Atheism
Join now to read essay 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 dont believe that God exists, but they dont believe that God doesnt exist, either.
There are probably over a billion people who dont believe in God, but dont go as far saying that they are certain that God doesnt 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 cant 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 doesnt interest them.
Religion doesnt 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 cant be a God.
Atheism as Opposition to Religion
Its 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