What is Atheism?

In this post, we will look at “Atheism” and try to come up with a definition that enables people to identify themselves as atheists, while maintaining consistency with the rest of the landscape of the philosophy of religion.

Why would we do that, you might say, pointing to the fact that there are dictionaries, encyclopedias and organisations that have already done this work for us. Well, it turns out that a lot can be gained by attempting to analyse this a bit deeper to see if what they say makes some sense or is the result of organisations wanting to gain members and/or dictionaries being unduly influenced by religious traditions.

Popular atheistic sources

Let’s start with what is the most popular definition you will see online.

Atheism is one thing: A lack of belief in gods.

Amertican Atheists. Accessed 19 Aug. 2024.

You see, the phrase “a lack of belief in gods” is in my view far too broad, in the sense that by this definition, children, or the people who were never exposed to an idea of gods or intellectually incapable people with severe brain trauma and maybe even animals all qualify as atheists. And if we’re cynical theists, we could even make fun of atheists and say that things are to be included here, like computers, microwave ovens and the like, meaning that our laptops are atheists. Naturally, this would be nonsense, as laptops or shoes are not like people who were never introduced to the idea of gods, but the lack of precision here certainly doesn’t help with the trolling.

This criticism comes without mentioning the agnostics, who also lack belief in gods. I suspect the definition was made so broad on purpose, to cover as many people as possible.

While I became an atheist during the New Atheism, and still am one – I now think that a lot of “New Atheist” materials, speakers and sources prefer the “weaker” definition to attract more people to identify as atheists.

This might have sounded too harsh. I apologize, as I have no idea that this is indeed the case. I certainly did not mean to accuse them of being dishonest, as I have no evidence for it. As there are millions of atheists in the world, it is only natural that some people understand things differently, even after a sincere examination and introspection, as other people do. The founders of this society may have done what we will do next but have come to a different conclusion.

After all, if we are to be sceptical, rational and honest with ourselves, we should attempt to temporarily set aside this definition and try to see for ourselves if we might find a definition that is consistent with the nature of belief, as well as being distinct from other similar definitions. In short, let’s attempt to see if we can do better than the most popular definition of a lot of online atheist communities. After all, when we have considered the possible criticisms of it, as stated above, we ought to see what else is out there before embracing this one.

Dictionaries

Let’s begin by looking at the definition of atheism in a dictionary and then see if we can agree with their definition or if they tell an incomplete story.

the fact of not believing in any god or gods, or the belief that no god or gods exist:

ATHEISM | English meaning – Cambridge Dictionary Accessed 19 Aug. 2024.

Now, this makes me feel optimistic that people when searching for what atheism is will indeed come very close to what, in my view, atheism is – or at least what it should be defined as.

However, the first part of the definition is still too broad – the fact of not believing in any god or gods – or even if it does escape the charge of being too broad, it is still at least ambiguous. At least to me, as a non-native English speaker, it is not immediately obvious if this includes only people who gave it serious consideration or includes the so-called “innocents” as well.

Yes, you might squirm a little, if you’re used to the most popular definitions you see online, but in my opinion. In contrast, this definition is more intellectually honest, it doesn’t go far enough. Namely the first part, depending on the understanding of the words “not believing” sounds very close to the most popular New Atheists’ online definitions. This part (before the “or”) “the fact of not believing in any god or gods” would potentially include babies and children – and people who weren’t introduced to the idea of gods. It also includes agnostics, who also have the “fact of not believing”.

All this, IMO, shows that this definition would make the position a bit too broad, as it would at the very minimum place agnostics and atheists in the same group, and agnostics in no way should be on anything close to equal footing with people who fulfil the second part – have “the belief that no god or gods exist“.

Yes, you could argue that the phrase “fact of not believing” is not the same as “lack of belief” and you might be right. But then we still have the first part of the definition open to interpretation – and in my view, this muddies the waters too much, especially because even if you succeed in excluding babies and people who were never introduced to the idea of god or gods, agnostics also have both a “lack of belief” and the “fact of not believing”, so, even if it is the best one a mainstream source does provide, this definition is in my view not precise enough, because of all these ambiguities.

However, it certainly isn’t guaranteed that this definition from the Cambridge Dictionary will be what someone will find in their googling. Let’s look at another entry, this time from a different dictionary, namely Merriam-Webster.

A: a lack of belief or a strong disbelief in the existence of a god or any gods
B: a philosophical or religious position characterized by disbelief in the existence of a god or any gods

“Atheism.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheism. Accessed 19 Aug. 2024.

Although I have great respect for Merriam-Webster and consider their work to be of superb quality, I believe that in this case, they may have generalized too broadly, aligning more with popular atheist sources and the ideas of “New Atheism.”

A “lack of belief” is the problematic phrasing here, because as I tried to explain above, it is way too broad and includes agnostics and “innocents” as well. Regarding the second part of the definition, it would depend on what is meant by the word “disbelief”. If it is meant as non-belief or not being able to believe the claim, then we can say that agnostics have the same thing.

If we assume that by “disbelief” we mean that we reject something as untrue, only possibly then we can claim that this sufficiently differentiates atheism from agnosticism, as again, agnostics have a “lack of belief” as well.

So, if we use this definition, we are either too broad or are forever stuck explaining what we mean by the word “disbelieve”.

So, dictionaries don’t get us very far if we’re interested in clearly defining atheism in a way that is different from agnosticism or “innocence”. We have to go further and try to see what philosophy has to say about it.

Philosophy

As you can read in the “Atheism and Agnosticism” entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, atheism may have multiple meanings, and it can be defined in the psychological sense, with atheism being a psychological state of an atheist being someone who isn’t a theist and a theist being someone who believes that at least one god exists.

However, that is not what philosophers mean when they talk about atheism. In philosophy, “atheism” does not simply mean “lack of belief” but, most often, a belief that no God or gods exist.

In philosophy, however, and more specifically in the philosophy of religion, the term “atheism” is standardly used to refer to the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, to the proposition that there are no gods). Thus, to be an atheist on this definition, it does not suffice to suspend judgment on whether there is a God, even though that implies a lack of theistic belief. Instead, one must deny that God exists.

Draper, Paul, “Atheism and Agnosticism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/atheism-agnosticism/>.

However, they do not necessarily say that this definition means that to be an atheist, you must claim that theism is false, but that instead, you might justifiably call yourself an atheist if you claim that you reject the sentence “God exists”, not necessarily because it is a false proposition but on any other grounds, like for example that the sentence is meaningless.

To keep the definition short, understandable and consistent with definitions of other positions, I have decided to adopt a definition as proposed by the Philosopher Graham Oppy in his book Atheism. The Basics in 2018.

Or if we wish to have a more compact definition while also not committing ourselves to claim to know that there are no gods, we might I believe, justifiably tweak this definition a little bit:

Now, at least to me, this is not the same as the word “disbelief” we have seen when we examined the dictionary definitions above, Let’s try to see how and why philosophers in general came to understand atheism in this way.

Well, as I understand it at this point and according to what I believe I know so far, there are roughly 4 positions you might take when it comes to belief. When it comes to the proposition that a god might exist, these are the positions you might take:

• Yes – theist
• No – atheist
• Suspend judgment – agnostic
• No opinion / not possessing a concept of God – innocent

We’ll spend just a few more sentences to try to explain a bit more about what is meant by each one. Let’s start from the weakest.

Innocents

First, we have to consider the fact that for any proposition there might be, and there are people who never considered the idea or are not able to think about the idea. These always include babies, patients with advanced Alzheimer’s and people who suffered severe brain trauma, making them unable to form thoughts about such concepts.

Then there are of course regular people who haven’t heard of the idea so far and thus they never were even able to consider it. I imagine it is not that difficult for us to see how this might be true about any of us, depending on the idea. I have seen this group labelled as “innocents” and I quite like that label, so I will continue using it.

All these people have no opinion on the idea that gods might exist – and therefore they can also be characterised as having a “lack of belief” or that they “fail to believe”. So, if we say that atheism is a lack of belief, we would implicitly give atheists who have seriously considered the idea of god and even those who are certain that there are no gods the same label as those who have never thought about the idea or those who are unable to think about the idea.

Agnostics

After people who didn’t or can’t entertain the idea about the existence of gods, come the people who have indeed considered the question of whether there are gods but have suspended judgment about it – they neither believe that there are gods and they don’t believe that there are no gods.

In this sense, agnostics are similar to the innocents, in the sense that they also lack a belief that there are gods but they differ from them because they did consider the question that there are gods but have suspended judgment. This position can very, very roughly be summarised with “maybe, maybe not”.

Agnosticism, as I understand it, in principle either suggests that it is obligatory to suspend judgment or that it is permissible to suspend judgment.

There is a great deal to say about agnostics and agnosticism but that would be going out of bounds here. I believe that it is sufficient to say that agnostics hold that in the absence of positive evidence for god or gods, you don’t have to believe that there are no gods but you are allowed to suspend judgment, in the sense that they are permitted to refuse to decide. Whether they believe in gods or whether they believe that no gods exist – they suspend judgment.

It is relatively easy to see that agnostics “lack belief” as well – they fail to believe that there is a god, but they also do not believe there is no god.

Atheists

Naturally, by now we already know how we are to define atheism – that is, atheism is contrasted with theism in the sense that while theism answers “Yes” to the proposition “There is a God” or “There are gods”, atheism would answer “No”.

Note that while atheism also includes the “lack of belief” of agnosticism or innocence, we already have two groups that lack belief, albeit for different reasons. Atheism, I believe, does more than simply not considering claims or suspending judgment, as it answers “No” to the “There are gods” idea.

And that would naturally mean that Atheism is indeed best defined as a “belief there’s no God or gods”, as this makes it distinct from agnosticism or innocence.

Now, there is still room for the many nuances inside atheism itself – for example, there’s the strength of belief, or conviction, if you will. Some are very slightly on the side of the belief that there are no gods and some are certain that there are no gods, Then there’s also the question of the resilience of belief – some have a very strong belief, resistant to revision and for others the belief is held with a weak conviction and it is a belief they could easily lose.

There are of course further considerations of other attitudes and metrics inside atheism, for example, some atheists are interested in “converting” others, and some do not care. Some atheists would like for it to be the case that there’s no god, some do not have a preference but they believe there isn’t one, and so on. So it is important to consider all this when talking to people and try not to apply too broad a brush. Yes, definitions are useful but it is important to remember that we are all individuals and we should attempt to avoid putting people in boxes, as a general principle.

Hard (‘strong’, ‘positive’) and Weak (‘soft’, ‘negative’) Atheism

Even though the above is true, I still believe we should discuss the concept of strong and weak atheism, as I have previously supported it myself.

What in atheistic circles this distinction boils down to is if a person believes that there is no god or simply lacks belief (fails to believe) that there is a god. So, if you believed that there’s no god, you would be a strong atheist, but if you simply failed to believe there’s a god, you would be a weak atheist.

However, if you have read this far, you can probably already see the problem: because “innocents” and agnostics also fail to believe that there’s a god, if we adopt this distinction inside atheism, we would be claiming that innocents and agnostics are atheists. And we do not wish to do that, as we should try to distinguish between all these groups and not try to muddy the waters.

Given that there are enough distinctions inside atheism, with regards to conviction, resistance to change, interests and so on, as mentioned above, it is already the case that atheism is not binary and this attempt of further splitting it into two views is not helpful, and as there are more than two views, it is doomed to fail.

Now, this all might mean that there will be fewer atheists than there would be if we simply stick with a definition from popular atheistic sources, but if we value living honestly I believe we should be open to reexamining our beliefs and even adjust our own identity if needed – for example, some might want to take a step back from atheism and call themselves agnostic. And whenever a person is willing to reexamine their beliefs and even their very identity, we should support this.

Conclusion

We have tried to truthfully and consistently examine the definition of atheism and we agreed with the definition from philosophy of religion.

In the end, our justification is that this definition makes us consistent with other viewpoints when it comes to matters of belief – when it comes to the question of whether there’s a god (whether there are gods), these are roughly the possible viewpoints:

• Yes – theist
• No – atheist
• Suspend judgment – agnostic
• No opinion / not possessing a concept of God – innocent

This makes it so that no people fall into more than one category at a given time, while still being able to recognize that there are many differences inside each category.