Can atheism exist without the existence of religion?

Question

some real stupid answers in here!

Answer 1

There are, roughly, two forms of atheism:

(i) weak atheism, not believing in god(s);
(ii) strong atheism, explicitly denying the existence of god(s).

Weak atheism can most certainly exist without religion, as in the case of someone who has never thought about god.

It is hard to see how one could be a strong atheist without the preexistence of the concept of god. How can you possibly deny the existence of a thing called god, if someone hasn't already positively called it such?

I suppose I could define a "weeebolj" as a kind of tasty space cheese, and then deny its existence, but I find that a bit too self-referential and contradictory.

To all the people here who assert that atheism predates theism, I'd suggest that, since icons and fetishes predate language, you are most likely to be wrong.

Answer 2

Atheism, or not believing, is the default position. Religion does not exist until someone conceives (an immaculate conception it must be said - there's an irony, eh?) of a god.

At that point, the term atheist could come into being, so I suppose the terminology could not exist until religion existed. However, not believing always exists, of course.

Not believing in pixies is a default position too, but I don't think anybody has created a term for that yet...

Answer 3

Of course it can. First of all, the nonexistence of religion does not preclude the existence of faith, and in that way there could still be the same dichotomy of believers and nonbelievers. If we eliminate faith any gods altogether, then atheism would still exist. All it means is a lack of belief in gods. In this last situation, everyone would be atheists. It's not a comparative condition. It's not like good, which can only be known in comparison to bad. It's a clearly defined term with exact boundaries. Whether we'd still have a word for it, though, is up to debate.

Answer 4

Yes. The clue is in the question- atheism as in ' without belief'
Why would we need others to believe? It's just a nonsense.
Could Christianity exist without atheists? Of course it could.
Silly question.

Answer 5

without faith atheism might bypass away as an exciting and important point of view, yet naturalism might proceed to be with the aid of fact the philosophical place maximum intellectually established. we've Western Europe to verify as an occasion. at the same time as prepared faith has generally long gone extinct, New Age spiritualist ideals ought to some quantity replaced the greater classic religious ideals. It merely shows human beings will have confidence in any style of supernatural woo even in the absence of the religious types.

Answer 6

Atheism would certainly exist. No religion = atheism. Its not like "whoops, no religion, well I guess we can't not believe in anything anymore". Atheism is no religion, therefore not only would atheism would exist, but everyone would be atheists.

Answer 7

No. Religion is a belief in a supreme being. One cannot disbelieve in that being if it doesn't exist. It's not possible, surely, to disbelieve in something that you don't believe exists in the first place! It would be like saying "I don't like fish" if there were no fish to dislike!

Answer 8

your question in reverse is also true ,for in the quest to be different is creating a belief of its own ,athiesm is a belief in ones self and the existance of no other higher being ,but in doing so denies that anything higher can axist without knowing the true meaning of being

Answer 9

well yeah

atheism existed before theism ever did. there was just no need to name it. without religion, atheism would be all there is. it just wouldn't be called that anymore.

i'm going to assume this was a fasceitous question...

Answer 10

Some real stupid questions on here.