2006-07-15 08:52:32 · 34 answers · asked by Katie D 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Atheism, in its broadest sense, is the absence of theism (the belief in the existence of deities). This encompasses both people who assert that there are no gods, and those who make no claim about whether gods exist or not. Narrower definitions of atheism, however, typically label as atheists only those people who affirmatively assert the nonexistence of gods, and classify other nonbelievers as agnostics or simply non-theists.
Many of those who would identify themselves as atheists are driven to religious and spiritual skepticism in the first instance by what they find to be the profound lack of available evidence concerning deities, as well as the enormous plurality of creation stories and mythological paradigms. Thus, atheism is essentially the result of an exercise of the human faculty of reason in the realm of faith -- atheists often claim that they seek proof of the claims of the various religions, and that they generally find little aside from conflicting accounts of the sacred and irrational behaviour on the part of believers.
2006-07-15 08:58:37 · answer #1 · answered by madoli 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in higher powers like god, heaven, hell. All the religious stuff. Everyone has different opinions about god and not everyone shares the same opinions and there is nothing wrong with that. As for pretty brown eyes. I am an atheist and I have lots of love in my life and do not have low self-esteem. How dare she say that! I don't have a problem with people that have religions, it's a choice that people decide to make in their life.
2006-07-15 08:56:59 · answer #2 · answered by farmergyrl23 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A christian's definition of an atheist, "someone who doesn't believe in god" comes from a presupposed bias that a god exists.
An atheist's definition is (generally, though I don't speak for all atheists) "a person without belief in a god or gods".
The difference? Atheists don't make assumptions about the unproven.
The christian definition is as inappropriate to atheists as christians would consider this definition of them to be inappropriate:
christian: "a person who believes myths of a god or gods are factual"
2006-07-15 09:07:09 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Someone who DOES NOT BELIEVE in the existence of a god or gods. This is very much the sam as not believing in Santa Claus, Odin, Thor, Athena, the Easter Bunny, the boogeyman and the Tooth Fairy... there is just no compelling reason to believe in them. They are ALL clearly mythological, and worthy of no serious consideration whatsoever... except, perhaps, as a literary curiosity, or for the amusement of children.
As a subset, this would include people who BELIEVE there IS NO god (strong atheism). Do you see the difference?
They do not believe in gods, friendly spirits, evil spirits, demons, angels, multiplying loaves and fishes, raising people from the dead, creating people from dust and ribs, and ritualistic cannibalism by eating god in the form of a cracker. They think the world is about 4.5 billion years old and the universe about 14 billion years old. They ascribe to natural causes rather than supernatural explanations (willful ignorance). When there is no natural explanation at hand, they say "We don't know... yet. Let me get back to you on that", rather than saying "We don't know, therefore, god did it. Now we DO know."
In other words, they are RATIONAL... that is a much better word to describe them than is 'atheist'.
2006-07-15 09:06:14 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
An atheist is NOT someone who doesn't believe in God. That is a non-believer. A non-believer can be an atheist, an agnostic, an ignostic, and several other categories.
An atheist is a person who knows for a fact, and believes it can be proved, that God does not exist, as opposed to an agnostic who believes it is impossible to know whether there is a god, or to an ignostic, who believes it is entirely irrelevant to try to answer to the God question.
2006-07-15 09:05:44 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Someone that does not believe in any god, is an agnostic. An atheist is the opposite of a theist however. Whereas a theist believes in a god, an atheist opposes believing in a god. Mosts so-called atheists however, do not oppose the religious.
2006-07-15 08:58:33 · answer #6 · answered by McAtterie 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
As others said, atheists believe there is no God.
Do not confuse them with agnostics, who believe that there is no way for humans to know whether or not there is a God. The universe is a complex place, and while there has been no proof that a God exists, it would be presumptuous to say that there are no higher powers.
2006-07-15 09:01:02 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Most atheists say that they are people that they don't believe in God. But what a real atheist is is a someone who jsut can't be bothered believing in God
2006-07-15 11:04:46 · answer #8 · answered by Smart_Guy 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
In modern times it means the opposite of a theist has a relgious world view that militantly excludes the existance of God or anything miraculous
In acient rome Christians were accused of being Atheists because they didnt believe in the gods, but believed in Jesus Christ God made man
so the useage has changed
2006-07-15 09:38:06 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
A theist is one who has god-beliefs, and "a" means "without." Thus, an atheist is one who is without god-beliefs, or lacks a belief in a god or gods.
And I would like to point out that pretty_brown_eyes provided no evidence for her claims, and Babygirl86 resorted to childish ad hominum attacks, which would certainly suggest that neither can be taken seriously.
2006-07-15 09:05:09 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋