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.