steve_bank
Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
I am sure there are many categories and definitions of atheism depending on the times and the authors.
Fr me I reject deities of any kind. It is not for me to prove a god does not exiist, it is for theists to prove their claim.
(Typo fixed by moderator for clarity)
Fr me I reject deities of any kind. It is not for me to prove a god does not exiist, it is for theists to prove their claim.
A . What’s a god?
This is very difficult to answer. However, a reasonable account is that to be a god one must satisfy the following:
· Have significant supernatural powers
· Not be classifiable as merely human, vegetable or mineral
· Have some kind of mental life
B. Theism vs. Atheism
Theism is the view that at least one god exists. Hence, polytheism is a form of theism.
More narrowly, in western philosophy:
1. Theism: acceptance of the traditional orthodox god of revelation who is especially concerned with us and intervenes in human affairs, a view held by most Christian philosophers
2. Deism: rejection of revelation and acceptance of a god who is a person but may or may not be especially concerned with us. Popular with some enlightenment scientists and philosophers
3. Pantheism: typically, nature is divine and not a person, a view held by Spinoza and Einstein. Note that pantheism does not qualify as theism according to the previous account of god.
Atheism is the rejection of theism; hence, an atheist is one without a belief in any god.
There are three types of atheists:
1. No-concept atheist: one who does not have the notion of god or has never thought about god’s existence.
2. Agnostic: one who neither believes nor disbelieves the existence of any god because one thinks that we don’t know whether there is at least one god or not
Note: one might be an agnostic on various grounds. For example, one might believe that there are no good reason to believe in any god, or that there are equally strong reasons for the existence and the non-existence of a god.
3. Positive atheist: one who believes that no god exists
Note: one may be a positive atheist because one thinks that we know that no god exists, or because one thinks that we have sufficient evidence for concluding that there is no god as the burden of evidence is on theist who, however, fails to provide sufficient ground for his position.
Note that these types of atheism are incompatible; for example, one may not be both an agnostic and a positive atheist
Broadly, sometimes an atheist is taken to be someone who denies the existence of some god. In this sense, one might be a positive atheist with respect to some god, e.g., Christ, a negative atheist with respect to some other god, e.g., Baal, and an agnostic with respect to another, e.g., Zeus. So, Roman polytheists considered Christians atheists because Christians denied the existence of all gods but theirs. In fact, as there are, or have been, thousands of gods a theist is likely to be an atheist, in this sense, with respect to most of them.
(Typo fixed by moderator for clarity)
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