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Dictionary.com defines “atheism” as:
1. The doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2. Disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
Further related definitions are provided by the American Heritage
Dictionary:
1. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
2. The doctrine that there is no God or gods.
Thus, there exists a simple test to distinguish an atheist from a
theist. One needs only ask an individual, “Do you believe in the
existence of any kind of god or gods?” If the person thus questioned
answers in the affirmative, then he is a theist. If he answers in
the negative, then he is an atheist.
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An atheist does not believe in any kind of god or gods. But
what exactly are these “gods” that atheists do not believe
in? Princeton University’s WordNet defines “god” as: |
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1. The
supernatural being conceived as the perfect and omnipotent
and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe; the
object of worship in monotheistic religions.
2. Any supernatural being worshipped as controlling some
part of the world or some aspect of life or who is the
personification of a force. |
So an atheist is an individual who does not believe that there exist
any kinds of supernatural beings controlling any
aspects of the world, of human lives, or of the entirety of
existence. It is crucial to note that an atheist disbelieves
specifically in the notion that a person controls these
aspects of existence, or that the forces controlling them can be
personified. An atheist does not necessarily reject the
existence of impersonal forces controlling or guiding
inanimate or animate aspects of the world. For instance, atheists
can and often do believe that there exist natural laws of physics,
of morality, of economics, and of biological evolution. Atheists can
and often do believe in the existence of large macroscopic orders
that characterize aspects of existence. What atheists reject is the
idea that some non-human, superhuman, and supernatural person
inaugurated those orders into being and/or actively controls them.
Myth 1: Atheists hate God
The word “atheism” originates from the Greek “atheos,” meaning “godless.”
There is no hatred or even dislike of any god or gods implied in
either the word or its origins. Atheism is not the same as
antitheism, or opposition to gods and to those who
believe in gods.
Atheists do not actively despise any god, in part because it is
difficult to despise what one does not believe to exist. Many
monotheists make the mistake of alleging that atheists hate their
God in particular. But if someone were to suggest that atheists hate
Vishnu or Zeus or Thor or Amon-Ra, such allegations would clearly be
recognized as empirically false. Many atheists not only do not hate
those deities; they enjoy reading myths and stories where such
deities play an active role. In many such stories, the gods even
behave in an admirable manner – and most atheists are ready to
acknowledge this. What, then, would make the Christian or Jewish or
Muslim God so different in their eyes?
Indeed, absolutely nothing in an atheist’s worldview needs
necessarily prevent him from reading the texts of the monotheist
faiths and deriving from them similar utility, enjoyment, and moral
instruction to what he might derive from Hindu, Greek, Norse, or
Egyptian mythology.
When atheists read about gods, they evaluate the gods as literary
characters. Those literary characters may behave admirably or not –
and it is up to the individual atheist to judge the individual
literary god in each particular case. What atheists are not
ready to do, however, is to evaluate the morality or immorality of
particular actions in a text based solely on whether any god
performed or abstained from them, praised or condemned them.
Atheists are ready to condemn the Old Testament God’s command that
Saul exterminate the infants of Amalek just as they are prepared to
criticize Athena’s decision to turn Arachne into a spider for being
a better weaver than the goddess.
Myth 2: Atheists hate those who believe in a god
Atheists do not believe in any gods, but virtually all atheists
believe in the existence of some kind of moral standards for human
behavior. Since they do not believe in any gods, they do not believe
that moral standards originate from gods. Thus, in an atheist’s view,
whether somebody else believes in a god is as irrelevant to
that person’s morality as his color of hair or his preferred flavor
of ice cream. What is relevant, however, is whether an individual’s
actions show him to be a fundamentally good and moral person. Many
atheists will disagree regarding what this means, but they will
concur that an individual’s religious convictions are not a
determinant of his moral character. Again, those who condemn theists
simply because the latter believe in a god are not atheists, but
rather antitheists.
If a person’s religious convictions have nothing in common with his
adherence to the atheist’s moral standard of choice, then the
consistent atheist will disregard religious convictions altogether
when forming his judgments of others. An atheist is often as likely
to find good people among the religious as among fellow atheists –
and he might often prefer the company of some of the former to that
of some of the latter.
Atheists do not necessarily dislike any particular religion or its
adherents. What atheists detest, however, is religious bigotry,
hypocrisy, and intolerance. Whenever any group of individuals seeks
to impose its views on others by force or uses the rhetoric
of religion as justification for coercing, expropriating, and
tyrannizing over others, the conscientious atheist will be outraged
– as he should be.
Myth 3: Atheists advocate socialism, totalitarianism, or the
welfare state
While it is true that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels did not believe
in any god, atheism as such has no necessary implications in the
political realm – other than perhaps an opposition to any
integration between church and state, which is a stance shared by
many religious individuals as well. There do exist socialist
atheists and welfare-statist atheists, but there also exist
conservative atheists, libertarian atheists, and atheists adhering
to virtually every other political creed.
Indeed, atheism is much older than virtually any prevalent political
philosophy of our time. The first known famous atheist was the
ancient Greek thinker Diagoras in the late 5th century B.C. In more
recent times, atheism was espoused by such thinkers as the
Enlightenment thinker Paul-Henri Thiry, the Baron d’Holbach
(1723-1789), the analytic philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970),
and Ayn Rand (1905-1982), the founder of Objectivism. Truly,
atheists are historically represented within a tremendous range of
political and philosophical movements – and it is impossible to
classify all atheists under a single political or ethical umbrella.
Indeed, the disagreements among atheists as to what constitutes
moral behavior or a proper social order can often exceed in their
extent the disagreements between some atheists and some religious
individuals on these issues.
Nothing prevents an atheist from adhering to a philosophy of
individual rights, limited government, and free markets. Murray
Rothbard, one of the 20th century’s most prolific free-market
economists and libertarian political theorists, was an atheist – as
is the psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz, who opposes state control over
individuals’ “mental health.”
Indeed, according to columnist
Alan Caruba,
“American atheists are more likely to object to abuses of power by
government than most people… Conservative and Libertarian political
values, smaller and less intrusive government, fiscal prudence,
laissez-faire capitalism, and individualism would seem to suit most,
but not all, atheists better than some form of socialism or
one-world government philosophy.”
Myth 4: Atheists do not believe in objective moral standards
There exist numerous ways to arrive at an understanding of morality
without any reference to a deity. One can employ natural law theory
– as exemplified in the works of Aristotle, John Locke, and Murray
Rothbard. Alternatively, one can espouse utilitarianism – as did
Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill – argue for the evolutionary
origins of morality in the manner of Herbert Spencer and Friedrich
Hayek. Like the Enlightenment philosophers and Ayn Rand, one can see
morality as originating from rational self-interest. One can follow
the empiricist consequentialism of Milton Friedman and try to arrive
at morality by observing the outcomes of particular actions and
human institutions. Or one can deduce it from first principles like
Rene Descartes. Alternatively, like William James, one can conceive
of morality as a set of rules that happen to “work” in a pragmatic
sense.
“Morality
Does Not Require Religion” provides further
discussion of why a belief in any god or gods is not required for an
individual to behave morally. “Incentives
for Moral Behavior” examines the real-world
motivations of individuals of a broad variety of persuasions –
religious or otherwise – to act morally.
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