Atheism

Atheism is the denial of the existence of God and of any supernatural being or force. Atheism mainly rejects the Judaist, Christian, and Islamic notion of a [Page 200]god who is divine and the creator of the universe. Atheists reject God by refuting theists' arguments for the existence of God, such as argument of the first cause, argument for design, and argument of religious experience. Atheists argue that there is a lack of evidence to prove the existence of God. Some atheists go beyond a mere absence of belief in gods: They actively believe that particular gods, or all gods, do not exist. Just lacking belief in gods is often referred to as the “weak atheist” position, whereas believing that gods do not (or cannot) exist is known as “strong atheism.”

Atheism should not be identified with deism, pantheism, or religious freethinking. Broadly defined, atheists are those who do not believe in any deities, such as nontheists, agnostics, and even Buddhists. Buddhism affirms that nonbeing, or Nirvana, is the goal of all temporal effort. Taoism has no affirmation of an existing god. Denial of God should be distinguished from agnosticism, which holds that the existence of God cannot be proved.

In ancient Greece, people who rejected the gods of popular religions were called atheists. Atheism comes from Greek prefix a- (meaning without) and theos (meaning deity). Democritus and Epicurus were among atheist intellectuals of Greek time. Several leading thinkers of the Enlightenment and beyond were atheists, including Holbach, Diderot, Shelley, Byron, Hardy, Voltaire, Sartre, Turgenev, Twain, Sinclair, Feuerbach, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Russell, and Freud.

Atheists are strong advocates of the legal separation of religion and state. Some atheists educate the public to install a scientific and materialistic world outlook and to help overcome religious prejudice. The dominant Soviet ideology of Marxism-Leninism was to undermine religion. For Marx, religion was a reflection of socioeconomic order and was to him an alienation of humans from their products and true nature. Mass atheist movements used mass media and the Internet to spread their message and to draw believers and weak believers into active social, cultural, and political activities, to free them from religious influence and create a new culture based on science.

There is often a misperception of atheism as of being immoral and evil and that morality and purpose in life cannot exist without a belief in God. Atheists' ethical goals are determined by secular aims and concerns. Atheists believe that human beings must take responsibility for their destiny. Therefore, atheists are no less moral than theists.

Among the leading American atheist organizations are the American Atheists, the Internet Infidels, America First, Atheists United, the American Humanist Association, American Rationalist Federation, American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, and Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Most of atheists' reasoning is based on philosophical ground, a lack of evidence supporting theist claims, the belief that science is sufficient to conclude that there is no evidence to support religious doctrines, or the belief that religion is self-contradictory. To atheists, scientific explanation is more rational than faith.

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