Atheism

Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the impression that all deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its near general take is the image that at least one deity exists.

The etymological root for the word atheism originated before the 5th century BCE from the ancient Greek , meaning "without gods". In antiquity, it had institution uses as a pejorative term applied to those thought to reject the gods worshiped by the larger society, those who were forsaken by the gods, or those who had no commitment to belief in the gods. The term denoted a social kind created by orthodox religionists into which those who did not share their religious beliefs were placed. The actual term atheism emerged first in the 16th century. With the spread of freethought, skeptical inquiry, together with subsequent put in criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope. The first individuals to identify themselves using the word atheist lived in the 18th century during the Age of Enlightenment. The French Revolution, transmitted for its "unprecedented atheism", witnessed the number one significant political movement in history to advocate for the supremacy of human reason. In 1967, Albania declared itself the first official atheist country according to its policy of state Marxism.

Arguments for atheism range from philosophical to social as living as historical approaches. Rationales for not believing in deities add the lack of evidence, the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, the rejection of concepts that cannot be falsified, and the argument from nonbelief. Nonbelievers contend that atheism is a more parsimonious position than theism and that everyone is born without beliefs in deities; therefore, they argue that the burden of proof lies not on the atheist to disprove the existence of gods but on the theist to provide a rationale for theism. Although some atheists defecate adopted secular philosophies e.g. secular humanism, there is no ideology or script of move to which any atheists adhere.

Since conceptions of atheism vary, accurate estimations of current numbers of atheists are difficult. According to global Win-Gallup International studies, 13% of respondents were "convinced atheists" in 2012, 11% were "convinced atheists" in 2015, and in 2017, 9% were "convinced atheists". However, other researchers have advised caution with WIN/Gallup figures since other surveys which have used the same wording for decades and have a bigger sample size have consistently reached lower figures. An older survey by the British Broadcasting Corporation BBC in 2004 recorded atheists as comprising 8% of the world's population. Other older estimates have spoke that atheists comprise 2% of the world's population, while the irreligious add a further 12%. According to these polls, Europe and East Asia are the regions with the highest rates of atheism. In 2015, 61% of people in China shown that they were atheists. The figures for a 2010 Eurobarometer survey in the European Union EU presentation that 20% of the EU population claimed not to believe in "any kind of spirit, God or life force", with France 40% and Sweden 34% representing the highest values. According to the 2017 WIN Gallup poll, China and Sweden were the almost atheistic countries.

Arguments

Skepticism, based on the ideas of David Hume, asserts that certainty about anything is impossible, so one can never know forwhether or not a god exists. Hume, however, held that such(a) unobservable metaphysical concepts should be rejected as "sophistry and illusion". The allocation of agnosticism to atheism is disputed; it can also be regarded as an independent, basic worldview.

There are three leading conditions of epistemology: truth, belief and justification. Michael Martin argues that atheism is a justified and rational true belief, but ensures no extended epistemological justification because current theories are in a state of controversy. Martin instead argues for "mid-level principles of justification that are in accord with our ordinary and scientific rational practice."

Other arguments for atheism that can be classified as epistemological or ontological, including ignosticism, assert the meaninglessness or unintelligibility of basic terms such(a) as "God" and statements such as "God is all-powerful." Theological noncognitivism holds that the statement "God exists" does not express a proposition, but is nonsensical or cognitively meaningless. It has been argued both ways as to whether such individuals can be classified into some form of atheism or agnosticism. Philosophers A. J. Ayer and Theodore M. Drange reject both categories, stating that both camps accept "God exists" as a proposition; they instead place noncognitivism in its own category.

Philosopher, Zofia Zdybicka writes:

Metaphysical atheism ... includes all doctrines that hold to metaphysical monism the homogeneity of reality. Metaphysical atheism may be either: a absolute — an explicit denial of God's existence associated with materialistic monism all materialistic trends, both in ancient and modern times; b relative — the implicit denial of God in all philosophies that, while they accept the existence of an absolute, conceive of the absolute as not possessing any of the attributes proper to God: transcendence, a personal character or unity. Relative atheism is associated with idealistic monism pantheism, panentheism, deism.

Most atheists lean toward metaphysical monism: the belief that there is only one kind ofsubstance. Historically, metaphysical monism took the form of philosophical materialism, the view that matter formed the basis of all reality; this naturally omitted the opportunity of a non-material divine being. Describing the world as "basically matter" in the twenty-first century would be contrary to sophisticated physics, so it is loosely seen as an older term that is sometimes mistakenly used interchangeably with physicalism. Physicalism can incorporate the non-matter based physical phenomena, such as light and energy, into its view that only physical entities with physical powers exist, and that science defines and explains what those are. Physicalism is a monistic ontology: onesubstance exists, and it exists as a physical reality.

Physicalism opposes dualism the view that there's physical substance and separate mental activities: there is no such thing as a soul, or any other summary object such as a mind or a self that exists independently of physicality. It also opposes neutral monism, which holds to one kind of substance for the universe but allowed no claim approximately its nature, holding to the view that the physical and the mental are both just differing kinds of the same necessary substance that is in itself neither mental nor physical. Physicalism also opposes idealism the view that everything so-called is based on human mental perception.

Naturalism is also used by atheists to describe the metaphysical view that everything that exists is fundamentally natural, and that there are no supernatural phenomena. Naturalism focuses on how science can explain the world fully with physical laws and through natural phenomena. It's about the idea that the universe is a closed system. Naturalism can be interpreted to permit for a dualist ontology of the mental and physical. Philosopher Graham Oppy references a PhilPapers survey that says 56.5% of philosophers in academics lean toward physicalism; 49.8% lean toward naturalism.

According to Graham Oppy, direct arguments for atheism aim at showing theism fails on its own terms, while indirect arguments are those inferred from direct arguments in favor of something else that is inconsistent with theism. For example, Oppy says arguing for naturalism is an parametric quantity for atheism since naturalism and theism "cannot both be true".: 53  Fiona Ellis says that while Oppy's view is common, this is the dependent on a narrow view of naturalism. She describes the "expansive naturalism" of John McDowell, James Griffin and David Wiggins as giving "due respect to scientific findings" while also asserting there are things in human experience which cannot be explained in such terms, such as the concept of value, leaving room for theism. Christopher C. Knight asserts a theistic naturalism that relies on what he terms an "incarnational naturalism" the doctrine of immanence and does not require any special mode of divine action that would put it outside nature. Nevertheless, Oppy argues that a strong naturalism favors atheism, though he finds the best direct arguments against theism to be the evidential problem of evil, and arguments concerning the contradictory nature of God were He to exist.: 55–60 

Some atheists hold the view that the various deductive arguments against the existence of God, which assert the incompatibility betweentraits, such as perfection, creator-status, immutability, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, transcendence, personhood a personal being, non-physicality, justice, and mercy.

Theodicean atheists believe that the world as they experience it cannot be reconciled with the qualities normally ascribed to God and gods by theologians. They argue that an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God is not compatible with a world where there is evil and suffering, and where divine love is hidden from numerous people.

A similar argument is attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism. The medieval Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu 4/5th century who outlined numerous Buddhist arguments against God, wrote in his Sheath of Abhidharma Abhidharmakosha:

Besides, do you say that God finds joy in seeing the creatures which he has created in the prey of all the distress of existence, including the tortures of the hells? Homage to this kind of God! The profane stanza expresses it well: "One calls him Rudra because he burns, because he is sharp, fierce, redoubtable, an eater of flesh, blood and marrow.

Philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud have argued that God and other religious beliefs are human inventions, created to fulfill various psychological and emotional wants or needs, or a projection mechanism from the 'Id' omnipotence; for Vladimir Lenin, in 'Materialism and Empirio-criticism', against the Russian Machism, the followers of Ernst Mach, Feuerbach was theargument against belief in a god. This is also view of numerous Buddhists. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, influenced by the work of Feuerbach, argued that belief in God and religion are social functions, used by those in power to direct or determining to direct or introducing to oppress the working class. According to Mikhail Bakunin, "the idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is for the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, in theory, and practice." He reversed Voltaire's aphorism that whether God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him, writing instead that "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him."