atheism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Atheism
...). Sometimes referred to as negative atheism or non-theism ( 1 ) , or less commonly weak or soft atheism . 2. Belief that there is no God or gods. Arguably the most popular current usage, atheism here signifies disbelief in the existence of a God or gods, and is distinguished from both theism and agnosticism. In common speech, the term is often understood to imply a degree of conviction or certainty ( see also anti-theism ). Sometimes referred to as positive atheism , or less commonly strong or hard atheism . 3. Belief in the falsity of a specific...
positive atheism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Atheism
...atheism The belief that there is no such thing as a God or gods, as opposed to a broader absence of a belief that there is ( see negative atheism ). Positive atheism is thus used to distinguish non-belief from other species of atheism , such as agnosticism and certain forms of indifference . It is pointed out that positive atheism is, in fact, a special category of negative atheism (since all those who believe there is no God are ipso facto without a belief that there is). Synonyms include hard atheism (versus soft atheism ), strong atheism...
negative atheism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Atheism
...include soft atheism (versus hard atheism ) and weak atheism (versus strong atheism). Negative atheism, like its equivalents, is almost exclusively encountered in technical writings on the definition of atheism . It is worth noting, however, that positive and negative are the preferred nomenclature in recent major reference works, such as The Cambridge Companion to Atheism and The Oxford Handbook of Atheism...
State Atheism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Atheism
...State Atheism State Atheism is the name given to the incorporation of positive atheism or non-theism into political regimes, particularly associated with Soviet systems ( see scientific atheism ). State Atheisms have tended to be as much anti-clerical and anti-religious as they are anti-theist , and typically place heavy restrictions on acts of religious organization and the practice of religion. State Atheist regimes are sometimes seen as examples of political secularism because they entail a nonreligious form of government; these regimes are even...
Atheism Plus Quick reference
A Dictionary of Atheism
...Atheism Plus A broad (primarily online) movement of non-theists and others ‘dedicated to promoting social justice and countering misogyny, racism, homo/bi/transphobia, ableism and other such bigotry inside and outside of the atheist community’. The name is often used interchangeably with Atheism+ (which is itself sometimes abbreviated to A+). While the movement emerged explicitly in 2012—based on a suggestion by blogger Jen McCreight—it arguably crystallized a growing dissatisfaction in some quarters with mainstream non-theist culture (including the New...
New Atheism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Atheism
...New Atheism Coined by the US journalist Gary Wolf in 2006 , New Atheism is a term used to identify a cultural movement generally united by a strongly anti-theist outlook based on non-theist , rationalist claims (concerning the incompatibility of theism and reason) and/or moral objections to religious institutions (concerning their perceived illiberalism, including gender inequality and repression of members). New Atheism is also associated with the veneration of Western science, and most New Atheists are identifiable as humanists . New Atheism was...
scientific atheism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Atheism
...scientific atheism [Russian: nauchny ateizm .] 1. Distinctive social, cultural, and ideological pro-atheist project within the Soviet Union (and elsewhere within its sphere of influence). At the theoretical level, as the official worldview of the Soviet Union, scientific atheism packaged together positive atheism with, among other things, an explicit anti-religious message (justified on the basis of historical and social-scientific studies of religion), and a commitment to the tenets of Marxism–Leninism. Its practical applications varied over...
methodological atheism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Atheism
...methodological atheism A device used by empirical researchers, especially in sociology and other human sciences, to bracket metaphysical questions for the purposes of research and focus exclusive on naturalist explanations for religious phenomena. The approach focuses on claims about the existence and action of God(s) but is also applied to any supernatural aspects of religious phenomena, so that atheism is here a proxy for materialism . Introduced by the sociologist Peter Berger in 1967 , methodological atheism aims to be neutral towards metaphysical...
militant atheism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Atheism
...militant atheism A frequent, heavily contested term mainly associated with popular debate of the twenty-first century, and pointing to the significance of anti-theist and anti-religious strands in contemporary non-theistic movements, especially associated with New Atheism . The term also connotes proselytizing or evangelical dimensions to these movements. Nonreligious actors frequently question the extent to which ‘militancy’ can be correctly or fairly applied to activity that does not typically involve physical violence, though this critique does...
practical atheism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Atheism
...practical atheism 1. Sometimes used to describe a type of nominal, or otherwise deficient, form of (normally Christian) religious believing and practice. The French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain, for example, described practical atheists as those ‘who believe that they believe in God (and who perhaps believe in Him in their brains) but who in reality deny His existence by each one of their deeds’ ( 1947 ). The phrase itself was popular among some leading twentieth-century theologians (e.g. Karl Barth, Karl Rahner, Henri de Lubac), although the general...
atheism Quick reference
World Encyclopedia
... Philosophical denial of the existence of God or any supernatural or spiritual being. Early Christians were called atheists because they denied Roman religions, but the term now usually indicates the denial of Christian theism. During the 18th-century Enlightenment , David Hume , Immanuel Kant , and the Encyclopedists laid the foundations for atheism. In the 19th century, Karl Marx , Friedrich Nietzsche , and Sigmund Freud all accommodated some form of atheism into their respective philosophies. Today many individuals and groups advocate atheism. ...
atheism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Philosophy (3 ed.)
... Either the lack of belief that there exists a god, or the belief that there exists none. Sometimes thought itself to be more dogmatic than mere agnosticism, although atheists retort that everyone is an atheist about most gods, so they merely advance one step further. http://www.pluralism.org/resources/tradition/atheism_links.php A list of internet resources on atheism http://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/existence-god-0 An audio discussion of the arguments for and against God’s...
atheism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Hinduism
... When used in a pejorative sense, the equivalent of nāstika , but otherwise a factually descriptive adjective applied to the completely orthodox ( āstika ) beliefs of, for example, the Sāṃkhya and Pūrva Mīmāṃsaka systems, which discount the significance of either a personal or impersonal...
atheism n. Quick reference
A Dictionary of Psychology (4 ed.)
... n. Rejection of belief in God. atheist n. One who rejects belief in God. Compare agnosticism , deism , pantheism , theism . atheistic or atheistical adj. [From Greek a - without + theos a god + - ismos indicating a state or...
atheism Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World
... The Greek for atheism is ‘not to recognize the gods’ or ‘deny that the gods exist’ or, later, ‘to remove the gods’. The Greek word atheos can be applied to atheism (e.g. in Plato's Apology ), but in the earliest instances it means ‘impious, vicious’ or ‘hated, abandoned by the gods’, and these senses persist along with the other. Christians and pagans were to swap charges of atheism, by which they meant ‘impious views about the divine’. The gods of popular polytheism were rejected or drastically reinterpreted by all philosophers from the 6th cent. ...
Atheism Quick reference
A Concise Companion to the Jewish Religion
... The attitude that affirms there is no God. Until the Middle Ages, when the philosophers, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim, who in response to atheistic attacks sought to prove by rational argument the existence of God, theoretical atheism was unknown. When the Psalmist (Psalms 14: 1) castigates the fool for saying in his heart there is no God, he is thinking of practical atheism: that, so far as human conduct is concerned, God does not matter, that God is unconcerned about whether or not human beings practise justice and righteousness. It goes without saying...
atheism Reference library
Edward Royle
The Oxford Companion to British History (2 ed.)
...Necessity of Atheism’. In Britain the best-known atheist, Thomas Paine ( 1737–1809 ), was in fact a deist whose Age of Reason was written to counter the progress of French atheism. As loyalist propaganda in the 1790s was directed against those radical ideas in religion and politics associated with the French Revolution, atheism became identified with lower-class subversion, though only a few radicals, such as William Godwin ( 1756–1836 ) and Jeremy Bentham ( 1748–1832 ), were actually atheists. In the 19th cent., materialistic atheism was taken up in...
atheism Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3 ed.)
...but meaningless that they are strictly to be called atheists. Modern atheism is usually seen by its adherents as a way of safeguarding an affirmation of human freedom and people’s ability to control their own destiny. Paradoxically ‘atheism’ is regarded by some Christian theologians (e.g. J. Moltmann ) as a legitimate means of avoiding positing God as one entity among others, an infinite Being encroaching on finite...
atheism Reference library
Andrew R Hay
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (4 ed.)
...des Reiches (Frankfurt am Main, 1968; rev. edn 2009). M. Hunter and D. Wootton (eds), Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment (Oxford, 1992). P. Masterson , Atheism and Alienation: A Study of the Philosophical Sources of Contemporary Atheism (Dublin, 1971; Harmondsworth, 1973). M. J. Buckley , SJ, At the Origins of Modern Atheism (New Haven and London, 1987). M. Westphal , Suspicion and Faith: The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism (New York, 1998). H. Küng , Existiert Gott? Antwort auf die Gottesfrage der Neuzeit (Munich...
atheism Reference library
Robert Christopher Towneley Parker
The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.)
... , The Greek for atheism is ‘not to recognize (νομίζειν) the gods’ or ‘deny that the gods exist’ or, later, ‘to remove (ἀναιρεῖν) the gods’. (The old doctrine that θεοὺς νομίζειν never means to ‘believe in’ but always to ‘pay cult to’ the gods is wrong; but it is true that borderline cases exist.) The Greek word ἄθεος can be applied to atheism (Pl. Ap. 26c), but in the earliest instances it means ‘impious, vicious’ or ‘hated, abandoned by the gods’, and these senses persist along with the other; so too with ἀθεότης. Thus Christians and pagans were to...
