Atheism

Overview of Atheism

Atheism is not a belief.

Atheism is the absence of belief in any Gods.

Atheists are people who do not believe in God or other spiritual beings.

Some atheists go further and deny that God, or other spiritual beings, exist.

Agnostics

Agnostics, in the popular sense, are people who have doubts about the existence of God. They don't believe that God exists, but they don't believe that God doesn't exist, either.

There are probably over a billion people who don't believe in God, but don't go as far saying that they are certain that God doesn't exist.

The strict meaning of Agnostic is not the same as this popular meaning.

An agnostic in the original sense of the word is a person who thinks that we can't ever know about anything other than the material world, and therefore that the question as to whether God exists or not is one that can never be answered.

Reasons for Non-Belief

People are non-believers for many reasons, among them:

Atheism is their chosen philosophy.

They find insufficient evidence to support any religion.

They think that religion is nonsensical.

They once had a religion and have lost faith in it.

They live in a non-religious culture.

Religion doesn't interest them.

Religion doesn't seem relevant to their lives.

Religions seem to have done a lot of harm in the world.

The world is such a bad place that there can't be a God.

Atheism as Opposition to Religion

It's perfectly possible to be both religious and an atheist. Virtually all Buddhists manage it, as do many members of other faiths.

But many atheists are also secularists, and are hostile to any special treatment given to organised religion.

Terminology

Atheists