Atheism

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Atheism

Atheism, defined most briefly, is denial of the reality of God. Since there are many concepts of God, there are many varieties of atheism. Athenians accused Socrates of atheism, although (in Plato's Apology) he told his judges, "I shall obey God rather than you." Romans referred to Christians as atheists; they rejected the gods of Rome. The seventeenth-century philosopher Spinoza was described as a "God-intoxicated man" and as an atheist. Today somebody occasionally says, only half jokingly, "I am a Catholic atheist, not a Protestant atheist," or "I am a Jewish atheist, not a Christian atheist."

Therefore a revised definition might say: Atheism is the denial of any reality (1) regarded as the core energizing and ordering force of the universe and humankind, and (2) evocative of awe and worship. That means also the denial of any transhuman moral authority.

Atheism is less frequent than agnosticism, which says of ultimate reality, "I don't know," usually also meaning, "You don't know either." There are strains of agnosticism in all religions.

Modern Western atheism appears in several forms:

Scientific atheism explains natural phenomena as the result of matter-energy in motion. Studies of religious beliefs of scientists reveal about the same diversity as in the general public. Albert Einstein understood his beliefs as similar to Spinoza's and occasionally referred to God as der Alte (the Ancient). But today's science usually does not introduce God into causal explanations of natural processes. It may echo the French astronomer LaPlace's reply to Napoleon's question about God, "Sire, I have no need of that hypothesis."
Logical positivism in the mid-twentieth century defined religion, ethics, and metaphysics as meaningless, because they lacked empirical verification or disproof. Although not quite atheism, since it held that denial of God is as meaningless as affirmation of God, it was effectively a practical atheism.
Marxist atheism adopted Ludwig Feuerbach's belief that religion is bound to illusions projected by the human mind. But the real passion of Marxist atheism is its insistence that religion is "the opiate of the people," which supports the privileges of the powerful and solaces the weak in their miseries.
Existentialist atheism may express radical faith in God or radical atheism. The driving force of its atheism is rejection of any divine authority that submerges human freedom. Often it adopts Friedrich Nietzsche's declaration that God is dead, a statement usually intended as a cultural observation (the death of belief in God), less often as a metaphysical reality. In the 1960s this belief influenced some Christian theologies, with the crucifixion of Jesus related to the death of God. The social activism associated with Martin Luther King, Jr., and other liberation theologies countered both existentialist and Marxist atheism.

Some believers today welcome atheism as an energizing partner in conversation, since it makes religious commitment an act of will, not conformity to cultural habit. The issues surrounding atheism play out in public controversies about printing "In God we trust" on money, the pledge of allegiance to "one nation under God," and arguments about religion in public schools or symbols of Christmas and Hanukkah in public parks.