In common parlance, an
atheist is someone who does not believe that god exists. This raises two questions:
· What is
a god?
· Precisely,
what does it mean to say that I don’t believe in some god or other?
A . What’s a god?
This is very difficult to
answer. However, a reasonable account is
that to be a god one must satisfy the following:
· Have
significant supernatural powers
· Not be
classifiable as merely human, vegetable or mineral
· Have
some kind of mental life
B. Theism vs. Atheism
Theism is the
view that at least one god exists.
Hence, polytheism is a form of theism.
More narrowly, in western
philosophy:
1.
Theism:
acceptance of the traditional orthodox god of revelation who is especially
concerned with us and intervenes in human affairs, a view held by most
Christian philosophers
2.
Deism: rejection of revelation and acceptance
of a god who is a person but may or may not be especially concerned with
us. Popular with some enlightenment
scientists and philosophers
3.
Pantheism: typically, nature is divine and not
a person, a view held by Spinoza and Einstein.
Note that pantheism does not qualify as theism according to the previous
account of god.
Atheism is the rejection of theism; hence,
an atheist is one without a belief in any god.
There are three types of
atheists:
1.
No-concept atheist: one who does not have the
notion of god or has never thought about god’s existence.
2. Agnostic:
one who neither believes nor disbelieves the existence of any god because one
thinks that we don’t know whether there is at least one god or not
Note: one
might be an agnostic on various grounds.
For example, one might believe that there are no good reason to believe in any god, or that there are equally strong reasons for the existence
and the non-existence of a god.
3. Positive
atheist: one who believes that no god exists
Note: one
may be a positive atheist because one thinks that we know that no god exists,
or because one thinks that we have sufficient evidence for concluding that
there is no god as the burden of evidence is on theist who, however, fails to
provide sufficient ground for his position.
Note that these types of
atheism are incompatible; for example, one may not be both an agnostic and a
positive atheist
Broadly, sometimes an atheist
is taken to be someone who denies the existence of some god. In this sense, one
might be a positive atheist with respect to some god, e.g., Christ, a negative
atheist with respect to some other god, e.g., Baal, and an agnostic with
respect to another, e.g., Zeus. So,
Roman polytheists considered Christians atheists because Christians denied the
existence of all gods but theirs. In
fact, as there are, or have been, thousands of gods
a theist is likely to be an atheist, in this sense, with respect to most of
them.
B. Some (common?) misconceptions about atheists
· One
becomes an atheist in order to be able to behave immorally.
Answer:
there is no satisfactory evidence for this as there is no decent evidence that
atheists are immoral, or even less moral than theists. It’s on a par with the view that one adopts
certain kinds of theism because one is not strong enough to deal with life’s
difficulties (the religion-is-for-weaklings story).
· Atheists
hate god
Answer:
Atheists (negative, agnostic, or positive) do not hate god because they don’t
believe the god at issue exists. Of
course, even a positive atheist could “hate” the god of some religion on moral
grounds, but that would be on a par with “hating”, say, Lord Voldemort. Still, an atheist may believe that a world
without the genocidal god of Joshua 10:40 or 1
Samuel 15:3 , or
some god who demands human sacrifice and similar nasty offerings, is better
than a world with such characters in
it. An atheist may also conclude
that a world without god-based religion would be better than the present one
because men tend to put in their imaginary gods’ mouths horrible commands, thus
giving divine sanctions to their wickedness and prejudice.
· Atheism
is a philosophical system and all atheists believe in the same things.
Answer:
Atheism is not a philosophical system any more than theism is; like theism,
atheism is very old, and atheists have very different philosophical views,
different moral views, different lifestyles, political affiliations, and so
on. Of course, they agree on rejecting
theism and there is empirical evidence that they tend to share some attitudes,
but that’s about all. Atheism may be the
consequence of a certain philosophical view, Marxism or certain types of naturalism,
let’s say, but the former does not imply the latter.
· Atheism
leads to unhealthy societies
Answer:
Of the 25 top ranking societies according to the 2004 Human Development Report from the UN all but one are the nations
with the highest levels of atheism.
Conversely, of the 50 bottom ranked, all have high percentages of
theism. Other studies show high positive
correlation between low infant mortality, literacy, low poverty rates, low
homicide rates, high gender equality and high percentages of atheism. However, societies with higher rates of
atheism also have higher rates of suicide.
See Zuckerman’s article in (C).
· Atheists
want forcefully to eliminate religion (Christianity)
Answer:
there is no atheist philosophy, and therefore there is no atheist position
about religion, Christianity, homosexuality, or whatever. What is certainly
true is that Communist societies declared themselves officially atheist and
engaged in policies that were (and are) inimical to religion. However, the
problem here has been the totalitarian nature of Communism, not atheism, as one
can see by noting that Communists shut up anybody who disagreed with them,
atheist or not, and that atheism in democratic countries has never persecuted
religion.
Of
course, an atheist might consider religion a harmful error, and therefore might
want to convince people to give it up; however, atheism does not have the
missionary nature that Christianity has. Periodically, Christians who want to
convert me knock at my door, but I have never had an atheist knocking at my
door to make me give up my religion.
·
Atheists are full of themselves because they
want to do without God
Answer:
The issue here is not what one wants but what one thinks is available. An
atheist does not believe in god, and therefore has to do without god. Some
atheist, however, would be distressed if some genocidal god existed, and others
would be happy if there were a good god.
In
general, ask yourselves: “Who is more full of oneself, one who believes that
one is the result of undirected evolution or one who believes that one is made
in the image of the master of the universe?’
C. Some facts about atheists
· There
are an estimated 500-750 million organic (non-compelled) atheists. If atheism were a religion, it would be the
fourth religion in the world. Many
European nations, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand Taiwan, and Israel have
the highest rates of atheism. Atheism is
virtually non-existent in the Middle East, Africa, most of Asia, and most of
South America (but there are exceptions, e.g., Uruguay). In the US the rate of atheism is low when
compared to many other western industrialized countries, as it’s around 3-9 %.
· In
western societies, atheists tend to be male, married and highly educated. They also tend to be less authoritarian, less
prejudiced, and more tolerant than the average.
(See Beit-Hallami’s article in (C))
The traditional Christian
God, leaving aside Christological
issues:
Even within the Christian tradition, there have been different
ideas of God because Revelation is unclear. Here are a few points on
the traditional (philosophized) orthodox notion of God:
1. Sempiternity, that
is, duration throughout the totality of time. So, a sempiternal
being exists in time and throughout time: there is no time at
which such a being does not exist
2. Eternity proper, that
is, a-temporal duration. So, an eternal being exists outside time.