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Criticism of atheism iscriticism of the concepts, validity, or impact ofatheism, including associated political and social implications. Criticisms include positions based on thehistory of science, philosophical and logical criticisms, findings in both thenatural andsocial sciences,theisticapologetic arguments, arguments pertaining toethics andmorality, the effects of atheism on the individual, or the assumptions that underpin atheism.
Carl Sagan said he sees no compelling evidence against the existence of God.[1] Theists such asKenneth R. Miller criticise atheism for being an unscientific position.[2] Analytic philosopherAlvin Plantinga, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at theUniversity of Notre Dame, argues that a failure oftheistic arguments might conceivably be good grounds for agnosticism, but not for atheism; and points to the observation of afine-tuned universe as more likely to be explained by theism than atheism.[citation needed] Oxford Professor of MathematicsJohn Lennox holds that atheism is an inferior world view to that of theism and attributes toC. S. Lewis the best formulation ofMerton's thesis that science sits more comfortably with theistic notions on the basis that men became scientific in Western Europe in the 16th and 17th century "[b]ecause they expected law in nature, and they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver."[citation needed] In other words, it was belief in God that was the "motor that drove modern science". American geneticistFrancis Collins also cites Lewis as persuasive in convincing him that theism is the more rational world view than atheism.
Other criticisms focus on perceived effects on morality and social cohesion. TheEnlightenment philosopherVoltaire, adeist, saw godlessness as weakening "the sacred bonds of society", writing: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him". The father ofclassical liberalism,John Locke, believed that the denial of God's existence would undermine the social order and lead to chaos.Edmund Burke, an 18th-century Irish philosopher and statesman praised by both his conservative and liberal peers for his "comprehensive intellect", saw religion as the basis of civil society and wrote that "man is by his constitution a religious animal; that atheism is against, not only our reason, but our instincts; and that it cannot prevail long".Pope Pius XI wrote that Communist atheism was aimed at "upsetting the social order and at undermining the very foundations ofChristian civilization". In the 1990s,Pope John Paul II criticised a spreading "practical atheism" as clouding the "religious and moral sense of the human heart" and leading to societies which struggle to maintain harmony.[3]
Other criticisms are on historical distortion of both religion and atheism by atheist proponents.[4] The advocacy of atheism by some of the more violent exponents of theFrench Revolution, the subsequent militancy ofMarxist–Leninist atheism and prominence of atheism intotalitarian states formed in the 20th century is often cited in critical assessments of the implications of atheism. In hisReflections on the Revolution in France, Burke railed against "atheistical fanaticism". The 1937 papal encyclicalDivini Redemptoris denounced the atheism of the Soviet Union underJoseph Stalin, which was later influential in the establishment ofstate atheism across Eastern Europe and elsewhere, includingMao Zedong's China,Kim's North Korea andPol Pot's Cambodia. Critics of atheism often associate the actions of 20th-century state atheism with broader atheism in their critiques. Various poets, novelists andlay theologians, among themG. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis, have also criticised atheism. For example, a quote often attributed to Chesterton holds that "[h]e who does not believe in God will believe in anything".[5]
Atheism is the absence of belief that any gods exist,[6][7] the position that there are nogods,[8] the proposition that God does not exist,[9] or the rejection ofbelief in theexistence of gods.[10]
Deism is a form oftheism in which God created the universe and established rationally comprehensible moral and natural laws but does not intervene in human affairs throughspecial revelation.[11] Deism is anatural religion where belief in God is based on application of reason and evidence observed in the designs and laws found in nature.[12]Christian deism refers to a deist who believes in the moral teachings but not the divinity of Jesus.
The last 50 years has seen an increase in academic philosophical arguments critical of the positions of atheism arguing that they are philosophically unsound.[13] Some of the more common of these arguments are the presumption of atheism,[14]the logical argument from evil,[15]the evidential argument from evil,[16][17][18] theargument from nonbelief[19] andabsence of evidence arguments.
In 1976, atheist philosopherAntony Flew wroteThe Presumption of Atheism in which he argued that the question of God's existence should begin by assuming atheism as the default position. According to Flew, the norm for academic philosophy and public dialogue was at that time for atheists and theists to both share their respective "burdens of proof" for their positions.[14][20] Flew proposed instead that his academic peers redefine "atheism" to bring about these changes:
What I want to examine is the contention that the debate about the existence of God should properly begin from the presumption of atheism, that the onus of proof must lie upon the theist. The word 'atheism', however, has in this contention to be construed unusually. Whereas nowadays the usual meaning of 'atheist' in English is 'someone who asserts that there is no such being as God,' I want the word to be understood not positively but negatively... in this interpretation an atheist becomes: not someone who positively asserts the non-existence of God; but someone who is simply not a theist.The introduction of this new interpretation of the word 'atheism' may appear to be a piece of perverse Humpty-Dumptyism, going arbitrarily against established common usage. 'Whyever', it could be asked, don't you make it not the presumption of atheism but the presumption of agnosticism?[14]
— Excerpts fromThe Presumption of Atheism, Antony Flew, 1976
Flew's proposition saw little acceptance in the 20th century though in the early 21st century Flew's broader definition of atheism came to be forwarded more commonly.[21][22] In 2007, analytic philosopherWilliam Lane Craig's described the presumption of atheism as "one of the most commonly proffered justifications of atheism".[23] In 2010, BBC journalistWilliam Crawley explained that Flew's presumption of atheism "made the case, now followed by today'snew atheism" arguing that atheism should be the default position.[20][24] In today's debates, atheists forward the presumption of atheism arguing that atheism is the default position[25][26] with no burden of proof[27][28] and assert that the burden of proof for God's existence rests solely on the theist.[14][29][30]
The presumption of atheism has been the subject of criticism by atheists,[31][32] agnostics[33] and theists[34][35] since Flew advanced his position more than 40 years ago.
Theagnostic analytic philosopherAnthony Kenny rejected the presumption of atheism on any definition of atheism arguing that "the true default position is neither theism nor atheism, but agnosticism" adding "a claim to knowledge needs to be substantiated, ignorance need only be confessed".[32][36]
Many different definitions may be offered of the word 'God'. Given this fact, atheism makes a much stronger claim than theism does. The atheist says that no matter what definition you choose, 'God exists' is always false. The theist only claims that there is some definition which will make 'God exists' true. In my view, neither the stronger nor the weaker claim has been convincingly established.[37]
— Anthony Kenny,What I Believe, p.21
Atheist philosopher Kai Nielsen criticized the presumption of atheism arguing that without an independent concept of rationality or a concept of rationality that atheists and theists can mutually accept, there is no common foundation on which to adjudicate rationality of positions concerning the existence of God. Because the atheist's conceptualization of "rational" differs from the theist, Nielsen argues, both positions can be rationally justified.[31][32][38]
Analytic philosopher and modal logician Alvin Plantinga, a theist, rejected the presumption of atheism forwarding a two-part argument. First, he shows that there is no objection to belief in God unless the belief is shown to be false. Second, he argues that belief in God could be rationally warranted if it is a properly basic or foundational belief through an innate human "sense of the divine".[23] Plantinga argues that if we have the innate knowledge of God which he theorizes as a possibility, we could trust belief in God the same way we trust our cognitive faculties in other similar matters, such as our rational belief that there are other minds beyond our own, something we believe, but for which there can be no evidence. Alvin Plantinga's argument puts theistic belief on equal evidential footing with atheism even if Flew's definition of atheism is accepted.[32]
University of Notre Dame philosopherRalph McInerny goes further than Plantinga, arguing that belief in God reasonably follows from our observations of the natural order and the law-like character ofnatural events. McInerny argues that the extent of this natural order is so pervasive as to be almost innate, providing aprima facie argument against atheism. McInerny's position goes further than Plantinga's, arguing that theism is evidenced and that the burden of proof rests on the atheist, not on the theist.[32][40]
William Lane Craig wrote that if Flew's broader definition of atheism is seen as "merely the absence of belief in God", atheism "ceases to be a view" and "even infants count as atheists". For atheism to be a view, Craig adds: "One would still require justification in order to know either that God exists or that He does not exist".[23]
Like the agnostic Anthony Kenny, Craig argues that there is no presumption for atheism because it is distinct from agnosticism:
[S]uch an alleged presumption is clearly mistaken. For the assertion that "There is no God" is just as much a claim to knowledge as is the assertion that "There is a God." Therefore, the former assertion requires justification just as the latter does. It is the agnostic who makes no knowledge claim at all with respect to God's existence.[41]
— Excerpt byDefinition of Atheism, William Lane Craig, 2007
Forty years after Flew publishedThe Presumption of Atheism, his proposition remains controversial.
William Lane Craig listed some of the more prominent arguments forwarded by proponents of atheism along with his objections:[42]
T.J. Mawson makes a case against atheism by citing some lines of evidence and reasoning such as the high level of fine-tuning whereby the life of morally sentient and significantly free creatures like humans has implications. On the maximal multiverse hypothesis, he argues that in appealing to infinite universes one is in essence explaining too much and that it even opens up the possibility that certain features of the universe still would require explanation beyond the hypothesis itself. He also argues from induction for fine tuning in that if one supposed that infinite universes existed there should be infinite ways in which observations can be wrong and only one way in which observations can be right at any point in time, for instance, that the color of gems stay the same every time we see them. In other words, if infinite universes existed, then there should be infinite changes to our observations of the universe and in essence be unpredictable in infinite ways, yet this is not what occurs.[43]
Helen De Cruz argues there are two general positions of atheistic arguments: "global" which "denies the existence of any god" and "local" which "denies the existence of a particular concept of God" such as polytheism, pantheism, monotheism, etc. She states that most evidential arguments against theism assume local, not global atheism, and that as such, numerous theistic arguments are not ruled out. She argues that the widespread beliefs in various god configurations and religious experiences provide evidence against global atheism.[44]
Amanda Askell argues that our capacity to be and rationalize prudence along with the acceptance of Pascal's Wager provide prudential objections to atheism.[45]
C. Stephen Evans argues that our normative propensities for our natural persistence to commit to be moral and our ability to generate value in a supposedly absurd world, offer normative objections to atheism. He also argues that it is appropriate for God to make the process whereby one comes to know him, to require moral and spiritual development.[46]
In a global study on atheism, sociologist Phil Zuckerman noted that though there are positive correlations with societal health in many countries where the atheist population is significantly high, countries with higher number of atheists also had the highest suicide rates compared to countries with lower numbers of atheists. He concludes that correlation does not necessarily indicate causation in either case.[47] Another study found similar trends.[48] A 2004 study of religious affiliation and suicide attempts, concluded: "After other factors were controlled, it was found that greater moral objections to suicide and lower aggression level in religiously affiliated subjects may function as protective factors against suicide attempts".[49]
According toWilliam Bainbridge, atheism is common among people whose social obligations are weak and is also connected to lower fertility rates in some industrial nations.[50] Extended length of sobriety in alcohol recovery is related positively to higher levels of theistic belief, active community helping and self-transcendence.[51] Some studies state that indeveloped countries health, life expectancy and other correlates of wealth tend to be statistical predictors of a greater percentage of atheists, compared to countries with higher proportions of believers.[52][53] Multiple methodological problems have been identified with cross-national assessments of religiosity, secularity and social health which undermine conclusive statements on religiosity and secularity in developed democracies.[54]
Modern atheist movements have been criticized for perpetuating patriarchal tendencies and exhibiting sexism, despite internal claims of gender equality.[55][56]
Historical studies on racism show that atheists have a legacy in racism, including supporting scientific racism.[57] Today, atheist groups are often dominated by white men with very few minorities or women.[55]
The influential deist philosopherVoltaire criticised established religion to a wide audience, but conceded a fear of the disappearance of the idea of God: "After the French Revolution and its outbursts of atheism, Voltaire was widely condemned as one of the causes", wrote Geoffrey Blainey. "Nonetheless, his writings did concede that fear of God was an essential policeman in a disorderly world: 'If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him', wrote Voltaire".[58]
InA Letter Concerning Toleration, the influential English philosopherJohn Locke wrote: "Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all".[59] Although Locke was believed to be an advocate of tolerance, he urged the authorities not to tolerate atheism because the denial of God's existence would undermine the social order and lead to chaos.[60] According toDinesh D'Souza, Locke, like Russian novelistFyodor Dostoyevsky after him, argued that "when God is excluded, then it is not surprising when morality itself is sacrificed in the process and chaos and horror is unleashed on the world".[61]
TheCatholic Church believes that morality is ensured throughnatural law, but that religion provides a more solid foundation.[62] For many years[when?] in the United States, atheists were not allowed to testify in court because it was believed that an atheist would have no reason to tell the truth (see alsodiscrimination against atheists).[63]
Atheists such as biologist and popular authorRichard Dawkins have proposed that human morality is a result ofevolutionary, sociobiological history. He proposes that the "moral zeitgeist" helps describe how moral imperatives and values naturalistically evolve over time from biological and cultural origins.[64] Evolutionary biologistKenneth R. Miller notes that such a conception of evolution and morality is a misunderstanding of sociobiology and at worst it is an attempt to abolish any meaningful system of morality since though evolution would have provided the biological drives and desires we have, it does not tell us what is good or right or wrong or moral.[65]
Critics assert that natural law provides a foundation on which people may build moral rules to guide their choices and regulate society, but does not provide as strong a basis for moral behavior as a morality that is based in religion.[66]Douglas Wilson, an evangelical theologian, argues that while atheists can behave morally, belief is necessary for an individual "to give a rational and coherent account" of why they are obligated to lead a morally responsible life.[67] Wilson says that atheism is unable to "give an account of why one deed should be seen as good and another as evil".[68] CardinalCormac Murphy-O'Connor, outgoingArchbishop of Westminster, expressed this position by describing a lack of faith as "the greatest of evils" and blamed atheism for war and destruction, implying that it was a "greater evil even than sin itself".[69]
According to William Lane Craig, in a world without God people are living in a state where evil is completely unregulated and also permissible, while at the same time good and self-sacrificing people would live in an unrewarded state where noble deeds lose their virtue and are rendered valueless.[70]
According to a global study, there is a prevalence of distrust in moral perceptions of atheists even in secular countries and among atheists.[71]
According to some critics, atheism is a faith in itself as a belief in its own right, with a certainty about the falseness of religious beliefs that is comparable to the certainty about the unknown that is practiced by religions.[72] Activist atheists have been criticized for positions said to be similar to religiousdogma. In his essayDogmatic Atheism and Scientific Ignorance for theWorld Union of Deists, Peter Murphy wrote: "The dogmatic atheist like the dogmatic theist is obsessed with conformity and will spew a tirade of angry words against anyone who does not conform to their own particular world view".[73]The Times arts and entertainment writer Ian Johns described the 2006 British documentaryThe Trouble with Atheism as "reiterating the point that the dogmatic intensity of atheists is the secular equivalent of the blinkered zeal of fanatical mullahs and biblical fundamentalists".[74] Though the media often portrays atheists as "angry" and studies show that the general population and "believers" perceive atheists as "angry", Brian Meier et al. found that individual atheists are no more angry than individuals in other populations.[75]
In a study on American secularity, Frank Pasquale notes that some tensions do exist among secular groups where, for instance, atheists are sometimes viewed as "fundamentalists" bysecular humanists.[76]
In his bookFirst Principles (1862), the 19th-century English philosopher and sociologistHerbert Spencer wrote that as regards the origin of the universe, three hypotheses are possible:self-existence (atheism), self-creation (pantheism), or creation by an external agency (theism).[77] Spencer argued that it is "impossible to avoid making the assumption of self-existence" in any of the three hypotheses[78] and concluded that "even positive Atheism comes within the definition" of religion.[79]
In an anthropological study on modernity,Talal Asad quotes an Arab atheist named Adonis who has said: "The sacred for atheism is the human being himself, the human being of reason, and there is nothing greater than this human being. It replaces revelation by reason and God with humanity". To which Asad points out: "But an atheism that deifies Man is, ironically, close to the doctrine of the incarnation".[80]
Michael Martin andPaul Edwards have responded to criticism-as-faith by emphasizing that atheism can be the rejection of belief, or absence of belief.[81][82]
TheCatechism of the Catholic Church identifies atheism as a violation of theFirst Commandment, calling it "a sin against the virtue of religion". The catechism is careful to acknowledge that atheism may be motivated byvirtuous ormoral considerations and admonishesCatholics to focus on their own role in encouraging atheism by their religious or moral shortcomings:
Those who assert that "there is no God" are described as "foolish" in thePsalms: "They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that does good."[84]
In his essayOn Atheism,Francis Bacon criticized the dispositions towards atheism as being "contrary to wisdom and moral gravity" and being associated with fearing government or public affairs.[85] He also stated that knowing a little science may lead one to atheism, but knowing more science will lead one to religion.[85] In another work calledThe Advancement of Learning, Bacon stated that superficial knowledge of philosophy inclines one to atheism while more knowledge of philosophy inclines one toward religion.[85]
InReflections on the Revolution in France,Edmund Burke, an 18th-century Irish philosopher and statesman praised by both his conservative and liberal peers for his "comprehensive intellect",[86] wrote that "man is by his constitution a religious animal; that atheism is against, not only our reason, but our instincts; and that it cannot prevail long". Burke wrote of a "literary cabal" who had "some years ago formed something like a regularplan for the destruction of the Christian religion. This object they pursued with a degree of zeal which hitherto had been discovered only in the propagators of some system of piety... These atheistical fathers have a bigotry of their own; and they have learnt to talk against monks with the spirit of a monk". In turn, wrote Burke, a spirit of atheistic fanaticism had emerged in France.[87]
We know, and, what is better, we feel inwardly, that religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good, and of all comfort. In England we are so convinced of this [...] We know, and it is our pride to know, that man is by his constitution a religious animal; that atheism is against, not only our reason, but our instincts; and that it cannot prevail long. But if, in the moment of riot, and in a drunken delirium from the hot spirit drawn out of the alembic of hell, which in France is now so furiously boiling, we should uncover our nakedness, by throwing off that Christian religion which has hitherto been our boast and comfort, and one great source of civilization amongst us, and among many other nations, we are apprehensive (being well aware that the mind will not endure a void) that some uncouth, pernicious, and degrading superstition might take place of it.
— Excerpt fromReflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke, 1790
The historianGeoffrey Blainey wrote that during the 20th century atheists in Western societies became more active and even militant, expressing their arguments with clarity and skill. They reject the idea of an interventionist God and they argue that Christianity promotes war and violence. However, Blainey notes that anyone, not just Christians, can promote violence, writing "that the most ruthless leaders in the Second World War were atheists and secularists who were intensely hostile to both Judaism and Christianity. Later massive atrocities were committed in the East by those ardent atheists,Pol Pot andMao Zedong. All religions, all ideologies, all civilizations display embarrassing blots on their pages".[88]
PhilosophersRussell Blackford and Udo Schüklenk have written: "By contrast to all of this, the Soviet Union was undeniably an atheist state, and the same applies toMaoist China andPol Pot's fanaticalKhmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s. That does not, however, show that the atrocities committed by these totalitarian dictatorships were all the result of atheist beliefs, carried out in the name of atheism, or caused primarily by the atheistic aspects of the relevant forms of communism". However, they do admit that some forms of persecutions such as those done on churches and religious people were partially related to atheism, but insist it was mostly based on economics and political reasons.[89]
HistorianJeffrey Burton Russell has argued that "atheist rulers such as Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot tortured, starved and murdered more people in the twentieth century than all the combined religious regimes of the world during the previous nineteen centuries". He also states: "The antitheist argument boils down to this: a Christian who does evil does so because he is a Christian; an atheist who does evil does so despite being an atheist. The absolute reverse could be argued, but either way it's nothing but spin. The obvious fact is that some Christians do evil in the name of Christianity and some atheists do evil in the name of atheism".[90]
William Husband, a historian of the Soviet secularization has noted: "But the cultivation of atheism in Soviet Russia also possessed distinct characteristic, none more important than the most obvious: atheism was an integral part of the world's first large-scale experiment in communism. The promotion of an antireligious society therefore constitutes an important development in Soviet Russia and in the social history of atheism globally".[91]
InJulian Baggini's bookAtheism: A Very Short Introduction, the author notes: "One of the most serious charges laid against atheism is that it is responsible for some of the worst horrors of the 20th century, including the Nazi concentration camps and Stalin's gulags".[92] However, the author concludes that Nazi Germany was not a "straightforwardly atheist state", but one which sacralized notions ofblood and nation in a way that is "foreign to mainstream rational atheism," whereas the Soviet Union was "avowedly and officially anatheist state" – this being not a reason to think that atheism is necessarily evil, though it is a refutation of the idea that atheism must always be benign as "there is I believe a salutary lesson to be learned from the way in which atheism formed an essential part of Soviet Communism, even though Communism does not form an essential part of atheism. This lesson concerns what can happen when atheism becomes too militant and Enlightenment ideals too optimistic".[93]
From the outset, Christians were critical of the spread of militantMarxist‒Leninist atheism, which took hold in Russia following the 1917 Revolution and involved a systematic effort to eradicate religion.[94][95][96][97] In the Soviet Union after the Revolution, teaching religion to the young was criminalized.[96] Marxist‒Leninist atheism and other adaptations ofMarxian thought on religion enjoyed the official patronage of various one-party Communist states since 1917. The Bolsheviks pursued "militant atheism".[98] The Soviet leadersVladimir Lenin andJoseph Stalin energetically pursued the persecution of the Church through the 1920s and 1930s.[97] It was made a criminal offence for priests to teach a child the faith.[99] Many priests were killed and imprisoned. Thousands of churches were closed, some turned into temples of atheism. In 1925, the government founded theLeague of Militant Atheists, a "nominally independent organization established by the Communist Party to promote atheism" whose pro-atheism activities included active proselytizing of people's personal beliefs, sponsoring lectures, organizing demonstrations, printing and distribution of pamphlets and posters.[99][100]
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PopePius XI reigned from 1922 to 1939 and responded to the rise of totalitarianism in Europe with alarm. He issued three papal encyclicals challenging the new creeds: againstItalian Fascism,Non abbiamo bisogno (1931; 'We do not need to acquaint you); againstNazism,Mit brennender Sorge (1937; "With deep concern"); and against atheist Communism,Divini Redemptoris (1937; "Divine Redeemer").[101]
InDivini Redemptoris, Pius XI said that atheistic Communism being led by Moscow was aimed at "upsetting the social order and at undermining the very foundations ofChristian civilization":[102]
We too have frequently and with urgent insistence denounced the current trend to atheism which is alarmingly on the increase... We raised a solemn protest against the persecutions unleashed in Russia, inMexico and now inSpain. [...] In such a doctrine, as is evident, there is no room for the idea of God; there is no difference between matter and spirit, between soul and body; there is neither survival of the soul after death nor any hope in a future life. Insisting on the dialectical aspect of their materialism, the Communists claim that the conflict which carries the world towards its final synthesis can be accelerated by man. Hence they endeavor to sharpen the antagonisms which arise between the various classes of society. Thus the class struggle with its consequent violent hate and destruction takes on the aspects of a crusade for the progress of humanity. On the other hand, all other forces whatever, as long as they resist such systematic violence, must be annihilated as hostile to the human race.
— Excerpts fromDivini Redemptoris, Pope Pius XI, 1937
In Fascist Italy, led by the atheistBenito Mussolini, the Pope denounced the efforts of the state to supplant the role of the Church as chief educator of youth and denounced Fascism's "worship" of the state rather than the divine, but Church and state settled on mutual, shaky, toleration.[103][104]
Historian of the Nazi periodRichard J. Evans wrote that the Nazis encouraged atheism and deism over Christianity and encouraged party functionaries to abandon their religion.[105] Priests were watched closely and frequently denounced, arrested and sent to concentration camps.[106] InHitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, the historianAlan Bullock wrote that Hitler, likeNapoleon before him, frequently employed the language of "Providence" in defence of his own myth, but ultimately shared with the Soviet dictatorJoseph Stalin "the same materialist outlook, based on the nineteenth century rationalists' certainty that the progress of science would destroy all myths and had already proved Christian doctrine to be an absurdity".[95] By 1939, all Catholic denominational schools in the Third Reich had been disbanded or converted to public facilities.[107] In this climate, Pope Pius XI issued his anti-Nazi encyclical,Mit Brennender Sorge in 1937, saying:[108]
It is on faith in God, preserved pure and stainless, that man's morality is based. All efforts to remove from under morality and the moral order the granite foundation of faith and to substitute for it the shifting sands of human regulations, sooner or later lead these individuals or societies to moral degradation. The fool who has said in his heart "there is no God" goes straight to moral corruption (Psalms xiii. 1), and the number of these fools who today are out to sever morality from religion, is legion.
— Excerpt fromMit brennender Sorge, Pope Pius XI, 1937
Pius XI died on the eve of World War II. Following the outbreak of war and the 1939 Nazi, and subsequently Soviet, invasion of Poland, the newly electedPope Pius XII again denounced the eradication of religious education in hisfirst encyclical, saying: "Perhaps the many who have not grasped the importance of the educational and pastoral mission of the Church will now understand better her warnings, scouted in the false security of the past. No defense of Christianity could be more effective than the present straits. From the immense vortex of error and anti-Christian movements there has come forth a crop of such poignant disasters as to constitute a condemnation surpassing in its conclusiveness any merely theoretical refutation".[109]
Post-war Christian leaders including PopeJohn Paul II continued the Christian critique.[110] In 2010, his successor, the GermanPope Benedict XVI said:[111]
Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. I also recall the regime's attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a reductive vision of the person and his destiny
— Speech by Pope Benedict XVI, 2010
British biologistRichard Dawkins criticised Pope Benedict's remarks and said that "Hitler certainly was not an atheist. In 1933 he claimed to have 'stamped atheism out'".[112] In contrast, historian Alan Bullock wrote that Hitler was a rationalist and a materialist with no feeling for the spiritual or emotional side of human existence: a "man who believed neither in God nor in conscience".[113]Anton Gill has written that Hitler wanted Catholicism to have "nothing at all to do with German society".[114]Richard Overy describes Hitler asskeptical of all religious belief[115][116] Critic of atheismDinesh D'Souza argues that "Hitler's leading advisers, such asGoebbels,Heydrich andBormann, were atheists who were savagely hostile to religion" and Hitler and the Nazis "repudiated what they perceived as the Christian values of equality, compassion and weakness and extolled the atheist notions of theNietzschean superman and a new society based on the 'will to power'".[61]
When Hitler was out campaigning for power in Germany, he made opportunistic statements apparently in favour of "positive Christianity".[117][118][119] In political speeches, Hitler spoke of an "almighty creator".[120][121] According to Samuel Koehne ofDeakin University, some recent works have "argued Hitler was aDeist".[122] Hitler made various comments against "atheistic" movements. He associated atheism withBolshevism,Communism and Jewishmaterialism.[123] In 1933, the regime banned most atheistic andfreethinking groups in Germany—other than those that supported the Nazis.[124][125] The regime strongly opposed "godless communism"[126][127] and most of Germany'sfreethinking (freigeist), atheist and largelyleft-wing organizations were banned.[124][125] The regime also stated that the Nazi Germany needed some kind of belief.[128][129][130][131]
According to Tom Rees, some researches suggest that atheists are more numerous in peaceful nations than they are in turbulent or warlike ones, but causality of this trend is not clear and there are many outliers.[132] However, opponents of this view cite examples such as theBolsheviks (in Soviet Russia) who were inspired by "an ideological creed which professed that all religion would atrophy [...] resolved to eradicate Christianity as such".[133] In 1918, "[t]enOrthodox hierarchs were summarily shot" and "[c]hildren were deprived of any religious education outside the home".[133] Increasingly draconian measures were employed. In addition to direct state persecution, theLeague of the Militant Godless was founded in 1925, churches were closed and vandalized and "by 1938 eighty bishops had lost their lives, while thousands of clerics were sent to labour camps".[134]
Across Eastern Europe following World War II, the parts ofNazi Germany and its allies and conquered states that had been overrun by the SovietRed Army, along with Yugoslavia, became one-party Communist states, which like the Soviet Union were antipathetic to religion. Persecutions of religious leaders followed.[135][136] The Soviet Union ended its truce against the Russian Orthodox Church and extended its persecutions to the newly Communist Eastern bloc. InPoland, Hungary, Lithuania and other Eastern European countries, Catholic leaders who were unwilling to be silent were denounced, publicly humiliated or imprisoned by the Communists. According to Geoffrey Blainey, leaders of the national Orthodox Churches inRomania and Bulgaria had to be "cautious and submissive".[99]
Albania underEnver Hoxha became in 1967 the first (and to date only) formally declared atheist state,[137] going far beyond what most other countries had attempted—completely prohibiting religious observance and systematically repressing and persecuting adherents. The right to religious practice was restored in the fall of communism in 1991. In 1967, Hoxha's regime conducted acampaign to extinguish religious life in Albania and by year's end over two thousand religious buildings were closed or converted to other uses and religious leaders were imprisoned and executed. Albania was declared to be the world's first atheist country by its leaders and Article 37 of the Albanian constitution of 1976 stated: "The State recognises no religion, and supports and carries out atheistic propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialistic world outlook in people".[138][139]
In 1949, China became a Communist state under the leadership ofMao Zedong'sChinese Communist Party. China itself had been a cradle of religious thought since ancient times, being the birthplace ofConfucianism andDaoism. Under Communism, China became officially atheist, and though some religious practices were permitted to continue under state supervision, religious groups deemed a threat to order have been suppressed—as withTibetan Buddhism since 1959 andFalun Gong in recent years.[140] During theCultural Revolution, Mao instigated "struggles" against theFour Olds: "old ideas, customs, culture, and habits of mind".[141] In Buddhist Cambodia, influenced by Mao's Cultural Revolution,Pol Pot'sKhmer Rouge also instigated a purge of religion during theCambodian genocide, when all religious practices were forbidden and Buddhist monasteries were closed.[142][143] Evangelical Christian writerDinesh D'Souza writes: "The crimes of atheism have generally been perpetrated through a hubristic ideology that sees man, not God, as the creator of values. Using the latest techniques of science and technology, man seeks to displace God and create a secularutopia here on earth".[144] He also contends:
And who can deny thatStalin andMao, not to mentionPol Pot and a host of others, all committed atrocities in the name of a Communist ideology that was explicitly atheistic? Who can dispute that they did their bloody deeds by claiming to be establishing a 'new man' and a religion-free utopia? These were mass murders performed with atheism as a central part of their ideological inspiration, they were not mass murders done by people who simply happened to be atheist.[145]
In response to this line of criticism,Sam Harris wrote:
The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship.Auschwitz, thegulag and thekilling fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.[146]
Richard Dawkins has stated that Stalin's atrocities were influenced not by atheism, but by dogmaticMarxism[64] and concludes that while Stalin and Mao happened to be atheists, they did not do their deeds "in the name of atheism".[147] On other occasions, Dawkins has replied to the argument that Hitler and Stalin were antireligious with the response that Hitler and Stalin also grew moustaches in an effort to show the argument as fallacious.[148] Instead, Dawkins argues inThe God Delusion: "What matters is not whether Hitler and Stalin were atheists, but whether atheism systematically influences people to do bad things. There is not the smallest evidence that it does".[149]
Historian Borden Painter assessed Dawkins' claims on Stalin, atheism and violence in light of mainstream historical scholarship, stating that Dawkins did not use reliable sources to reach his conclusions. He argues: "He omits what any textbook would tell him: Marxism included atheism as a piece of its secular ideology that claimed a basis in scientific thinking originating in the Enlightenment".[150] D'Souza responds to Dawkins that an individual need not explicitly invoke atheism in committing atrocities if it is already implied in his worldview as is the case in Marxism.[145]
In a 1993 address to American bishops, Pope John Paul II spoke of a spreading "practical atheism" in modern societies which was clouding the moral sense of humans and fragmenting society:[3]
[T]he disciple of Christ is constantly challenged by a spreading "practical atheism" – an indifference to God's loving plan which obscures the religious and moral sense of the human heart. Many either think and act as if God did not exist, or tend to "privatize" religious belief and practice, so that there exists a bias towards indifferentism and the elimination of any real reference to binding truths and moral values. When the basic principles which inspire and direct human behavior are fragmentary and even at times contradictory, society increasingly struggles to maintain harmony and a sense of its own destiny. In a desire to find some common ground on which to build its programmes and policies, it tends to restrict the contribution of those whose moral conscience is formed by their religious beliefs.
— Pope John Paul II, 11 November 1993
JournalistRobert Wright has argued that someNew Atheists discourage looking for deeper root causes of conflicts when they assume that religion is the sole root of the problem. Wright argues that this can discourage people from working to change the circumstances that actually give rise to those conflicts.[151] Mark Chaves has said that the New Atheists, amongst others who comment on religions, have committed the religiouscongruence fallacy in their writings by assuming that beliefs and practices remain static and coherent through time. He believes that the lateChristopher Hitchens committed this error by assuming that the drive for congruence is a defining feature of religion and thatDaniel Dennett has done it by overlooking the fact that religious actions are dependent on the situation, just like other actions.[152]
Early modern atheism developed in the 17th century and Winfried Schroeder, a historian of atheism, has noted that science during this time did not strengthen the case for atheism.[153][154] In the 18th century,Denis Diderot argued that atheism was less scientific than metaphysics.[153][154] Prior toCharles Darwin, the findings of biology did not play a major part in the atheist's arguments since it was difficult to argue that life arose randomly as opposed to being designed. As Schroeder has noted, throughout the 17th and 18th centuries theists excelled atheists in their ability to make contributions to the serious study of biological processes.[154] In the time of the Enlightenment,mechanical philosophy was developed by Christians such asIsaac Newton,René Descartes,Robert Boyle andPierre Gassendi who saw a self-sustained and autonomous universe as an intrinsically Christian belief. The mechanical world was seen as providing strong evidence against atheism since nature had evidence of order and providence, instead of chaos and spontaneity.[155] However, since the 19th century both atheists and theists have said that science supports their worldviews.[153] Historian of science John Henry has noted that before the 19th century science was generally cited to support many theological positions. However, materialist theories in natural philosophy became more prominent from the 17th century onwards, giving more room for atheism to develop. Since the 19th century, science has been employed in both theistic and atheistic cultures, depending on the prevailing popular beliefs.[156]
In reviewing the rise of modern science,Taner Edis notes that science does work without atheism and that atheism largely remains a position that is adopted for philosophical or ethical, rather than scientific reasons. The history of atheism is heavily invested in the philosophy of religion and this has resulted in atheism being weakly tied to other branches of philosophy and almost completely disconnected from science which means that it risks becoming stagnant and completely irrelevant to science.[157]
SociologistSteve Fuller wrote: "Atheism as a positive doctrine has done precious little for science". He notes: "More generally, Atheism has not figured as a force in the history of science not because it has been suppressed but because whenever it has been expressed, it has not specifically encouraged the pursuit of science".[158]
Massimo Pigliucci noted that the Soviet Union had adopted an atheist ideology calledLysenkoism, which rejected Mendelian genetics and Darwinian evolution as capitalist propaganda, which was in sync with Stalin'sdialectic materialism and ultimately impeded biological and agricultural research for many years, including the exiling and deaths of many valuable scientists. This part of history has symmetries with other ideologically driven ideas such asintelligent design, though in both cases religion and atheism are not the main cause, but blind commitments to worldviews.[159]
According to historianGeoffrey Blainey, in recent centuries literalist biblical accounts were undermined by scientific discoveries inarchaeology,astronomy,biology,chemistry,geoscience, andphysics, leading various thinkers to question the idea that God created the universe at all.[160] However, he also notes: "Other scholars replied that the universe was so astonishing, so systematic, and so varied that it must have a divine maker. Criticisms of the accuracy of theBook of Genesis were therefore illuminating, but minor".[160] Some philosophers, such asAlvin Plantinga, have argued the universe wasfine-tuned for life.[161] Atheists have sometimes responded by referring to theanthropic principle.[162][163]
PhysicistKarl W. Giberson and philosopher of science Mariano Artigas reviewed the views of some notable atheist scientists such asCarl Sagan,Richard Dawkins,Stephen Jay Gould,Stephen Hawking,Steven Weinberg andE. O. Wilson which have engaged popular writing which include commentary on what science is, society and religion for the lay public. Giberson and Artigas note that though such authors provide insights from their fields, they often misinform the public by engaging in non-scientific commentary on society, religion and meaning under the guise of non-existent scientific authority and no scientific evidence. Some impressions these six authors make that are erroneous and false include: science is mainly about origins and that most scientists work in some aspect of either cosmic or biological evolution, scientists are either agnostic or atheistic and science is incompatible and even hostile to religion. To these impressions, Giberson and Artigas note that the overwhelming majority of science articles in any journal in any field have nothing to do with origins because most research is funded by taxpayers or private corporations so ultimately practical research that benefit people, the environment, health and technology are the core focus of science; significant portions of scientists are religious and spiritual; and the majority of scientists are not hostile to religion since no scientific organization has any stance that is critical to religion, the scientific community is diverse in terms of worldviews and there is no collective opinion on religion.[164]
PrimatologistFrans de Waal has criticized atheists for often presenting science and religion to audiences in a simplistic and false view ofconflict, thereby propagating a myth that has been dispelled by history. He notes that there are dogmatic parallels between atheists and some religious people in terms of how they argue about many issues.[165]
Evolutionary biologistKenneth R. Miller has argued that when scientists make claims on science and theism or atheism, they are not arguing scientifically at all and are stepping beyond the scope of science into discourses of meaning and purpose. What he finds particularly odd and unjustified is in how atheists often come to invoke scientific authority on their non-scientific philosophical conclusions like there being no point or no meaning to the universe as the only viable option when the scientific method and science never have had any way of addressing questions of meaning or lack of meaning, or the existence or non-existence of God in the first place. Atheists do the same thing theists do on issues not pertaining to science like questions on God and meaning.[2]
Theologian scientistAlister McGrath points out that atheists have misused biology in terms of bothevolution as "Darwinism" and Darwin himself, in their "atheist apologetics" in order to propagate and defend their worldviews. He notes that in atheist writings there is often an implicit appeal to an outdated "conflict" model of science and religion which has been discredited by historical scholarship, there is a tendency to go beyond science to make non-scientific claims like lack of purpose and characterizing Darwin as if he was an atheist and his ideas as promoting atheism. McGrath notes that Darwin never called himself an atheist nor did he and other early advocates of evolution see his ideas as propagating atheism and that numerous contributors to evolutionary biology were Christians.[166]
Oxford Professor of MathematicsJohn Lennox has written that the issues one hears about science and religion have nothing to do with science, but are merely about theism and atheism because top level scientists abound on both sides. Furthermore, he criticizes atheists who argue fromscientism because sometimes it results in dismissals of things like philosophy based on ignorance of what philosophy entails and the limits of science. He also notes that atheist scientists in trying to avoid the visible evidence for God ascribe creative power to less credible candidates like mass and energy, the laws of nature and theories of those laws. Lennox notes that theories that Hawking appeals to such as themultiverse are speculative and untestable and thus do not amount to science.[167]
PhysicistPaul Davies ofArizona State University has written that the very notion of physical law is a theological one in the first place: "Isaac Newton first got the idea of absolute, universal, perfect, immutable laws from the Christian doctrine that God created the world and ordered it in a rational way".[168]John Lennox has argued that science itself sits more comfortably with theism than with atheism and "as a scientist I would say... where did modern science come from? It didn't come from atheism... modern science arose in the 16th and 17th centuries in Western Europe, and of course people ask why did it happen there and then, and the general consensus which is often calledMerton's Thesis is, to quoteCS Lewis who formulated it better than anybody I know... 'Men became scientific. Why? Because they expected law in nature, and they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver.' In other words, it was belief in God that was the motor that drove modern science".[169]
Francis Collins, the American physician and geneticist who led theHuman Genome Project, argues that theism is more rational than atheism. Collins also found Lewis persuasive and after readingMere Christianity came to believe that a rational person would be more likely to believe in a god. Collins argues: "How is it that we, and all other members of our species, unique in the animal kingdom, know what's right and what's wrong... I reject the idea that that is an evolutionary consequence, because that moral law sometimes tells us that the right thing to do is very self-destructive. If I'm walking down the riverbank, and a man is drowning, even if I don't know how to swim very well, I feel this urge that the right thing to do is to try to save that person. Evolution would tell me exactly the opposite: preserve your DNA. Who cares about the guy who's drowning? He's one of the weaker ones, let him go. It's your DNA that needs to survive. And yet that's not what's written within me".[170]
Dawkins addresses this criticism by showing that the evolutionary process can account for the development of altruistic traits in organisms.[171] However, molecular biologistKenneth R. Miller argues that Dawkins' conception of evolution and morality is a misunderstanding of sociobiology since though evolution would have provided the biological drives and desires we have, it does not tell us what is good or right or wrong or moral.[65]
In the early 21st century, a group of authors and media personalities in Britain and the United States—often referred to as the "New Atheists"—have argued that religion must be proactively countered, criticized so as to reduce its influence on society. Prominent among these voices have beenChristopher Hitchens,Richard Dawkins,Daniel Dennett andSam Harris.[172]
One critic of New Atheism has been the American-Iranian religious studies scholarReza Aslan. In aNew York interview in 2014,[173] Aslan argued that the New Atheists held an "often comically simplistic view of religion that gave atheism a bad name" and continued:
This is not the philosophical atheism of Schopenhauer or Marx or Freud or Feuerbach. This is a sort of unthinking, simplistic religious criticism. It is primarily being fostered by individuals—like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins—who have absolutely no background in the study of religion at all. ... What we’re seeing now instead is a sort of armchair atheism—people who are inundated by what they see on the news or in media, and who then draw these incredibly simplistic generalizations about religion in general based on these examples that they see.
Professor of comparative studies Jeff Nall argues that the New Atheists provide a foundation that is embedded in errors and fallacies for "fundamentalist atheists". He asserts that fundamentalist atheism seeks to eradicate religion and anoint atheism, based on three major fallacies: firstly, an intellectual tunnel vision and failure to accurately examine religious belief honestly in favour of labelling religion as violent, averse to critical debate, scientific development, tolerance, and social advancement; secondly, treating fundamentalist forms of religion as the root of all evil and as the norm on all religion; and, thirdly, intellectual intolerance toward religious thought and belief.[174]
Professor of anthropology and sociology Jack David Eller believes that the four principal New Atheist authors—Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett and Harris—were not offering anything new in terms of arguments to disprove the existence of gods. He also criticized them for their focus on the dangers of theism as opposed to the falsifying of theism, which results in mischaracterizing religions, taking local theisms as the essence of religion itself and for focusing on the negative aspects of religion in the form of an "argument from benefit" in the reverse.[175]
Professors of philosophy and religion Jeffrey Robbins and Christopher Rodkey take issue with "the evangelical nature of the new atheism, which assumes that it has a Good News to share, at all cost, for the ultimate future of humanity by the conversion of as many people as possible". They find similarities between the new atheism and evangelical Christianity and conclude that the all-consuming nature of both "encourages endless conflict without progress" between both extremities.[176] Sociologist William Stahl notes: "What is striking about the current debate is the frequency with which the New Atheists are portrayed as mirror images of religious fundamentalists". He discusses where both have "structural and epistemological parallels" and argues that "both the New Atheism and fundamentalism are attempts to recreate authority in the face of crises of meaning in late modernity".[177]
The English philosopherRoger Scruton has said that saying that religion is damaging to mankind is just as ridiculous as saying that love is damaging to mankind. Like love, religion leads to conflict, cruelty, abuse and even wars, yet it also brings people joy, solitude, hope and redemption. He therefore states that New Atheists cherry-pick, ignoring the most crucial arguments in the favour of religion, whilst also reiterating the few arguments against religion. He has also stated that religion is an irrefutable part of the human condition, and that denying this is futile.[178]
American religious studies scholarDavid Bentley Hart criticized New Atheism inAtheist Delusions for being "as contemptible as any other form of dreary fundamentalism" because it "consists entirely in vacuous arguments afloat on oceans of historical ignorance, made turbulent by storms of strident self-righteousness."[179] Of the leading New Atheists, Hart has the most respect for Daniel Dennett, but concludes that "Dennett's argument consists in little more than the persistent misapplication of quantitative and empirical terms to unquantifiable and intrinsically nonempirical realities" and "sustained by classifications that are entirely arbitrary."[180]
Richard Dawkins ...does not hesitate, for instance, to claim that "natural selection is the ultimate explanation for our existence." But this is a silly assertion and merely reveals that Dawkins does not understand the words he is using. The question of existence does not concern how it is that the present arrangement of the world came about, from causes already internal to the world, but how it is that anything (including any cause) can exist at all.[181]
InThe Experience of God (2013), Hart primarily makes the case that most criticisms of theism by the New Atheists do not apply to the God ofclassical theism but instead to a deistic deity conceived of much later in history. Along the way, Hart covers many other specific topics including extended critiques of Daniel Dennett's philosophy of mind and an outline of logical failures inThe Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.[182]
An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do know to be sure that no such God exists.
Either the lack of belief that there exists a god, or the belief that there exists none.
atheism is the position that affirms the nonexistence of God. So an atheist is someone who disbelieves in God, whereas a theist is someone who believes in God. Another meaning of "atheism" is simply nonbelief in the existence of God, rather than positive belief in the nonexistence of God. ...an atheist, in the broader sense of the term, is someone who disbelieves in every form of deity, not just the God of traditional Western theology.
The "a-" in "atheism" must be understood as negation instead of absence, as "not" instead of "without". Therefore, in philosophy at least, atheism should be construed as the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, the proposition that there are no gods).
for an anthropomorphic God, the atheist rejects belief in God because it is false or probably false that there is a God; for a nonanthropomorphic God... because the concept of such a God is either meaningless, unintelligible, contradictory, incomprehensible, or incoherent; for the God portrayed by some modern or contemporary theologians or philosophers... because the concept of God in question is such that it merely masks an atheistic substance—e.g., "God" is just another name for love, or ... a symbolic term for moral ideals.
an 'atheist' is a person who rejects belief in God, regardless of whether or not his reason for the rejection is the claim that 'God exists' expresses a false proposition. People frequently adopt an attitude of rejection toward a position for reasons other than that it is a false proposition. It is common among contemporary philosophers, and indeed it was not uncommon in earlier centuries, to reject positions on the ground that they are meaningless. Sometimes, too, a theory is rejected on such grounds as that it is sterile or redundant or capricious, and there are many other considerations which in certain contexts are generally agreed to constitute good grounds for rejecting an assertion.(page 175 in 1967 edition)
Deism: A religious belief holding that God created the universe and established rationally comprehensible moral and natural laws but does not intervene in human affairs through miracles or supernatural revelation.
Deism is knowledge of God based on the application of our reason on the designs/laws found throughout Nature. The designs presuppose a Designer. Deism is therefore a natural religion and is not a "revealed" religion.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)The sceptical element of sceptical theism can be used to undermine various arguments for atheism including both the argument from evil and the argument from divine hiddenness.
His books God and Philosophy (1966) and The Presumption of Atheism (1976) [Flew] made the case, now followed by today's new atheists, that atheism should be the intelligent person's default until well-established evidence to the contrary arises
But it is common these days to find atheists who define the term to mean "without theism"... Many of them then go on to argue that this means that the "burden of proof" is on the theist...
In the last twenty years or so atheists and theists have taken to debating on college campuses, and in town halls, all across this country. By using the above definition, atheists have attempted to shift the burden of proof.
[The Presumption of atheism is] One of the most commonly proffered justifications of atheism has been the so-called presumption of atheism.
A notable modern view is Antony Flew's Presumption of Atheism (1984).
There are very many atheists who think they have no worldview to defend.
The 'evidentialist challenge' is the gauntlet thrown down by atheist writers such as Antony Flew, Norwood Russell Hanson, and Michael Scriven. They argue that in debates over the existence of God, the burden of proof should fall on the theist. They contend that if theists are unable to provide cogent arguments for theism, i.e. arguments showing that it is at least more probable than not that God exists, then atheism wins by default.
Another familiar strategy of atheists is to insist that the burden of proof falls on the believer.
When Christians and atheists engage in debate concerning the question, Does God exist? atheists frequently assert that the entire burden of proof rests on the Christian.
Atheists tend to claim that the theist bears the burden of proof to justify the existence of God, whereas the theist tends to claim that both parties have an equal burden of proof.
In this article I will show that atheism is a belief about the world and that it does require a justification in the same way that theism does.
Certain atheists in the mid-twentieth century were promoting the so-called "presumption of atheism.
Prof. Ralph McInerny goes a step further to argue that the burden of proof should fall on the unbeliever. Here I shall rebut Prof. McInerny's claim and argue that, in the context of public debate over the truth of theism, theists cannot shirk a heavy burden of proof.
In sum, with the exception of suicide, countries marked by high rates of organic atheism are among the most societally healthy on earth, while societies characterized by nonexistent rates of organic atheism are among the most unhealthy. Of course, none of the above correlations demonstrate that high levels of organic atheismcause societal health or that low levels of organic atheismcause societal ills. Rather, societal health seems to cause widespread atheism, and societal insecurity seems to cause widespread belief in God, as has been demonstrated by Norris and Inglehart (2004), mentioned above.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)The repeated arguments presented by atheists using science as evidence against the existence of God is erroneous -- and can be demonstrated such." and "This essay from this point will refer to active atheists as dogmatic atheists to better reflect their true mindset.
Atheists have appealed to science in defence of their atheism since the first avowedly atheistic manuscripts of the mid seventeenth century. However, as the German expert on atheism Winfried Schroeder has shown, the relationship between early modern atheism and science tended to embarrass rather than strengthen the fledgling atheism's case.[1]"; "The renowned Denis Diderot, atheist and deist in turns, could still say in 1746 that science posed a greater threat to atheism than metaphysics.[3] Well into the eighteenth century it could be argued that it was atheism and not theism which required a sacrifice of the intellect. As Schroeder has pointed out, atheists were scientifically retrograde until at least the mid eighteenth century, and suffered from their reputation as scientifically unserious.[4]"; "As John Hedley Brooke has pointed out, for every nineteenth century person considering these issues who followed figures such as Thomas Henry Huxley or Francis Galton in regarding evolution as devastating for religious belief, there were others, such as the Oxford theologian Aubrey Moore, who regarded Darwin's evolutionary theory as an opportunity for religion.[7]At the beginning of the twenty first century the situation remains very similar:..
{{cite book}}:|first1= has generic name (help)Lysenko's wacky ideas fit perfectly well with Stalin's ideology: if the twisted version of dialectical materialism officially endorsed by the Soviet Union was true, then plants and animals (and by extension people) had to be infinitely pliable by changes in their environment and Mendelian genetics and Darwinian evolution must be simply the result of sick capitalist propaganda. Accordingly, Lysenko and his cronies took over Russian genetics and agriculture, exiling or putting to death the best scientists of that country and causing an economic catastrophe...It is somewhat amusing to ponder the symmetry between the two cases: communist and atheist ideology for Lysenko, religious and conservative for Johnson. The real danger does not seem to be either religion or atheism, but blind commitment to an a priori view of the world that ignores how things really are.
