When and where did atheism first start ?

[Sal]

Hello Friends,

Can anyone tell me from where did atheism start and when did it start ?

Thanks

at birth

[no one]

Vulcanlogician:
As an interesting aside, this brings up the question if disbelief can predate the proposal that said thing exists. If it can, that would mean that you categorize nonbelief as a kind of "default." But doing this creates all kinds of problems.

Ah dear vulcan, it would seem that you are logicianing too hard. I was simply stating that humans have to learn about gods and their respective happy places. It's like hate, it is a learned trait.

It's not that humans have a "default" state of believing, or not believing, but a person doesn't have to learn about not believing in something the same way someone that believes does.

I get what you are saying, I honestly do. You make a very sound counterpoint.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Hello Friends,

Can anyone tell me from where did atheism start and when did it start ?

Thanks

Atheism started at a small, family owned butcher shop in Cromarty, Scotland in 1952.

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

This question is, sadly, found in google autofill... well... "who started atheism"... a much worse, much more ignorant version of the question. I'm hoping it's mostly children who return from Sunday school with this sort of question. But I bet the sad truth is, it's asked by adults for the most part... adults with really skewed visions of the world.

Atheism predates religion. Humans learned believe in the nonsense that is religion.

As an interesting aside, this brings up the question if disbelief can predate the proposal that said thing exists. If it can, that would mean that you categorize nonbelief as a kind of "default." But doing this creates all kinds of problems.

It would mean that you "disbelieve" every future scientific theory that will be proposed. Who would assess their attitude concerning future scientific theories and come to this conclusion? Not me. I think that some future scientific theories will be correct, others will be incorrect. I'd have to hear/read about the theory first before I determine a potential belief status. Taking this way of thinking about it into mind, the "first" atheist would be the first caveman who disbelieved a "God story" after having heard it.

Actually, that only works if atheism is defined as 'disbelief' instead of 'nonbelief'. I cannot believe in theories that haven't been invented or plants that haven't been discovered - it isn't possible to believe or not believe in them.  My position regarding these has to be one of nonbelief, as the word indicates a lack of belief.  'Disbelief', on the other hand, implies a refusal to believe or an outright rejection of some proposition.  It isn't possible to reject a scientific theory that hasn't been formulated.

Boru

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Atheism is the default state.

[Anomalocaris]

Right after the first cave man claimed to believe in a god, and the first time the response to his claim was: "I dont"

Actually, even before the first caveman claimed to believe in a god, no caveman believed in a god.

Atheism is an original condition.

Theism is a malignant later development.

[AFTT47]

Atheism is the default state.

Yup. Not just a-theism but a-anythingism. The default position is to not believe in a thing until there is evidence that a thing exists.

It's curious that nobody questions a-unicornists a-leperacaunists, a-gremlinists, etc.

The roots of atheism started the first time someone made an extraordinary claim without providing the tiniest shred of evidence to back up that claim.

[Succubus]

Sunday October 32nd, 56743 BCE.
At the village block party.

Atheism predates religion. Humans learned believe in the nonsense that is religion.

About tea time.

[Abaddon_ire]

Hello Friends,

Can anyone tell me from where did atheism start and when did it start ?

Thanks

You were born an atheist. The pope was born an atheist. Everyone was born an atheist. It started when you were born. It took years of dedicated indoctrination from you parents to batter the stupid ideas into you. But then child minds are so easily manipulated, aren't they?

[The Grand Nudger]

As an interesting aside, this brings up the question if disbelief can predate the proposal that said thing exists. If it can, that would mean that you categorize nonbelief as a kind of "default." But doing this creates all kinds of problems.

Maybe it just means that we don’t believe in things we have no idea about. A person who doesn’t believe in gods because they’ve never heard about them is an atheist. Unless every single human being simultaneously began believing in gods independently of each other, and then forevermore every human knew about them...there was a moment in prehistory where at least one default atheist existed.

The conditions required to make a default atheism “problematic” stretch any pretense of credibility. As does the notion that historic atheism, as old as the written word and contemporaneous at least, with god stories cropped up as we see it in that instant and was filled with opinions wholly contained by the author.