Friday, August 3, 2012

What is Atheism?

What is atheism?  I do wish that I would have written this article first when creating this blog.  But, better late than never as the old saying goes.

Despite what christians and many others might believe, there are many misinterpretations and delusions of what the term "atheist" actually means.

The idea that atheist claim to know there is no god is a wide-spread myth, and atheism is by no means an extreme or militant position.  Since these are common labels of the religious and of the media, I am writing this article to clarify and educate the very ones who claim to know the absolute.

Atheism means:

A = Without
Theism = Belief in any gods

Atheism means we don't believe in any gods.  "Believe" being the key word here, which is a very different thing than to claim to "know", which is a statement of certainty.  Which most christians claim to know with this same certainty; that a god does exist!

Atheism is not a claim of knowledge, but rather a response to theism, which is a societal norm in many countries.  In Europe, the majority of the population is comprised of nonbelievers.  The term atheist is rarely used as the societal norm is to have no belief in any gods.  A person takes for granted that the person they are dealing with has no beliefs in any gods, because it's normal; only believers identify themselves according to their specific faith if and when the topic arises.

If tomorrow the sky opened and a giant head popped through the hole, and everyone else could see it too (so I knew I wasn't just losing my mind), and the being performed acts of the supernatural that ran contrary to the formulas used to predict physics (in other words, the laws of physics), and displayed other attributes of a deity (as opposed to another life form) then I would believe in the existence of at least one god. Though I obviously cannot speak for all atheists, I believe it's safe to say that they would also believe there is at least one god.

Atheism is not the rejection of gods nor the rejection of belief in any gods. It is not a form of rebellion. Atheists do not believe in gods in the same way that most people do not believe fairies.

The fact I do not believe in the existence of leprechauns, even though I cannot prove such creatures do not exist anywhere on the planet, does not make me an extremist. Some might even argue that disbelief in leprechauns is the stance of any rational, sane individual. There is zero empirical evidence for leprechauns, nor is there so much as a shred of empirical evidence for any of the thousands of gods humans have created.

In my years as an atheist, most people I've met who describe themselves as agnostic are those who have lost their belief in any gods, but who are also not mentally prepared to get off the religious fence. Threats of hell, for example, can be a powerful psychological terrorist tactic, and it can take quite awhile to overcome the fear that has been ingrained in you since childhood.

Others who identify as agnostics have, in my experience, generally misunderstood the meaning of atheism, that it is not a claim of certainty, and feel atheism is an extreme stance. And some have not realized that the fact one cannot disprove the existence of gods does not also mean the chances of them existing are 50/50. They wouldn't consider not believing in fairies an extreme position although fairies also cannot be disproved, nor do they feel the chances of fairies existing are 50/50. Yet for some reason they apply a different standard when it comes to gods.

There are those who take the view that anyone who calls themselves an agnostic is actually an atheist who is too cowardly to get off the religious fence. I personally think the term helps many people with the mental transition from believer to nonbeliever. Becoming an atheist means changing your entire worldview. It's an adjustment, and not always an easy one.

If you believe in gods, you're a theist. If you do not believe in gods, you're an atheist. If you claim with certainty to have knowledge (not belief, knowledge) either way, you need to check your arguments and beliefs for logical fallacies and/or talk to a doctor to ensure you're not hallucinating due to a short-circuit in your brain or a mental illness.

Finally, the term atheism means only that one does not believe in any gods. It's not veganism, or liberalism, feminism, Communism or even skepticism. Being an atheist has nothing to do with evolution and vice versa, nor does it mean someone is strictly rational and does not engage in magical thinking.

There are people who reject evolution, for example, and yet do not believe in any gods. They're called "Räeliens" and they are technically atheists because they don't believe in any gods, but they don't accept evolution either. To my knowledge, I have yet to meet any Räeliens. They apparently don't tend frequent atheist pages because they still have a belief system, though it doesn't involve any supernatural gods.

Räeliens believe we were planted here by little green creatures in UFOs instead of a poof of magic from an invisible sky daddy, and Räeliens generally reject "Darwinism" as vehemently as Christian fundies do.

The term atheist also does not mean someone rejects the supernatural, and there are religions that are technically atheist, as well. Most Buddhists do not worship Buddha, for example, which makes them atheists.

All the term atheist means is that someone has no belief in gods. It says absolutely nothing about what someone does believe.

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