(www.sass-pants.com) — This UK atheism advertising campaign has got me thinking about atheism. (Mission accomplished, Richard Dawkins and Ariane Sherine.) The campaign slogan is “There’s probably no God. Not stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Perhaps I have had a misunderstanding rather than an understanding of atheism all this time, but I though it was denial in the existence of God, not an admission of the possibility that there could be no God. So I’m confused. What exactly is atheism?
Web addict that I am, my first stop was Google, where I searched “atheism,” followed by a quick hop over to Twitter, where I tweeted,
In this post, I’ll share what I found via through my Google search.
Common trends:
- There are two types of atheism: strong and weak.
- Disbelief / lack of belief in a God or gods should not be confused with belief that there is no God or gods.
- Atheism, agnosticism, and skepticism are distinctive belief systems.
From the organization American Atheists’ About page:
An Atheist loves himself and his fellow man instead of a god. An Atheist accepts that heaven is something for which we should work now – here on earth – for all men together to enjoy. An Atheist accepts that he can get no help through prayer, but that he must find in himself the inner conviction and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue it and to enjoy it. An Atheist accepts that only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow man can he find the understanding that will help lead to a life of fulfillment.
According to Wikipedia’s Atheism entry:
Atheism, as an explicit position, can be either the affirmation of the nonexistence of gods, or the rejection of theism. It is also defined more broadly as an absence of belief in deities, or nontheism.
Many self-described atheists are skeptical of all supernatural beings and cite a lack of empirical evidence for the existence of deities. Others argue for atheism on philosophical, social or historical grounds. Although many self-described atheists tend toward secular philosophies such as humanism and naturalism, there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere; and some religions, such as Jainism and Buddhism, do not require belief in a personal god.
The term atheism originated as a pejorative epithet applied to any person or belief in conflict with established religion. With the spread of freethought, scientific skepticism, and criticism of religion, the term began to gather a more specific meaning and has been increasingly used as a self-description by atheists.
The guide to Atheism / Agnosticism at About.com had this to say:
The more common understanding of atheism among atheists is “not believing in any gods.” No claims or denials are made — an atheist is a person who is not a theist. Sometimes this broader understanding is called “weak” or “implicit” atheism. There is also a narrower sort of atheism, sometimes called “strong” or “explicit” atheism. Here, the atheist explicitly denies the existence of any gods — making a strong claim which will deserve support at some point.
The “Definitions of the term ‘Atheism’” page at ReligiousTolerance.org reads:
Most of the North American public define an “Atheist” is a person who believes that no deity exists: neither a God, nor a Goddess, nor a pantheon of Gods and Goddesses. This definition is reflected in American dictionaries — not just because most publishers are Christian, but because it is the purpose of dictionaries to follow the public’s word usage. Some individuals who consider themselves Atheists mesh well with that definition. But they may be in the minority. Many, perhaps most, Atheists simply have no belief about deity. For them, Atheism is not disbelief in a deity or deities; it is simply a lack of belief in any of them.
It is worth noting that most of the people of the world can be regarded as a type of Atheist. Of the Gods and Goddesses who have been worshiped down through the ages — Athena, Baal, Bacchus, Bast, Brahman, Bridget, Diana, Eostre, Fergus, Freya, Horus, Isis, Marduk, Mithras, Nerrivik, Odin, Pluto, Quetzalcoatl, Ra, Shiva, Sophia, Thor, Vishnu, Vulcan, Zeus, and thousands of others, the vast majority of people believe in only a few. Most believe in a single deity — the Trinity in Christianity, Allah in Islam, Yahweh in Judaism — and thus deny the existence of the thousands of other deities. Such people can be considered Atheists towards these other Gods and Goddesses. In the same way, Roman Pagans considered Christians to be Atheists in the early years of the Church, because followers of Jesus denied the existence of all of the dozens of Roman deities.
All About Philosophy’s Atheism page says:
There are two basic forms of atheism: “strong” atheism and “weak” atheism. Strong atheism is the doctrine that there is no God or gods. Weak atheism is the disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
Weak atheism is often confused with agnosticism, the lack of belief or disbelief in God or gods, and skepticism, the doctrine that the absolute knowledge of God’s existence is unobtainable by mere man. Many agnostics and skeptics are “practical atheists” in that they actively pursue an atheistic lifestyle. The exclusion of God necessitates moral relativism.
Finally, the BBC’s Religion & Ethics Page on Atheism says:
Atheists are people who believe that god or gods (or other supernatural beings) are man-made constructs, myths and legends or who believe that these concepts are not meaningful.
Now that we’ve got some “official definitions,” we’ll take a look at what atheism really means in practical terms in the next installment of this multipart exploration of atheism.
Questions? Suggestions? Opinions? Leave a comment.
Contents Copyright © 2009 Kristen King
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
The word “Probably” was included for several reasons, as I understand it.
First, it shortened the phrase to look better on the sign (it was supposed to be something like “There is almost certainly no God…” – which just didn’t fit.)
Second, I understand it was stated that way to avoid the “certainty” issue wherein claims made in adverts are difficult to substantiate – as in a sign that says ‘Vitamin C cures Cancer!” Such a statement as “There is no God…” would have to suffer the burden of “proof” and since the concept is by nature, unfalsifiable, it could loose on those grounds. The solution is to vague-ify it.
Odd how another (religious) campaign sign could say “If you are not …(insert preferred religion here)…, you WILL burn in Hell…” and suffer no such test. Or perhaps it did, but got nowhere.
I am an Atheist. I submit that there are no Gods, never have been, never will be. I cannot prove this. If I am being honest, I admit that what I am actually saying is “The possibility that a God exists is extremely small.” So perhaps I am “admitting the possibility that there is no god”. To me, that appears to be the same thing as saying the possibility is vanishingly small, but not non-existent.
I can’t fit all that into a twitter!
Peace
JC
Atheism is simply the lack of theism – “a” meaning “no” or “without”, and “theism” meaning the belief in a god or gods. It literally means “having no belief in god”. After that, anything goes. An atheist can believe whatever else they want and still qualify as an atheist as long as they hold no theistic beliefs. It’s like being “bald” means lacking hair…being “atheist” means lacking theism.
-STA