of this "free-thinking" mumbo-jumbo.

My point about this in particular is that; if you believe that Jesus was the son of God, but don't believe in the Trinity then this disqualifies you from membership to certain churches. Therefore you are also disqualified from attaining any kind of atonement or salvation from said churches. This kind of doctrine discourages free thought and thoroughly encourages indoctrination where people follow blindly for fear of "losing" their religion and their eternal soul. It's a fear tactic, too.

Conversely I could say that there are atheists of many stripes. Along the spectrum of softcore and hardcore. Yet, as a philosophy it is held so loosely as to be incompatible with any kind of dogma.

Source: God bless the atheists - Opinion & Editorial - BostonHerald.com

[UPDATE}

Additionally, if you don't even believe that Jesus was the son of God at all, but he does qualify as a prophet, then you just don't belong within Christianity, but you could be a Muslim.

It's all about discrimination and political infighting within cultures. Can't it be that simple?

Next blog.