Atheism

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 590.

Atheism is the absence of belief in any Gods or spiritual beings. The word Atheism comes from a, meaning without, and theism meaning belief in god or gods. Atheists don't use God to explain the existence of the universe. They say that human beings can devise suitable moral codes to live by without the aid of Gods or scriptures.

People are atheist for many reasons: they find insufficient evidence to support any religion; they think that religion is nonsensical; they once had a religion and have lost faith in it; they live in a non-religious culture; religion doesn't interest them, doesn't seem relevant to their lives or seem to have done a lot of harm in the world; the world is such a bad place that there can't be a God.

Many atheists are also secularist, and are hostile to any special treatment given to organised religion. Atheists are as moral (or immoral) as religious people. In practical terms atheists often follow the same moral code as religious people, but they arrive at the decision of what is good or bad without any help from the idea of God. Atheists find their own answers to the question of what it means to be human. This discussion looks at the question from both theological and ethical viewpoints. Atheists are people who believe that god or gods (or other supernatural beings) are man-made constructs, myths and legends or who believe that these concepts are not meaningful.