Re: Atheism Vs Theism Pdf Free
Toni Jarels
[Atheism is] the view that there are no gods. A widely used sensedenotes merely not believing in god and is consistent with agnosticism[in the psychological sense]. A stricter sense denotes a belief thatthere is no god; this use has become standard. (Pojman 2015,emphasis added)
Therefore, for all three of these reasons, philosophers ought toconstrue atheism as the proposition that God does not exist (or, morebroadly, as the proposition that there are no divine realities of anysort).
Perhaps an even more interesting distinction is between pro-Godatheism and anti-God atheism. A pro-God atheist like John Schellenberg(who coined the term in unpublished work) is someone who in some realsense loves God or at least the idea of God, who tries very hard toimagine what sorts of wonderful worlds such a being might create(instead of just assuming that such a being would create a worldsomething like the world we observe), and who (at leastpartly) for that very reason believes that God does not exist. Such anatheist might be sympathetic to the following sentiments:
One way to defend the second premise is to review the relevantevidence and argue that it is ambiguous (Le Poidevin 2010: chapter 4;and Draper 2002). Another way is to point out that atheism, which isjust the proposition that theism is false, is compatible with avariety of very different hypotheses, and these hypotheses vary widelyin how well they account for the total evidence. Thus, to assess howwell atheism accounts for the total evidence, one would have tocalculate a weighted average of how well these different atheistichypotheses account for the total evidence, where the weights would bethe different intrinsic probabilities of each of these atheistichypotheses. This task seems prohibitively difficult (Draper 2016) andin any case has not been attempted, which supports the claim thatthere is no firm basis upon which to judge whether the total evidencesupports theism or atheism.
Can the no arguments argument be construed as an argument for globalatheism? One might object that it is not, strictly speaking, anargument for any sort of atheism since its conclusion is not thatatheism is true but instead that there is good reason to believe thatatheism is true. But that is just a quibble. Ultimately, whether thisargument can be used to defend global atheism depends on how its firstpremise is defended.
Perhaps, however, an even more narrowly restricted principle would dothe trick: whenever the assumption that a positive existential claimis true would lead one to expect to have grounds for its truth, theabsence of such grounds is a good reason to believe that the claim isfalse. It might then be argued that (i) a God would be likely toprovide us with convincing evidence of Her existence and so (ii) theabsence of such evidence is a good reason to believe that God does notexist. This transforms the no arguments argument into an argument fromdivine hiddenness. It also transforms it into at best an argument forlocal atheism, since even if the God of, say, classical theism wouldnot hide, not all legitimate God-concepts are such that a beinginstantiating that concept would be likely to provide us withconvincing evidence of its existence.
Similar problems face attempts to show that omni-theism must be falsebecause it is incompatible with certain known facts about the world.Such arguments typically depend on detailed and contestedinterpretations of divine attributes like omnibenevolence.
For example, even if omni-theism is supported by the general fact thatthe universe is complex, one should not ignore the more specific fact,discovered by scientists, that underlying this complexity at the levelat which we experience the universe, is a much simpler early universefrom which this complexity arose, and also a much simpler contemporaryuniverse at the micro-level, one consisting of a relatively smallnumber of different kinds of particles all of which exist in one of arelatively small number of different states. In short, it is importantto take into account, not just the general fact that the universe thatwe directly experience with our senses is extremely complex, but alsothe more specific fact that two sorts of hidden simplicity within theuniverse can explain that complexity. Given that a complex universeexists, this more specific fact is exactly what one would expect onsource physicalism, because, as the best natural theologians (e.g.,Swinburne 2004) say, the complexity of the universe cries out forexplanation in terms of something simpler. There is, however, noreason at all to expect this more specific fact on omni-theism since,if those same natural theologians are correct, then a simple Godprovides a simple explanation for the observed complexity of theuniverse whether or not that complexity is also explained by anysimpler mediate physical causes.
It seems, then, that when it comes to evidence favoring omni-theismover source physicalism, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.Further, when combined with the fact that what we know about the levelof well-being of sentient beings and the extent of their suffering isarguably vastly more probable on source physicalism than on theism, avery strong though admittedly controversial case for premise (1) can be made.
belief, ethics of belief, formal representations of evil: problem of fideism God, arguments for the existence of: moral arguments God: and other ultimates hiddenness of God monotheism omnipotence panentheism pantheism physicalism pragmatic arguments and belief in God process theism religion: and science religion: epistemology of
The author is grateful to the students in his Fall 2016 seminar onatheism and agnosticism: John Absher, Matthew Fritz, AlžbetaHájková, Vincent Jacobson, Daniel Linford, Adam Nuske,Bianca Oprea, and Luke Wilson. They contributed in a variety of waysto making this entry much better than it would otherwise have been.The author is also grateful to Jeanine Diller and Jeffery Lowder forvery helpful comments.
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any 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 most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.
Historically, evidence of atheistic viewpoints can be traced back to classical antiquity and early Indian philosophy. In the Western world, atheism declined as Christianity gained prominence. The 16th century and the Age of Enlightenment marked the resurgence of atheistic thought in Europe. Atheism achieved a significant position in the 20th century with legislation protecting freedom of thought. According to 2003 estimates, there are at least 500 million atheists in the world.[1] A 2023 poll conducted by research company Ipsos suggested 29% of the world's population were not religious.[2]
Atheist organizations have defended the autonomy of science, ethics and secularism. Arguments for atheism range from philosophical to social and historical approaches. Rationales for not believing in deities include the lack of evidence,[3][4] the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, the rejection of concepts that cannot be falsified, and the argument from nonbelief.[3][5] Nonbelievers contend that atheism is a more parsimonious position than theism and that everyone is born without beliefs in deities;[6] 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.[7]
Writers disagree on how best to define and classify atheism,[8] contesting what supernatural entities are considered gods, whether atheism is a philosophical position in its own right or merely the absence of one, and whether it requires a conscious, explicit rejection. However the norm is to define atheism in terms of an explicit stance against theism.[9][10][11]
Some of the ambiguity involved in defining atheism arises from the definitions of words like deity and god. The variety of wildly different conceptions of God and deities lead to differing ideas regarding atheism's applicability. The ancient Romans accused Christians of being atheists for not worshiping the pagan deities. Gradually, this view fell into disfavor as theism came to be understood as encompassing belief in any divinity.[19] With respect to the range of phenomena being rejected, atheism may counter anything from the existence of a deity, to the existence of any spiritual, supernatural, or transcendental concepts.[20]Definitions of atheism also vary in the degree of consideration a person must put to the idea of gods to be considered an atheist. Atheism has been defined as the absence of belief that any deities exist. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas. As far back as 1772, Baron d'Holbach said that "All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God."[21] Similarly, George H. Smith suggested that: "The man who is unacquainted with theism is an atheist because he does not believe in a god. This category would also include the child with the conceptual capacity to grasp the issues involved, but who is still unaware of those issues. The fact that this child does not believe in god qualifies him as an atheist."[22]
Implicit atheism is "the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it" and explicit atheism is the conscious rejection of belief. It is usual to define atheism in terms of an explicit stance against theism.[23][24][25]
For the purposes of his paper on "philosophical atheism", Ernest Nagel contested including the mere absence of theistic belief as a type of atheism.[26] Graham Oppy classifies as innocents those who never considered the question because they lack any understanding of what a god is, for example one-month-old babies.[27]
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