Another subcategory of atheism is “friendly atheism,” which William Rowe (1979) defines as the position that, although God does not exist, some (intellectually demanding) people have the right to believe that God exists. Rowe, himself a friendly atheist, contrasts friendly atheism with hostile atheism and indifferent atheism. Hostile atheism is the opinion that atheism is true and that no (demanding) theistic belief is justified. Despite its very misleading name, this view could be held by the kindest, most open-minded and religiously tolerant person imaginable. Finally, although Rowe refers to “indifferent atheism” as a “position,” it is not a suggestion but a psychological condition, especially the state of being an atheist who is neither friendly nor mean—that is, who does not believe that friendly atheism is true, nor does he believe that hostile atheism is true. The relationship between atheism and IQ, although statistically significant, is not large, and the reason for the relationship is not well understood. [285] One hypothesis is that the negative relationship between IQ and religiosity is mediated by individual differences in nonconformity; In many countries, religious belief is a conformist choice, and there is evidence that smarter people are less likely to conform. [289] Another theory is that people with higher IQs are more likely to engage in analytical thinking, and that disbelief in religion results from applying higher-level analytical thinking to the evaluation of religious claims. [285] Atheism, particularly in the form of practical atheism, developed in many societies in the 20th century. Atheistic thought has found recognition in a variety of other broader philosophies, such as existentialism, objectivism, secular humanism, nihilism, anarchism, logical positivism, Marxism, feminism,[222] and the general scientific movement[223] and rationalism. [ref.
needed] Perhaps, however, an even more narrowly defined principle would serve the purpose: whenever the assumption that a positive existential claim is true would lead to waiting for reasons for its truth, the absence of such reasons is a good reason to believe that the claim is false. It could then be argued that (i) a God would probably provide us with convincing evidence of their existence, and therefore (ii) the absence of such evidence is a good reason to believe that God does not exist. This turns the argument without arguments into an argument of divine concealment. This also makes it an argument for local atheism at best, because even if the God of classical theism, say, were not hiding, not all legitimate concepts of God are such that a being who instantiates this concept would probably provide us with convincing evidence of its existence. The purpose of this article is to examine how atheism and agnosticism relate to theism and especially to each other. This requires examining the surprisingly controversial question of how best to define the terms “atheism” and “agnosticism.” The resolution of this question, at least for the purposes of this article, will pave the way for the discussion of an important distinction between global atheism and local atheism, which in turn will be useful in distinguishing different forms of agnosticism. This is followed by an examination of an argument for a modest form of agnosticism, followed by a discussion of three arguments for atheism and an argument against a more ambitious form of agnosticism. These sample sentences are automatically selected from various online information sources to reflect the current use of the word “atheism.” The views expressed in the examples do not represent the views of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us your feedback.
Although Flew`s definition of “atheism” fails as an umbrella term, it is certainly a legitimate definition in the sense that it reports how a significant number of people use the term. Again, the term “atheism” has more than one legitimate meaning, and nothing that is said in this article should be interpreted as an attempt to prohibit how people refer to themselves or what meanings they attach to those labels. The question for philosophy, and therefore for this entry, is which definition is more useful for scientific or, more narrowly, philosophical purposes. In other contexts, of course, the question of how best to define “atheism” or “atheist” can be very different. For example, in some contexts, the crucial question may be which definition of “atheist” (as opposed to “atheism”) is most politically useful, especially given the bigotry faced by those who identify as atheists. Unity being strength might recommend a very broad definition of “atheist” that brings anyone who is not a theist into the herd. However, one might think that this would not promote a good reason, political or otherwise, to attack other non-theists who do not identify as atheists simply because they choose to use the term “atheist” in another, equally legitimate sense. A second reason for preferring the metaphysical definition is that the two main alternatives to it have undesirable effects.
The definition of “atheism” as naturalism has the unpleasant implication that some philosophers are both theists and atheists. This is because some philosophers (e.g., Ellis 2014) deny that God is supernatural, affirming both naturalism and theism. The definition of “atheism” as the state of lack of faith in God faces similar problems. First of all, although this definition seems short and simple, which is virtuous, it needs to be expanded to prevent babies, cats, and stones from being considered atheists due to a lack of faith in God. While this problem is relatively easy to solve, another one is more difficult. This additional problem arises because one cannot believe in God while having other pro-theistic attitudes. For example, some people who do not have faith that God exists may still feel a certain inclination to believe that God exists. They may even believe that the truth of theism is more likely than its lie. Although such people should not be called theists, it is extremely counterintuitive to call them atheists. The psychological definition also makes atheists of some people who are (at least in practice) devoted members of theistic religious communities.
This is because, as is known, some devoted members of these communities have only a vague average level of trust that God exists, and no belief that God exists or that God is likely to exist. It would be unwise for philosophers to classify these people as atheists. Therefore, for these three reasons, philosophers should interpret atheism as the thesis that God does not exist (or, more generally, as the assertion that there are no divine realities of any kind).