Atheism

Atheism, in its broadest sense, is the absence of theism (the belief in the existence of deities). This encompasses both people who assert that there are no gods, and those who make no claim about whether gods exist or not. Narrower definitions of atheism, however, typically label as atheists only those people who affirmatively assert the nonexistence of gods, and classify other nonbelievers as agnostics or simply non-theists.

Many people who self-identify as atheists do tend to share common skeptical concerns regarding the evidence (or lack of evidence) of the world's many deities and creation stories as well as questioning the goodness and morality of religions that have brought us such things as holy wars and inquisitions. Yet while some adhere to philosophies such as humanism, naturalism and materialism, there is no single ideology that all atheists share, nor does atheism have any institutionalized rituals or behaviors. Indeed, atheism is inspired by many rationales, encompassing personal, scientific, social, philosophical, and historical reasoning.

Although atheism is commonly equated with irreligion in Western culture, some religious beliefs (such as some forms of Buddhism), though not often so identified by the adherents, have been described as atheistic.

Etymology

In early Ancient Greek, the adjective atheos (from privative a- + theos "god") means "without gods" or "lack of belief in gods". The word acquired an additional meaning in the 5th century B.C.E., expressing a total lack of relations with the gods; that is, "denying the gods, godless, ungodly", with more active connotations than asebēs, "impious". Modern translations of classical texts sometimes translate atheos as "atheistic". As an abstract noun, there was also atheotēs: "atheism". Cicero transliterated atheos into Latin. The discussion of atheoi was pronounced in the debate between early Christians and pagans, who each attributed atheism to the other.

A.B. Drachmann (1922) notes:

Atheism and atheist are words formed from Greek roots and with Greek derivative endings. Nevertheless they are not Greek; their formation is not consonant with Greek usage. In Greek they said atheos and atheotes; to these the English words ungodly and ungodliness correspond rather closely. In exactly the same way as ungodly, atheos was used as an expression of severe censure and moral condemnation; this use is an old one, and the oldest that can be traced. Not till later do we find it employed to denote a certain philosophical creed. (p.5)

In English, the term atheism is the result of the adoption of the French athéisme in about 1587. The term atheist in the sense of "one who denies or disbelieves" actually predates atheism, being first attested in about 1571 (the phrase Italian atheoi is recorded as early as 1568). Atheist in the sense of practical godlessness was first attested in 1577. The French word is derived from athée, "godless, atheist", which in turn is from the Greek atheos. The words deist and theist entered English after atheism, being first attested in 1621 and 1662, respectively, with theism and deism following in 1678 and 1682, respectively. Deism and theism exchanged meanings around 1700 due to the influence of atheism. Deism was originally used with a meaning comparable to today's theism, and vice-versa.

The Oxford English Dictionary also records an earlier irregular formation, atheonism, dated from about 1534. The later and now obsolete words athean and atheal are dated to 1611 and 1612, respectively.

History

Although the actual term atheism originated in 16th Century France, ideas that would be recognized as atheistic today existed even before Classical Antiquity. Epicurus proposed theories that can be classified as atheistic, such as a lack of belief in an afterlife, though he remained ambiguous concerning the actual existence of deities. Before him, Socrates was sentenced to death partly on the grounds that he was an atheist, although he did express belief in several forms of divinity, as recorded in Plato's Apology. This criminal connotation attached to atheistic ideas (heresy) would remain, at varying levels of severity, until the Renaissance, when criticism of the Church became more prevalent and tolerated.

Atheism disappeared from the philosophy of the Greek and Roman traditions as Christianity gained influence. During the Age of Enlightenment, the concept of atheism re-emerged as an accusation against those who questioned the religious status quo, but by the late 18th century it had become the philosophical position of a growing minority. By the 20th century, along with the spread of rationalism and secular humanism, atheism had become common, particularly among scientists (see international survey of contemporary atheism). In the 20th century, atheism also became a staple of the various Communist states, helping to enforce some of the negative connotations of atheism in places where anti-communism was widespread - especially in the United States, where the term became synonymous with being unpatriotic during the Cold War in a similar, but less extreme form, as it had in Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler.

Reasons for atheism

Atheists assert various reasons for their position, most grounded in the conviction that the nonexistence of deities (in general or specific) is rationally better supported. They state the onus is on theists to prove the existence of god(s), rather than on atheists to disprove the existence of any supposed deities.

Philosophical and logical reasons

Some atheists base their stance on rational or philosophical grounds, arguing that their position is based on logical analysis, and subsequent rejection, of theistic claims. These arguments against the existence of deities consist of a number of different problems with theism. Chief among these problems is absence of evidences supporting theistic claims. Also, instead of simplification of explanation (of how nature works) theism tremendously complicates it by introducing new questions like origin of god(s), their dwelling, style of life, exercising their powers, conflicts with laws of physics, unpredictability, etc.

"Within the framework of scientific rationalism one arrives at the belief in the nonexistence of God, not because of certain knowledge, but because of a sliding scale of methods. At one extreme, we can confidently rebut the personal Gods of creationists on firm empirical grounds: science is sufficient to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that there never was a worldwide flood and that the evolutionary sequence of the Cosmos does not follow either of the two versions of Genesis. The more we move toward a deistic and fuzzily defined God, however, the more scientific rationalism reaches into its toolbox and shifts from empirical science to logical philosophy informed by science. Ultimately, the most convincing arguments against a deistic God are Hume's dictum and Occam's razor. These are philosophical arguments, but they also constitute the bedrock of all of science, and cannot therefore be dismissed as non-scientific. The reason we put our trust in these two principles is because their application in the empirical sciences has led to such spectacular successes throughout the last three centuries."

Many atheists hold that as their view is merely the absence of a certain belief, the only defense that atheism needs is a good offense. If theism's arguments are refuted, nontheism, as the only alternative, becomes the default position. As such, many atheists have argued against the most famous "proofs" of God's existence for centuries. Whether all of the theistic arguments have been refuted is a matter in dispute.

"Throughout the centuries, theistic philosophers have offered logical arguments in support of God's existence. Most of these can be divided into four major classes - ontological, cosmological, teleological, and moral"

In general, atheists contend that these have been refuted.

There are also many atheists who attack specific forms of theism as being self-contradictory. One of the most common arguments against the existence of a specific God is the problem of evil.

"The problem of evil is probably the most enduring and the most potent argument atheism has to offer against many varieties of theism. Christian apologist William Lane Craig aptly styled it atheism's killer argument. In brief, it seeks to establish that the existence of evil in the world is logically incompatible with the existence of a benevolent God, and that it is more reasonable to conclude that God does not exist than that he does exist but does nothing to stop evil."

Other well-known positive arguments include theological noncognitivism, incoherency arguments (which seek to prove contradictions within the nature of "god"), atheistic teleological arguments, and the Transcendental argument for the non-existence of God.

Most religions that involve supernatural entities and forces are linked to an unexplained physical phenomenon. In Ancient Greece, for instance, Hades was the god of the dead, Helios the god of the sun, Zeus the god of thunder, and Poseidon the god of earthquakes and the sea. In the absence of any scientific theory that could explain a given phenomenon, people who sought an explanation attributed its cause to those supernatural forces, an argument that has come to be known as God of the gaps. Throughout history, most of these phenomena have been explained through the scientific method; i.e. Galileo.

Scientific reasons

Most theistic religions teach that mankind and the universe were created by one or more deities. Many people, including both atheists and theists, feel that this view is in blatant conflict with modern science, especially evolution. For some atheists this conflict is one reason they reject theism. Some theists draw the opposite conclusion from the same conflict, and reject evolution in favor of creationism, despite the essentially complete consensus about evolution among scientists. Other theists accept that evolution happened and do not believe that there is a conflict.

Evolutionary science, supported by a large body of paleontological and genomic evidence and accepted by the overwhelming majority of biologists, describes how complex life has developed through a slow process of random mutation and natural selection, and that the human race is merely one species among others, one of many random products of this stochastic process. It is now known that humans share 98% of our genetic code with chimpanzees, 90% with mice, 21% with roundworms, and 7% with the bacterium E. coli. This humbling perspective is quite different from that of most theistic religions, which give humans a unique and central status; in the Abrahamic religions, for instance, humans are thought to be created "in God's image" and to be a qualitatively different thing from the "beasts of the Earth". Similarly, the facts that Earth's Sun is only one undistinguished star among billions in the Milky Way, which itself is merely one undistinguished galaxy among billions of others, and that modern humans have existed at all for only 0.0015% of the age of the universe, are seen by some atheists as rendering implausible the proposition that this universe was created (by some deity) with mankind in mind.

More fundamentally, western science is based on the assumption that the universe is governed by unchanging natural laws that can be determined by experiments and used as a reliable basis for prediction and engineering, which assumes the absence of divine interference. The success of modern science and engineering would thus arguably imply that deities are either absent or at least take a rather hands-off approach to the world. Many atheists feel that the simplest explanation is that there are no deities.

Personal and social reasons

As well as atheists with philosophical reasons, there are explicit atheists who cite social, psychological, practical, and other reasons for their beliefs.

Some people hold atheistic beliefs on the grounds that it is conducive towards living a better life, such as the belief that atheism is more ethical or useful than theism. Such atheists may hold that searching for explanations through natural science is more beneficial than doing it through faith.

Moral reasons for atheism include "cases where the requirement to do what is right favors being an atheist, or at the very least, not supporting certain sects or practices of theism.... Those who cannot accept the notion of an evil god must conclude that any immoral religion is necessarily false." Practical reasons for atheism include "reasons why accepting atheism over theism produces positive overall effects on a person's life."

Arguments that theism promotes immorality often center around the contention that a great deal of violence, including war, has been brought about by religious beliefs and practices.

Some people are atheists at least partly because of growing up in an environment where atheism is relatively common, such as being raised by atheist parents.

"Many people are atheists not because they've reasoned things out like that, but because of the way they were brought up or educated, or because they have simply adopted the beliefs of the culture in which they grew up."

Most atheists contend that the same is true for many believers. For instance, most people who grow up in a predominantly Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or Christian country or culture adopt the prevalent religion of that country or culture.

Christian psychologist Paul Vitz (1999) argues that, "Many people have psychological reasons for atheism" and "neurotic psychological barriers to belief in God are of great importance." See Vitz (1999) and, for a similar view, Rizzuto (1998).

While it is common to point out the psychological reasons for not being an atheist, it is important to note that emotion and "feelings" play an important role for many people, not just theists. However, an understanding of the psychological origins for belief in a god may contribute to some atheists' lack of religious belief; see true-believer syndrome and psychology of religion.

Types and typologies of atheism

Many people have disagreed on how best to characterize atheism, and much of the literature on the subject is erroneous or confusing. There are many discrepancies in the use of terminology between proponents and opponents of atheism, and even divergent definitions among those who share near-identical beliefs.

Opponents of atheism have frequently associated atheism with immorality and evil, often characterizing it as a willful and malicious repudiation of God or gods. This, in fact, is the original definition and sense of the word, but changing sensibilities and the normalization of nonreligious viewpoints have caused the term to lose most of its negative connotations in general parlance.

Among proponents of atheism and neutral parties, there are three major traditions in defining atheism and its subdivisions. The first tradition understands atheism very broadly, as including both those who believe gods don't exist (strong atheism) and those who are simply not theists (weak atheism). George H. Smith, Michael Martin, and Antony Flew fall into this tradition, though they do not use the same terminology.

The second tradition understands atheism more narrowly, as the conscious rejection of theism, and does not consider absence of theistic belief or suspension of judgment concerning theism to be forms of atheism. Ernest Nagel, Paul Edwards and Kai Nielsen are prominent members of this camp. Using this definition of atheism, "implicit atheism", lack of theism without the conscious rejection of it, may not be regarded as atheistic at all, and the umbrella term nontheism may be used in its place.

A third tradition, more common among laypeople, understands atheism even more narrowly than that. Here, atheism is defined in the strongest possible terms, as the belief that there is no god. Under this definition, all weak atheism, whether implicit or explicit, may be considered non-atheistic. Such usage is not exclusive to laypeople, however: atheist philosopher Theodore Drange uses the narrow definition.

Atheism as absence of theism

Among modern atheists, the view that atheism means "without theistic beliefs" has a great deal of currency. This very broad definition is justified by reference to etymology as well as consistent usage of the word by atheists.

This definition of atheism has not gone unchallenged. Although atheism has evolved and broadened beyond the narrow meaning of "wickedness", impiety, heresy and religious denial over the last few hundred years, it is less commonly understood to include everything not explicitly theistic. Whether a writer's definition of atheism as an "absence" or "lack" of theistic belief is in fact intended to mean "not theistic" in the widest possible sense, or just refers to particular forms of the rejection of theism (see below), is often ambiguous.

Although this definition of atheism is frequently disputed, it is not a recent invention; this use has a history spanning over 230 years. Two atheist writers who are clear in defining atheism so broadly that uninformed children are counted as atheists are d'Holbach (1772) ("All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God") and George H. Smith (1979). According to Smith:

The man who is unacquainted with theism is an atheist because he does not believe in a god. This category would also include the child without the conceptual capacity to grasp the issues involved, but who is still unaware of those issues. The fact that this child does not believe in god qualifies him as an atheist.

However, most would dispute this understanding of atheism. One atheist writer who explicitly disagrees with such a broad definition is Ernest Nagel (1965):

Atheism is not to be identified with sheer unbelief... Thus, a child who has received no religious instruction and has never heard about God, is not an atheist—for he is not denying any theistic claims. (p.460-461)

For Nagel atheism is the rejection of theism, not just the absence of theistic belief. However, this definition leaves open the question of what term can be used to describe those who lack theistic belief, but do not necessarily reject theism.

The obsolete word atheous, first recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary as a synonym of atheism or impiety, is sometimes used to mean "not dealing with the existence of a god" in a purely privative sense, as distinguished from the negative atheistic. This 1880 coinage captures some of what is intended by the broad definition of atheism, though it is hard to sustain the claim that the philosophical rejection of theism can be characterized in such terms.

Implicit and explicit atheism

File:Atheismimplicitexplicit2.PNG

A chart showing the relationship between the weak/strong (positive/negative) and implicit/explicit dichotomies. Strong atheism is always explicit, and implicit atheism is always weak.

The terms implicit atheism and explicit atheism were coined by George H. Smith (1979, p.13-18).

Implicit atheism is defined by Smith as "the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it." Explicit atheism is defined as "the absence of theistic belief due to a conscious rejection of it", which, according to Smith, is sometimes called antitheism (see below).

For Smith, explicit atheism is subdivided further according to whether or not the rejection is on rational grounds. The term critical atheism is used to label the view that belief in god is irrational, and is itself subdivided into a) the view usually expressed by the statement "I do not believe in the existence of a god or supernatural being"; b) the view usually expressed by the statement, "god does not exist" or "the existence of god is impossible"; and c) the view which "refuses to discuss the existence or nonexistence of a god" because "the concept of a god is unintelligible" (p.17).

Although Nagel rejects Smith's definition of atheism as merely "lack of theism", acknowledging only explicit "atheism" as true atheism, his tripartite classification of rejectionist atheism (commonly found in the philosophical literature) is identical to Smith's critical atheism typology.

The difference between Nagel on the one hand and d'Holbach and Smith on the other has been attributed to the different concerns of professional philosophers and layman proponents of atheism (see Smith (1990, Chapter 3, p.51-60), for example, but also alluded to by others).

Everitt (2004) makes the point that professional philosophers are more interested in the grounds for giving or withholding assent to propositions:

We need to distinguish between a biographical or sociological enquiry into why some people have believed or disbelieved in God, and an epistemological enquiry into whether there are any good reasons for either belief or unbelief... We are interested in the question of what good reasons there are for or against God's existence, and no light is thrown on that question by discovering people who hold their beliefs without having good reasons for them. (p.10)

So, in philosophy (Flew and Martin notwithstanding), atheism is commonly defined along the lines of "rejection of theistic belief". This is often misunderstood to mean only the view that there is no God, but it is conventional to distinguish between two or three main sub-types of atheism in this sense (writers differ in their characterization of this distinction, and in the labels they use for these positions).

The terms weak atheism and strong atheism (or negative atheism and positive atheism) are often used as synonyms of Smith's less-well-known implicit and explicit categories. However, the original and technical meanings of implicit and explicit atheism are quite different and distinct from weak and strong atheism, having to do with conscious rejection and unconscious rejection of theism rather than with positive belief and negative belief.

People who do not use the broad definition of atheism as "lack of theism", but instead use the most common definition "disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods" would not recognize mere absence of belief in deities (implicit atheism) as a type of atheism at all, and would tend to use other terms, such as "skeptic" or "agnostic" or "non-atheistic nontheism", for this position.

Atheism as immorality

The first attempts to define or develop a typology of atheism were in religious apologetics. These attempts were expressed in terms and in contexts that reflected the religious assumptions and prejudices of the writers. A diversity of atheist opinion has been recognized at least since Plato, and common distinctions have been established between practical atheism and speculative or contemplative atheism.

Practical atheism was said to be caused by moral failure, hypocrisy, willful ignorance and infidelity. Practical atheists behaved as though God, morals, ethics and social responsibility did not exist. Maritain's typology of atheism (1953, Chapter 8) proved influential in Catholic circles; it was followed in the New Catholic Encyclopedia (see Reid, 1967). He identified, in addition to practical atheism, pseudo-atheism and absolute atheism (and subdivided theoretical atheism in a way that anticipated Flew). For an atheist critique of Maritain, see Smith (1979, Chapter 1, Section 5).

According to the French Catholic philosopher Étienne Borne (1961, p.10), "Practical atheism is not the denial of the existence of God, but complete godlessness of action; it is a moral evil, implying not the denial of the absolute validity of the moral law but simply rebellion against that law."

According to Karen Armstrong (1999):

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the word 'atheist' was still reserved exclusively for polemic... In his tract Atheism Closed and Open Anatomized (1634), John Wingfield claimed: "the hypocrite is an Atheist; the loose wicked man is an open Atheist; the secure, bold and proud transgressor is an Atheist: he that will not be taught or reformed is an Atheist". For the Welsh poet William Vaughan (1577 [sic]–1641), who helped in the colonization of Newfoundland, those who raised rents or enclosed commons were obvious atheists. The English dramatist Thomas Nashe (1567-1601) proclaimed that the ambitious, the greedy, the gluttons, the vainglorious and prostitutes were all atheists. The term 'atheist' was an insult. Nobody would have dreamed of calling himself an atheist. (p.331-332)

On the other hand, the existence of serious speculative atheism was often denied. That anyone might reason their way to atheism was thought to be impossible. Thus, speculative atheism was collapsed into a form of practical atheism, or conceptualized as hatred of God, or a fight against God. This is why Borne finds it necessary to say, "to put forward the idea, as some apologists rashly do, that there are no atheists except in name but only 'practical atheists' who through pride or idleness disregard the divine law, would be, at least at the beginning of the argument, a rhetorical convenience or an emotional prejudice evading the real question." (p.18) Martin (1990, p.465-466) suggests that practical atheism would be better described as alienated theism.

Other pejorative definitions of atheism

When denial of the existence of "speculative" atheism became unsustainable, atheism was nevertheless often repressed and criticized by narrowing definitions, applying charges of dogmatism, and otherwise misrepresenting atheist positions. One of the reasons for the popularity of euphemistic alternative terms like secularist, empiricist, agnostic, or bright is that atheism still has pejorative connotations arising from attempts at suppression and from its association with practical atheism; godless is still used as an abusive epithet.

Mynga Futrell and Paul Geisert, the originators of the term Bright, made this explicit in an essay published in 2003:

Our personal frustration regarding labels reached culmination last fall when we were invited to join a march on Washington as "Godless Americans." The causes of the march were worthy, and the march itself well planned and conducted. However, to unite for common interests under a disparaging term like godless (it also means "wicked") seemed ludicrous! Why accept and utilize the very derogatory language that so clearly hampers our own capacity to play a positive and contributing role in our communities and in the nation and world?

Gaskin (1989) abandoned the term atheism in favor of unbelief, citing "the pejorative associations of the term, its vagueness, and later the tendency of religious apologists to define atheism so that no one could be an atheist..." (p.4)

Despite these considerations, for others atheist has always been the preferred name. Charles Bradlaugh once said, in debate with George Jacob Holyoake, 10 March 1870, cited in Bradlaugh Bonner (1908):

I maintain that the opprobrium cast upon the word Atheism is a lie. I believe Atheists as a body to be men deserving respect... I do not care what kind of character religious men may put round the word Atheist, I would fight until men respect it. (p.334)

For more on repressive definitions of atheism, see Berman (1982, 1983, 1990).

Weak and strong atheism

Main articles: Weak atheism, Strong atheism

Weak atheism, sometimes called soft atheism, negative atheism or neutral atheism, is the absence of belief in the existence of deities without the positive assertion that deities do not exist. Strong atheism, also known as hard atheism or positive atheism, is the assertion that no deities exist.

While the terms weak and strong are relatively recent, the concepts they represent have been in use for some time. In earlier philosophical publications, the terms negative atheism and positive atheism were more common; these terms were used by Antony Flew in 1972, although Jacques Maritain (1953, Chapter 8, p.104) used the phrases in a similar, but strictly Catholic apologist, context as early as 1949.

Although explicit atheists (nontheists who consciously reject theism), may subscribe to either weak or strong atheism, weak atheism also includes implicit atheists - that is, nontheists who have not consciously rejected theism, but lack theistic belief, arguably including infants.

Theists claim that a single deity or group of deities exists. Weak atheists do not assert the contrary; instead, they only refrain from assenting to theistic claims. Some weak atheists are without any opinion regarding the existence of deities, either because of a lack of thought on the matter, a lack of interest in the matter (see apatheism), or a belief that the arguments and evidence provided by both theists and strong atheists are equally unpersuasive. Others (explicit weak atheists) may doubt or dispute claims for the existence of deities, while not actively asserting that deities do not exist, following Wittgenstein's famous dictum, "Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must remain silent."

Some weak atheists feel that theism and strong atheism are equally untenable, on the grounds that faith is required both to assert and to deny the existence of deities, and as such both theism and strong atheism have the burden of proof placed on them to prove that a god does or doesn't exist. Some also base their belief on the notion that it is impossible to prove a negative.

While a weak atheist might consider the nonexistence of deities likely on the basis that there is insufficient evidence to justify belief in a deity's existence, a strong atheist has the additional view that positive statements of nonexistence are merited when evidence or arguments indicate that a deity's nonexistence is certain or probable.

Strong atheism may be based on arguments that the concept of a deity is self-contradictory and therefore impossible (positive ignosticism), or that one or more of the properties attributed to a deity are incompatible with what we observe in the world. Examples of this may be found in quantum physics, where the existence of mutually exclusive data negates the possibility of omniscience, usually a core attribute of monotheistic conceptions of deity.

Agnosticism is distinct from strong atheism, though many weak atheists may be agnostics, and those who are strong atheists with regard to a particular deity might be weak atheists or agnostics with regard to other deities.

Ignosticism

Main article: Ignosticism

Ignosticism is the view that the question of whether or not deities exist is inherently meaningless. It is a popular view among many logical positivists such as Rudolph Carnap and A. J. Ayer, who hold that talk of gods is literally nonsense. According to ignostics, "Does a god exist?" has the same logical status as "What color is Saturday?"; they are both nonsensical, and thus have no meaningful answers.

Ignostics commonly hold that statements about religious or other transcendent experiences cannot have any truth value, often because theological statements lack falsifiability, because of an epistemological view that renders the ontological argument nonsensical, or because the terminology being used has not been properly or consistently defined — the latter view is known as theological noncognitivism.

The use of the word "god" is thus solely a matter of semantics to ignostics, dealing with word use and technicalities rather than with existence and reality.

In Language, Truth and Logic, Ayer stated that theism, atheism and agnosticism were equally meaningless, insofar as they treat the question of the existence of God as a real question. However, there are varieties of atheism and agnosticism which do not necessarily agree that the question is meaningless, especially using the "lack of theism" definition of atheism. Despite Ayer's criticism of atheism (perhaps using the definition typically associated with strong atheism), Ignosticism is usually counted as a form of atheism; Ayer (1966) was clear on his position:

I do not believe in God. It seems to me that theists of all kinds have very largely failed to make their concept of a deity intelligible; and to the extent that they have made it intelligible, they have given us no reason to think that anything answers to it. (p226)

The ignostic position is mentioned (though the term ignostic is not used) as one of the three forms of "critical atheism" (in Smith) or "rejectionist atheism" (in Nagel). Active disbelief in god or supernatural beings is one other type of critical/rejectionist atheism. Finally, the third type is the positive claim that deities do not exist. Since critical/rejectionist atheism is a type of explicit atheism, it follows that ignosticism is a type of explicit atheism. There is some debate over whether it should be classified as weak atheism or strong atheism.

Ignosticism is distinct from apatheism in that while ignostics hold questions and discussions of whether deities exist to be meaningless, apatheists hold that even a hypothetical answer to such questions would be completely irrelevant to human existence.

Gnostic and agnostic atheism

Main article: Agnostic atheism

Agnostic atheism is a fusion of atheism or nontheism with agnosticism, the epistemological position that the existence or nonexistence of deities is unknown (weak agnosticism) or unknowable (strong agnosticism). Agnostic atheism is typically contrasted with agnostic theism, the belief that deities exist even though it is impossible to even know that deities exist, and with gnostic atheism, the belief that there is enough information to determine that deities do not exist.

Agnostic atheism's definition varies, just as the definitions of agnosticism and atheism do. It may be a combination of lack of theism with strong agnosticism, the view that it is impossible to know whether deities exist to any reliable degree. It may also be a combination of lack of theism with weak agnosticism, the view that there is not currently enough information to decide whether or not a deity exists, but that there may be enough in the future.

Gnostic atheism is a more rarely used term, because often anyone who is not labeled as agnostic is assumed to be gnostic by default. Gnostic atheism also has varying meanings. When nontheism is combined with strong gnosticism, it denotes the belief that it is rational to be absolutely certain that deities do not, and perhaps cannot, exist. When it is with weak gnosticism, it denotes the belief that there is enough information to be reasonably sure that deities do not exist, but not absolutely certain. The term should not be confused with Gnosticism.

Gnostic atheism is also sometimes used as a synonym of strong atheism, and thus agnostic atheism is occasionally a synonym for weak atheism. This is similar to the more common confusion of the terms implicit atheism and explicit atheism with strong and weak atheism.

Apatheism often overlaps with agnostic atheism, such as with apathetic agnosticism, a fusion of apatheism with strong agnostic atheism.

Atheism in philosophical naturalism

Many, if not most, atheists have preferred to say that atheism is a lack of a belief, rather than a belief in its own right (see, for example, Krueger (1998, p.22-24); Smith (1979, p.15-16)). This keeps the burden of proof on the theist (see Flew (1984b)), as the only one making any positive assertions. "Belief" also has other connotations that many atheists may wish to avoid.

Nevertheless, some atheist writers identify atheism with the naturalistic world view, and defend it on that basis. The case for naturalism is used as a positive argument for atheism. See, for example, Thrower (1971), Harbour (2001), Nielsen (2001) and Baggini (2003). See also Everitt's discussion of an anti-atheist argument against naturalism (2004, Chapter 9, p.178-190).

According to Thrower,

Much atheism... can be understood only in the light of the current theism which it was concerned to reject. Such atheism is relative. There is, however, a way of looking at and interpreting events in the world, whose origins... can be seen as early as the beginnings of speculative thought itself, and which I shall call naturalistic, that is atheistic per se, in the sense that it is incompatible with any and every form of supernaturalism... naturalistic or absolute atheism is both fundamentally more important, and more interesting, representing as it does one polarity in the development of the human spirit. (p.3-4)

Julian Baggini argues that, "atheism can be understood not simply as a denial of religion, but as a self-contained belief system, if it is seen as a commitment to the view that there is only one world and this is the world of nature" (p.74). For Baggini, therefore,

the evidence for atheism is to be found in the fact that there is a plethora of evidence for the truth of naturalism and an absence of evidence for anything else. 'Anything else' of course includes God, but it also includes goblins, hobbits, and truly everlasting gobstoppers. There is nothing special about God in this sense. God is just one of the things that atheists don't believe in, it just happens to be the thing that, for historical reasons, gave them their name. (p.17)

Baggini's position is that "an atheist does not usually believe in the existence of immortal souls, life after death, ghosts, or supernatural powers. Although strictly speaking an atheist could believe in any of these things and still remain an atheist... the arguments and ideas that sustain atheism tend naturally to rule out other beliefs in the supernatural or transcendental" (p.3-4).

Michael Martin (1990, p.470) notes that the view that "naturalism is compatible with nonatheism is true only if 'god' is understood in a most peculiar and misleading way", but he also points out that "atheism does not entail naturalism".

Antitheism

Main article: Antitheism

Antitheism (Anti-theism) typically refers to a direct opposition to theism. In this use, it is a form of critical strong atheism. Antitheism may sometimes overlap with ignosticism, the view that theism is inherently meaningless, and may directly contradict apatheism, the view that theism is irrelevant rather than dangerous.

However, antitheism is also sometimes used, particularly in religious contexts, to refer to opposition to God or divine things, rather than to the belief in God. Using the latter definition, it may be possible — or perhaps even necessary — to be an antitheist without being an atheist or nontheist.

Antitheists may believe that theism is actually harmful, or may simply be atheists who have little tolerance for views they perceive as irrational. Strong atheists who are not antitheists may believe positively that deities do not exist, but not believe that theism is directly harmful or necessitates opposition.

Atheism studies and statistics

As some governments have strongly promoted atheism, whilst others have strongly condemned it, atheism may be either over-reported or under-reported for different countries. There is a great deal of room for debate as to the accuracy of any method of estimation, as the opportunity for misreporting (intentionally or not) a belief system without an organized structure is high. Also, many surveys on religious identification ask people to identify themselves as "agnostics" or "atheists", which is potentially confusing, since these terms are interpreted differently, with some identifying themselves as being both atheist and agnostic. Additionally, many of these surveys only gauge the number of irreligious people, not the number of actual atheists, or group the two together.

Distribution of atheists

World estimates

Though atheists are in the minority in most countries, they are relatively common in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, in former and present Communist states, and, to a lesser extent, in the United States. A 1995 survey attributed to the Encyclopædia Britannica indicates that the non-religious are about 14.7% of the world's population, and atheists around 3.8%. This is similar to a 2002 survey by Adherents.com, which estimates the proportion of the world's people who are "secular, non-religious, agnostics and atheists" as about 14%. A 2004 survey by the BBC in 10 countries showed the proportion of the population "who don't believe in God" varying between 0% and 44%, with an average close to 17% in the countries surveyed. About 8% of the respondents stated specifically that they consider themselves to be atheists. A 2004 survey by the CIA in the World Factbook estimates about 12.5% of the world's population are non-religious, and about 2.4% are atheists. A 2004 survey by the Pew Research Center showed that in the United States, 12% of people under 30 and 6% of people over 30 could be characterized as non-religious. A 2005 poll by AP/Ipsos surveyed ten countries. Of the developed nations, people in the United States had most certainty about the existence of god or a higher power (2% atheist, 4% agnostic), while France had the most skeptics (19% atheist, 16% agnostic). On the religion question, South Korea had the greatest percentage without a religion (41%) while Italy had the smallest (5%).

Some studies have suggested that atheism is particularly prevalent among scientists, a tendency already quite marked at the beginning of the 20th century, developing into a dominant one during the course of the century. In 1914, James H. Leuba found that 58% of 1,000 randomly selected U.S. natural scientists expressed "disbelief or doubt in the existence of God". The same study, repeated in 1996, gave a similar percentage of 60.7%; this number is 93% among the members of the National Academy of Sciences. Expressions of positive disbelief rose from 52% to 72%. However, studies following Leuba's methods and questions only demonstrate disbelief in a specific type of God - a personal God which interacts directly with human beings. Restriction to this version of "God" makes the study unlikely to give a true sense of the percentage of atheists, and instead gives only a percentage of those rejecting this particular type of deity. Based on the questions in the study, many deists would have been classified as atheists. (See also The relationship between religion and science.)

Atheism in Pacific nations

The 2001 Australian Census showed that a total of 15.5% were categorized as having "No Religion" (which includes non theistic beliefs such as Humanism, atheism, agnosticism and rationalism). 15.5% of respondents ticked "no religion", and a further 11.7% either did not state their religion or were deemed to have described it inadequately (there was a popular and successful campaign at the time to have people describe themselves as Jedi).Despite the low atheism percentage weekly attendance at church services is only about 1.5 million, or about 7.5% of the population. According to the 2001 Census, nearly 40% of the New Zealand population has no religious affiliation.

Atheism in Asia

According to Norris and Inglehart (2004, 1998), 6% of those in India do not believe in God. According to a 2004 survey commissioned by the BBC, less than 3% of Indians do not believe in God. The philosophy of Positive Atheism was begun by Gora (Shri Goparaju Ramachandra Rao) (1902-1975) in India. Gora founded the "Atheist Centre" and worked with Mahatma Gandhi to end untouchability and to work toward India's independence. He also worked with India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, an atheist, urging him to support the formation of a secular government in the then predominantly Hindu nation of India.

The modern Atheist Centre, run by Gora's children, incorporates many but not all of Gora's philosophies. It works to overturn the religious caste system and debunk pseudoscience and miracles. It hosts regular firewalking events, explaining the physics and allowing ordinary villagers to do something only holy men claimed to be able to do.

As a result of periodic repression of religion by various dictators (Guest, 2003), survey data of religious belief in the most populated country in the world – China -is extremely unreliable (Demerath, 2001:154). Only very recently has sound scholarship begun to emerge, and even that is of limited scope (Yang, 2004). Estimates of high degrees of atheism in China are most likely gross over-exaggerations (Overmyer, 2003). That said, according to Barrett et al (2001), 8% of the Chinese are atheist. According to Marshall (2000), 10% of those in China identify as “atheist.” According to Johnstone (1993), 59% of those in China are nonreligious. According to O’Brien and Palmer (1993), between 10-14% of those in China are “avowed atheists.”

According to Norris and Inglehart (2004), 65% of those in Japan do not believe in God. According to Demerath (2001:138), 64% do not believe in God and 55% do not believe in Buddha, however a very strong majority have engaged in some form or Shinto, Buddhist, or Japanese folk/cultural ritual, such visiting a shrine or temple on the previous New Year’s Day. According to the 1999 Gallup International Poll, nearly 29% of the Japanese chose “none” as their religion. According to Johnstone (1993:323), 84% of the Japanese claim no personal religion, but most follow “the customs of Japanese traditional religion.”

Other numbers remain highly variant between Asian countries. According to Inglehart et al (2004), 81% of those in Vietnam and 24% of those in Taiwan do not believe in God. Barret et al (2001) report that 15% of North Koreans are atheist. According to Johnstone (1993), 68% of North Koreans are nonreligious, however, for similar reasons discussed above concerning China, this high estimate should be met with skepticism. A 2004 survey commissioned by the BBC found that 30% of South Koreans do not believe in God. According to Eungi (2003), 52% of South Koreans do not believe in God. According to Barret et al (2001), 9% of those in Mongolia are atheist. According to Johnstone (1993), 20% of those in Mongolia, 7% of Cambodians and 5% of Laotians are nonreligious. Inglehart et al (2004) found that 13% of those in Singapore do not believe in God. According to the 1999 Gallup International Poll, over 12% of those in Singapore chose “none” as their religion. According to a 2004 survey commissioned by the BBC, less than 2% of those in Indonesia do not believe in God. According to Inglehart et al (2004), Barrett et al (2001), the 1999 Gallup International Poll, and Johnstone (1993), less than 1% of those in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Iran, Malaysia, Nepal, Laos, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Philippines, are atheist, agnostic, or nonreligious.

Atheism in the Middle East

In Israel, more than 30% of Israelis that were born Jewish are now atheists (Hilonim). However, the 2004 survey commissioned by the BBC reported that only 15% of those in Israel claimded not to believe in God. According to Yuchtman-Ya’ar (2003), 54% of Israelis identify themselves as “secular.” According to Dashefsky et al (2003), 41% of Israelis identify themselves as “not religious.” According to Kedem (1995), 31% of Israelis do not believe in God, with an additional 6% choosing “don’t know,” for a total of 37% being atheist or agnostic.

A 2004 survey commissioned by the BBC found that less than 3% of those in Lebanon do not believe in God. According to Moaddel and Azadarmaki (2003), less than 5% of those in Jordan and Egypt do not believe in God. According to Inglehart et al (2004), less than 1% of those in Jordan and Egypt do not believe in God. According to Moaddel and Azadarmaki (2003), less than 5% of Iranians do not believe in God. According to Barret et al (2001) less than 1% of those in Syria, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen are secular. According to Johnstone (1993), less than 2% of Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, and Kuwait is nonreligious. According to Johnstone (1993), less than 1% of those in Iraq are nonreligious.

Atheism in Europe

File:Europe belief in god.png

The percentage of people who believe in a God in different European countries.

According to the most recent Eurostat "Eurobarometer" poll, in 2005 , 52% of European Union citizens responded that "they believe there is a God", whereas 27% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 18% that "they do not believe there is a spirit, God, nor life force". Results were widely varied between different countries, with 95% of Maltese respondents stating that they believe in God, on the one end, and only 16% of Estonians stating the same on the other. Several studies have found Sweden to be one of the most secular countries in the world. According to Davie (1999), 85% of Swedes do not believe in a God . In the Eurostat survey, 23% of Swedish citizens responded that "they believe there is a God", whereas 53% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 23% that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force". This, according to the survey, would make Swedes the third least religious people in the 25-member European Union, after Estonia and the Czech Republic. In 2001, the Czech Statistical Office provided census information on the ten million people in the Czech Republic. 59% had no religion, 32.2% were religious, and 8.8% did not answer.

A 2006 survey in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten (on February 17), saw 1006 inhabitants of Norway answering the question "What do you believe in?". 29% answered "I believe in a god or deity", 23% answered "I believe in a higher power without being certain of what", 26% answered "I don't believe in god or higher powers", and 22% answered "I am in doubt". Depending on the definition of atheism, Norway thus has between 49% and 71% atheists. Still, some 85% of the population are members of the Norwegian state's official Lutheran Protestant church. Parts of this deviance is due to the fact that all non-affiliated Norwegians were signed into this church a few years before (without being asked), and that signing out, if they are even aware of being signed in, is a time-consuming, bureaucratic affair yielding no immediate gains.

In a 2003 poll in France, 54% of those polled identified themselves as "faithful", 33% as atheist, 14% as agnostic, and 26% as "indifferent".

In Great Britain, a poll in 2004 by the BBC put the number of people who do not believe in a god to be 40%, In the YouGov poll men were less likely to believe in a god than women and younger people were less likely to believe in a god than older people.

In early 2004, it was announced that atheism would be taught during religious education classes in the United Kingdom. A spokesman for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority stated: "There are many children in England who have no religious affiliation and their beliefs and ideas, whatever they are, should be taken very seriously." There is also considerable debate in the UK on the status of faith-based schools, which use religious as well as academic selection criteria.

Many prominent Britons are atheists, including scientists and philosophers such as Richard Dawkins.

As a former communist state, atheism is prevalent in Russia. According to a 2002 survey by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) 32% of those surveyed self-described as non-religious, agnostic or atheist. Of the 58% self-describing as Russian Orthodox Christian, 42% said they had never been in a church. Much like Australia, the overwhelming majority of those self-identified as religious are non-practising.

Atheism in Africa

Atheist sentiments in Africa are incredibly low. According to a the BBC survey in 2004, as well as those conducted by Hiorth (2001) Inglehart et al (2004, 1998), Barrett et al (2001), the 1999 Gallup International Poll, and Johnstone (1993), less than 1% of those in Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Cote D’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Zambia, are atheist, agnostic, or nonreligious. According to Johnstone (1993), levels of atheism are slightly higher in other African nations: 2.7% of those in Congo, 4% of those in Zimbabwe, 4% of those in Namibia, 1.5% of those in Angola and the Central African Republic, and 5% of those in Mozambique are nonreligious. However, these figures still represent lows on a world-wide scale. South Africa registers the highest, according to a 1999 Gallup International Poll, which reported that nearly 11% of South Africans chose “none” as their religion. This may not represent a proclivity toward atheism, however, as Inglehart et al (2004) report that only 1% of South Africans do not actually believe in God.

Atheism in North America

A 2004 BBC poll showed the number of people in the US who don't believe in a God to be about 10%. A 2005 Gallup poll showed that a smaller 5% of the US population believed that a god didn't exist. The 2001 ARIS report found that while 29.5 million U.S. Americans (14.1%) describe themselves as "without religion", only 902,000 (0.4%) positively claim to be atheist, with another 991,000 (0.5%) professing agnosticism. Atheists are ostensibly legally protected from discrimination in the United States. They have been among the strongest advocates of the legal separation of church and state. U.S. courts have regularly, if controversially, interpreted the constitutional requirement for separation of church and state as protecting the freedoms of non-believers, as well as prohibiting the establishment of any state religion. Some atheists sum up the legal situation with the phrase: "Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion."

In Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet, Justice Souter wrote in the opinion for the Court that: "government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion." Everson v. Board of Education established that "neither a state nor the Federal Government can... pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another". This applies the Establishment Clause to the states as well as the federal government. However, several state constitutions make the protection of persons from religious discrimination conditional on their acknowledgement of the existence of a deity. These state constitutional clauses have not been tested. Additionally, some state constitutions (namely, Arkansas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina) forbid atheists from holding public office, although most agree that, if challenged, these requirements would be ruled unconstitutional under Article Six of the United States Constitution. Civil rights cases are typically brought in federal courts; so such state provisions are mainly of symbolic importance.

In the Newdow case, after a father challenged the phrase "under God" in the United States Pledge of Allegiance, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found the phrase unconstitutional. Although the decision was stayed pending the outcome of an appeal, there was the prospect that the pledge would cease to be legally usable without modification in schools in the western United States, over which the Ninth Circuit has jurisdiction. This resulted in political furor, and both houses of Congress passed resolutions condemning the decision, nearly unanimously. A very large group consisting of almost the entire Senate and House was televised standing on the steps of Congress, hands over hearts, swearing the pledge and shouting out "under God". The Supreme Court subsequently reversed the decision, ruling that Michael Newdow did not have standing to bring his case, thus disposing of the case without ruling on the constitutionality of the pledge.

Atheism is more prevalent in Canada than in the United States. The 2001 Canadian Census states that 16.2% of the population holds no religious affiliation. The 2004 survey commissioned by the BBC found that 7% of Mexicans do not believe in God. Other studies, such as that carried out by Inglehart et al (2004) have found even more striking numbers, recording that only 2% of Mexicans do not believe in God.

Central and South America

Atheism is particularly rare in Central America. According to Hiorth (2003), Barret et al (2001), the 1999 Gallup International Poll, and Inglehart et al (2004, 1998), less that 1-2% of those in El Salvador, Guatemala, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Paraguay, and Venezuela are atheist, agnostic, or nonreligious. According to Inglehart et al (2004), 12% of those in Uruguay do not believe in God. O’Brien and Palmer (1993) claim that between 30-50% of Uruguayans have “no religious allegiance.” According to Inglehart et al (2004), 3% of those in Chile do not believe in God, down from 5% in 1990. The 1999 Gallup International Poll( vi ) found that nearly 7% of Argentineans chose “none” as their religion According to Inglehart et al (2004), 4% of those in Argentina do not believe in God, down from 8% in 1990.

Statistical problems

Statistics on atheism are often difficult to accurately represent for a variety of reasons. Atheism is a position compatible with other forms of identity. Some atheists also consider themselves Agnostic, Buddhist, Jains or hold other related philosophical beliefs. Therefore, given limited poll options, some may use other terms to describe their identity. Some politically motivated organizations that report or gather population statistics may, intentionally or unintentionally, misrepresent atheists. Survey designs may bias results due to the nature of elements such as the wording of questions and the available response options. Also, many atheists, particularly former Catholics, are still counted as Christians in church rosters, although surveys generally ask samples of the population and do not look in church rosters. Some Christians believe that "once a person is [truly] saved, that person is always saved", a doctrine known as eternal security. Statistics are generally collected on the assumption that religion is a categorical variable. As terms such as weak atheism and strong atheism suggest, however, people vary in terms of the strength of their convictions. Instruments have been designed to measure attitudes toward religion, including one that was used by L. L. Thurstone. This may be a particularly important consideration among people who have neutral attitudes, as it is more likely prevailing social norms will influence the responses of such people on survey questions which effectively force respondents to categorize themselves either as belonging to a particular religion or belonging to no religion. A negative perception of atheists and pressure from family and peers may also cause some atheists to disassociate themselves from atheism. Misunderstanding of the term may also be a reason some label themselves differently.

Discrimination

Legal and social discrimination against atheists in some places may lead some to deny or conceal their atheism due to fears of persecution.

For example, in the 20th century, atheists, socialists and communists were persecuted alongside Jews by the Nazis, who lumped all of these terms into one complex issue or theme ('the Jewish-Bolshevik world conspiracy', as addressed in Joseph Goebbels' 1935 speech "Communism with the Mask Off", in which Aryan civilization was described as antithetical to "Jewish Communism").

A 2006 study by researchers at the University of Minnesota involving a poll of 2,000 households in the United States found atheists to be the most distrusted of minorities, more distrusted than Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians, and other groups. Many of the respondents associated atheism with immorality, including criminal behaviour, extreme materialism, and elitism.

Religion and atheism

Spiritual atheism and rationalistic churches

Although atheistic beliefs are often accompanied by a total lack of spiritual beliefs, this is not an aspect, or even a necessary consequence, of atheism. Indeed, there are many atheists who are not irreligious or secular. These are most common in spiritualities like Buddhism and Taoism, but they also exist in sects of religions that are usually very theistic by nature, such as Christianity, especially in some Liberal Quaker groups. Essentially, these people embrace the moral values of these particular religions; however, they do not acknowledge the existence of any spiritual entities.

Atheists that base their atheism within the philosophy of materialism, however, would contend that Buddhist concepts of reincarnation and nirvana, as seen in some sects of Buddhism, place the concept of the Buddha within the realm of supernatural beings, similar to those found in theistic beliefs.

A number of atheistic churches have been established, such as the Thomasine Church, naturalistic pantheists, Brianism, and the Fellowship of Reason. There is also an atheist presence in Unitarian Universalism, an extremely inclusivist religion.

Belief in God as a non-being

In English, believers usually refer to the monotheistic Abrahamic god as "God". In many abstract or esoteric interpretations of monotheism or henotheism, God is not thought of as a supernatural being, as a deity or god. Instead, God is a philosophical category: the All, the One, the Ultimate, the Absolute Infinite, the Transcendent, the Divine Ground, Being or Existence itself, etc. For example, such views are typical of pantheism, panentheism, and religious monism. Attributing anthropomorphic characteristics to God may be regarded as idolatry, blasphemy, or symbolism by some.

The Protestant theologian Paul Tillich described God as the "ground of Being", the "power of Being", or as "Being itself", and caused controversy by making the statement that "God does not exist", resulting in him occasionally being labelled as an atheist. Nevertheless, for Tillich, God is not "a" being that exists among other beings, but is Being itself. For him, God does not "exist" except as a concept or principle; God is the basis of Being, the metaphysical power by which Being triumphs over non-Being.

However, most people who identify themselves as atheists would also deny this and similar conceptions of God, or simply consider them incomprehensible. ^{[citation needed]}

Judaism

In general, formulations of Jewish principles of faith require a belief in God (represented by Judaism's paramount prayer, the Shema). In many modern movements in Judaism, rabbis have generally considered the behavior of a Jew to be the determining factor in whether or not one is considered an adherent of Judaism. Within these movements it is often recognized that it is possible for a Jew to strictly practice Judaism as a faith, while at the same time being an agnostic or atheist, giving rise to the joke: "Q: What do you call a Jew who doesn't believe in God? A: A Jew." It is also worth noting that Reconstructionism does not require any belief in a deity, and that certain popular Reform prayer books, such as Gates of Prayer, offer some services without mention of God.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, first Chief Rabbi of the Jewish community in pre-state Israel, held that atheists were not actually denying God: rather, they were denying one of man's many images of God. Since any man-made image of God can be considered an idol, Kook held that, in practice, one could consider atheists as helping true religion burn away false images of God, thus in the end serving the purpose of true monotheism.

Some Jewish atheists reject Judaism, but wish to continue identifying themselves with the Jewish people and culture. See, for example, Levin (1995). Jewish atheists who practice Humanistic Judaism embrace Jewish culture and history, rather than belief in a supernatural god, as the sources of their Jewish identity.

Christianity

By necessity, Christianity, as a theistic and proselytizing religion views atheism as sinful. According to Psalm 14:1, "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." Additionally, according to John 3:18-19,

3:18 "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

3:19 "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil." (NIV)

implying that all who reject the divinity of Jesus (and presumably its attendant theism) do so "because their deeds are evil", rather than evil being a consequence of disbelief.

A famous but idiosyncratic atheistic belief is that of Thomas Altizer. His book The Gospel of Christian Atheism (1967) proclaims the highly unusual view that God has literally died, or self-annihilated. According to Altizer, this is nevertheless "a Christian confession of faith" (p.102). Making clear the difference between his position and that of both Nietzsche's notion of the death of God and the stance of theological non-realists, Altizer says:

To confess the death of God is to speak of an actual and real event, not perhaps an event occurring in a single moment of time or history, but notwithstanding this reservation an event that has actually happened both in a cosmic and in a historical sense.(p.103)

However, many would dispute whether this is an atheist position at all, as belief in a dead God implies that God once existed and was alive. Atheism typically entails a lack of belief that any gods ever existed, as opposed to not existing currently. For further discussion, see Lyas (1970).

Other, unrelated practitioners of Christian atheism may include Liberal Christian atheists who follow the teaching of Jesus, but who may not believe in the literal existence of God. In this case, however, many would dispute whether the atheists in question are truly Christians, though they certainly are by some of the looser definitions of the word.

It should be noted that although Christianity as a faith has to be construed as irreconcilable with atheism, this is markedly not the case regarding the church institutions which currently are nominally Christian. Indeed the great positivist luminaries in all earnestness encompassed a Catholic Church which would retain all its ceremonies and ecclesiastical structures, whilst transforming into a purely atheistic church, much in the same way that Christianity has co-opted the organizational traditions of the native faiths it has encountered around the world, and through the ages.

Islam

In Islam, atheists are categorized as kafir (كافر), a term that is also used to describe polytheists, and that translates roughly as "denier" or "concealer". The noun kafir carries connotations of blasphemy and disconnection from the Islamic community. In Arabic, "atheism" is generally translated ilhad (إلحاد), although this also means "heresy". The Quran is silent on the punishment for apostasy, though not the subject itself. The Quran speaks repeatedly of people going back to unbelief after believing, but does not say that they should be killed or punished. Atheists in Islamic countries and communities frequently conceal their non-belief. The surveys mentioned above that indicate 100% religious belief in certain Islamic countries should be interpreted in light of this fact.

Asian spirituality

It is difficult to categorize Eastern belief systems in distinct terms of theism or atheism. Beliefs that would be characterized as atheistic in the western sense, often have some theistic tendencies, and vice versa.

Samkhya, though a school in the Orthodox (Astika) variety of Hinduism, can be considered atheist because of the lack of a 'higher being' that is the ground of all existence. Sankhya proposes a thoroughly dualistic understanding of the Cosmos, in which two parallel realities Purusha, the spiritual and Prakriti, the physical coexist and the aim of life is the gaining of liberating Self-knowledge of the Purusha. Here, no God (better stated theos) is present, yet Ultimate Reality in the form of the Purusha exists. Therefore, Sankhya can be said to be a variety of Hinduism which falls into the classification of Theistic Atheism.

Carvaka (also Charvaka) was a materialist and atheist school of thought in India, which is now known principally from fragments cited by its Hindu and Buddhist opponents. The proper aim of a Carvakan, according to these sources, was to live a prosperous, happy, productive life in this world (cf Epicureanism). There is some evidence that the school persisted until at least 1578.

Buddhism is often described as atheistic, since Buddhist authorities and canonical texts do not affirm, and sometimes deny, the following:

• The existence of a creation, and therefore of a creator god
• That a god, gods, or other divine beings are the source of moral imperatives
• That human beings or other creatures are responsible to a god or gods for their actions

Buddhists might also be deemed atheistic in anti-Buddhist Hindu polemic, since Buddhists opposed the authority of the Vedas and of Vedic priests, and the power of the rituals of Vedic religion.

However, all canonical Buddhist texts that mention the subject accept the existence (as distinct from the authority) of a great number of spiritual beings, including the Vedic deities. From the point of view of Western theism, certain concepts of the Buddha found in the Mahayana school of Buddhism, e.g. of Amitabha or the Adibuddha may seem to share characteristics with Western concepts of God, but Shakyamuni Buddha himself denied that he was a god or divine.

Other schools continue to consider themselves as fundamentally atheistic, in the strong sense of the term. Jainism is also sometimes classified as atheistic since Jains's believe that "In the most basic sense, God is not seen as a person, place or tangible thing, but as the ideal state of an individual soul's existence."

Confucianism and Taoism are arguably atheistic in the sense that they do not explicitly affirm, nor are they founded upon a faith in, a higher being or beings. However, Confucian writings do have numerous references to 'Heaven,' which denotes a transcendent power, with a personal connotation. Neo-Confucian writings, such as that of Chu Hsi, are vague on whether their conception of the Great Ultimate is like a personal deity or not. Also, although the Western translation of the Tao as 'god' in some editions of the Tao te Ching is highly misleading, it is still a matter of debate whether the actual descriptions of the Tao by Lao Zi has theistic or atheistic undertones.

Criticisms of atheism

Atheists and atheism have received much criticism, opposition, and persecution, chiefly from theistic sources, throughout human history. Opponents of atheism have frequently associated atheism with immorality and evil, often characterizing it as a willful and malicious rejection of gods.

The most direct arguments against atheism are those in favor of the existence of deities, which would imply that atheism is simply untrue. For examples of this type of argument, see Existence of God.

Some criticisms of strong atheism in particular question its assertiveness, i.e. the positive knowledge of anything. Such arguments discuss the more general question of relativism and are equally applicable to positive theism and positive atheism.

Other criticisms are based on ideas that it leads to poor morals or ethics. This has been countered by atheists who have pointed to the lack of morality in many acts inspired by religion. Much has been written to support and to counter these arguments.

See also

List of atheists Strong atheism

Weak atheism

Related concepts

Agnosticism Bright Criticism of religion Existence of God, Pascal's Wager Faith and rationality, Religiosity and intelligence Freedom of religion - freedom of religion and belief Freethought Humanism Infinitism

Irreligion Nihilism Objectivism Pantheism Rationalism Scientific skepticism Secular humanism Secularism

Organizations

American Atheists National Secular Society Brights movement Camp Quest Atheist Foundation of Australia Council for Secular Humanism

Freedom From Religion Foundation Rationalist International Internet Infidels Society of the Godless Secular Coalition for America Secular Student Alliance

Satire

Apatheism Evil Atheist Conspiracy Babel Fish

Flying Spaghetti Monster Invisible Pink Unicorn

External links

Wikibooks has more on the topic of

Atheism

Web sites

• Associations
  • Atheist Alliance
  • American Atheists
  • Positive Athiesm
  • Freedom From Religion Foundation
  • Atheist Foundation of Australia
  • The National Secular Society (UK)
  • TheInfidels.org Site and Forum
  • The Brights
  • The Scottish Atheist Council (UK)
  • Idaho Atheists
  • Secular Coalition for America
  • Secular Student Alliance
• Web communities
  • Atheist Parents Group
  • BookTalk.org - the freethinker's book discussion community
  • Church of Reality
  • FrostCloud.com Discuss atheism.
  • NoReligion.ca Logical and detailed essays about religion.
  • Freethinkers (NoBeliefs.com)
  • Positive Atheism
  • The Secular Web
  • The Atheist Coalition
  • The Faithless Community
  • Ex-Christians
  • The Ethical Atheist
• Internet radios
  • Atheist Network (Internet Radio)
  • The Infidel Guy Radio Show
  • Freethought Radio - Internet Radio Station
• Miscellaneous
  • Atheist Empire: guide to Atheism on the web
  • Thinking And Moral Problems, Religions And Their Source, Purpose, and Developing A Universal Religion, four Parts of a Wikibook that suggests why an atheistic religion is needed.
  • Template:About.com
  • Ebon Musings: The Atheism Pages
  • ExChristian.net — Encouraging Ex-Christians
  • Links related to atheism by Atheists of Silicon Valley
  • Political and Atheist Thought
  • Camp Quest: A Secular Summer Camp for Children
  • Darwin Bedford, Atheist Messiah and Spiritual Reality Therapist
  • religioustolerance.org
  • http://www.qsmithwmu.com (Web site of Quentin Smith, atheist philosopher)
  • God is imaginary
  • http://www.abstractatom.com (Web site of Jeffrey Grupp, atheist philosopher)
  • Atheism page from the BBC website
  • How to be religion free - a code for the Resolute Atheist
  • The Psychology of Atheism. An article by Professor Paul C. Vitz, Ph.D. 1962 (motivation, experimental psychology), Stanford University B.A. 1957 (psychology), University of Michigan. This article explores the psychological motivations which can lead to atheism.

Articles

• History of
  • A Historical Outline of Modern Religious Criticism in Western Civilization - History of atheistic thought going back to the 1500s
• Definitions
  • AllRefer atheism article - brief discussion of polemical usage
  • "Atheism and Agnosticism" by John Smart for Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • "Definition of Atheism" from Atheist Foundation of Australia Inc
  • "Types of Atheistic Belief"
  • "What Is Atheism?" from Positive Atheism Magazine
• Defence
  • The End of Faith by Sam Harris
  • Atheism defended
  • Atheism: The Capital Man
  • Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right — the source of the famous "[religion is] the opiate of the masses", by Karl Marx
  • Lecture on Atheism by Erkki Hartikainen in The Finnish Society for Natural Philosophy, 2003
  • The Philosophy of Atheism by Emma Goldman (Mother Earth, 1916)
  • Why Atheism?
  • Understanding Delusion
  • An Atheist Manifesto by Sam Harris
• Criticism
  • Catholic Encyclopedia: "atheism"
  • The Twilight of Atheism by Alister McGrath, Christianity Today, March 2005.
  • Theism, Atheism, and Rationality by Alvin Plantinga
  • Intellectual Sophistication and Basic Belief in God by Alvin Plantinga
• Statistics
  • Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns atheism worldwide, by Phil Zuckerman
  • BBC Religion
  • Atheism growing
  • A collection of Atheist and non-believer stats including divorce rates and prison populations

Notes

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Altizer, Thomas J.J. (1967). The Gospel of Christian Atheism. London: Collins. Electronic Text
• Armstrong, Karen (1999). A History of God. London: Vintage. ISBN 0099273675
• Ayer, A. J. (1966). What I Believe. in Humanist, Vol 81 (8) August 1966, p.226-228.
• Baggini, Julian (2003). Atheism: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192804243.
• Barrett, David, George Kurian, and Todd Johnson. 2001. World Christian Encyclopedia. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
• Berman, David (1990). A History of Atheism in Britain: from Hobbes to Russell. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415047277.
• Berman, David (1983). David Hume and the Suppression of Atheism. in Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 21 (3), July 1983, p.375-387.
• Berman, David (1982). The Repressive Denials of Atheism in Britain in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Vol. 82c, (9), p.211-246.
• Borne, Étienne (1961). Atheism. New York: Hawthorn Books. [Originally published in France under the title Dieu n’est pas mort: essai sur l’atheisme contemporain. Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1959]
• Bradlaugh Bonner, Hypatia (1908). Charles Bradlaugh: a record of his life and work. London: T. Fisher Unwin.
• Buckley, M. J. (1987). At the origins of modern atheism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• Cudworth, Ralph (1678). The True Intellectual System of the Universe: the first part, wherein all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted and its impossibility demonstrated.
• d'Holbach, P. H. T. (1772). Good Sense. Electronic Text
• d'Holbach, P. H. T. (1770). The system of nature. Electronic versions:
  • complete text (pdf)
  • complete text (html)
• de Mornay, Phillipe (1587). A woorke concerning the Trewnesse of the Christian Religion, written in French; Against Atheists, Epicures, Paynims, Iewes, Mahumetists. London.
• Drachmann, A. B. (1922). Atheism in Pagan Antiquity. Chicago: Ares Publishers, 1977 ("an unchanged reprint of the 1922 edition"). ISBN 0890052018.
• Everitt, Nicholas (2004). The Non-existence of God: An Introduction. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415301076.
• Evolution and Religion Can Coexist, Scientists Say
• Flew, Antony (1966). God and Philosophy. London: Hutchinson & Co.
• Flew, Antony (1984a). God, Freedom, and Immortality: A Critical Analysis. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus. ISBN 0879751274.
• Flew, Antony (1984b). The Presumption of Atheism. New York: Prometheus.
  • complete text (html)
• Flew, Antony (1972). The Presumption of Atheism. in Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 2, p.29-46 [reprinted in Flew 1984a and 1984b above]
• Flint, Robert (1877). Anti-Theistic Theories: Being the Baird Lecture for 1877. London: William Blackwood and Sons. 5th ed, 1894.
• Gaskin, J.C.A. (ed) (1989). Varieties of Unbelief: from Epicurus to Sartre. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 002340681X.
• Harbour, Daniel (2001). An Intelligent Person's Guide to Atheism. London: Duckworth. ISBN 0715632299.
• Hiorth. Finngeir. 2003. Atheism in the World. Oslo, Norway: Human-Etosk Forbund.
• Hitchens, Christopher (2001). Letters to a Young Contrarian. New York: Basic Books.
• Inglehart, Ronald, Miguel Basanez, Jaime Diez-Medrano, Loek Halman, and Ruud Luijkx. 2004. Human Beliefs and Values: A Cross-Cultural Sourcebook Based on the 1999-2002 Value Surveys. Beunos Aires, Argentina: Siglo Veintiuno Editores.
• Krueger, D. E. (1998). What is atheism?: A short introduction. New York: Prometheus. ISBN 1573922145.
• Le Poidevin, R. (1996). Arguing for atheism: An introduction to the philosophy of religion. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415093384.
• Levin, S. (1995). Jewish Atheism. in New Humanist, Vol 110 (2) May 1995, p.13-15.
• Lyas, Colin (1970). On the Coherence of Christian Atheism. in Philosophy: the Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. Vol. 45 (171), January 1970. pp.1-19.
• Mackie, J. L. (1982). The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and against the existence of God. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 019824682X.
• Maritain, Jacques (1953). The Range of Reason. London: Geoffrey Bles. Electronic Text
  • Note: Chapter 8, The Meaning of Contemporary Atheism (p.103-117, Electronic Text) is reprinted from Review of Politics, Vol. 11 (3) July 1949, p. 267-280 Electronic Text. A version also appears The Listener, Vol. 43 No.1102, 9 March 1950. pp.427-429,432.
• Martin, Michael (1990). Atheism: A philosophical justification. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. ISBN 0877229430.
• Martin, Michael, & Monnier, R. (Eds.) (2003). The impossibility of God. New York: Prometheus.
• McGrath, A. (2005). The Twilight of Atheism : The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World. ISBN 0385500629
• McTaggart, John & McTaggart, Ellis (1927). The Nature of Existence. Volume 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• McTaggart, John & McTaggart, Ellis (1930). Some Dogmas of Religion. London: Edward Arnold & Co., new edition. [First published 1906]
• Mills, D. (2004). Atheist Universe, Xlibris, ISBN 1413434819.
• Müller, F. Max (1889). Natural Religion: The Gifford Lectures, 1888. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
• Nagel, Ernest (1965). A Defence of Atheism. in Edwards, Paul and Pap, Arthur (eds), A Modern Introduction to Philosophy: readings from classical and contemporary sources. New York: Free Press. Rev ed. pp.460-472.
• Nielsen, Kai (1985). Philosophy and Atheism. New York: Prometheus. ISBN 0879752890.
• Nielsen, Kai (2001). Naturalism and religion. New York: Prometheus.
• Reid, J.P. (1967). Atheism. in New Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: McGraw-Hill. p.1000-1003.
• Rizzuto, Ana-Maria (1998). Why did Freud reject God?: A psychoanalytic interpretation. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300075251.
• Robinson, Richard (1964). An Atheist's Values. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Sharpe, R.A. (1997). The Moral Case Against Religious Belief. London: SCM Press. ISBN 0334026806.
• Smith, George H. (1990). Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies. New York: Prometheus.
  • Excerpt: Defining atheism (html)
• Smith, George H. (1979). Atheism: The Case Against God. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus. ISBN 087975124X.
  • Excerpt: The Scope of Atheism (html)
• Sobel, Jordan H. (2004). Logic and theism: Arguments for and against beliefs in God. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Soltis, P.S. et al. (1995) Genetic variation in Tragopogan Species: Additional Origins of Allotetraploids T. mirius and T. miscellus (Compositae). American Journal of Botany.
• Stenger, Victor J. (2003). Has science found God?. New York: Prometheus.
• Stein, G. (Ed.) (1984). The Encyclopaedia of Unbelief (Vols. 1-2). New York: Prometheus. ISBN 0879753072.
• Thrower, James (1971). A Short History of Western Atheism. London: Pemberton. ISBN 0301711011.
• Vitz, Paul (1999). Faith of the fatherless: the psychology of atheism. Dallas, Texas: Spence. ISBN 1890626120.
• Zuckerman, Phil. Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns. <http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/zuckerman/atheism.html> [Accessed 6 July 2006].

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