Explain atheism

[God of Mr. Hanky]

Hi everyone,

Just joined, and I'm interested in learning about all cultures and belief systems. I'm curious what atheism means to you personally. Also why you don't believe in religion, and what you have to say about it.

Atheism doesn't mean anything personal. Nothing. Atheists don't make the false claims of religious believers (or theists who deny their religious affiliations when they claim the gods of religious sects) on any relation between belief or lack of it and personality traits. Well, there is the honesty of calling a spade a spade, not being willing to pretend we believe what we cannot and should not just to please others, and not bending the limits of our honesty when attempting to argue for our ideas.

If I have an idea which I think you should believe, it won't be one for which there is no evidence which you cannot observe for yourself. I won't pretend to know something which you cannot, and then beat you over the head with the idea that if you don't know it too, then you have chosen to turn a blind eye to it.

Also, when I claim something as a fact, it is of a descriptive nature, not prescriptive. I would not tell you that you need to believe my ideas because they can make you a better person - nononono! You may wish to improve your life, but the desire for that is no good reason to believe what others tell you as fact when it's an unfalsifiable claim which cannot be backed by any evidence.

"Atheism" is a compound word consisting of the Greek negation "a" and "theism", which means "belief in a god or gods". Therefore, it's proper definition is "no belief in a god". Not "no belief in God", not unless you also exclude the gods Allah, Zoroaster, Vishnu, Zeus, Thor, and a million other such deities. Conversely, if you don't believe in Zeus, Athena, or Thor, then you too are an atheist on those gods. Most of us are atheists on some or most gods, and atheists are those who gave the god of their own culture a little more thought and decided that such a god or gods are equally unlikely.

There is no prescribed way of practicing atheism - no atheistic holy books, practices, rituals, secret handshakes, secret meetings, nor doctrine. On doctrine, this is not constituted by the definition of atheism, which is simply a response to ideas which other people choose to run their lives around. However, if an atheist proclaims there absolutely is no god, then this would be a doctrine. Most of us recognize theistic claims as unfalsifiable, a condition which inherently rules out absolute certainty pro or con, and given the track record of people with their gods are comfortable enough in our conclusion that there is at best only the most negligible chance that any god or gods exist outside of the minds of believers.