Category Archives: Atheism

New Atheism is the journalistic term used to describe the positions promoted by atheists of the twenty-first century. This modern-day atheism and secularism is advanced by critics of religion and religious belief,[1] a group of modern atheist thinkers and writers who advocate the view that superstition, religion and irrationalism should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises in government, education and politics.[2]

New Atheism lends itself to and often overlaps with secular humanism and antitheism, particularly in its criticism of what many New Atheists regard as the indoctrination of children and the perpetuation of ideologies founded on belief in the supernatural.

The 2004 publication of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris, a bestseller in the United States, was joined over the next couple years by a series of popular best-sellers by atheist authors.[3] Harris was motivated by the events of September 11, 2001, which he laid directly at the feet of Islam, while also directly criticizing Christianity and Judaism.[4] Two years later Harris followed up with Letter to a Christian Nation, which was also a severe criticism of Christianity.[5] Also in 2006, following his television documentary The Root of All Evil?, Richard Dawkins published The God Delusion, which was on the New York Times best-seller list for 51 weeks.[6]

In a 2010 column entitled "Why I Don't Believe in the New Atheism", Tom Flynn contends that what has been called "New Atheism" is neither a movement nor new, and that what was new was the publication of atheist material by big-name publishers, read by millions, and appearing on bestseller lists.[7]

These are some of the significant books on the subject of atheism and religion:

On September 30, 2007 four prominent atheists (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett) met at Hitchens' residence for a private two-hour unmoderated discussion. The event was videotaped and titled "The Four Horsemen".[9] During "The God Debate" in 2010 featuring Christopher Hitchens vs Dinesh D'Souza the men were collectively referred to as the "Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse",[10] an allusion to the biblical Four Horsemen from the Book of Revelation.[11]

Sam Harris is the author of the bestselling non-fiction books The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, and Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, as well as two shorter works, initially published as e-books, Free Will[12] and Lying.[13] Harris is a co-founder of the Reason Project.

Richard Dawkins is the author of The God Delusion,[14] which was preceded by a Channel 4 television documentary titled The Root of all Evil?. He is also the founder of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

Christopher Hitchens was the author of God Is Not Great[15] and was named among the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazine. In addition, Hitchens served on the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America. In 2010 Hitchens published his memoir Hitch-22 (a nickname provided by close personal friend Salman Rushdie, whom Hitchens always supported during and following The Satanic Verses controversy).[16] Shortly after its publication, Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, which led to his death in December 2011.[17] Before his death, Hitchens published a collection of essays and articles in his book Arguably;[18] a short edition Mortality[19] was published posthumously in 2012. These publications and numerous public appearances provided Hitchens with a platform to remain an astute atheist during his illness, even speaking specifically on the culture of deathbed conversions and condemning attempts to convert the terminally ill, which he opposed as "bad taste".[20][21]

Daniel Dennett, author of Darwin's Dangerous Idea,[22]Breaking the Spell[23] and many others, has also been a vocal supporter of The Clergy Project,[24] an organization that provides support for clergy in the US who no longer believe in God and cannot fully participate in their communities any longer.[25]

The "Four Horsemen" video, convened by Dawkins' Foundation, can be viewed free online at his web site: Part 1, Part 2.

After the death of Hitchens, Ayaan Hirsi Ali (who attended the 2012 Global Atheist Convention, which Hitchens was scheduled to attend) was referred to as the "plus one horse-woman", since she was originally invited to the 2007 meeting of the "Horsemen" atheists but had to cancel at the last minute.[26] Hirsi Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, fleeing in 1992 to the Netherlands in order to escape an arranged marriage.[27] She became involved in Dutch politics, rejected faith, and became vocal in opposing Islamic ideology, especially concerning women, as exemplified by her books Infidel and The Caged Virgin.[28] Hirsi Ali was later involved in the production of the film Submission, for which her friend Theo Van Gogh was murdered with a death threat to Hirsi Ali pinned to his chest.[29] This resulted in Hirsi Ali's hiding and later immigration to the United States, where she now resides and remains a prolific critic of Islam,[30] and the treatment of women in Islamic doctrine and society,[31] and a proponent of free speech and the freedom to offend.[32][33]

While "The Four Horsemen" are arguably the foremost proponents of atheism, there are a number of other current, notable atheists including: Lawrence M. Krauss, (author of A Universe from Nothing),[34]James Randi (paranormal debunker and former illusionist),[35]Jerry Coyne (Why Evolution is True[36] and its complementary blog,[37] which specifically includes polemics against topical religious issues), Greta Christina (Why are you Atheists so Angry?),[38]Victor J. Stenger (The New Atheism),[39]Michael Shermer (Why People Believe Weird Things),[40]David Silverman (President of the American Atheists and author of Fighting God: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World), Ibn Warraq (Why I Am Not a Muslim),[41]Matt Dillahunty (host of the Austin-based webcast and cable-access television show The Atheist Experience),[42]Bill Maher (writer and star of the 2008 documentary Religulous),[43]Steven Pinker (noted cognitive scientist, linguist, psychologist and author),[44]Julia Galef (co-host of the podcast Rationally Speaking), A.C. Grayling (philosopher and considered to be the "Fifth Horseman of New Atheism"), and Michel Onfray (Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam).

Many contemporary atheists write from a scientific perspective. Unlike previous writers, many of whom thought that science was indifferent, or even incapable of dealing with the "God" concept, Dawkins argues to the contrary, claiming the "God Hypothesis" is a valid scientific hypothesis,[45] having effects in the physical universe, and like any other hypothesis can be tested and falsified. Other contemporary atheists such as Victor Stenger propose that the personal Abrahamic God is a scientific hypothesis that can be tested by standard methods of science. Both Dawkins and Stenger conclude that the hypothesis fails any such tests,[46] and argue that naturalism is sufficient to explain everything we observe in the universe, from the most distant galaxies to the origin of life, species, and the inner workings of the brain and consciousness. Nowhere, they argue, is it necessary to introduce God or the supernatural to understand reality. Atheists have been associated with the argument from divine hiddenness and the idea that "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" when evidence can be expected.[citation needed]

Non-believers assert that many religious or supernatural claims (such as the virgin birth of Jesus and the afterlife) are scientific claims in nature. They argue, as do deists and Progressive Christians, for instance, that the issue of Jesus' supposed parentage is not a question of "values" or "morals", but a question of scientific inquiry.[47] Rational thinkers believe science is capable of investigating at least some, if not all, supernatural claims.[48] Institutions such as the Mayo Clinic and Duke University are attempting to find empirical support for the healing power of intercessory prayer.[49] According to Stenger, these experiments have found no evidence that intercessory prayer works.[50]

Stenger also argues in his book, God: The Failed Hypothesis, that a God having omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent attributes, which he termed a 3O God, cannot logically exist.[51] A similar series of logical disproofs of the existence of a God with various attributes can be found in Michael Martin and Ricki Monnier's The Impossibility of God,[52] or Theodore M. Drange's article, "Incompatible-Properties Arguments".[53]

Richard Dawkins has been particularly critical of the conciliatory view that science and religion are not in conflict, noting, for example, that the Abrahamic religions constantly deal in scientific matters. In a 1998 article published in Free Inquiry magazine,[47] and later in his 2006 book The God Delusion, Dawkins expresses disagreement with the view advocated by Stephen Jay Gould that science and religion are two non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) each existing in a "domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution". In Gould's proposal, science and religion should be confined to distinct non-overlapping domains: science would be limited to the empirical realm, including theories developed to describe observations, while religion would deal with questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. Dawkins contends that NOMA does not describe empirical facts about the intersection of science and religion, "it is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims." Matt Ridley notes that religion does more than talk about ultimate meanings and morals, and science is not proscribed from doing the same. After all, morals involve human behavior, an observable phenomenon, and science is the study of observable phenomena. Ridley notes that there is substantial scientific evidence on evolutionary origins of ethics and morality.[54]

Popularized by Sam Harris is the view that science and thereby currently unknown objective facts may instruct human morality in a globally comparable way. Harris' book The Moral Landscape[55] and accompanying TED Talk How Science can Determine Moral Values[56] proposes that human well-being and conversely suffering may be thought of as a landscape with peaks and valleys representing numerous ways to achieve extremes in human experience, and that there are objective states of well-being.

New atheism is politically engaged in a variety of ways. These include campaigns to reduce the influence of religion in the public sphere, attempts to promote cultural change (centering, in the United States, on the mainstream acceptance of atheism), and efforts to promote the idea of an "atheist identity". Internal strategic divisions over these issues have also been notable, as are questions about the diversity of the movement in terms of its gender and racial balance.[57]

Edward Feser's book The Last Superstition presents arguments based on the philosophy of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas against New Atheism.[58] According to Feser it necessarily follows from AristotelianThomistic metaphysics that God exists, that the human soul is immortal, and that the highest end of human life (and therefore the basis of morality) is to know God. Feser argues that science never disproved Aristotle's metaphysics, but rather Modern philosophers decided to reject it on the basis of wishful thinking. In the latter chapters Feser proposes that scientism and materialism are based on premises that are inconsistent and self-contradictory and that these conceptions lead to absurd consequences.

Cardinal William Levada believes that New Atheism has misrepresented the doctrines of the church.[59] Cardinal Walter Kasper described New Atheism as "aggressive", and he believed it to be the primary source of discrimination against Christians.[60] In a Salon interview, the journalist Chris Hedges argued that New Atheism propaganda is just as extreme as that of Christian right propaganda.[61]

The theologians Jeffrey Robbins and Christopher Rodkey take issue with what they regard as "the evangelical nature of the new atheism, which assumes that it has a Good News to share, at all cost, for the ultimate future of humanity by the conversion of as many people as possible." They believe they have found similarities between new atheism and evangelical Christianity and conclude that the all-consuming nature of both "encourages endless conflict without progress" between both extremities.[62] Sociologist William Stahl said "What is striking about the current debate is the frequency with which the New Atheists are portrayed as mirror images of religious fundamentalists."[63]

The atheist philosopher of science Michael Ruse has made the claim that Richard Dawkins would fail "introductory" courses on the study of "philosophy or religion" (such as courses on the philosophy of religion), courses which are offered, for example, at many educational institutions such as colleges and universities around the world.[64][65] Ruse also claims that the movement of New Atheismwhich is perceived, by him, to be a "bloody disaster"makes him ashamed, as a professional philosopher of science, to be among those hold to an atheist position, particularly as New Atheism does science a "grave disservice" and does a "disservice to scholarship" at more general level.[64][65]

Glenn Greenwald,[66][67] Toronto-based journalist and Mideast commentator Murtaza Hussain,[66][67]Salon columnist Nathan Lean,[67] scholars Wade Jacoby and Hakan Yavuz,[68] and historian of religion William Emilsen[69] have accused the New Atheist movement of Islamophobia. Wade Jacoby and Hakan Yavuz assert that "a group of 'new atheists' such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens" have "invoked Samuel Huntington's 'clash of civilizations' theory to explain the current political contestation" and that this forms part of a trend toward "Islamophobia [...] in the study of Muslim societies".[68] William W. Emilson argues that "the 'new' in the new atheists' writings is not their aggressiveness, nor their extraordinary popularity, nor even their scientific approach to religion, rather it is their attack not only on militant Islamism but also on Islam itself under the cloak of its general critique of religion".[69] Murtaza Hussain has alleged that leading figures in the New Atheist movement "have stepped in to give a veneer of scientific respectability to today's politically useful bigotry".[66][70]

See the rest here:
New Atheism - Wikipedia

New Atheism is the journalistic term used to describe the positions promoted by atheists of the twenty-first century. This modern-day atheism and secularism is advanced by critics of religion and religious belief,[1] a group of modern atheist thinkers and writers who advocate the view that superstition, religion and irrationalism should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises in government, education and politics.[2]

New Atheism lends itself to and often overlaps with secular humanism and antitheism, particularly in its criticism of what many New Atheists regard as the indoctrination of children and the perpetuation of ideologies founded on belief in the supernatural.

The 2004 publication of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris, a bestseller in the United States, was joined over the next couple years by a series of popular best-sellers by atheist authors.[3] Harris was motivated by the events of September 11, 2001, which he laid directly at the feet of Islam, while also directly criticizing Christianity and Judaism.[4] Two years later Harris followed up with Letter to a Christian Nation, which was also a severe criticism of Christianity.[5] Also in 2006, following his television documentary The Root of All Evil?, Richard Dawkins published The God Delusion, which was on the New York Times best-seller list for 51 weeks.[6]

In a 2010 column entitled "Why I Don't Believe in the New Atheism", Tom Flynn contends that what has been called "New Atheism" is neither a movement nor new, and that what was new was the publication of atheist material by big-name publishers, read by millions, and appearing on bestseller lists.[7]

These are some of the significant books on the subject of atheism and religion:

On September 30, 2007 four prominent atheists (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett) met at Hitchens' residence for a private two-hour unmoderated discussion. The event was videotaped and titled "The Four Horsemen".[9] During "The God Debate" in 2010 featuring Christopher Hitchens vs Dinesh D'Souza the men were collectively referred to as the "Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse",[10] an allusion to the biblical Four Horsemen from the Book of Revelation.[11]

Sam Harris is the author of the bestselling non-fiction books The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, and Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, as well as two shorter works, initially published as e-books, Free Will[12] and Lying.[13] Harris is a co-founder of the Reason Project.

Richard Dawkins is the author of The God Delusion,[14] which was preceded by a Channel 4 television documentary titled The Root of all Evil?. He is also the founder of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

Christopher Hitchens was the author of God Is Not Great[15] and was named among the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazine. In addition, Hitchens served on the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America. In 2010 Hitchens published his memoir Hitch-22 (a nickname provided by close personal friend Salman Rushdie, whom Hitchens always supported during and following The Satanic Verses controversy).[16] Shortly after its publication, Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, which led to his death in December 2011.[17] Before his death, Hitchens published a collection of essays and articles in his book Arguably;[18] a short edition Mortality[19] was published posthumously in 2012. These publications and numerous public appearances provided Hitchens with a platform to remain an astute atheist during his illness, even speaking specifically on the culture of deathbed conversions and condemning attempts to convert the terminally ill, which he opposed as "bad taste".[20][21]

Daniel Dennett, author of Darwin's Dangerous Idea,[22]Breaking the Spell[23] and many others, has also been a vocal supporter of The Clergy Project,[24] an organization that provides support for clergy in the US who no longer believe in God and cannot fully participate in their communities any longer.[25]

The "Four Horsemen" video, convened by Dawkins' Foundation, can be viewed free online at his web site: Part 1, Part 2.

After the death of Hitchens, Ayaan Hirsi Ali (who attended the 2012 Global Atheist Convention, which Hitchens was scheduled to attend) was referred to as the "plus one horse-woman", since she was originally invited to the 2007 meeting of the "Horsemen" atheists but had to cancel at the last minute.[26] Hirsi Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, fleeing in 1992 to the Netherlands in order to escape an arranged marriage.[27] She became involved in Dutch politics, rejected faith, and became vocal in opposing Islamic ideology, especially concerning women, as exemplified by her books Infidel and The Caged Virgin.[28] Hirsi Ali was later involved in the production of the film Submission, for which her friend Theo Van Gogh was murdered with a death threat to Hirsi Ali pinned to his chest.[29] This resulted in Hirsi Ali's hiding and later immigration to the United States, where she now resides and remains a prolific critic of Islam,[30] religion, and the treatment of women in Islamic doctrine and society,[31] and a proponent of free speech and the freedom to offend.[32][33]

While "The Four Horsemen" are arguably the foremost proponents of atheism, there are a number of other current, notable atheists including: Lawrence M. Krauss, (author of A Universe from Nothing),[34]James Randi (paranormal debunker and former illusionist),[35]Jerry Coyne (Why Evolution is True[36] and its complementary blog,[37] which specifically includes polemics against topical religious issues), Greta Christina (Why are you Atheists so Angry?),[38]Victor J. Stenger (The New Atheism),[39]Michael Shermer (Why People Believe Weird Things),[40]David Silverman (President of the American Atheists and author of Fighting God: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World), Ibn Warraq (Why I Am Not a Muslim),[41]Matt Dillahunty (host of the Austin-based webcast and cable-access television show The Atheist Experience),[42]Bill Maher (writer and star of the 2008 documentary Religulous),[43]Steven Pinker (noted cognitive scientist, linguist, psychologist and author),[44]Julia Galef (co-host of the podcast Rationally Speaking), and Michel Onfray (Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam).

Many contemporary atheists write from a scientific perspective. Unlike previous writers, many of whom thought that science was indifferent, or even incapable of dealing with the "God" concept, Dawkins argues to the contrary, claiming the "God Hypothesis" is a valid scientific hypothesis,[45] having effects in the physical universe, and like any other hypothesis can be tested and falsified. Other contemporary atheists such as Victor Stenger propose that the personal Abrahamic God is a scientific hypothesis that can be tested by standard methods of science. Both Dawkins and Stenger conclude that the hypothesis fails any such tests,[46] and argue that naturalism is sufficient to explain everything we observe in the universe, from the most distant galaxies to the origin of life, species, and the inner workings of the brain and consciousness. Nowhere, they argue, is it necessary to introduce God or the supernatural to understand reality. Atheists have been associated with the argument from divine hiddenness and the idea that "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" when evidence can be expected.[citation needed]

Non-believers assert that many religious or supernatural claims (such as the virgin birth of Jesus and the afterlife) are scientific claims in nature. They argue, as do deists and Progressive Christians, for instance, that the issue of Jesus' supposed parentage is not a question of "values" or "morals", but a question of scientific inquiry.[47] Rational thinkers believe science is capable of investigating at least some, if not all, supernatural claims.[48] Institutions such as the Mayo Clinic and Duke University are attempting to find empirical support for the healing power of intercessory prayer.[49] According to Stenger, these experiments have found no evidence that intercessory prayer works.[50]

Stenger also argues in his book, God: The Failed Hypothesis, that a God having omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent attributes, which he termed a 3O God, cannot logically exist.[51] A similar series of logical disproofs of the existence of a God with various attributes can be found in Michael Martin and Ricki Monnier's The Impossibility of God,[52] or Theodore M. Drange's article, "Incompatible-Properties Arguments".[53]

Richard Dawkins has been particularly critical of the conciliatory view that science and religion are not in conflict, noting, for example, that the Abrahamic religions constantly deal in scientific matters. In a 1998 article published in Free Inquiry magazine,[47] and later in his 2006 book The God Delusion, Dawkins expresses disagreement with the view advocated by Stephen Jay Gould that science and religion are two non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) each existing in a "domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution". In Gould's proposal, science and religion should be confined to distinct non-overlapping domains: science would be limited to the empirical realm, including theories developed to describe observations, while religion would deal with questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. Dawkins contends that NOMA does not describe empirical facts about the intersection of science and religion, "it is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims." Matt Ridley notes that religion does more than talk about ultimate meanings and morals, and science is not proscribed from doing the same. After all, morals involve human behavior, an observable phenomenon, and science is the study of observable phenomena. Ridley notes that there is substantial scientific evidence on evolutionary origins of ethics and morality.[54]

Popularized by Sam Harris is the view that science and thereby currently unknown objective facts may instruct human morality in a globally comparable way. Harris' book The Moral Landscape[55] and accompanying TED Talk How Science can Determine Moral Values[56] proposes that human well-being and conversely suffering may be thought of as a landscape with peaks and valleys representing numerous ways to achieve extremes in human experience, and that there are objective states of well-being.

New atheism is politically engaged in a variety of ways. These include campaigns to reduce the influence of religion in the public sphere, attempts to promote cultural change (centering, in the United States, on the mainstream acceptance of atheism), and efforts to promote the idea of an "atheist identity". Internal strategic divisions over these issues have also been notable, as are questions about the diversity of the movement in terms of its gender and racial balance.[57]

Edward Feser's book The Last Superstition presents arguments based on the philosophy of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas against New Atheism.[58] According to Feser it necessarily follows from AristotelianThomistic metaphysics that God exists, that the human soul is immortal, and that the highest end of human life (and therefore the basis of morality) is to know God. Feser argues that science never disproved Aristotle's metaphysics, but rather Modern philosophers decided to reject it on the basis of wishful thinking. In the latter chapters Feser proposes that scientism and materialism are based on premises that are inconsistent and self-contradictory and that these conceptions lead to absurd consequences.

Cardinal William Levada believes that New Atheism has misrepresented the doctrines of the church.[59] Cardinal Walter Kasper described New Atheism as "aggressive", and he believed it to be the primary source of discrimination against Christians.[60] In a Salon interview, the journalist Chris Hedges argued that New Atheism propaganda is just as extreme as that of Christian right propaganda.[61]

The theologians Jeffrey Robbins and Christopher Rodkey take issue with what they regard as "the evangelical nature of the new atheism, which assumes that it has a Good News to share, at all cost, for the ultimate future of humanity by the conversion of as many people as possible." They believe they have found similarities between new atheism and evangelical Christianity and conclude that the all-consuming nature of both "encourages endless conflict without progress" between both extremities.[62] Sociologist William Stahl said "What is striking about the current debate is the frequency with which the New Atheists are portrayed as mirror images of religious fundamentalists."[63]

The atheist philosopher of science Michael Ruse has made the claim that Richard Dawkins would fail "introductory" courses on the study of "philosophy or religion" (such as courses on the philosophy of religion), courses which are offered, for example, at many educational institutions such as colleges and universities around the world.[64][65] Ruse also claims that the movement of New Atheismwhich is perceived, by him, to be a "bloody disaster"makes him ashamed, as a professional philosopher of science, to be among those hold to an atheist position, particularly as New Atheism does science a "grave disservice" and does a "disservice to scholarship" at more general level.[64][65]

Glenn Greenwald,[66][67] Toronto-based journalist and Mideast commentator Murtaza Hussain,[66][67]Salon columnist Nathan Lean,[67] scholars Wade Jacoby and Hakan Yavuz,[68] and historian of religion William Emilsen[69] have accused the New Atheist movement of Islamophobia. Wade Jacoby and Hakan Yavuz assert that "a group of 'new atheists' such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens" have "invoked Samuel Huntington's 'clash of civilizations' theory to explain the current political contestation" and that this forms part of a trend toward "Islamophobia [...] in the study of Muslim societies".[68] William W. Emilson argues that "the 'new' in the new atheists' writings is not their aggressiveness, nor their extraordinary popularity, nor even their scientific approach to religion, rather it is their attack not only on militant Islamism but also on Islam itself under the cloak of its general critique of religion".[69] Murtaza Hussain has alleged that leading figures in the New Atheist movement "have stepped in to give a veneer of scientific respectability to today's politically useful bigotry".[66][70]

Read the rest here:
New Atheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Question: "What is atheism?"

Answer:

Why does atheism even exist? Why doesnt God simply reveal Himself to people, proving that He exists? Surely if God would just appear, the thinking goes, everyone would believe in Him! The problem here is that it is not Gods desire to just convince people that He exists. It is Gods desire for people to believe in Him by faith (2 Peter 3:9) and accept by faith His gift of salvation (John 3:16). God clearly demonstrated His existence many times in the Old Testament (Genesis 6-9; Exodus 14:21-22; 1 Kings 18:19-31). Did the people believe that God exists? Yes. Did they turn from their evil ways and obey God? No. If a person is not willing to accept Gods existence by faith, then he/she is definitely not ready to accept Jesus Christ as Savior by faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). Gods desire is for people to become Christians, not just theists (those who believe God exists).

The Bible tells us that Gods existence must be accepted by faith. Hebrews 11:6 declares, And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. The Bible reminds us that we are blessed when we believe and trust in God by faith: Then Jesus told him, Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed (John 20:29).

The existence of God must be accepted by faith, but this does not mean belief in God is illogical. There are many good arguments for the existence of God. The Bible teaches that Gods existence is clearly seen in the universe (Psalm 19:1-4), in nature (Romans 1:18-22), and in our own hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). With all that said, the existence of God cannot be proven; it must be accepted by faith.

At the same time, it takes just as much faith to believe in atheism. To make the absolute statement God does not exist is to make a claim of knowing absolutely everything there is to know about everything and of having been everywhere in the universe and having witnessed everything there is to be seen. Of course, no atheist would make these claims. However, that is essentially what they are claiming when they state that God absolutely does not exist. Atheists cannot prove that God does not, for example, live in the center of the sun, or beneath the clouds of Jupiter, or in some distant nebula. Since those places are beyond our capacity to observe, it cannot be proven that God does not exist. It takes just as much faith to be an atheist as it does to be a theist.

Atheism cannot be proven, and Gods existence must be accepted by faith. Obviously, Christians believe strongly that God exists, and admit that Gods existence is a matter of faith. At the same time, we reject the idea that belief in God is illogical. We believe that Gods existence can be clearly seen, keenly sensed, and proven to be philosophically and scientifically necessary. The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world (Psalm 19:1-4).

Continued here:
What is atheism?

Atheism

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This wiki strives among other goals to:-

Note; this Wiki says relatively little about Liberal Christianity because Liberal Christianity is less harmful.

It is unlikely that contributions supporting religion or superstition will remain in articles. Still editors may put those opinions into talk pages.

This wiki Supports Naturalism Philosopher Paul Draper, wrote that naturalism is the concept "that the physical world is a 'closed system'". That means "nothing that is neither a part nor a product of [the physical world] can affect it." More simply:

If a disease is caused by microbes, we can learn more about how microbes interact with the body and how the immune system can be activated to destroy them, or how the transmission of microbes can be contained. But if a disease is caused by demons, we can learn nothing more about how to stop it, as demons are said to be supernatural beings unconstrained by the laws of nature (unlike natural causes). (Definition of Naturalism)

To write a new Atheism article, enter the page title in the box below.

Atheism is defined as:

People often assume that atheism is a religion, which it is not.[1] Saying that atheism is a religion is rather like saying that not collecting coins is a hobby. Atheism is in fact the absence of religion and therefore cannot be considered a religion in itself. Atheists are often associated with scientific thinking and critical thinking, while religions demand belief without supporting empirical evidence. Scientists like Richard Dawkins show how scientific thinking stops people believing in superstition and religion. That often leads to lack of religious belief generally, agnosticism and finally atheism.

The term "atheism" comes from the prefix "a," which means "not" or "without"; and "theos," which means "God"; so "atheism" literally meaning "without God."

Atheism is a lack of belief in a god or gods, and from this atheists typically do not believe in any other supernatural forces or influences.

Atheism does not lead inevitably to any particular moral position, though Humanist morality is popular among atheists. Religious people (theists), notably Christians, frequently like to imagine that human beings only want to be moral if theyre afraid some supernatural father-figure will punish bad behaviour. Frankly, people are better than that. We've evolved so that we care about our relatives: we care about other people from our group, and we can care about humanity and about sentient beings in general. When others do well, we feel better ourselves, and when others suffer, we feel worse. Cultures with memes that encourage helpfulness survive better than uncooperative cultures, so we work to make our culture into a culture in which we and others can surviveor we work to maintain our culture in that way. See:

Do we need religion for ethical behaviour? How many immoral acts have been committed in the name of a particular religion or god? Some examples of this behaviour include the Inquisition, the Crusades, and more recently the murder of abortion doctors in the United States by fundamentalist Christians. So which is the better of the two ideologies below?

Perhaps you will feel like reading the two articles before deciding.

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Atheism - Wikia

Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night.

Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else.

Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. Its us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world.

Was Rorschach.

Does that answer your Questions, Doctor? Alan Moore, Watchmen

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Quotes About Atheism (1313 quotes)

Atheism - Defining the Terms 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.

Atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) declared, and philosophers generally agree, without God there is no absolute truth and thus no universal moral standard of conduct. Humanist John Dewey (1859-1952), co-author and signer of the Humanist Manifesto I (1933), declared, "There is no God and there is no soul. Hence, there are no needs for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, then immutable truth is also dead and buried. There is no room for fixed, natural law or moral absolutes."

Atheism - Strong Atheism Does "strong" atheism correspond with or contradict objective reality? Let's look at this question objectively. Suppose someone asks you, "Does God exist?" You could answer in one of three ways: "I know for certain that God exists" (assured theism), "I don't know whether or not God exists" (insecure theism, agnosticism, "weak" atheism and/or skepticism), or "I know for certain that God doesn't exist" ("strong" atheism).

To know for certain that God exists, you don't have to know everything but you do have to know something - you must either know God personally or you must be aware of some evidence establishing His existence. To be unsure whether or not God exists, you don't have to know everything. In fact, by your own admission you don't know everything. However, to claim to know for certain that God doesn't exist - to positively assert a universal negative - you would have to know everything. To be absolutely certain that God doesn't exist outside the limits of your knowledge, you would have to possess all knowledge.

Let's make this practical. Do you know everything? Do you know half of everything? Do you know 1% of everything? Let's be incredibly gracious and suppose that you know 1% of everything there is to know. Thomas Edison confidently declared, "We do not know a millionth of one percent about anything." Nevertheless, given the supposition that you know 1% of everything, is it possible that evidence proving God's existence exists in the 99% of everything you don't know? If you're honest, you'll have to admit that it's a real possibility. The fact is, since you don't possess all knowledge, you don't know if such evidence exists or not. Thus, you cannot be a "strong" atheist - you don't know that God doesn't exist.

Atheism vs. Theism Strong atheism is a logically flawed position. Weak atheism, agnosticism and skepticism are all "I don't know" theological positions, with weak atheists subscribing to atheistic presuppositions, true agnostics "sitting on the fence," and skeptics capitulating to ignorance. Assured theists are the only ones who claim to know anything. What do they know? In the end it doesn't matter what you believe. What matters is what's actually true. You might not believe in gravity. Nevertheless, if you step off a tall building you are going to splat on the ground below. The existence of God has enormous implications for you and me, and prudence would have us make a full investigation of all the available data before putting our eternity in the care of any one belief-system. Ask yourself these types of questions: "How do I know something's true?" "What is the source of my information?" "Is my source absolutely reliable?" "What if I'm wrong?"

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Atheism - Philosophy - AllAboutPhilosophy.org

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(a privative, and theos, God, i.e. without God).

Atheism is that system of thought which is formally opposed to theism. Since its first coming into use the term atheism has been very vaguely employed, generally as an epithet of accusation against any system that called in question the popular gods of the day. Thus while Socrates was accused of atheism (Plato, Apol., 26, c.) and Diagoras called an atheist by Cicero (Nat. Deor., I, 23), Democritus and Epicurus were styled in the same sense impious (without respect for the gods) on account of their trend of their new atomistic philosophy. In this sense too, the early Christians were known to the pagans as atheists, because they denied the heathen gods; while, from time to time, various religious and philosophical systems have, for similar reasons, been deemed atheistic.

Though atheism, historically considered, has meant no more in the past than a critical or sceptical denial of the theology of those who have employed the term as one of reproach, and has consquently no one strict philosophical meaning; and though there is no one consistent system in the exposition of which it has a definite place; yet, if we consider it in its broad meaning as merely the opposite of theism, we will be able to frame such divisions as will make possible a grouping of definite systems under this head. And in so doing so we shall at once be adopting both the historical and the philosophical view. For the common basis of all systems of theism as well as the cardinal tenet of all popular religion at the present day is indubitably a belief in the existence of a personal God, and to deny this tenet is to invite the popular reproach of atheism. The need of some such definition as this was felt by Mr. Gladstone when he wrote (Contemporary Review, June 1876):

Moreover, the breadth of comprehension in such a use of the term admits of divisions and cross-divisions being framed under it; and at the same time limits the number of systems of thought to which, with any propriety, it might otherwise be extended. Also, if the term is thus taken, in strict contradistinction to theism, and a plan of its possible modes of acceptance made, these systems of thought will naturally appear in clearer proportion and relationship .

Thus, defined as a doctrine, or theory, or philosophy formally opposed to theism, atheism can only signify the teaching of those schools, whether cosmological or moral, which do not include God either as a principle or as a conclusion of their reasoning.

The most trenchant form which atheism could take would be the positive and dogmatic denial existence of any spiritual and extra-mundane First Cause . This is sometimes known as dogmatic, or positive theoretic, atheism; though it may be doubted whether such a system has ever been, or could ever possibly be seriously maintained. Certainly Bacon and Dr. Arnold voice the common judgment of thinking men when they express a doubt as to the existence of an atheist belonging to such a school. Still, there are certain advanced phases of materialistic philosophy that, perhaps, should rightly be included under this head. Materialism, which professes to find in matter its own cause and explanation, may go farther, and positively exclude the existence of any spiritual cause . That such a dogmatic assertion is both unreasonable and illogical needs no demonstration, for it is an inference not warranted by the facts nor justified by the laws of thought. But the fact that certain individuals have left the sphere of exact scientific observation for speculation, and have thus dogmatized negatively, calls for their inclusion in this specific type . Materialism is the one dogmatic explanation of the universe which could in any sense justify an atheistic position. But even materialism , however its advocated might dogmatize, could do no more than provide an inadequate theoretic basis for a negative form of atheism. Pantheism, which must not be confused with materialism , in some of its forms can be placed also in this division, as categorically denying the existence of a spiritual First Cause above or outside the world.

A second form in which atheism may be held and taught, as indeed it has been, is based either upon the lack of physical data for theism or upon the limited nature of the intelligence of man. This second form may be described as a negative theoretic atheism; and may be further viewed as cosmological or psychological, according as it is motived, on the one hand, by a consideration of the paucity of actual data available for the arguments proving the existence of a super-sensible and spiritual God, or, what amounts to the same thing, the attributing of all cosmic change and development to the self-contained potentialities of an eternal matter ; or, on the other hand, by an empiric or theoretic estimate of the powers of reason working upon the data furnished by sense-perception. From whichever cause this negative form of atheism proceeds, it issues in agnosticism or materialism; although the agnostic is, perhaps, better classed under this head than the materialist. For the former, professing a state of nescience, more properly belongs to a category under which those are placed who neglect, rather than explain, nature without a God. Moreover, the agnostic may be a theist, if he admits the existence of a being behind and beyond nature , even while he asserts that such a being is both unprovable and unknowable. The materialist belongs to this type so long as he merely neglects, and does not exclude from his system, the existence of God. So, too, does the positivist , regarding theological and metaphysical speculation as mere passing stages of thought through which the human mind has been journeying towards positive, or related empirical , knowledge. Indeed, any system of thought or school of philosophy that simply omits the existence of God from the sum total of natural knowledge, whether the individual as a matter of fact believes in Him or not, can be classed in this division of atheism, in which, strictly speaking, no positive assertion or denial is made as to the ultimate fact of His being.

There are two systems of practical or moral atheism which call for attention. They are based upon the theoretic systems just expounded. One system of positive moral atheism, in which human actions would neither be right nor wrong, good nor evil, with reference to God, would naturally follow from the profession of positive theoretic atheism; and it is significant of those to whom such a form of theoretic atheism is sometimes attributed, that for the sanctions of moral actions they introduce such abstract ideas as those of duty, the social instinct, or humanity. There seems to be no particular reason why they should have recourse to such sanctions, since the morality of an action can hardly be derived from its performance as a duty, which in turn can be called and known as a "duty " only because it refers to an action that is morally good . Indeed an analysis of the idea of duty leads to a refutation of the principle in whose support it is invoked, and points to the necessity of a theistic interpretation of nature for its own justification .

The second system of negative practical or moral atheism may be referred to the second type of theoretic atheism. It is like the first in not relating human actions to an extra-mundane, spiritual , and personal lawgiver; but that, not because such a lawgiver does not exist , but because the human intelligence is incapable of so relating them. It must not be forgotten, however, that either negative theoretic atheism or negative practical atheism is, as a system, strictly speaking compatible with belief in a God; and much confusion is often caused by the inaccurate use of the terms, belief, knowledge, opinion, etc.

Lastly, a third type is generally, though perhaps wrongly, included in moral atheism. "Practical atheism is not a kind of thought or opinion, but a mode of life" (R. Flint, Anti-theisitc Theories , Lect. I). This is more correctly called, as it is described, godlessness in conduct, quite irrespective of any theory of philosophy, or morals, or of religious faith. It will be noticed that, although we have included agnosticism, materialism, and pantheism, among the types of atheism, strictly speaking this latter does not necessarily include any one of the former. A man may be an agnostic simply, or an agnostic who is also an atheist. He may be a scientific materialist and no more, or he may combine atheism with his materialism . It does not necessarily follow, because the natural cognoscibility of a personal First Cause is denied, that His existence is called in question: nor, when matter is called upon to explain itself, that God is critically denied. On the other hand, pantheism, while destroying the extra-mundane character of God, does not necessarily deny the existence of a supreme entity, but rather affirms such as the sum of all existence and the cause of all phenomena whether of thought or of matter. Consequently, while it would be unjust to class agnostics, materialists, or pantheists as necessarily also atheists, it cannot be denied that atheism is clearly perceived to be implied in certain phases of all these systems. There are so many shades and gradations of thought by which one form of a philosophy merges into another, so much that is opinionative and personal woven into the various individual expositions of systems, that, to be impartially fair, each individual must be classed by himself as atheist or theist. Indeed, more upon his own assertion or direct teaching than by reason of any supposed implication in the system he advocated must this classification be made. And if it is correct to consider the subject from this point of view, it is surprising to find to what an exceedingly small number the supposed atheistic ranks dwindle. In company with Socrates, nearly all the reputed Greek atheists strenuously repudiated the charge of teaching that there were no gods. Even Bion , who, according to Diogenes Laertius (Life of Aristippus , XIII, Bohn's tr.), adopted the scandalous moral teaching of the atheist Theodorus, turned again to the gods whom he had insulted, and when he came to die demonstrated in practice what he had denied in theory. As Laertius says in his "Life of Bion", he "who never once said, 'I have sinned but spare me

Epicurus, the founder of that school of physics which limited all causes to purely natural ones and consequently implied, if he did not actually assert, atheism, is spoken of as a man whose "piety towards the gods and (whose) affection for his country was quite unspeakable" (ib., Life of Epicurus, V). And though Lucretius Carus speaks of the downfall of popular religion which he wished to bring about (De Rerum natura, I, 79-80), yet, in his own letter to Henaeceus (Laert., Life of Epicurus, XXVII), he states plainly a true theistic position: "For there are gods: for our knowledge of them is indistinct. But they are not of the character which people in general attribute to them." Indeed, this one citation perfectly illustrates the fundamental historic meaning of the term, atheism.

The naturalistic pantheism of the Italian Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) comes near to, if it is not actually a profession of, atheism; while Tomaso Campanella (1568-1639), on the contrary, in his nature-philosophy finds in atheism the one impossibility of thought, Spinoza (1632-77), while defending the doctrine that God certainly exists, so identifies Him with finite existence that it is difficult to see how he can be defended against the charge of atheism even of the first type. In the eighteenth century, and especially in France, the doctrines of materialism were spread broadcast by the Encyclopedists. La Mettrie, Holbach, Fererbach, and Fleurens are usually classed among the foremost materialistic atheists of the period. Voltaire, on the contrary, while undoubtedly helping on the cause of practical atheism, distinctly held its theoretic contrary. He, as well as Rousseau, was a deist. Comte, it will be remembered , refused to be called an atheist. In the last century Thomas Huxley, Charles Darwin , and Herbert Spencer, with others of the evolutionistic school of philosophy, were, quite erroneously, charged with positive atheism. It is a charge which can in no way be substantiated; and the invention andonism of Ernst Hackel , goes far towards forming an atheistic system of philosophy. But even the last named admits that there may be a God, though so limited and so foreign to the deity of theists that his admission can hardly remove the system from the first category of theoretic atheism.

Among the unscientific and unphilosophical there have from time to time been found dogmatic atheists of the first type . Here again, however, many of those popularly styled atheists are more correctly described by some other title. There is a somewhat rare tract, "Atheism Refuted in a Discourse to prove the Existence of God by T.P." British Museum Catalogue, "Tom Paine", who was at one time popularly called an atheist. And perhaps, of the few who have upheld an indubitable form of positive theoretic atheism, none has been taken seriously enough to have exerted any influence upon the trend of philosophic or scientific thought. Robert Ingersoll might be instanced, but though popular speakers and writers of this type may create a certain amount of unlearned disturbance, they are not treated seriously by thinking men, and it is extremely doubtful whether they deserve a place in any historical or philosophical exposition of atheism.

REIMMAN, Historia atheismi et atheorum . . . (Hildesheim, 1725); TOUSSAINT in Dict. de thologie, s.v. (a good bibliography); JANET AND SEAILLES, History of the Problems of Philosophy (tr., London, 1902), II; HETTINGER, Natural Religion (tr., New York, 1890); FLINT, Anti-theistic Theories (New York, 1894); LILLY, The Great Enigma (New York, 1892); DAURELLE, L Atheisme devant la raison humaine (Paris, 1883); WARD, Naturalism and Agnosticism (New York, 1899); LADD, Philosophy of Religion (New York, 1905); II; BOEDDER, Natural Theologh (New York, 1891); BLACKIE, Natural History of Atheism (New York, 1878); The Catholic World, XXVII, 471: BARRY, The End of Atheism in the Catholic World, LX, 333; SHEA, Steps to Atheism in The Am, Cath. Quart. Rev., 1879, 305; POHLE, lehrbuck d. Dogmatik (Paderborn, 1907) I; BAUR in Kirchliches Handlexikon (Munich, 1907), s.v. See also bibliography under AGNOSTICISM, MATERIALISM, PANTHEISM, and THEISM. For the refuation of ATHEISM see the article GOD.)

APA citation. Aveling, F. (1907). Atheism. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02040a.htm

MLA citation. Aveling, Francis. "Atheism." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02040a.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Beth Ste-Marie.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.

Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster at newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.

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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Atheism - NEW ADVENT

A gathering of topless, nipple-less Atheist women in Coney Island, New York, courtesy of National Geographic.

Atheism is the exciting belief in the non-existence of a non-deity's existence. Atheists main belief in life is that there are absolutely no absolutes. WHAT. One of the youngest and least recorded religions, Atheism stands out for its lack of scriptures, rituals, prophets, and other sacred paraphernalia. Atheism had become increasingly popular in the 21st Century and its popularity was projected to grow steadily as we approach the Apocalypse. Since the Apocalypse already happened (See: George W. Bush), it is said that the reign of atheists is now over... or is it...?

According to a 1998 scientological study conducted by the independent company Loyal Servants of Our Lady of the Weeping Misery of the Holy Mother of God and Friends, Atheism is more widespread than any other modern cult, including Catholicism. The study claimed that "they hath broughte a pox unto His land, and doth spreadst theire Vampyre seed amongst both schoolchild and man of Politick, hairdresser and window-dresser alike." In a three-part expos, National Geographic reported that "Atheism is spreading in more than just a so-so way throughout God's land, gaining followers in countries as diverse as Easter Island and Africa."

In recent times, the cult has been the subject of heated controversy. Government sources have shown links between Atheism and homosexuality, pedophilia, and communism. Communities throughout the world have expressed a growing concern as an increasing number of role models such as Mike Tyson and Pat Robertson are exposed as practicing Atheists. The first prominent religious figure to address the Atheist Problem was Christian spokesman George W. Bush, who described Atheists as "a real threat in America, including to the rest of the world", and attributed the danger of Atheism to the fact that "you can't really tell them apart from regular folk. They're so hidden, so undercover, you could say they're almost indivisible."

After decades of receiving little to no attention from Acadaemia, Atheism has finally caught the interest of modern archaeologists, who have deemed Atheism boring enough to be worthy of prolonged study.

Reginald Wharton III at his 50th birthday party in Staten Island.

Wharton, struck by lightning while throwing rocks at children in Central Park, left virtually no documentation of his religious ideology: his only remaining belongings were two packets of ketchup and some illegible scribbles on a Burger King receipt. Wharton is said to have been cremated in Gunfire Creek, New Jersey, though neighbors claim his body was buried "somewhere out west". This allegation is further confused by the testimony of Geraldine Chan, Wharton's personal seamstress and joint proprietor of Hunan Happy Cleaner, Inc., who claimed in a 1974 interview that "Me no know him well, but pretty sure he bring two stained shirt and golf-style pants the Wednesday after police say he dead, so me no know much if report was right. But me think he a Atheist, ha ha."

Further doubt about Wharton's death was cast by the 1977 testimony of California grave robbers Pedro Antonio Lopez-Gonzalez-Torres and Juan Generico Perez-Caramba, who were apprehended in Amarillo, Texas for urinating on private property. While under police custody, they confessed, among other things, to have opened Wharton's casket a few months before their arrest, only to find "no bodily remains -- just a couple of packets of ketchup, and a pillar of salt".

Lopez-Gonzalez-Torres' and Perez-Caramba's testimony was dismissed as unconstitutional by the Armadillo County District Court of Appelations upon the discovery that their confessions had been extracted at gunpoint by police officer Rodney King, who made Lopez-Gonzalez-Torres confess to several crimes, including the murder of John F. Kennedy. However, the charges against the police department were dropped when the Armadillo County Bureau of Infinite Justice showed Lopez-Gonzalez-Torres and Perez-Caramba to be Russian illegal aliens, thereby rendering their testimony void and bringing to doubt their belief in Christ.

No further testimony was obtained from L-G-T and P-C, who were promptly executed by firing squad in the summer of 1978, shortly before the Armadillo County Court of Counter Appeals found them to be innocent.

Most Atheists deny that Wharton ever existed, citing insufficient tangible evidence.

Chomsky (upper left, in a bath robe) gets another lecture from a burning piece of shrubbery.

Chomsky, a staunch Atheist, categorically denied the existence of God and stubbornly refused to acknowledge any sort of supernatural event, despite having been reputedly approached by talking, spontaneously-combusting specimens of plant life on at least five different occasions in the summer of 1967 (the so-called Summer of Love), and various other times in the years following. After encountering a talking serpent during a hiking trip in downtown London, he wrote in his only surviving journal: "'Twas the freakiest thing I ever did see, a fluke of Evolution, or perhaps a side-effect of bodily fatigue, yet not unlike in its wonder to the burning sculpture of the Virgin that confronted me last week during my visit to the Aquarium. Nature is indeed a remarkable force."

Plagued by apparitions, Chomsky died of natural causes after being attacked by a flock of ravens while repairing the hot water heater in the basement of his beach house in Cancun, Mexico.

Atheist opinion of Chomsky is divided: many say there was no such man, or if there was, that there was nothing special about him, while other Atheists simply don't care.

Atheists believe in a Goddess, named Athe, however, they believe that she doesn't exist. Atheists live by the Atheist motto "No God, nowhere, regardless, period except for the Flying Spaghetti Monster of course.", though most choose to state this view using completely different wording. When confronted with questions regarding the Creation of Man, most Atheists adhere to the fundamentalist theories provided by their gods only son Richard Dawkins, who claims that the Earth was created accidentally by the Flaying Spaghetti Monster an un-supernatural huge random super-explosion called the Big Bang Meat Ball. The Big Bang Meat ball theory states clearly that this explosion was brought about by The Flaying Spaghetti Monster, who doesn't exist of course. Modern archaeologists dismiss this theory as "preposterous and unamerican."

A few Atheists, however, have expressed different yet equally shocking beliefs. Celebrity boxer and amateur theologian Mike Tyson, for example, said in an interview with Oprah that many Atheists do in fact believe in the story of Richard Dawkins, "so long as God isn't involved." Tyson is notable in that he is not only an Atheist, but also an Athlete.

The Atheists doctrine also known as the Richard Dawkins doctrine also know as the commandments of the Flaying Spaghetti Monster states

Many Atheists believe it's important that Richard Dawkins doctrine is of absolute importance. Atheists worship their God, "Flaying Spaghetti Monster", and their Gods only son Richard Dawkins.

There are far fewer Atheist churches than those of their God-fearing counterparts. As of this writing, the African American Commission of Atheist Churches in America and its Colonies (rarely referred to as the double-A.C, A.C., A.C) has reported the count of modern Atheist churches in the Industrialized World to be exactly zero.

The Atheist God, also known as mudkip.

France is one, so is Russia and all of Eastern Europe (Soviet bloc), a few Scandinavian countries and pretty much the whole European continent. Atheism is catching up in Canada, Australia and Japan, any other free democratic industrial/developed country except America.

An typical Atheist tourist.

On weekends, Atheists often partake in rituals such as shopping, catching up with chores, and sitting around. These practices are often conducted in Athletic Wear, notably sweat pants, especially in South America. The question of circumcision is highly disputed among Atheist sects, and its practice varies widely depending on how convincing the surgeon was and whether the parents can afford it.

An Atheist (who wishes to remain anonymous) vacationing topless in the Amazon Jungle.

Though casual Atheists are virtually indistinguishable from God's people in terms of their appearance, the more active cult members (orthodox atheists), particularly those who practice tourism, show a predilection for topless nudity. These topless travelers tend to stay away from popular vacation hot-spots, and prefer to make pilgrimages to less-frequented haunts such as the Amazon Jungle or Canada.

Aguilera gives a motivational lecture at an Atheist fundraiser

Normal folk are sometimes confused by Atheists who paradoxically wear religious emblems like the crucifix or the American flag. While some Atheists do in fact wear crucifixes, they normally do so for purely sacrilegious purposes and in acknowledgement of other Atheists such as Marilyn Manson and Christina Aguilera, as opposed to the more ceremonial use of the crucifix by pop celebrities such as the Pope and David Beckham.

In 1982, the government-sponsored shockumentary An Unbiased View of Those on the Wrong Path declared Atheism to be "a disturbingly well-organized religious cult, with congregations and priests that mimic and mock those of our good people." The renowned documentary's most shocking scene showed a religious ceremony lead by a priest in a Lacrosse shirt and bell-bottoms mumbling words in an obscure tongue to an audience of naked prepubescent children. The scene was shot in what appeared to be a dreary, dark cellar. The documentary caused an uproar throughout the world that lead to the U.S. invasion of several Central American countries.

In the 1990s, however, a shockumentary by the Discovery Channel showed An Unbiased View to have used questionable methods of reporting that were a possible breach of the rules of journalism set forth by the Geneva Convention. The Discovery Channel hired prominent scientologists, most of whom were translators, to show that the previous documentary was nothing but a misunderstanding. The supposed gathering in a gloomy, dark basement was in fact filmed during daylight hours in a park in Sweden. Further scrutiny displayed that the obscure tongue spoken by the High Priest was actually Swedish, and that the alleged naked cultists were nothing more than Scandinavian children on a nudist field trip. Shortly after this discovery, U.S. Religious Leader George Bush Senior issued a formal apology to the government of Nicaragua, "even though you have to admit you're better off than before the invasion", and proceeded to bomb Iraq instead, out of principle.

An Atheist demonstration gets out of hand.

The treatment of Atheist suspects varies among the Muslim countries. In less tolerant nations such as Saudi Arabia, Atheism is punishable by flogging or decapitation, depending on how devout the suspect is, whereas in more lenient, progressive nations such as Syria, Atheism is largely overlooked when the suspects are male, but is punished by publicly urinating on the perpetrator and then stoning her to death in the case of a female suspect.

In Singapore punishment ranges from a two thousand dollar fine to death by electric chair, a policy similar to that of the state of Texas in the U.S. They began to ponder the use of ovens and gas showers.

But the left-leaning state of California prides itself as a religious colony for persecuted atheists, along with Gays, scientologists and Marxists seem to congregate in San Francisco.

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Atheism (religion) - Uncyclopedia - Wikia

Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.

Atheism, from the Greek a-, meaning "without", and theos, meaning "god", is the absence of belief in the existence of gods. Theos includes the Abrahamic YHWH(s), Zeus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and every other deity from A to Z[1] (and 0-9,!, ", #, $ or any other character, obviously). For the definition of atheism, the terms "God" and "a god" are used interchangeably as there is no difference between a monotheistic deity and a polytheistic pantheon of deities when it comes to complete disbelief in them. This also has the deliberate intent of ignoring the privileged position Yahweh has held in English grammar. Most atheists also do not believe in anything supernatural or paranormal (someone like this would be considered a naturalist).

We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.

Tied up with some of the more awkward aspects of defining the term "atheist" is the question of what god, or type of god, is being denied. This is particularly important for those who claim that atheism is supported by evidence (more specifically, the lack of evidence for a theistic case).

If the god being denied is the interventionist God, which most theists hold to exist, then the argument against the existence of this being is easy; the lack of any demonstrable interventions demonstrates the god's lack of existence. In this case, absence of evidence is evidence of absence. However, if the god being denied is of a less interventionist, or deist, type god, then the above argument regarding evidence doesn't work. Indeed, the only possible "evidence" for a deist god is the very existence of the universe, and most sane people don't tend to deny the universe exists. On the other hand as said "evidence" is simply asserted and isn't testable in any way, it is a lot less than wholly convincing and we return to "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

Whether atheism also requires a person to disbelieve in all other forms of magic, or ghosts, or psychic powers is also a question. These are not "gods" in the conventional sense at all, but they are still supernatural entities or powers. More "hardline" atheists would insist that disbelief in all things supernatural is mandatory for the label of "atheist." They would argue that this follows from the fact that atheism is a rational position, and that therefore atheists should take rational positions on other matters also. What does and what does not constitute a "god" in the case of atheism can often be very subjective; the definition could be restricted to monotheistic "creator" gods, or expanded to include all supernatural entities, or used to describe only things that are worshipped or idolised. The variables that arise when trying to perfectly codify "atheism" are numerous, and this is fitting with its position as specifically a lack of belief.

However, atheism only makes sense in the context of the ubiquity of religion and theistic belief worldwide. If religions didn't exist, atheism wouldn't exist and any discussion of the subject would be inherently meaningless - the world doesn't feature books, internet debates and billboard campaigns saying that it's fine to disbelieve in Bertrand Russell's celestial teapot precisely because few, if any, people believe in the teapot. Therefore a working, albeit still slightly subjective, definition of what constitutes a "god" can be developed based on the beliefs of self-declared religions of the world. As a thought experiment we can conceive of a religion that achieves literal overnight success by promoting some god, Athkel,[3] who will become a worldwide phenomenon tomorrow. An atheist would simply not believe in Athkel tomorrow, despite the fact they had no belief in him/her yesterday because it is a self defined religious deity.

There are many ways to describe different types of atheism and some of these are explained below. These shouldn't be read as factions or sects within atheism in the same way as denominations and sects within religion, Protestant/Catholicism in Christianity, Sunni/Shiite in Islam, and their multiple sub-groups for example. One does not "join" a group of implicit atheists. Instead of being sects that dictate people's beliefs, these should be taken as models to, at least roughly, describe people's beliefs and their attitudes towards belief itself. There are many similarities, all of which are included in the blanket term "atheist." However - as is typical in atheist thought - not all atheists consider these divisions particularly relevant, worthwhile, or meaningful.

The commonality among these various modes of atheism is the statement that no god or gods created natural phenomena such as the existence of life or the universe. Instead, these are usually explained through science, specifically without resort to supernatural explanations. Morality in atheism is also not based on religious precepts such as divine commandments or revelation through a holy text - many alternative philosophies exist to derive or explain morality, such as humanism.

Implicit atheism is simply the state of not believing in any gods.

Explicit atheism is a conscious rejection, either of the belief in gods or of their existence. Explicit atheists can be weak or strong atheists, but all strong atheists are explicit atheists.

Weak atheism (sometimes equated with "pragmatic atheism" or "negative atheism") describes the state of living as if no gods exist. It does not require an absolute statement of God's non-existence. The argument is based on the fact that as there is no evidence that gods, spatial teapots or fairies exist, we have no reason to believe in them. This argument could also be classified as extreme agnosticism, or "agnostic atheism" - as it is an acknowledgment of the lack of evidence but acting as if there were no gods.

Pragmatic atheists however are frequently reluctant to make outright statements like "Gods (or fairies) do not exist", because of the great difficulties involved in proving the absolute non-existence of anything - the idea that nothing can be proved is held in the philosophy of pyrrhonism. Consequently many pragmatic atheists would argue that the burden of proof does not lie with them to provide evidence against the extraordinary concept that gods exist. They would argue that it is up to the supporters of various religions to provide evidence for the existence of their own deities, and that no argument is necessary on the atheist's part.

Christopher Hitchens put it another way when he said: "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

Strong atheism (sometimes equated with "theoretical atheism") makes an explicit statement against the existence of gods. Strong atheists would disagree with weak atheists about the inability to disprove the existence of gods. Strong atheism specifically combats religious beliefs and other arguments for belief in some god (or gods), such as Pascal's Wager, and argument from design. These arguments tend to be geared toward demonstrating that the concept of god is logically inconsistent or incoherent in order to actively disprove the existence of a god.[4]Theological noncognitivism, which asserts the meaninglessness of religious language, is an argument commonly invoked by strong atheists.[5] In contrast, weak atheist arguments tend to concentrate on the evidence (or lack thereof) for god, while strong atheist arguments tend to concentrate on making a positive case for the non-existence of god.

An apatheist has no interest in accepting or denying claims that a god or gods exist or do not exist. An apatheist considers the very question of the existence or non-existence of gods or other supernatural beings to be irrelevant and not worth consideration under any circumstances.

In short: they simply don't care. (Well, OK, they care enough to give themselves a name - so that people explicitly know what it is they don't care anything about. But that's it.)

Antitheism is, perhaps surprisingly, technically separate from any and all positions on the existence or non-existence of any given deity. Antitheism simply argues that a given (or all possible) human implementations of religious beliefs, metaphysically "true" or not, lead to results that are harmful and undesirable, either to the adherent, to society, or - usually - to both. As justification the antitheists will often point to the incompatibility of religion-based morality with modern humanistic values, or to the atrocities and bloodshed wrought by religion and by religious wars. Religious moderation as compared to religious extremism is an example of theistic anti-theism, also known as dystheism. Dystheism also encompasses questioning the morals even of a deity you believe in, e.g. chosing to obey commandments on nonviolence over calls to violence from God, despite them both being clearly put forward by this alleged giver of all morals.

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.

Not all atheists are "disaffected with religion" some were just never raised with or indoctrinated with religious beliefs in the first place. Hence a substantial number have nothing to become disaffected with. However, in areas where religious belief is essentially taken as normal, there is a high chance that a person will have been religious before "coming out" as an atheist. As the term "atheist" only really means something in the context of ubiquitous religious belief, being disaffected or unconvinced by religion is certainly a factor in most, if not all, people who declare themselves as an atheist. As has been said previously, there is debate in the atheist community and not all atheists would agree with all of these reasons or even consider them relevant to atheism.

One of the major intellectual issues regarding disenchantment with religion is the fact that most world religions insist that all other faiths are wrong. While some moderate believers may like to take a stance that "all religions are right, they're just different interpretations", it's undeniable that heresy and apostasy are looked down upon very harshly in many faiths. This suggests the possibility that no religion is right, and further suggests that, because the vast majority of believers in any faith are born into it, being a member of the "correct" group or "the elect" is merely an accident of birth in most cases. There is also historical evidence that organized religion, while professing a peaceful moral code, is often the basis for exclusion and war as well as a method to motivate people in political conflicts. The enmity among different religions and even among sects within the same religion adds credibility to this idea.

Other reasons may be more directly to do with a religion or its specifics - namely (1) the evils that the concept of religion has produced over the ages, (2) the hypocrisy of professed believers and religious leaders who exhort their followers to help the poor, love their neighbors and behave morally but become wealthy through donations to the church and carry love for certain neighbors to an immoral extreme as defined by their own professed religious beliefs, and (3) the contradiction between talk of a loving god and a world in which children starve to death and innocent people are tortured and killed. Issues with religion may arise due to the nature of fundamentalists - insisting that their holy texts are literally true. This leads to attempts by such fundamentalists to undermine education by censoring scientific knowledge that seems to contradict their beliefs. Intelligent design is a prominent case of this (see Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District). Often this doesn't sit well with moderate believers and especially those who may be on the verge of losing their faith, especially when the evidence provided by daily experience suggests that there may be no events that cannot be explained by common sense and scientific study.

Other issues that atheists have with religion involve the characteristics of supposed gods. Atheists sometimes view the idea that a supreme all-knowing deity would have the narcissistic need to be worshiped, and would punish anyone for worshiping a different god (or none at all), to be perverse.

Lastly, formerly religious atheists often report to have had their belief system unsettled by lack of evidence supporting the notion of the supernatural.

Arguments related to the burden of proof deal with whether atheists must disprove theism or theists must prove theism. Conventionally, the burden of proof lies with someone proposing a positive idea - or as Karl Popper fans would put it, those who are proposing something falsifiable. By this standard, atheists have no need to prove anything, and just need to render arguments for the existence of God as non-compelling. However, the ubiquity of religion in society and history have often shifted the burden of proof to atheists, who must subsequently prove a negative. Assuming that God exists is known as presuppositionalism and has always been a key tenet of Christian apologetics but is usually rejected by more sensible scholars. The absurdity of being asked to prove a negative is demonstrated in Bertrand Russell's teapot thought experiment - where no matter how hard you look, you can't thoroughly disprove the belief that a teapot is out there in space, orbiting the sun somewhere between Earth and Mars. This sort of presuppositional thinking is illogical, so asking an atheist to disprove God is an unreasonable request.

Occam's razor can also be invoked as a guide to making the fewest assumptions, and assuming God exists a priori is a major assumption that should be avoided. Combining these thoughts to lay the burden of proof on theists indicates that without supporting evidence, the default position on God must be either weak-ish atheism or agnosticism rather than theism. Proponents of atheism argue that the burden of proof has not been met by those proposing that a god exists, let alone the specific gods described by major religions.

If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesnt value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?

Logical arguments try to show that God cannot possibly exist (at least as described). Barring any escape hatch arguments like Goddidit, some properties of God are not compatible with each other or known facts about the world, and thus a creator-god cannot be a logically consistent and existent entity. These arguments are heavily dependent on the use of common descriptions of the Abrahamic God as a target: things such as omnipotence, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence. As a result, they are not as useful in trying to refute the claims of, say, Neopaganism, and are also vulnerable to the tactic of moving the goalposts by changing the descriptions of God.

The omnipotence paradox postulates that true omnipotence is not logically possible or not compatible with omniscience. This is primarily a logical argument based on the general question of whether an omnipotent being could limit its own power - if yes, it would cease to be omnipotent, if no, it wouldn't be omnipotent. Hence the paradox that shows, through contradiction, that God cannot exist as usually described.

Other logical arguments try to prove that god is not compatible with our scientific knowledge of reality. The Problem of evil states that a good god wouldn't permit gratuitous evil, yet such evil occurs, so a good god does not exist.[6] The argument from design is often given as proof of a creator, but it raises the following logical question: if the world is so complex that it must have had a creator, then the creator must be at least as complex and must therefore have a creator, and this would have to have had a more complex creator ad infinitum. Also, the argument from design does not offer evidence for any specific relgion; while it could be taken as support for the existence of a god or gods, it doesn't argue for the Christian God any more than, say, the Hindu pantheon.

While believers hasten to point out that their gods don't need to follow logic, let alone the known laws of physics, this is really a case of special pleading and doesn't so much prove anything itself. Atheists therefore tend to reject these counters to the logical arguments as they mostly beg the question of a creator's existence and, very arbitrarily, plead that a creator can be exempt from the same logic that was used to "prove" its existence.

I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of their core beliefs.

At the root of the worldview of most atheists is evidence, and atheists point out that sufficient evidence for the existence of gods is currently very lacking, and thus there is no reason to believe in them. Evidential arguments are less ambitious than logical arguments because, rather than proving that there is reason not to believe in a god, they show that there is no reason to believe in a god (See Burden of proof above). It is important to remember that what constitutes sufficient evidence can be quite subjective, although rationalism and science do offer some standardization. Various "holy books" exist that testify to the existence of gods, and claim that alleged miracles and personal experiences all constitute evidence in favor of the existence of a god character of some sort. However, atheists reject these as insufficient because the naturalistic explanations behind them (tracing authors of the holy texts, psychological experiments, and scientific experiments to explain experiences, and so on) are more plausible - indeed, the very existence of plausible naturalistic explanations renders the supernatural explanations obsolete. In addition these books make claims for a variety of faiths, so to accept the Bible's stories as evidence, one would also have to accept as evidence the miracle stories from other religions' holy books.

Atheists often cite evidence that processes attributed to a god might also occur naturally as evidential arguments. If evolution and the big bang are true, then why would a creator god have needed them?[7]Occam's razor makes theistic explanations less compelling.

Many atheists argue, in similar vein to the born-again Christian who "just knows" that God exists, that the day-to-day experience of the atheist demonstrates quite clearly that God does not. This is because they have an image in their heads of what this "God" would have to look like, viz., an entity in the vein of the God of the Old Testament who runs around zapping entire cities, turning people into pillars of salt, and generally answering people's prayers in flashes of fire and brimstoneor, answering prayers for the victory of a given football team, but not answering those made on behalf of starving children in disadvantaged parts of the world.

Nobody knows for sure how many clergy members are secretly atheists (or are secretly on the fence, with serious doubts about their religion). But almost everyone I've spoken with in Clergy Project strongly suspects that the numbers are high.

Studying religion in depth during training for clerical work can lead a person to examine religious ideas critically. The study of Christian theology will include the whole of the Bible, and include historical background which can lead to rational doubt. [9][10]

In 2011, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Science and Reason launched a confidential support group for clergy who no longer believe, the Clergy Project, and by December 2012 the group had almost 400 members. One of the founders of Clergy Project is Dan Barker, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, who was an evangelical preacher for nineteen years before becoming an atheist.[11]Gretta Vosper is openly atheist as a minister and her congregation supports her. Former Methodist pastor Teresa MacBain received online support from Clergy Project before coming out as an atheist dramatically at an atheist convention in spring 2012. She became Public Relations Director of American Atheists. [12] MacBain currently works helping atheist groups to build communities with what she sees as the positive aspects of religion like music, ritual and community service without God.[13]

Freethought Blogger Greta Christina articulates a possible effect of clergy openly leaving Christianity on their parishioners' beliefs. The more traditional position of clergy is that they are somehow endowed with answers to all questions of faith. If these trained religious authorities start saying they have no answers to normal "Crises of Faith", even more if some of them suggest the most reasonable answer is atheism, lay Christians will find continuing with their belief more difficult. [14] It is worth noting, however, that modern clergy trained in most US or UK universities are discouraged from claiming to be exempt from such crises of faith, and to encourage people to share a "journey of spiritual discovery". Perhaps atheism must simply be accepted as an outcome of that endeavor.

Because atheism is effectively a lack of inherent religious or political ideology, there is very little that unifies all atheists.

That said, atheists do tend to fit a certain profile.

Specific research on atheists conducted in 2006 suggests that the true proportion of atheists is 2%[15][16][17] to 4% in the United States, 17% in Great Britain and 32% in France. A 2004 Telegraph poll found that 44% of Britons believed in a god, 35% did not, and 21% did not know.[18]

According to a 2012 WIN-Gallup International poll, 13% of the world identifies as "atheist", 23% identifies as "not religious", and 59% identifies as "religious"; these results were 3% more "atheist", 9% less "religious", and 6% more "non-religious" than 2005. Of note, in the United States 13% fewer people identified as "religious".[19]

Many studies have shown that groups with higher intelligence or more education have significantly more atheists.[20] A recent meta-analysis of 39 eligible studies from 1927 to 2002 was published in Mensa Magazine, and concluded that atheists are more likely to be of higher intelligence than their religious counterparts.[21] According to an article in the prestigious science journal Nature in 1998 the belief in a personal god or afterlife was very low among the members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Only 7.0% believed in a personal god as compared to more than 85% of the general U.S. population.[22] A 2012 WIN-Gallup International poll found that people with college education were 16% less likely to describe themselves as religious than those without complete high school education.[19] A survey conducted by the Times of India in 2015 revealed that 22% of IIT-Bombay graduates do not believe in the existence of God, while another 30% do not know.[23] According to a Harvard survey, there are more atheists and agnostics entering Harvard University, one of the top ranked schools in America, than Catholics and Protestants. According to the same study, atheists and agnostics also make up a much higher percentage of the students than the general public.[24][25]This may suggest that the more intelligent subjects are more unlikely to believe in god or supernatural powers. An alternative interpretation is that having completed the kind of education that makes you likely to do well in IQ tests is also likely to have either divested you of religiosity or at least made you less susceptible to the kind of beliefs in a personal god which characterise Christian fundamentalism. Yet another possibility is that those with more education are simply more likely to have thought seriously about religion and scrutinized the things they were brought up to believe; the higher intelligence among atheists may simply be because those who achieve high levels of education tend to be smarter than average (meaning that it's not so much that smart people are atheists as that atheists tend to be smart people). If so, then if atheism were to become mainstream, we could expect the average age of atheists to go down, eventually approaching the average age of religious people.

The Programme for International Student Assessment notes that the best education is present in China and Singapore, while the poorest is present in Peru, Colombia, Qatar and Indonesia.[26] China is noted for having an atheist majority[27] and Singapore is noted for having a religious majority of Buddhists.[28] Peru and Colombia have an overwhelming religious Catholic Christian majority[29][30] and Qatar and Indonesia have an overwhelming religious Islamic majority.[31][32]

Education professor Yong Zhao asserts that the reason why countries with such differing religious attitudes succeed, while countries with other differing religious attitudes fail is simply due to the excessive workload and testing present in the Confucian cultural circle, the students within which make for outstanding test takers.[33]

Studies have shown that groups with more income have significantly more atheists. A 2012 WIN-Gallup International poll found that people in the highest quintile of income were 17% less likely to describe themselves as religious than the bottom quintile.[19] This is likely because those with more education tend to have higher incomes.

A recent study published in the Annals of Family Medicine suggests that, despite what some may think, religiousness does not appear to have a significant effect on how much physicians care for the underserving.[34]

The Pew Research Center (2014) reports that in the US:[35]

The Pew report also reported that 57% of "unaffiliated" were male and 43% were female.

Atheists are becoming more numerous but also more diverse. White middle-class men such as Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens no longer define the movement. One blogger argues that

Other atheists [Who?] strongly disagree and want to see the atheist movement focus on philosophical arguments against religion and pseudoscience.[36]

African American atheists are a small minority (2% of the American population) facing severe prejudice.

In most African-American communities, it is more acceptable to be a criminal who goes to church on Sunday, while selling drugs to kids all week, than to be an atheist who ... contributes to society and supports his family.

Despite this black atheists are getting together in online groups and giving each other confidence, also online groups progress to arranging offline meetings. [37] Atheists of color frequently feel they have different priorities from white atheist groups; they may be allied to faith groups that help poor blacks and fight racial discrimination. Atheists of color also form their own groups focusing more on economic and social problems their communities face and hope general atheist groups will focus more on these issues in the future. Sikivu Hutchinson is one of many atheists of color campaigning against injustice faced by poor people, black people, LGBT people, women and other oppressed groups. [38][39]

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it, too?

There has been a long history of rational people who have not accepted superstitious or magical explanations of natural phenomena and who have felt that "gods" are not necessary for the working of the world. The Eastern philosophy of Buddhism is broadly atheistic, explicitly eschewing the notion of a creation myth. In the Western world, there have been atheists almost as long as there has been philosophy and writing. Some of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world have been critical of belief in deities or eschewed religion entirely - many favouring logic and rationality to inform their lives and their actions, rather than religious texts. Democritus, who originally conceived of the atom, hypothesized a world without magic holding it together. Critias, one of the Thirty Tyrants of Athens, preceded Marx when he called religion a tool to control the masses.

Perhaps the best example of an explicitly atheistic ancient philosophy is the Carvaka school of thought, which originated in India in the first millennium BCE. The Carvakas posited a materialistic universe, rejected the idea of an afterlife, and emphasized the need to enjoy this life.[43]

Modern atheism in the Western world can be traced to the Age of Enlightenment. Important thinkers of that era who were atheists include Baron d'Holbach and Denis Diderot. The Scottish philosopher David Hume, though not explicitly avowing atheism, wrote critical essays on religions and religious beliefs (his most famous being a critique of belief in miracles), and posited naturalistic explanations for the origins of religion in The Natural History of Religion as well as criticizing traditional arguments for the existence of God in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.

Not until recently, however, did the term known as "atheism" begin to carry its current connotation. In an increasing number of countries around the world it is a neutral or unimportant label. The nation of New Zealand, for example, has thrice elected an agnostic woman (Helen Clark) as Prime Minister, followed by its current agnostic leader (John Key). Several Prime Ministers of the UK have been atheists, including Clement Attlee, and the current deputy PM, Nick Clegg. Also, the former Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, is openly atheist, and at least one other former Australian PM was atheist. However, in more religious areas such as the United States or Saudi Arabia the term carries a heavy stigma. Indeed, prejudice against atheists is so high in the United States that one study found that they are America's most distrusted minority.[44]

The reason for such attitudes towards atheists in these nations is unclear. Firstly, there is no stated creed with which to disagree (except perhaps for "strong" atheists, whose only belief is that there are no gods). Nor are atheists generally organized into lobbies or interest groups or political action committees (at least none that wield massive power), unlike the many groups that lobby on behalf of various religions. And yet an atheist would be the least likely to be elected President of the United States. According to the American Values Survey, about 67% of all voters would be uncomfortable with an atheist president, and no other group including Mormons, African Americans, and homosexuals would lose so much of the potential vote based on one single trait alone.[45][46] One potential reason for this is that in the United States, Christian groups have managed to push and implant the concept that without religion there can be no morality - often playing to people's needs for absolutes and written rules - absolute morality is presented as something inherently true and achievable only by believers.

The mistrust of atheism is often accompanied by snarl words, straw man arguments and various other myths and legends in order to denigrate the idea of disbelief in established gods. Some misconceptions about atheism should be addressed:

Atheism is a religion in the same way as 'off' is a television station.

One of the widest misconceptions, often used as a strong criticism, is that atheism is a religion. However, while there are secular religions, atheism is most commonly defined as "no religion." To expand the definition of "religion" to include atheism would thus destroy any use the word "religion" would have in describing anything. It is quite often pointed out that if atheism is a religion it would be akin to stating that the act of not collecting stamps is a hobby, or that being unemployed is an occupation. Following from this, atheists do not worship Charles Darwin or any other individual. Although some think that atheism requires evolution to be a complete worldview,[49] there is no worship of anything or anyone in atheism, and acceptance of evolution isn't exclusive to atheists - for that matter there is no necessity for an atheist to accept the evidence for evolution (Stalin is a good example: he rejected Darwinian evolution, promoting Lysenkoism instead, and he consistently purged evolution biologists in favor of Lysenkoists). By definition, if atheists worshiped Darwin as a god, they wouldn't be atheists. Basically, "atheism" is a word for a negative. However, this leads to a few semantic issues.

This confuses the religious because they are used to terms of religious identity being a declaration of allegiance to a view, rather than of separation from. This confusion then leads them to assert that a denial of their religion must be an avowal of another. They then do things like declare the so-called New Atheists as hypocrites for denigrating religion while sticking to an unstated one of their own, or declare that because science has an epistemology and religion has an epistemology, therefore science is just another faith (when religion's problem is that science's epistemology provably works much better than religion's).

Atheism is actually a religion - indeed, much like "not collecting stamps" might be called a hobby, or "not smoking" might be called a habit.

A standard response is to note that if atheism is a religion, then "bald" is a hair color, "not kicking a kitten" is a form of animal abuse, and so on. Another is to note that if the definition of religion was expanded enough to legitimately include atheism - say, by defining a religion as "any philosophy on life" - then practically everything in the world would be a religion, such as socio-economic policies or views on equality. (British law has come close to finding this in employment discrimination cases.)

A new movement of atheist churches appears to be developing (such as Sunday Assembly), but what they do is not worship; rather, they are places where like-minded people get together on Sunday mornings to have fun, celebrate life and whatever. This is a relatively new phenomenon, and its prospects for the future are unclear.[51]

Atheists, as a whole, are not a unified group, so accusation that "atheists" are doing x, y and z hold little water. In fact, a disaffection with organized religion, and the potential for groupthink, is what causes many believers to abandon faith and come out as atheists. It doesn't follow that such individuals would happily join another organised group. Debate within the atheistic community is robust - debates even about whether there is even an "atheistic community" at all, for instance - and the fact that this debate exists presupposes no dogmatic mandate (or at least not a widely followed one) from an organized group. It does follow from this lack of organisation that there is no atheist equivalent of the Bible, Koran, or other holy text. There are, of course, atheist writings, but one does not need to adhere to opinions held by, say, Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens to be considered an atheist. Some atheists will actively oppose what these kinds of authors do and say. In fact, some atheists wish they could believe.[52]

Believers sometimes denigrate atheists on the grounds that they "hate God." This, however, makes no sense. People who make such assertive claims towards atheists are confusing atheism with misotheism.

What I'm asking you to entertain is that there is nothing we need to believe on insufficient evidence in order to have deeply ethical and spiritual lives.

Morality is one of the larger issues facing the world, and many religions and believers openly express the notion that they have the monopoly on deciding, explaining, and enforcing moral judgments. Many religious people will assume that since morals rise from (their) god, without (their) god one cannot have morals. Contrary to the claims of such people, "no gods" does not equal "no morality." There are strong humanistic, cultural, and genetic rationales for the existence of morality and ethical behavior, and many people, not just atheists, recognize this fact.

Some atheist groups are doing charitable work traditionally done by religious organizations like funding scholarships as an alternative to faith based scholarships [53] and at least one atheist group volunteers to do environmental protection work.[54]

In the US, where criticism of atheism is common, it often works well for politicians and evangelists to compare atheism to the "evils" of communism, or even to Communism itself. These "evils" are not inextricably fused with the values of atheism in reality. Although most orthodox Marxists are atheists (Marxism treats religion as a "false consciousness" that needs to be eliminated), the atrocities wrought by Stalin and others were not on account of their being atheists, but on account of their being totalitarians and authoritarians. Additionally, there have been many anti-communists who were atheists or agnostics, such as Ayn Rand and the computer pioneer John von Neumann. In North Korea, one of the only 4 countries where communism still exists (the others being China, Vietnam and Cuba), it is mandatory to believe that the Kim-dynasty consists of supreme omnipotent deities.

Atheism and agnosticism are not entirely mutually exclusive, and atheists are not "actually agnostic because no one can ever know whether God exists." This is a highly contested point among religious believers and atheistic philosophers alike, as most, if not all, thinking atheists would happily change their minds given the right evidence, and thus could be considered "agnostic" in this sense. However, this conflates the ideas of belief and knowledge. Atheism is a statement of a lack of belief, and not a lack of knowledge - which is often accepted on all sides of the theistic debate. Atheism takes the position that it is rational to think that gods don't exist, based on logic and lack of evidence. Agnostics, on the other hand, state that the lack of knowledge cannot inform their opinion at all. There are agnostic atheists, who can be either weak or strong. It is at least logically possible for a theist to be an agnostic (e.g., "I believe in a pantheon of lobsterish zoomorphic deities, but cannot prove this with evidence, and acknowledge and embrace that my belief is rooted in faith")but it is markedly difficult to find anyone who will fess up to such a position.

Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. 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.

One difficulty with the term "atheism" is that it defines what its adherents do not believe in, rather than in what they do believe in. The lack of positive statements of belief has led to the fact that there is really no overarching organisation that speaks for atheists (some would regard this as a good thing, keeping atheism from becoming an organised religion) and has led to the comparison that organising atheists is like "herding cats", i.e., impossible. It is possible that the only thing which does really unite atheists is a lack of belief in gods; thus an overarching organisation to represent them would be physically impossible.

Primarily because of the prevalence of extreme discrimination against atheists, people have tried to come up with more positive terms or campaigns to get the godless philosophy noticed and respected. This allows atheists to feel more united and happy with their beliefs (or lack of), but has also led to organisations that will help them in situations, such as legal cases, where individuals couldn't do it on their own. The most prominent examples:

To date, none of these alternative descriptions seems to have taken hold a great deal and the term of choice for most people remains "atheist." "Freethinker" is probably the term with most support, as it dates back at least to the 19th Century. "Naturalism" may be the second most popular, although the name may lead people to confuse it with naturism or with some kind of eco-hippy ideal. "Bright" is the most recent term invented, and as a result is currently the most controversial and divisive. Supporters of the Brights movement see it as a positive and constructive redefinition (on par with the re-branding of homosexuality with the word "gay", which until then primarily meant "happy" or "joyous") while its detractors see it as nothing more than a shameless attempt to turn atheism into an organized religion, and the use of "bright" as a cynical attempt to appear more intellectual.

In some contexts words such as "rationalist" and "skeptic" may also be code words for "atheist." Although not all atheists need to be rationalists, and not all rationalists need to be atheists, the connection is more in the method a person uses to derive their beliefs rather than what their beliefs actually are.

As in the quote above, some who have expressed criticism to religion, among them Richard Dawkins, have pointed out that the word atheism enforces theism as a social norm, as modern languages usually have no established terms for people who do not believe in other supernatural phenomena (a-fairyist for people who do not believe in fairies, a-unicornist, a-alchemist, a-astrologer, etc).

With the existence of deities being central belief of almost all religious systems, it is not surprising that atheism is seen as more threatening than competing belief systems, regardless of how different they may be. This often manifests in the statement that "freedom of religion" doesn't include freedom from religion. It is also important for theists that the political hierarchy, the priesthood, should do their utmost to discourage dissent - as true believers make better tithe givers. Most religious codes are more than a bit irritated with those who do not believe. The Bible, for example, includes clear ad hominem attacks on non-believers, The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." (Psalm14:1 and Psalm53:1), while the penalty for apostasy in Islamic law is death - and this is still endorsed today. One author has proposed a correction to Psalm 53, as follows:[57]

In the USA the increased public visibility of atheism - what some commentators call the "New Atheism", seen in the popularity of books like The God Delusion - has brought renewed energy to the debate between believers and non-believers.[58] As part of that debate, some believers have put considerable effort into trying to stop what they think of as the irresponsible promotion of atheism. Their efforts range from material that has academic pretensions to arguments that are plainly abusive, focusing on "smacking" atheists with PRATT arguments regarding how great the Bible isn't is - and, of course, a heavy bias towards their own religion being true.[59] What these arguments tend to have in common is that they are less about providing arguments for religious belief and more about keeping atheists quiet, with questions such as "don't you have anything better to do than talk about the God you don't believe in?" or arguing that "faith is better than reason so shut up".[60] It's not entirely unexpected that this would be the thrusts of several anti-atheist arguments - after all, according to several Christians in influential positions, mere knowledge that atheism exists can be dangerous.[61]

Atheists may view the Bible and other religious works as literature, fiction, mythology, epic, philosophy, agit-prop, irrelevant, history, or various combinations thereof. Many atheists may find the book repulsively ignorant and primitive, while other atheists may find inspiration from certain passages even though they don't believe in the supernatural events and miracles mentioned in the Bible. Many atheists see religious works as interesting historical records of the myths and beliefs of humanity. By definition atheists do not believe any religious text to be divinely inspired truth: in other words, "Dude, it's just a book" (or, in fact, a somewhat random collection of different books).

There are several types of evidence to support the idea that "it's just a book." Textual analysis of the various books of the Bible reveals vastly differing writing styles among the authors of the individual books of the Old and New Testaments, suggesting that these works represent many different (human) voices, and not a sole, divinely inspired voice. The existence of Apocrypha, writings dating from the time of the Bible that were not included into official canon by Jews or Christians (and peppered with mystical events such as encounters with angels, demons, and dragons), further suggests that "divine authorship" is not a reliable claim. Within Christianity, there are even differences among sects regarding which books are Apocrypha and which are included in the Bible, or which are included under the heading "Apocrypha", indicating that they constitute holy writings but are not meant to be taken as literally as the other books. The Book of Tobit, for example, is included in the Catholic Bible but considered Apocrypha by Protestants and is wholly absent from the Jewish Bible.

Another problem with the "divine authorship" of the Bible is the existence of texts that pre-date it but contain significant similarities to certain Biblical stories. The best-known among these is the flood story, found in numerous versions in texts from across the ancient Middle East, including the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, which bears textual similarities with the Biblical account. Another such story with apparent Babylonian origin is that of the Tower of Babel. It has been suggested that some of these stories were appropriated by the Jews during the Babylonian Exile.

Studies of the history of the Bible, although not undertaken with the intent of disproving it (in fact, many Biblical historians set out to prove the Bible's veracity), shed light on the Bible's nature as a set of historical documents, ones which were written by humans and were affected by the cultural circumstances surrounding their creation. It should be noted that this type of rational discourse neither proves nor requires an atheistic worldview: one can believe that the Bible is not the infallible word of God either because one adheres to a non-Judeo-Christian religion or because one is a Christian or Jew but not a Biblical literalist. These criticisms of Biblical "truth" serve mainly to counter the arguments of fundamentalists, who are among atheism's most vociferous critics.

Atheists and the nonreligious face persecution and discrimination in many nations worldwide. In Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Kuwait, Pakistan and Jordan, atheists (and others) are denied free speech through blasphemy laws. In Afghanistan, Iran, Maldives, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Sudan being an atheist can carry the death penalty. In many nations citizens are forced to register as adherents of a limited range of religions, which denies atheists and adherents of alternative religions the right to free expression. Atheists can lose their right to citizenship and face restrictions on their right to marry. [62][63] In many parts of the world atheists face increasing prejudice and hate speech like that which ethnic and religious minorities suffer. Saudi Arabia introduced new laws banning atheist thought in any form; there a Muslim expressing religious views the government disliked was falsely called an atheist, sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes. In Egypt young people talking about their right to state atheist ideas on television or on YouTube were detained.[64]

I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

Research in the American Sociological Review finds that atheists are the group that Americans least relate to for shared vision or want to have marry into their family. [66]

From the report's conclusions

To be an atheist in such an environment is not to be one more religious minority among many in a strongly pluralist society. Rather, Americans construct the atheist as the symbolic representation of one who rejects the basis for moral solidarity and cultural membership in American society altogether.

A 2012 Gallup poll shows presidential candidates who are open atheists are the least likely demographic to be voted into office. [67]

In some parts of the United States people who are openly atheist may be attacked, spat on, turned out of the family home, sent to Bible camp and forced to pretend religiosity. [68]

In the US, atheists are the least trusted and liked people out of all social groups, possibly because of their cracker-stealing banana fetishes and their superior knowledge[69] of actual religious content. They top the charts when people are asked "who would you least trust to be elected President" or "who would you least want to marry your beautiful, sweet, innocent Christian daughter."[70][71] It probably doesn't help that the U.S. is one of the most religious developed countries in the world.[72]

Many have lost jobs and been harassed out of their homes for what is essentially a lack of any belief that could act as motivation to cause harm. Chuck Norris infamously claimed that he would like to tattoo "In God We Trust" onto atheist foreheads before booting them out of Jesusland[citationneeded], possibly to work as slaves in the Mines of Mora (he claims this is a joke, but few actually laughed). More extreme fundamentalists seem to want them outright banned from existence; blogger Andrew Schlafly seriously considered banning them from his website and George H. W. Bush declared "I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God," questioning whether anyone who disbelieves in God should even be allowed to vote (or at least be allowed to vote themselves out of persecution).[73] A creationist group has refined this way of thinking, stating that atheists and other "evolutionists" should be disenfranchised, as anyone who believes the theory of evolution is clearly mentally incompetent.[74]

Six US states have laws on the books that prohibit atheists from holding public office.[75] This despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling -- Torcaso v. Watkins (1961)[76] -- that prohibits discrimination against atheist officeholders.[77] These states are:

If atheism isn't a hanging offense in these places, they probably wish it were.[citationNOT needed] (Ok, maybe not Maryland, but you get the point.)

In some European countries being an atheist is unremarkable.

France has an entirely secular culture, with a suitably large proportion of the population declaring "no religion." In Scandinavia, while the majority of the population are members of their respective national churches, irreligiosity is nevertheless widespread and being openly atheist is completely unremarkable.[78] In the UK, Tony Blair's spin-doctor Alistar Campbell was led to declare that "we don't do god"[79] and Tony himself said that he kept quiet about religion because people would think he was "a nutter". The previous deputy Prime Minister was an atheist, while the Prime Minister himself has said that his Church of England faith "comes and goes". Overall, atheists in Europe aren't demonized as they are in America and other countries led by fundamentalists. Despite this, British Muslims who become atheists can face ostracism, threats and even physical abuse.[80]

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