Atheism/Theism

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 one doesn’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. There are many types of theists because there are many types of religions. In fact, even when two theists believe in the same god (two Christians, for example) they may still have serious theological and moral disagreements. In fact, traditionally Christians have been a violently (literally) divided lot.

For example, theologically/religiously, they have disagreed on

· The nature of their god: some accepted Trinitarianism, some rejected it. In particular, they have disagreed on whether Jesus is a divine creature (Arianism) or not. The most widely held view after the council of Nicea is that Jesus has been generated (whatever that means) the God the Father.

· The nature of Incarnation: when God becomes man, what’s the relationship between divine and human nature? For some, divine nature completely obfuscated human nature, so that Christ had no real body and that therefore the passion was an illusion (Docetism). For most, miraculously Jesus had both a full divine and a full human nature.

· The requirements for salvation: some (Pelagians) argued that there’s no original sin and that we can gain heavens simply by our good works; others argued that both undeserved divine grace and good works are necessary (traditional Catholics); others that works count for nothing and only undeserved grace can save us (Luther); others that we get grace simply by choosing to believe in Christ as the Savior. Moreover, for some Jesus is the only way to salvation; for others he is not; for some (Catholics), one doesn’t even need to be a Christian to go to heaven. Also, for some divine grace is irresistible and for others it is not.

· What constitutes scripture and how one ought to read it: the size of the Canon increases as we move along these churches: mainstream Protestant, Anglican, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Ethiopian, one of the oldest and most venerable churches in Christendom.

· Whether women can be ministers, and what priests are.

· What counts as a sacrament and how many there are (2, 3, or 7)

Christians also disagree on moral issues:

· For some homosexuality is a terrible sin; for others it isn’t a sin at all (American Episcopalians have a gay bishop!)

· For some, abortion is murder; for other it is permissible

· For some, the death penalty is an abomination; others are in favor of it

Christians also disagree politically: some are rightists, some are conservatives, some are liberals, and some leftists; some are republicans and other democrats; some are environmentalists and some are not, for example.

In short, saying that one is a Christian is saying much less than most Christians believe. Presumably, the mistake arises from the narrow-minded belief that one’s own brand of Christianity is the only one.

However, leaving aside Trinitarian and Christological issues, it is possible to provide a run of the mill philosophical view of god that most Christians have traditionally agreed upon:

• God exists necessarily, that is, God cannot fail to exist (what’s involved in the word “cannot” is a matter of dispute).
• God is a person (not a set of laws, or some sort of impersonal force) endowed with free will.  As such, God has a moral and personal relation with us.
• God is a perfect being in the sense of possessing all the positive attributes to the highest possible degree. 
• God’s attributes are divided into metaphysical and moral. The former are attributes that God has of necessity; the latter are to some extent or other subject to God’s will.
• The most important metaphysical attributes are
• Omniscience (God is all-knowing)
• Omnipotence (God is all-powerful)
• Eternity.

• Among the most important moral properties of God are
• Justice
• Omnibenevolence (God is all-good). In particular, he loves us and shows us mercy.

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, 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, many gods a theist is likely to be an atheist, in this sense, with respect to most of them.

C. In the US there are many misconceptions about atheism; here are a few:

· One becomes an atheist in order to be able to behave immorally/ atheist cannot be trusted

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). And yet it really sticks: imagine a prominent US politician claiming to be an atheist instead of invoking God every 5 minutes. Note that there is no significant correlation between one’s morality and one’s belief in some god or other, even if the percentage of atheists in prison seems lower than that of atheists in society as a whole.

· Atheists hate God

Answer: Atheists do not hate god because they don’t believe any god 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 consider the god of Joshua 10:40 or 1 Samuel 15:3 genocidal and therefore think that a world without such god or a god who demands human sacrifice, or a god that gives sexist or racist commands, is better than a world with such god in it. (The link to Samuel is through a site that is critical of scripture and religion. If you’re religious, take a look and see what some on the other side think). 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. Alternatively, some atheist may believe that it would be better if some benevolent god existed, and bemoan the fact that no such being exists.

· 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 two atheists have very different philosophical views, different moral views, different lifestyles, political affiliations, much in the same way in which two Christians might. 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; living in a society with a lot of atheists is terrible.

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, partially because of end of life issues. Of course, these are just statistical correlations, but are enough to show that the charge is unjustified.

· 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. (Note that historically atheists, apostates, and members of other religions have very often suffered persecutions from Christians; just think about pogroms against the Jews, forced conversions, or legal discrimination).

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 (they stopped after I lied and told them that I’m a Jew), but I have never had an atheist knocking at my door to make me give up my religion.

· Atheists are full of themselves, they are prideful, 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 any god, and therefore has to do without. Some bemoan this, some do not. (Note that some atheist, however, would be distressed if some genocidal god, as some believe the Abrahamic god is, existed). Hence, in spite of the popularity of this charge against atheists one can see that it probably amounts to little more than a put-down. If so, the atheist could reply by asking: “Who is more prideful, one who believes to be the result of undirected evolution, a clever animal, or one who believes to be made in the image of the master of the universe?”

D. Some figures

· There are roughly 2 billion Christians mainly divided into Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox; they are mostly in the Americas, Europe, Russia, Australia, and southern Africa.

· There are an estimated 500-750 million free atheists. If atheism were a religion, and it is not, 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 % but seems to be growing.