Religious faith creates justification in the minds of believers, but it is the human mind that craves justification. People will follow anything that can provide that justification, be it religious faith or politics or science.
You have missed the point here, which is not that people seek to justify their actions, but that religion provides an especially dangerous short circuit to justification.
If religion is bunk, as you have essentially claimed in the past, then the injustices committed entirely outside of religion as fundamentally similar to the injustices committed inside (partially or fully) of religion. The two are the same and a distinction between the two may be counterproductive. Injustice is injustice, be it in China or Washington, the lab or the pulpit. To separate the two seems like you are trying to excuse one or the other (though I'm not sure which) so some degree of blame.
Not at all. I mentioned the existence of the other merely so as not to be charged that I have implied its nonexistence.
Just to note, atheism just says that there's no god.
Incorrect. Atheism can indicate that, yes, but it does not necessarily indicate that. It can also indicate a disbelief in a specific divinity, as opposed to all divinity. Most people are atheists in that sense. Furthermore, atheism can indicate a rejection of the premise of a divine premise. This is why some atheists will tell you that theirs is not a "belief system." In that usage, their atheism is an
absence of faith rather than a rejection of it.
What we have here is a confusion of multiple conditions pressed into a single word. Let me give you my own example of these three instances of atheism:
The first form of atheism is what I call, in my philosophy, cosmic atheism. It
is a belief system, inasmuch as its conclusion is unverifiable. This is the atheism you were talking about, but does not come close to comprising all atheists. I'm not an atheist in this sense. I'm a cosmic agnostic: I don't know.
The second form of atheism is what I call, in my philosophy, situational or conversational atheism. This is not a belief system. It is a considered judgment. Having been presented with a specific divine premise--let's say Christianity--the conversational atheist weighs the evidence and concludes that the arguments in favor are unpersuasive, and rejects that divine premise. I know enough about the three Abrahamic religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Wicca, and Taoism to reject each of their respective divine premises. So I am an atheist with respect to those religions. People in those religions--and this is where your mistake originates--would thus classify me simply as "an atheist," without qualifiers, because from their perspective anyone who rejects their god is an atheist and that's the end of the story. But that is, as you should be able to see, the bias of the observer at work. I am only an atheist in this sense with regard to those religions that I know well enough to judge.
There is thus an offshoot of the second form of atheism, which could be considered a generalization system--i.e., a prejudice--by which an individual rejects other divine premises without being able to competently judge them. This enables a person to reject
all matemade religions explicitly, without studying each of them in turn. It is, like any prejudice, prone to error. However, it is not a belief system per se, as prejudice can function without belief. I would, for better or worse, consider myself prejudiced against the divine premise of any religion I have yet to evaluate...although I am always open to a proper judicial process when the need arises.
The third form of atheism is not something that I refer to as "atheism" in my own philosophy. It is a rejection of the terms by which a divine premise is presented. This kind of an atheist would say, to anyone who proposes a divine premise: "You have not adequately defined what '
god' is. Your terms are nonsensical. You have not provided me with an evaluable proposition. Thus I cannot engage the matter." This kind of atheism is most certainly not a belief system. Indeed, it is a particularly responsible position to take--almost an opposite of belief--because it refuses to overextend itself in the consideration of a proposition. It is also a very powerful form of atheism to wield against certain religious arguments which design themselves to be inscrutable.
None of these three forms of atheism should be confused with agnosticism, with irreligiosity, or with unbelief. But I say that merely for completeness rather than to school you, since you probably already know.
Considering all the other crazy beliefs people ascribe to themselves...religion doesn't really stand out to me as anything special. ... Truth is, once something becomes personally ingrained and identified with, it will be defended to the death by most people.
You underestimate the power of the Dark Side. Heh. The reason religion very much is "anything special" is that religion is the form to which many of the most "crazy beliefs" evolve. There have been many movements, subcultures, and theories in our history that a Christian might not consider a religion but that I would. This is given by my concept of the
divine premise, around which religions constitute. People who believe in something enough to kill for it--and I do use the word "belief" here very explicitly--are likely to have organized the object of their belief religiously. Religion provides an individual with irrefutable authority, with justification, with rightness, certitude, even community in many instances.
Perhaps it would be helpful for you to think of "religion" as the boss form of an ordinary belief object. That would provide an a priori explanation for how overzealous beliefs are religious in nature.
Buddhism =/= Religion
Actual Buddhism very much is a religion, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or ignorant. There is a vogue here in the West, however, to practice "Buddhist" behaviors such as restraint and meditation. If these behaviors are separated from any claims of authority over human nature or the Cosmos, then they are not religious. But, most of the time, these pseudo-Buddhists will enthusiastically assert a religious or "spiritual" significance to the behaviors, in which case the behaviors remain religious--although not necessarily "Buddhist" in the traditional sense.
