Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.
In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.
Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.
Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.
The term atheism originated from the Greek (atheos), meaning "without god", which was applied with a negative connotation to those thought to reject the gods worshipped by the larger society. With the spread of freethought, skeptical inquiry, and subsequent increase in criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope. The first individuals to identify themselves as "atheist" appeared in the 18th century. In Europe, the estimated percentage of atheists, agnostics and other nonbelievers in a personal god ranges as low as single digits in Poland, Romania, Cyprus, and some other countries, and up to 85% in Sweden, 80% in Denmark, 72% in Norway, and 60% in Finland. there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere.
In Western culture, atheists are frequently assumed to be exclusively irreligious or unspiritual. However, atheism also figures in certain religious and spiritual belief systems, such as Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. Jainism and some forms of Buddhism do not advocate belief in gods, whereas Hinduism holds atheism to be valid, but difficult to follow spiritually.
Etymology
() on the early 3rd-century
Papyrus 46. It is usually translated into English as "[those who are] without God".]]
In early ancient Greek, the adjective (, from the privative ἀ- + "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-intentional, active godlessness in the sense of "severing relations with the gods" or "denying the gods", instead of the earlier meaning of "impious". The term ἀσεβής () 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 as "atheistic". As an abstract noun, there was also (), "atheism". Cicero transliterated the Greek word into the Latin . 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.
In English, the term atheism was derived from the French in about 1587.
The term atheist (from Fr. ), in the sense of "one who denies or disbelieves the existence of God",
predates atheism in English, being first attested in about 1571.
Atheist as a label of practical godlessness was used at least as early as 1577.
Related words emerged later: deist in 1621,
theist in 1662;
theism in 1678;
and deism in 1682.
Deism and theism changed meanings slightly around 1700, due to the influence of atheism; deism was originally used as a synonym for today's theism, but came to denote a separate philosophical doctrine.
Karen Armstrong writes that "During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the word 'atheist' was still reserved exclusively for polemic ... The term 'atheist' was an insult. Nobody would have dreamed of calling himself an atheist."
Atheism was first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Europe, specifically denoting disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god.
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 simply "disbelief in God".
Some atheists have doubted the very nature of 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.
Definitions and distinctions
and
implicit/explicit atheism. Explicit strong/positive/hard atheists (in on the
right) assert that
"at least one deity exists" is a false statement. Explicit weak/negative/soft atheists (in on the
right) reject or eschew belief that any deities exist without actually asserting that
"at least one deity exists" is a false statement. Implicit weak atheists (in 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. (Sizes in the diagram are not meant to indicate relative sizes within a population.)]]
Writers disagree how best to define and classify atheism,
contesting what supernatural entities it applies to, whether it is an assertion in its own right or merely the absence of one, and whether it requires a conscious, explicit rejection. A variety of categories have been proposed to try to distinguish the different forms of atheism.
Range
Some of the ambiguity and controversy involved in defining
atheism arises from difficulty in reaching a consensus for the definitions of words like
deity and
god. The plurality 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.
Implicit vs. explicit
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 sometimes been defined to include the simple 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."
Similarly,
George H. Smith (1979) 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."
Smith coined the term
implicit atheism to refer to "the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it" and
explicit atheism to refer to the more common definition of conscious disbelief.
Ernest Nagel contradicts Smith's definition of atheism as merely "absence of theism", acknowledging only explicit atheism as true "atheism".
Positive vs. negative
Philosophers such as
Antony Flew,
and
Michael Martin,
The terms
weak and
strong are relatively recent, while the terms
negative and
positive atheism are of older origin, having been used (in slightly different ways) in the philosophical literature
since at least 1813.
Under this demarcation of atheism, most agnostics qualify as negative atheists.
While Martin, for example, asserts that agnosticism entails negative atheism,
The assertion of unattainability of knowledge for or against the existence of gods is sometimes seen as indication that atheism requires a leap of faith.
Common atheist responses to this argument include that unproven religious propositions deserve as much disbelief as all other unproven propositions,
and that the unprovability of a god's existence does not imply equal probability of either possibility.
Scottish philosopher J. J. C. Smart even argues that "sometimes a person who is really an atheist may describe herself, even passionately, as an agnostic because of unreasonable generalised philosophical skepticism which would preclude us from saying that we know anything whatever, except perhaps the truths of mathematics and formal logic."
Consequently, some atheist authors such as Richard Dawkins prefer distinguishing theist, agnostic and atheist positions by the probability that each assigns to the statement "God exists".
Definition as impossible or impermanent
Before the 18th century, the existence of God was so universally 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 simply in denial.
There is also a position claiming that atheists are quick to believe in God in times of crisis, that atheists make deathbed conversions, or that "there are no atheists in foxholes."
Some proponents of this view claim that the anthropological benefit of religion is that religious faith enables humans to endure hardships better, functioning as an "opium of the people". Some atheists emphasize the fact that there have been examples to the contrary, among them examples of literal "atheists in foxholes."
Other usage of the term "Positive Atheism"
As mentioned above, the terms
negative and
positive have been used in philosophical literature in a similar manner to the terms
weak and
strong. However, the book
Positive Atheism by
Goparaju Ramachandra Rao, first published in 1972, introduced an alternative use for the phrase.
Having grown up in a hierarchical system with a religious basis, Gora called for a secular
India and suggested guidelines for a positive atheist philosophy, meaning one that promotes positive values.
Positive atheism, defined this way, entails such things as being morally upright, showing an understanding that religious people have reasons to believe, not proselytising or lecturing others about atheism, and defending oneself with truthfulness instead of aiming to "win" any confrontations with outspoken critics.
Rationale
, an 18th century advocate of atheism.
"The source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature. The pertinacity with which he clings to blind opinions imbibed in his infancy, which interweave themselves with his existence, the consequent prejudice that warps his mind, that prevents its expansion, that renders him the slave of fiction, appears to doom him to continual error." The System of Nature
]]
The broadest demarcation of atheistic rationale is between practical and theoretical atheism.
Practical atheism
In
practical or
pragmatic atheism, also known as
apatheism, individuals live as if there are no gods and explain natural phenomena without resorting to the divine. The existence of gods is not rejected, but may be designated unnecessary or useless; gods neither provide purpose to life, nor influence everyday life, according to this view.
A form of practical atheism with implications for the
scientific community is
methodological naturalism—the "tacit adoption or assumption of philosophical naturalism within
scientific method with or without fully accepting or believing it."
Practical atheism can take various forms:
Absence of religious motivation—belief in gods does not motivate moral action, religious action, or any other form of action;
Active exclusion of the problem of gods and religion from intellectual pursuit and practical action;
Indifference—the absence of any interest in the problems of gods and religion; or
Unawareness of the concept of a deity.
Theoretical atheism
Ontological arguments
Theoretical (or theoric) atheism explicitly posits arguments against the existence of gods, responding to common
theistic arguments such as the
argument from design or
Pascal's Wager. Actually the
theoretical atheism is mainly an ontology, precisely a
physical ontology. If the theoretical reasons for rejecting gods can assume various forms besides ontological ones, i.e. gnoseological, epistemological, logical and also sometimes psychological and sociological, is only the
physical ontology to give exhaustive answers.
Epistemological arguments
Epistemological atheism argues that people cannot know a God or determine the existence of a God. The foundation of epistemological atheism is agnosticism, which takes a variety of forms. In the philosophy of
immanence, divinity is inseparable from the world itself, including a person's mind, and each person's
consciousness is locked in the
subject. According to this form of agnosticism, this limitation in perspective prevents any objective inference from belief in a god to assertions of its existence. The
rationalistic agnosticism of
Kant and the
Enlightenment only accepts knowledge deduced with human rationality; this form of atheism holds that gods are not discernible as a matter of principle, and therefore cannot be known to exist. Skepticism, based on the ideas of
Hume, asserts that certainty about anything is impossible, so one can never know the existence of a God. The allocation of agnosticism to atheism is disputed; it can also be regarded as an independent, basic worldview.
Metaphysical arguments
One author writes:
.
}}
is credited with first expounding the problem of evil. David Hume in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) cited Epicurus in stating the argument as a series of questions:
"Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?"]]
Logical arguments
Logical atheism holds that the various
conceptions of gods, such as the
personal god of Christianity, are ascribed logically inconsistent qualities. Such atheists present
deductive arguments against the existence of God, which assert the incompatibility between certain traits, such as perfection, creator-status,
immutability,
omniscience,
omnipresence,
omnipotence,
omnibenevolence,
transcendence, personhood (a personal being), nonphysicality,
justice and
mercy.
Theodicean atheists believe that the world as they experience it cannot be reconciled with the qualities commonly ascribed to God and gods by theologians. They argue that an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God is not compatible with a world where there is evil and suffering, and where divine love is hidden from many people.
A similar argument is attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism.
Reductionary accounts of religion
Philosophers such as
Ludwig Feuerbach
and
Sigmund Freud argued that God and other religious beliefs are human inventions, created to fulfill various psychological and emotional wants or needs. This is also a view of many
Buddhists.
Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels, influenced by the work of Feuerbach, argued that belief in God and religion are social functions, used by those in power to oppress the working class. According to
Mikhail Bakunin, "the idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, in theory and practice." He reversed
Voltaire's famous aphorism that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him, writing instead that "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him."
Recently, Michel Onfray, who regards himself as part of the tradition of individualist anarchism, has sought to revive this tradition as an argument for atheism, amidst modern schools of philosophy that he feels are cynical and epicurean.
Alternatives
Axiological, or constructive, atheism rejects the existence of gods in favor of a "higher absolute", such as
humanity. This form of atheism favors humanity as the absolute source of ethics and values, and permits individuals to resolve moral problems without resorting to God. Marx, Freud, and Sartre all used this argument to convey messages of liberation, full-development, and unfettered happiness.
or renders life
meaningless and miserable.
Blaise Pascal argued this view in his
Pensées.
History
Although the term
atheism originated in 16th-century
France, Among the six
orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy;
Samkhya, the oldest philosophical system do not accept God and the early
Mimamsa also rejected the notion of God. The early Mimamsa not only did not accept God but asserted that human action itself was enough to create the necessary circumstances for the enjoyment of its fruits. The thoroughly materialistic and anti-theistic philosophical
Cārvāka (also called
Nastika or
Lokaiata) school that originated in
India around the 6th century BCE is probably the most explicitly atheistic school of philosophy in India, similar to the Greek
Cyrenaic school. This branch of Indian philosophy is classified as
heterodox due to its rejection of the authority of
Vedas and hence is not considered part of the six orthodox schools of Hinduism, but it is noteworthy as evidence of a materialistic movement within Hinduism.
Chatterjee and Datta explain that our understanding of Cārvāka philosophy is fragmentary, based largely on criticism of the ideas by other schools, and that it is not a living tradition:
"Though materialism in some form or other has always been present in India, and occasional references are found in the Vedas, the Buddhistic literature, the Epics, as well as in the later philosophical works we do not find any systematic work on materialism, nor any organized school of followers as the other philosophical schools possess. But almost every work of the other schools states, for refutation, the materialistic views. Our knowledge of Indian materialism is chiefly based on these."
Other Indian philosophies generally regarded as atheistic include Classical Samkhya and Purva Mimamsa. The rejection of a personal creator God is also seen in Jainism and Buddhism in India.
Classical antiquity
's
Apology,
Socrates (pictured) was accused by
Meletus of not believing in the gods.]]
Western atheism has its roots in
pre-Socratic Greek philosophy, but did not emerge as a distinct world-view until the late
Enlightenment.
The 5th-century BCE Greek philosopher
Diagoras is known as the "first atheist",
and is cited as such by
Cicero in his
De Natura Deorum.
Critias viewed religion as a human invention used to frighten people into following moral order.
Atomists such as
Democritus attempted to explain the world in a purely
materialistic way, without reference to the spiritual or mystical. Other pre-Socratic philosophers who probably had atheistic views included
Prodicus and
Protagoras. In the 3rd-century BCE the Greek philosophers
Theodorus Cirenaicus
and
Strato of Lampsacus
also did not believe gods exist.
Socrates (c. 471–399 BCE), was accused of impiety (see Euthyphro dilemma) on the basis that he inspired questioning of the state gods.
Although he disputed the accusation that he was a "complete atheist",
saying that he could not be an atheist as he believed in spirits,
he was ultimately sentenced to death. Socrates also prays to various gods in Plato's dialogue Phaedrus
and says "By Zeus" in the dialogue The Republic.
Euhemerus (c. 330–260 BCE) published his view that the gods were only the deified rulers, conquerors and founders of the past, and that their cults and religions were in essence the continuation of vanished kingdoms and earlier political structures.
Although not strictly an atheist, Euhemerus was later criticized for having "spread atheism over the whole inhabited earth by obliterating the gods".
Atomic materialist Epicurus (c. 341–270 BCE) disputed many religious doctrines, including the existence of an afterlife or a personal deity; he considered the soul purely material and mortal. While Epicureanism did not rule out the existence of gods, he believed that if they did exist, they were unconcerned with humanity.
The Roman poet Lucretius (c. 99–55 BCE) agreed that, if there were gods, they were unconcerned with humanity and unable to affect the natural world. For this reason, he believed humanity should have no fear of the supernatural. He expounds his Epicurean views of the cosmos, atoms, the soul, mortality, and religion in De rerum natura ("On the nature of things"),
which popularized Epicurus' philosophy in Rome.
The Roman philosopher Sextus Empiricus held that one should suspend judgment about virtually all beliefs—a form of skepticism known as Pyrrhonism—that nothing was inherently evil, and that ataraxia ("peace of mind") is attainable by withholding one's judgment. His relatively large volume of surviving works had a lasting influence on later philosophers.
The meaning of "atheist" changed over the course of classical antiquity. The early Christians were labeled atheists by non-Christians because of their disbelief in pagan gods.
During the Roman Empire, Christians were executed for their rejection of the Roman gods in general and Emperor-worship in particular. When Christianity became the state religion of Rome under Theodosius I in 381, heresy became a punishable offense.
Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance
The espousal of atheistic views was rare in Europe during the
Early Middle Ages and
Middle Ages (see
Medieval Inquisition); metaphysics, religion and theology were the dominant interests.
There were, however, movements within this period that forwarded heterodox conceptions of the Christian God, including differing views of the nature, transcendence, and knowability of God. Individuals and groups such as
Johannes Scotus Eriugena,
David of Dinant,
Amalric of Bena, and the
Brethren of the Free Spirit maintained Christian viewpoints with
pantheistic tendencies.
Nicholas of Cusa held to a form of
fideism he called
docta ignorantia ("learned ignorance"), asserting that God is beyond human categorization, and our knowledge of God is limited to conjecture.
William of Ockham inspired anti-metaphysical tendencies with his
nominalistic limitation of human knowledge to singular objects, and asserted that the divine
essence could not be intuitively or rationally apprehended by human intellect. Followers of Ockham, such as
John of Mirecourt and
Nicholas of Autrecourt furthered this view. The resulting division between faith and reason influenced later theologians such as
John Wycliffe,
Jan Hus, and
Martin Luther.
He was followed by other openly atheistic thinkers, such as
Baron d'Holbach and
Jacques-André Naigeon.
The philosopher
David Hume developed a skeptical epistemology grounded in empiricism, undermining the metaphysical basis of natural theology.
's
The Essence of Christianity (1841) would greatly influence philosophers such as
Engels,
Marx,
David Strauss,
Nietzsche, and
Max Stirner. He considered God to be a human invention and religious activities to be wish-fulfillment. For this he is considered the founding father of modern
anthropology of religion.]]
The
French Revolution took atheism and anti-clerical deism outside the salons and into the public sphere. A major goal of the French revolution was a restructuring and subordination of the clergy with respect to the state through the
Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Attempts to enforce it led to anti-clerical violence and the expulsion of many clergy from France. The chaotic political events in revolutionary Paris eventually enabled the more radical
Jacobins to seize power in 1793, ushering in the
Reign of Terror. The Jacobins were deists and introduced the
Cult of the Supreme Being as a new French state religion. Some atheists surrounding
Jacques Hébert instead sought to establish a
Cult of Reason, a form of atheistic pseudo-religion with a goddess personifying reason. Both movements in part contributed to attempts to forcibly de-Christianize France. The
Cult of Reason ended after three years when its leadership, including
Jacques Hébert was guillotined by the Jacobins. The anti-clerical persecutions ended with the
Thermidorian Reaction.
The Napoleonic era institutionalized the secularization of French society, and exported the revolution to northern Italy, in the hopes of creating pliable republics. In the 19th century, atheists contributed to political and social revolution, facilitating the upheavals of 1848, the Risorgimento in Italy, and the growth of an international socialist movement.
In the latter half of the 19th century, atheism rose to prominence under the influence of rationalistic and freethinking philosophers. Many prominent German philosophers of this era denied the existence of deities and were critical of religion, including Ludwig Feuerbach, Arthur Schopenhauer, Max Stirner, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche.
Late modern period
Atheism in the 20th century, particularly in the form of practical atheism, advanced in many societies. Atheistic thought found recognition in a wide variety of other, broader philosophies, such as
existentialism,
objectivism,
secular humanism,
nihilism,
anarchism,
logical positivism,
Marxism,
feminism,
and the general scientific and
rationalist movement.
Logical positivism and scientism paved the way for neopositivism, analytical philosophy, structuralism, and naturalism. Neopositivism and analytical philosophy discarded classical rationalism and metaphysics in favor of strict empiricism and epistemological nominalism. Proponents such as Bertrand Russell emphatically rejected belief in God. In his early work, Ludwig Wittgenstein attempted to separate metaphysical and supernatural language from rational discourse. A. J. Ayer asserted the unverifiability and meaninglessness of religious statements, citing his adherence to the empirical sciences. Relatedly the applied structuralism of Lévi-Strauss sourced religious language to the human subconscious in denying its transcendental meaning. J. N. Findlay and J. J. C. Smart argued that the existence of God is not logically necessary. Naturalists and materialistic monists such as John Dewey considered the natural world to be the basis of everything, denying the existence of God or immortality.
The 20th century also saw the political advancement of atheism, spurred on by interpretation of the works of Marx and Engels. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, increased religious freedom for minority religions lasted for a few years, before the policies of Stalinism turned towards repression of religion. The Soviet Union and other communist states promoted state atheism and opposed religion, often by violent means.
Other leaders like E. V. Ramasami Naicker (Periyar), a prominent atheist leader of India, fought against Hinduism and Brahmins for discriminating and dividing people in the name of caste and religion.
This was highlighted in 1956 when he made the Hindu god Rama wear a garland made of slippers and made antitheistic statements.
In 1966, Time magazine asked "Is God Dead?"
in response to the Death of God theological movement, citing the estimation that nearly half of all people in the world lived under an anti-religious power, and millions more in Africa, Asia, and South America seemed to lack knowledge of the Christian God.
The following year, the Albanian government under Enver Hoxha announced the closure of all religious institutions in the country, declaring Albania the world's first officially atheist state.
These regimes enhanced the negative associations of atheism, especially where anti-communist sentiment was strong in the United States, despite the fact that prominent atheists were anti-communist.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the number of actively anti-religious regimes has reduced considerably. In 2006, Timothy Shah of the Pew Forum noted "a worldwide trend across all major religious groups, in which God-based and faith-based movements in general are experiencing increasing confidence and influence vis-à-vis secular movements and ideologies." However, Gregory S. Paul and Phil Zuckerman consider this a myth and suggest that the actual situation is much more complex and nuanced.
The religiously motivated terrorist events of 9/11 and the partially successful attempts of the Discovery institute to change the American science curriculum to include creationist ideas, together with support for those ideas from George W. Bush in 2005, all triggered the noted atheist authors Sam Harris, Daniel C. Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Victor J. Stenger and Christopher Hitchens to publish books that were best sellers in America and worldwide.
A 2010 survey found that those identifying themselves as atheists or agnostics are on average more knowledgeable about religion than followers of major faiths. Nonbelievers scored better on questions about tenets central to Protestant and Catholic faiths. Only Mormon and Jewish faithful scored as well as atheists and agnostics.
Demographics
It is difficult to quantify the number of atheists in the world. Respondents to religious-belief polls may define "atheism" differently or draw different distinctions between
atheism, non-religious beliefs, and non-theistic religious and spiritual beliefs. A Hindu atheist would declare oneself as a Hindu, although also being an atheist at the same time.
A 2005 survey published in
Encyclopædia Britannica found that the non-religious made up about 11.9% of the world's population, and atheists about 2.3%. This figure did not include those who follow atheistic religions, such as some Buddhists.
A November–December 2006 poll published in the Financial Times gives rates for the United States and five European countries. The lowest rates of atheism were in the United states at only 4%, while the rates of atheism in the European countries surveyed were considerably higher: Italy (7%), Spain (11%), Great Britain (17%), Germany (20%), and France (32%). The European figures are similar to those of official an European Union survey which reported that 18% of the EU population do not believe in a god.
The EU survey also found higher rates of education amongst EU citizens with lower levels of religiosity.
In the same year, Frank Sulloway of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michael Shermer of California State University conducted a study which found in their polling sample of "credentialed" U.S. adults (12% had Ph.Ds and 62% were college graduates) 64% believed in God, and there was a correlation indicating that religious conviction diminished with education level.
An inverse correlation between religiosity and intelligence has been found by 39 studies carried out between 1927 and 2002, according to an article in Mensa Magazine.
These findings broadly agree with a 1958 statistical meta-analysis by Professor Michael Argyle of the University of Oxford. He analyzed seven research studies that had investigated correlation between attitude to religion and measured intelligence among school and college students from the U.S. Although a clear negative correlation was found, the analysis did not identify causality but noted that factors such as authoritarian family background and social class may also have played a part.
Atheism, religion, and morality
Association with world views and social behaviors
Sociologist Phil Zuckerman analyzed previous social science research on secularity and non-belief, and concluded that societal well-being is positively correlated with irreligion. His findings relating specifically to atheism include:
Compared to religious people, "atheists and secular people" are less nationalistic, prejudiced, antisemitc, racist, dogmatic, ethnocentric, close-minded, and authoritarian.
In the US, in states with the highest percentages of atheists, the murder rate is lower than average. In the most religious US states, the murder rate is higher than average.
A survey conducted by the European Union also found that survey respondents who considered themselves to be from a strict family background were more likely to believe in a god than those who felt their upbringing lacked firm rules.
In recent years, certain religious denominations have accumulated a number of openly atheistic followers, such as atheistic or humanistic Judaism
and Christian atheists.
The strictest sense of positive atheism does not entail any specific beliefs outside of disbelief in any deity; as such, atheists can hold any number of spiritual beliefs. For the same reason, atheists can hold a wide variety of ethical beliefs, ranging from the moral universalism of humanism, which holds that a moral code should be applied consistently to all humans, to moral nihilism, which holds that morality is meaningless.
Divine command vs. ethics
Although it is a philosophical truism, encapsulated in Plato's
Euthyphro dilemma, that the role of the gods in determining right from wrong is either unnecessary or arbitrary,
the argument that morality must be derived from God and cannot exist without a wise creator has been a persistent feature of political if not so much philosophical debate.
Moral precepts such as "murder is wrong" are seen as
divine laws, requiring a divine lawmaker and judge. However, many atheists argue that treating morality legalistically involves a
false analogy, and that morality does not depend on a lawmaker in the same way that laws do.
Ethical systems that do not require that principles and rules be given by a deity include
virtue ethics,
social contract,
Kantian ethics,
utilitarianism, and
Objectivism.
Philosophers Susan Neiman
and Julian Baggini
(among others) assert that behaving ethically only because of divine mandate is not true ethical behavior but merely blind obedience. Baggini argues that atheism is a superior basis for ethics, claiming that a moral basis external to religious imperatives is necessary to evaluate the morality of the imperatives themselves — to be able to discern, for example, that "thou shalt steal" is immoral even if one's religion instructs it — and that atheists, therefore, have the advantage of being more inclined to make such evaluations.
The contemporary British political philosopher Martin Cohen has offered the more historically telling example of Biblical injunctions in favour of torture and slavery as evidence of how religious injunctions follow political and social customs, rather than vice versa, but also noted that the same tendency seems to be true of supposedly dispassionate and objective philosophers.
Cohen extends this argument in more detail in Political Philosophy from Plato to Mao in the case of the Koran which he sees as having had a generally unfortunate role in preserving social codes from the early 7th century through changes in secular society.
Dangers of religions
Some prominent atheists—such as
Bertrand Russell,
Christopher Hitchens,
Sam Harris, and
Richard Dawkins—have criticized religions, citing harmful aspects of religious practices and doctrines. Atheists have often engaged in debate with religious advocates, and the debates sometimes address the issue of whether religions provide a net benefit to individuals and society.
One argument that religions can be harmful, made by atheists such as Sam Harris, is that Western religions' reliance on divine authority lends itself to authoritarianism and dogmatism. Atheists have also cited data showing that there is a correlation between religious fundamentalism and extrinsic religion (when religion is held because it serves ulterior interests) and authoritarianism, dogmatism, and prejudice. These arguments—combined with historical events that are argued to demonstrate the dangers of religion, such as the Crusades, inquisitions, witch trials, and terrorist attacks—have been used in response to claims of the supposed beneficial effects of belief in religion.
See also
Notes
References
Further reading
Stenger, Victor J. (2007). God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist. Amherst, NY: Prometheus. ISBN 1-59102-481-1
External links
Atheism in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The New Atheists in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Investigating Atheism (University of Cambridge)
– Includes links to organizations and websites.
Positive atheism: Great Historical Writings Historical writing sorted by authors.
Religion & Ethics—Atheism at bbc.co.uk.
Secular Web library – Library of both historical and modern writings, a comprehensive online resource for freely available material on atheism.
The Demand for Religion – A study on the demographics of Atheism by Wolfgang Jagodzinski (University of Cologne) and Andrew Greeley (University of Chicago and University of Arizona).
Atheism at enotes.com
Wiki of information on apologetics and counter-apologetics arguments.
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Category:Criticism of religion
Category:Disengagement from religion
Category:Philosophy of religion
Category:Secularism
Category:Philosophical movements
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