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Atheism

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“Atheist” redirects here. For other uses, see Atheist (disambiguation).

Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which is the belief that at least one deity exists.

Historically, evidence of atheistic viewpoints can be traced back to classical antiquity and early Indian philosophy. In the Western world, atheism declined after Christianity gained prominence. The 16th century and the Age of Enlightenment marked the resurgence of atheistic thought in Europe. Atheism achieved a significant position worldwide in the 20th century. Estimates of those who have an absence of theistic belief range from 500 million to 1.1 billion people.[1][2] Atheist organizations have defended the autonomy of science, freedom of thought, secularism, and secular ethics.

Arguments for atheism range from philosophical to scientific to social approaches. Rationales for not believing in deities include the lack of evidence,[3][4] the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, the rejection of concepts that cannot be falsified, and the argument from nonbelief.[3][5] Nonbelievers contend that atheism is a more parsimonious position than theism and that everyone is born without beliefs in deities;[6] therefore, they argue that the burden of proof lies not on the atheist to disprove the existence of gods but on the theist to provide a rationale for theism.[7] Definition

Writers disagree on how best to define and classify atheism,[8] contesting what supernatural entities are considered gods, whether atheism is a philosophical position or merely the absence of one, and whether it requires a conscious, explicit rejection; however, the norm is to define atheism in terms of an explicit stance against theism.[9][10][11] Atheism has been regarded as compatible with agnosticism,[12][13][14][15] but has also been contrasted with it.[16][17][18] Implicit vs. explicit Main article: Implicit and explicit atheism A diagram showing the relationship between the definitions of weak/strong and implicit/explicit atheism (sizes in the diagram are not meant to indicate relative sizes within a population). Explicit strong/positive atheists (in purple on the right) assert that “at least one deity exists” is a false statement. Explicit weak/negative atheists (in blue on the right) reject or eschew belief that any deities exist without asserting that “at least one deity exists” is a false statement. Implicit weak/negative atheists (in blue on the left) would include people (such as young children and some agnostics) who do not believe in a deity but have not explicitly rejected such belief.

Some of the ambiguity involved in defining atheism arises from the definitions of words like deity and god. The variety of wildly different conceptions of God and deities leads to differing ideas regarding atheism’s applicability. The ancient Romans accused Christians of being atheists for not worshiping the pagan deities. Gradually, this view fell into disfavor as theism came to be understood as encompassing belief in any divinity.[19] With respect to the range of phenomena being rejected, atheism may counter anything from the existence of a deity to the existence of any spiritual, supernatural, or transcendental concepts.[20] Definitions of atheism also vary in the degree of consideration a person must put to the idea of gods to be considered an atheist. Atheism has been defined as the absence of belief that any deities exist. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas. As far back as 1772, Baron d’Holbach said that “All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God.”[21] Similarly, George H. Smith suggested that: “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 with 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.”[22]

Implicit atheism is “the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it” and explicit atheism is the conscious rejection of belief. It is usual to define atheism in terms of an explicit stance against theism.[23][10][24] For the purposes of his paper on “philosophical atheism”, Ernest Nagel contested including the mere absence of theistic belief as a type of atheism.[25] Graham Oppy classifies as innocents those who never considered the question because they lack any understanding of what a god is, for example one-month-old babies.[26] Negative vs. positive Main article: Negative and positive atheism

Philosophers such as Antony Flew[27] and Michael Martin[19] have contrasted positive (strong/hard) atheism with negative (weak/soft) atheism. Positive atheism is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist. Negative atheism includes all other forms of non-theism. According to this categorization, anyone who is not a theist is either a negative or a positive atheist. Michael Martin, for example, asserts that agnosticism entails negative atheism.[14][12] Agnostic atheism encompasses both atheism and agnosticism.[15] However, many agnostics see their view as distinct from atheism.[28][29] Richard Dawkins sees theist, agnostic, and atheist positions as existing along a spectrum of theistic probability

According to atheists’ arguments, unproven religious propositions deserve as much disbelief as all other unproven propositions.[30] Atheist criticism of agnosticism says that the unprovability of a god’s existence does not imply an equal probability of either possibility.[31] Australian philosopher J.J.C. Smart argues that “sometimes a person who is really an atheist may describe herself, even passionately, as an agnostic because of unreasonable generalized philosophical skepticism which would preclude us from saying that we know anything whatever, except perhaps the truths of mathematics and formal logic.”[32] Consequently, some atheist authors, such as Richard Dawkins, prefer distinguishing theist, agnostic, and atheist positions along a spectrum of theistic probability—the likelihood that each assigns to the statement “God exists”.[33]

Before the 18th century, the existence of God was so accepted in the Western world that even the possibility of true atheism was questioned. This is called theistic innatism—the notion that all people believe in God from birth; within this view was the connotation that atheists are in denial.[34] Some atheists have challenged the need for the term “atheism”. In his book Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris wrote:

In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist". We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.[35]

Etymology The Greek word “atheoi” αθεοι (“[those who are] without god”) as it appears in the Epistle to the Ephesians 2:12, on the early 3rd-century Papyrus 46.

In early ancient Greek, the adjective átheos (ἄθεος, from the privative ἀ- + θεός “god”) meant “godless”. It was first used as a term of censure roughly meaning “ungodly” or “impious”. In the 5th century BCE, the word began to indicate more deliberate and active godlessness in the sense of “severing relations with the gods” or “denying the gods”. The term ἀσεβής (asebēs) then came to be applied against those who impiously denied or disrespected the local gods, even if they believed in other gods. Modern translations of classical texts sometimes render átheos as “atheistic”. As an abstract noun, there was also ἀθεότης (atheotēs), “atheism”. Cicero transliterated the Greek word into the Latin átheos. The term found frequent use in the debate between early Christians and Hellenists, with each side attributing it, in the pejorative sense, to the other.[36]

The term atheist (from the French athée), in the sense of “one who … denies the existence of God or gods”,[37] predates atheism in English, being first found as early as 1566,[38] and again in 1571.[39] Atheist as a label of practical godlessness was used at least as early as 1577.[40] The term atheism was derived from the French athéisme,[41] and appears in English about 1587.[42]

Atheism was first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Europe, specifically denoting disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god.[a] In the 20th century, globalization contributed to the expansion of the term to refer to disbelief in all deities, though it remains common in Western society to describe atheism as “disbelief in God”.[19] Arguments Epistemological arguments

Skepticism, based on the ideas of David Hume, asserts that certainty about anything is impossible, so one can never know for sure whether or not a god exists. Hume, however, held that such unobservable metaphysical concepts should be rejected as “sophistry and illusion”.[43]

Michael Martin argues that atheism is a justified and rational true belief, but offers no extended epistemological justification because current theories are in a state of controversy. Martin instead argues for “mid-level principles of justification that are in accord with our ordinary and scientific rational practice.”[44]

Other arguments for atheism that can be classified as epistemological or ontological, assert the meaninglessness or unintelligibility of basic terms such as “God” and statements such as "God is al