The Many Different Shades Of Atheism

Atheism is the belief that there is no God or divine being. Simple, right? Before I started researching the subject, I thought it would be, and that the classifications would only be complicated for non-atheists. However, I realized that nothing could be further from the truth. Today we will talk about the nuances of atheism.

There are different types of atheism. “Non-belief” is not the same all over the world, nor does everyone follow the same type of atheism.

Perhaps this variation is related to the atheists’ fear that they will become believers. While it may sound offensive, there is more rejection of any kind of dogmatic or extreme position.

Nevertheless, atheism sometimes falls into the category of religious fundamentalism. In general, the overriding goal of atheism is to establish a secular society, where believing in religion is like believing in Santa Claus. In other words, a belief without a scientific basis.

However, this does not automatically mean that there is something negative, as long as we categorize it as just that: a belief. In a secular state, such a comparison is permissible, although there is always the possibility of offending someone. In a religious community, a person can be executed for expressing such an idea.

The nuances of atheism: a nuanced form of non-belief

Philosophers such as Antony Flew and Michael Martin mention some of the nuances of atheism. They distinguish between positive atheism (strong) and negative atheism (weak).

• Positive atheism is the conscious confirmation that there are no gods.
• Negative atheism is not a belief that there are no gods, but rather an unbeliever.

Thus, positive atheism is a general term used to describe atheists who accept the statement as true: ” God does not exist “. You could say that positive atheism has taken the time to confirm that God does not exist with evidence. On the other hand, a negative atheist may say “I do not believe in God” because they may not even consider it an idea that must be rejected.

Agnosticism, on the other hand, is about uncertainty. Agnostics do not know if God exists or not because they say that humans do not have the knowledge to confirm or deny his existence. Many believe that agnosticism is like atheism for cowards. This is because they argue that you should believe in something rational or not.

You can not argue against the fact that we have rational means to distinguish between the real and the imaginary (for example, mermaids). However, we still do not seem to openly deny that God does not exist in the real world.

The separation of these different meanings of the word can help you understand the different reasons for the selection of atheistic beliefs. One argument may work to justify one type of atheism, but does not work for another.

Social stigma, political pressure and intolerance make it difficult to estimate the number of atheists in the world. It could be billions!

The nuances of atheism: The rationale for atheism

Another of the novelties of atheism is how different people justify it. There is a lot of controversy about available information, what it entails and how it should be interpreted. There are also metapistemological concerns about the role of argumentation, reasoning, belief and religiosity in people’s lives.

Atheists have argued that it is not reasonable for a person to believe in a supernatural being because they have no evidence to the contrary. In this way, they argue that believing that you have cancer because you have no evidence to the contrary would also be unreasonable.

Is it logical to debate about God?

Let’s look at other approaches to atheism. A family of arguments is what experts sometimes call deductive theology assignments. They come to the conclusion that the existence of God is impossible.

Another group of important and influential arguments falls into the category of inductive atheology. These plausible arguments jeopardize the natural world, as well as generalized disorders, non-beliefs, and biological and cosmological discoveries.

Another approach is non-cognitive atheism, which denies the idea that God is meaningful or has any prepositional content that can be evaluated in terms of truth or untruth. Instead, religious acts are more a complication of emotions or an expression of spiritual passion.

On the other hand, inductive and deductive approaches are cognitivist in the sense that they accept that affirmations of God are meaningful and can be described as either true or false.

The nuances of atheism: Conclusion

The question of whether God exists extends across positions related to biology, physics, metaphysics, philosophy of science, ethics, philosophy of language and epistemology. The reason for atheism depends on the general adaptation of a whole conceptual and explanatory description of the world.

On a personal level, I believe that God can be different for any person. I am not interested in the religious idea of ​​God, as it does not solve my existential problems. In other words, more than anything else, it is a personal and subjective decision. In any advanced society, both positions must be able to exist side by side.