Looks like another first amendment fight

Idiot lawyers and judges are confusing the issue.

The constitution does not grant a right for religious groups to form study groups in prison.

It should be a simple matter of whether inmates have a right to form study groups (or, put another way, whether that right is stripped from them as part of their incarceration). Religion should be irrelevant.

It breaks down into two components: whether most inmates have a right to have access to books, and whether they have a right to associate freely. AFAIK, inmates have both rights, at least enough to form study groups. The purpose of the study group should be irrelevant as long as its purpose is not the plotting of an escape, riot, or other antisocial activity.
 
Atheism is most decidedly not a religion.

Atheism lacks any of the commonly accepted identifiers for a religion. It has no formal cosmology, epistemology, institutions, priests, churches, creeds, practices, or rules of conduct.

If you expand the definition of religion so far as to include atheism, then you render the term "religion" meaningless.

The only people who define atheism as a religion are those who try to negate the Establishment clause by whining that the absence of religious teachings constitutes a religious teaching in itself.
 
Agnosticism is a lack of religion. Atheism is anti-religion.

Deism = Belief that a God exists. Call that a positive.

Agnosticism = No belief that either a God exists or does not exist. Call that a neutral.

Atheism = Belief that a God does not exist. Call that a negative.
 
Atheism is certainly not a religion. However, I believe legally it should be treated as one.
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How can you treat the opinion that no God(s) exist as a religion? It is an opinion, not a religion.
 
If you expand the definition of religion so far as to include atheism, then you render the term "religion" meaningless.
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Welcome to the twenty first century. You'd be surprised how many terms are being defined out of existance. I'm still shocked when I remember a brief reading of Caroline Kennedy's book about law, which explained that we really didn't have RKBA.

About as easy to explain as the legal concept that our national boundary with Mexico doesn't really exist, nor does the right to life for certain classes of people, nor is privacy absolute.
 
The Humanist Manifesto

FIRST: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.

SECOND: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process.

THIRD: Holding an organic view of life, humanists find that the traditional dualism of mind and body must be rejected.

FOURTH: Humanism recognizes that man's religious culture and civilization, as clearly depicted by anthropology and history, are the product of a gradual development due to his interaction with his natural environment and with his social heritage. The individual born into a particular culture is largely molded by that culture.

FIFTH: Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values. Obviously humanism does not deny the possibility of realities as yet undiscovered, but it does insist that the way to determine the existence and value of any and all realities is by means of intelligent inquiry and by the assessment of their relations to human needs. Religion must formulate its hopes and plans in the light of the scientific spirit and method.

SIXTH: We are convinced that the time has passed for theism, deism, modernism, and the several varieties of "new thought".

SEVENTH: Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant. Nothing human is alien to the religious. It includes labor, art, science, philosophy, love, friendship, recreation — all that is in its degree expressive of intelligently satisfying human living. The distinction between the sacred and the secular can no longer be maintained.

EIGHTH: Religious Humanism considers the complete realization of human personality to be the end of man's life and seeks its development and fulfillment in the here and now. This is the explanation of the humanist's social passion.

NINTH: In the place of the old attitudes involved in worship and prayer the humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense of personal life and in a cooperative effort to promote social well-being.

TENTH: It follows that there will be no uniquely religious emotions and attitudes of the kind hitherto associated with belief in the supernatural.

ELEVENTH: Man will learn to face the crises of life in terms of his knowledge of their naturalness and probability. Reasonable and manly attitudes will be fostered by education and supported by custom. We assume that humanism will take the path of social and mental hygiene and discourage sentimental and unreal hopes and wishful thinking.

TWELFTH: Believing that religion must work increasingly for joy in living, religious humanists aim to foster the creative in man and to encourage achievements that add to the satisfactions of life.

THIRTEENTH: Religious humanism maintains that all associations and institutions exist for the fulfillment of human life. The intelligent evaluation, transformation, control, and direction of such associations and institutions with a view to the enhancement of human life is the purpose and program of humanism. Certainly religious institutions, their ritualistic forms, ecclesiastical methods, and communal activities must be reconstituted as rapidly as experience allows, in order to function effectively in the modern world.

FOURTEENTH: The humanists are firmly convinced that existing acquisitive and profit-motivated society has shown itself to be inadequate and that a radical change in methods, controls, and motives must be instituted. A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible. The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good. Humanists demand a shared life in a shared world.

FIFTEENTH AND LAST: We assert that humanism will: (a) affirm life rather than deny it; (b) seek to elicit the possibilities of life, not flee from them; and (c) endeavor to establish the conditions of a satisfactory life for all, not merely for the few. By this positive morale and intention humanism will be guided, and from this perspective and alignment the techniques and efforts of humanism will flow.
 
How can you treat the opinion that no God(s) exist as a religion? It is an opinion, not a religion.
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In my opinion, atheism is a religion because it is non-falsifiable. The existence of God cannot be proven through scientific experimentation, but it cannot be disproven either. Any potentially supernatural phenomenon could be explained as a natural phenomenon simply by positing a new scientific theory.

Both the typical religions and atheism are further defined by their tendency to ignore any challenging arguments. They can't stand not being sure, either that there is a God or that there isn't. They seem to think it's a sign of mental weakness not to take something on faith. Atheists rely on science, ignoring the fact that science cannot (yet) explain the universe completely. The religious rely on their religious teachings, ignoring that most of those teachings are translations of translations (or worse), and that some of those translations have proven to be factually incorrect or so metaphorically vague as to be virtually meaningless.

Some people (myself included) will sometimes call themselves atheists even though they're agnostic, because claiming to be an agnostic around the religious tends to trigger their conversion instinct.
 
What tyme said.

What I was going more for, was that athesists should have no more right to have everything they come in contact godless, than religious people should have to be able to promote their religion. I look at all this talk about tearing down anything religious as athesists imposing their 'religion' on everyone else.
 
Boys and girls! If people keep talking about religions per se the moderators will close this thread.

So we might want to discuss how lawyers and judges and courts seem to be changing the law for their own intentions instead? I usually disagree with Marko but he seems to be right on target about the concept of changing definitions defeating the whole purpose of creating definitions.

Back to Caroline Kennedy and the RKBA as another example (although a 20 year old one) of how definitions and terms seem to change to fit political whims.
 
One of the definitions of "religion" in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is "4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith."

Certainly atheism is a principle or a system of belief. They believe that there's no such thing as any superior force or being of any kind, and despite centuries of historical evidence to the contrary, retain their faith that human beings are the ultimate moral authority in the universe.
 
despite centuries of historical evidence to the contrary, [atheists] retain their faith that human beings are the ultimate moral authority in the universe.
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Atheists agree that various religions have been the moral guide for most of the people on earth for many millennia. They merely disagree with the religious claim that the source of those systems of moral guidance is supernatural. There is no historical evidence that the source of religious morals is anything but man.
 
Religions are affirmative. That is they hold an affirmation in a Superior Being(s).

Atheism is an opinion that the religionists are wrong, it is a denial, a refutation of the basis for religion.

Atheism is not a religion, it is an opinion about religions. As an opinion about religions, it does not become a religion, it remains an opinion.
 
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