We explain what atheism is, its causes and what atheists believe in. We also explain its characteristics, foundations and classification.
Atheists do not believe in any deity nor do they follow any religion.
What is atheism?
Atheism is called, put very simply, the lack of belief in any kind of gods or deities. It is about the denial of religions, supernatural acts and extraterrestrial life, which is why it is usually opposed to theismThose who subscribe to this absence of belief are called atheists.
Atheism It is difficult to define and classify in absolute termssince there is no consensus regarding when one begins to believe and when one does not, or what requirements are needed to subscribe to atheism. For this reason, it is usually considered related to agnosticism, although they are not exactly the same.
Similarly, different philosophical variants and traditions of thought They can be classified as atheists. This occurs when their material, empirical or even scientific reasoning is opposed to traditional religious concepts.
See also: Pantheism
Origin of atheism
The first signs of atheism appear in Ancient Greecein the texts of the materialists Democritus and Epicurus.
Then, in Ancient Romehis work was taken up by Lucrecio Caro.
These authors denied the existence of the supernatural.
On the contrary, They maintained that the entire world is made up of matter and it is made up of atoms. This was the first atheist claim in history.
History of atheism
The Scientific Revolution dealt a severe blow to European religion.
Atheism as such It was difficult to express in the centuries following the fall of the Roman Empire., given the power that religions and their institutions had. In the West, during the Middle Ages Christianity ruled, while Islam ruled in the Middle East and Africa, etc.
The closest thing to atheism was Non-theistic religions of India, such as BuddhismThese beliefs, instead of worshipping a God, propose self-discovery and introspection as the path to enlightenment. On the other hand, they supported the possibility of rebirth after death.
The Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries dealt a severe blow to European religion, which had dominated culture for 15 centuries. Thinkers such as Copernicus, Galileo, Hobbes, Spinoza and Leibniz defended human reason as an alternative to blind faith.
Along with these scientific positions, new materialist philosophical currents made their way. In the 19th century, Marxism joined them and, using scientific reasoning, established the link between religion and exploitation. The phrase that simplifies this position is “religion is the opium of the people.”
During the 19th and 20th centuries theories appeared, such as psychoanalysiswhich offered alternative explanations to the revelations of mystics and all kinds of hitherto unexplained phenomena. This both underpinned and was made possible by atheistic thought.
Causes of atheism
There are various arguments in favor of atheism, among which the following are usually found:
- The absence of empirical evidence, that is, the absence of scientific proof regarding the existence of divinities, at a time when people were beginning to believe only in scientific evidence.
- The problem of evil, that is, the existence of evil and suffering, which is difficult to reconcile with the idea of an omniscient, all-powerful and kind protector god.
- The Argument from Unconscious Revelations, also called “the problem of avoiding the wrong hell”: the mutual exclusion implicit in the revelations of the prophets and mystics of the different religions of history, can be interpreted as proof that they are only a human creation.
- The Divine Concealment Argument, whose premise is that if one or more divinities existed, they would have created a reasonable situation to manifest themselves to humanity, but they have not done so, which allows doubt about their existence.
In what do atheistics believe?
Atheists do not necessarily question modes of belief in God.
Atheists believe that the concepts of god, divinity and the supernatural are human creations, linked to traditions, myths and legends. Therefore, they do not have any type of real and effective existence.
Atheists They do not necessarily question the modes of belief in God, nor do they pursue his absence. They simply lack such concerns, their world is a material world.
Types of atheism
Explicit atheists have knowledge of religions or theistic ideas.
Any classification of atheism is a challenge. The most common is raised according to the degree of reflection that a person must have regarding the existence of God, to be considered an atheist. That is, depending on the degree of rejection that exists regarding the idea of a God. Thus, we refer to:
- Implicit atheism. It refers to all those people who lack religious training or have never been exposed to theistic ideas, such as newborns, who do not believe in God without explicit and conscious rejection.
- Explicit atheism. Quite the opposite of the previous one: those people who know theistic ideas but reject them, that is, who make their atheism explicit. These atheists can in turn be divided into strong or weak:
- Weak explicit atheists. People who do not believe in the existence of a god, despite having knowledge of religions or theistic ideas, but who do not flatly deny the possibility that a god may exist.
- Strong explicit atheists. People who do not believe in the existence of a god, despite having knowledge of religions or theistic ideas, and who fully subscribe to the claim that no god exists in any way.
Philosophical foundations
The atheistic philosophical foundation can be explained according to two aspects:
- Practical atheism. It is the one that is exercised when one lives life without paying attention to the existence of gods, so much so that one assumes their absence. For practical atheists the existence or nonexistence of a God has no true pragmatic effects, so a total indifference is manifested.
- Theoretical atheism. It is one that explicitly offers arguments and approaches with the aim of proving that God does not exist, using ontological, epistemological, logical and metaphysical arguments.
Atheism and religion
Buddhists believe that atheists can also achieve enlightenment.
Not all religions reject atheism outright.For some belief systems such as Buddhism, Jainism or Hinduism, being an atheist is a valid path to enlightenment, although devoid of divine help.
Other religious forms such as Raelism, Syntheism, Neopaganism and Wiccathere is no major problem regarding atheists.
Differences between atheism and agnosticism
Unlike atheism, which denies from the outset any possibility of divinity or supernatural world, agnosticism considers the nature, existence and infinity of God as something possible. However, he considers it inaccessible to human understanding.
In that sense, Agnostics do not deny the possibility that God existsbut they doubt that its existence is something comprehensible and demonstrable in human terms. That is to say, they do not expect confirmation from either science or religion.
Statistics of atheism
Only 13% of the world’s population consider themselves convinced atheists.
It is very difficult to measure the number of atheists in the world. This is because not everyone understands it the samenor do they subscribe to the same statements, nor do they express it in the same way.
However, attempts to measure its global population indicated in 2012 (according to WIN/GIA) that Only 13% of the world’s population consider themselves convinced atheists.. On the other hand, 23% consider themselves non-religious.
According to the same study, atheists are distributed in the world as follows: China (47% of atheists), Japan (31%) and Western Europe (14% on average). The European country with the highest number of atheists was France (29%).
Is atheism a religion?
No, atheism is not a religion, because It is precisely opposed to every form of theismthat is, belief in a divinity. It can be considered a philosophical system and even a system of beliefs, which is never equivalent to a religion.