What is Atheism?

Just about everyone knows what an Atheist is, right? Well, judging by what I've readon the internet, read in chat rooms, & received in Emails; many people still have noclue what Atheism really is! Since not all Atheists have the same view of Atheism as Ido, I may not cover your individual outlook on it, but I will attempt to define the basics of Atheism.

Defining Atheism

To define Atheism, you must first look at its root word,

theism

. Theism is simply the belief of a god(s). Theism by itself is

not

a religion; it is just simply a belief, nothingmore. Theists can be either polytheists or monotheists, depending on how many godsthey choose to believe in. After this we go into specific religions, like islam, judaism,& christianity.Atheism is simply the opposite of theism. The prefix

means "without" or "not", so

theism is simply a lack of belief in god(s). It is

not

a religion, just like theism is nota religion, but there are specific philosophies of Atheism that can be defined asreligion, thought since they all lack a belief in a god or the supernatural, they are nottrue religions, for example Humanism.Atheism also has branches off the basic disbelief. There are "strong Atheists" and"weak Atheists." Strong Atheism usually is a total denial of the existence of god(s); itusually is aimed at one or two specific gods for various reasons. Most Atheists, whothink this way, see a belief in a particular religion's god to be totally irrational and seeno possibility for the existence of their god.Weak Atheism, is what most Atheists would be; simply without belief in any god(s).Weak Atheists do not believe in god(s) for the simple reason that it is irrational and noevidence for the god has been brought to their attention. Most weak Atheists are quiteready to believe in a god as soon as there is some sort of evidence in its favour. Weak atheists will not choose a particular god to deny, they look at all gods equally.

Theists & Atheism

Theists generally focus on their individual gods and fail to realise that other gods are believed in besides theirs! They then use this lack of understanding to make all sortsof wild and irrational claims about Atheism. They would like to think that sinceAtheism does not follow their one "true" god(s), then Atheists must be

against

their god. We are often lumped together with other theists when this happens, since everyother belief system in the world would deny the trueness of that one god, just likeAtheists do. They all fail to realise that Atheism is not focuses on individual gods, insome cases they are, but not in the general definition. Atheism deals with the disbelief of

all

gods, not just those of christianity, islam, wicca, judaism, etc...Theists simply assume that everyone has the same image of god as they do. But thechristian's gods are not even remotely similar to the gods of Wicca. So first we mustdefine what a god is, and then can debate weather or not it exist. As long as the theist

holds the belief that there is only one god, then the conversation is pointless, becauseof flawed logic on the part of the theist. This can lead to many headaches as theAtheist attempts to explain how everyone else in the world views god, so the theistcan actually understand the position of the Atheist.Theists tend to make some very irrational assumptions about Atheism, most are basedon either incorrect information or flat out lies based on hatred.

1. People stop believing in god, so they can sin and do whatever they want.

This misconception stems from the idea that atheists not only cannot be moral withoutgod, but in fact do not want to be moral. Theistic, particularly Christian, attitudestowards atheists can often be summarized by the oft-quoted verse Psalm 14:1

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they do abominabledeeds, there is none that does good.

Despite numerous attempts, no theist has ever conclusively demonstrated that belief intheir god is required for morality - and in fact there are many good reasons to think that such a claim is simply false. Perhaps there are atheists who rejected belief in godsin order to avoid morality - but I've never encountered any, and the many atheists Ihave known have had quite different reasons for their atheism.

2. Atheists hate God.

This is just a misunderstanding of what Atheism is! Atheists cannot hate somethingthat they do not and cannot believe exists. It's one of those arguments that aredesigned to make people hate Atheists, nothing more.

3. Atheists worship Satan.

Again, we find a theist thinking that for some reason that only their god is relevant tothe atheist - and if the atheist does not believe in their god, then they must worship theantithesis of their god, Satan. But the fact of the matter is, atheists who don't believein a god also aren't going to believe in the god's supernatural competitor, either.

4. Atheist relies as much on faith as theists do.

This is theists trying to place their irrational beliefs on Atheists, which is impossible, by definition! Faith is the assumption that something is their without any proof; it is pretty much wishful thinking. Theists try to say everyone has faith in something, butthis degrades faith. To say Atheists have faith in science could just as easily be appliedto theist’s faith in science. That would then make the theist definition of faith lose alits supernatural meaning, therefore destroying their so-called proof of god throughfaith.

5. Everyone worships something, so atheists must have some god.

This complaint runs along lines very similar to the previous, and sometimes this ideais also expressed by claiming that "Atheism is a religion." Since they cannot imagine