Atheism in Today’s World

• Atheism has always been a minority report

  • Atheism is the belief that God does not exist

• Organic atheism is chosen, and coerced atheism is mandated by a nation-state

• The World Religion Database (WRD) ranks agnosticism (the belief that humans cannot know whether God exists, or the position of particular individuals that they themselves do know whether God exists) - with 9.4 percent of the world’s population in 2022 - as the world’s 5th largest religious affiliation

• Secularization Theory argued that as societies modernized they would abandon religion

  • Some people refuse to affiliate with religious organizations not bc they don’t believe in God but bc they believe in God so fervently that they can’t imagine any human institution adequately capturing the mysteries of the divine

• In the Spiritual But Not Religious (SBNR) category, they don’t affiliate with any religion, and in many cases, they have strong criticism of religious dogmas, which they typically view as antiquated and false, and religious rituals, which they see as shallow and empty

  • SBNRs are critical of the trappings of “organized religion,” which they see as irredeemably hierarchical and complicit in sexism, racism, and homophobia

  • SBNR is an identity and social category signaling a negative view of organized religion and a positive view of individual spiritual practices

Atheism and Agnosticism: A Genealogy

• The word “atheism” derives from the Greek term atheos, which means “without God” or “god-less”

Atheism 101

• According to the Freedom From Religion Foundation, religion “has been used to justify war, slavery, sexism, racism, homophobia, mutilations, intolerance, and oppression of minorities. The totalitarianism of religious absolutes chokes progress” (Prothero 502)

Atheism at a Glance

• Problem: ignorance

• Solution: knowledge

• Techniques: reason, science, skepticism, and critical inquiry

• Exemplars: freethinkers who think for themselves rather than follow the secondhand teachings of prophets, messiahs, priests, and other authorities

In short, atheism (and agnosticism) are part of a skeptical tradition that pursues human flourshing in a godless universe by rejecting religion as false and harmful

Today, the term “atheist” refers to a non-theist, someone who doesn’t believe in the existence of God or the gods

• The term “agnostic” refers to a non-knower, someone who doesn’t know whether God or the gods exist

• A negative Atheist is anyone (agnostics included) who doesn’t affirm theism

  • A Positive Atheist is someone who believes theism is false

• Although the term “atheist” formally attends only to the existence of God, as a practical matter most atheists deny a host of related doctrines, including the afterlife, the immortality of the soul, miracles, reincarnation, hell, and providence

  • Plato refers in Laws to 3 types of atheists: those who don’t believe in the existence of gods, those who believe the gods stand aloof from human affairs, and those who believe the gods are unresponsive to prayers and sacrifice

• There is also a spectrum of agnosticism as well

  • ==Weak agnosticism==says, “I don’t know whether God exists”

  • Strong agnosticism makes a bolder claim: “Whether God exists is not knowable”

• The following terms all point to efforts akin to those of Sunday Assembly to say what nonbelievers affirm rather than what they oppose

  • Humanism: a worldview affirming the supreme importance of human beings, human agency, and human life here and now. Takes in science and reason as their guides

  • Secularism: a worldview that emphasizes life on earth as opposed to transcendent realities, with an emphasis on strictly separating church and state. Directs our attention toward sociology

Secular Humanism: a worldview that rejects religion and supernaturalism in order to emphasize and celebrate human life here and now