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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
An unintimidating guide to Atheism and secular philosophy
Atheism For Dummies, 2nd Edition takes an unbiased look into the philosophical worldview of the lack of belief in gods. This approachable book showcases how atheism is a spectrum, from showing the secular values and lifestyles that resonate with many atheists to also showing how atheism can connect to other philosophical views such agnosticism, secular humanism, and more. Learn about the deep history of atheism, how atheism appears in popular culture, and how atheist philosophy and perspective can apply to topics like artificial intelligence and the climate crisis.
- Explore what atheism is and isn't
- Examine the beliefs of nonbelievers
- Discover atheist perspective on important philosophical questions
- Find out how the internet has shaped atheism and secular communities
If you're looking for a stronger understanding of religious nonbelief, Atheism For Dummies, 2nd Edition is the accessible guide for you.
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Atheism For Dummies®
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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part 1: Understanding What Atheism Is
Chapter 1: Meeting Atheism
Getting a Grip on Atheism
Seeing the Progression of Atheism
Examining Atheism in the Written Word
Understanding What Atheism Means in Everyday Life
Chapter 2: Unweaving the Rainbow of Disbelief
Tomato, Tomahto? Perusing the Wide, Weird World of Atheist Labels
Believing and Disbelieving by Degrees
Emphasizing Doubt: Agnostics Aren’t Sure (and Neither Are You)
Discovering Humanism: The Thousand Steps That Follow
Forcing a Square Peg into a Round Hole: The Unpigeonholeables
Chapter 3: Seeing What Atheists Believe and Why
Understanding Why Atheists Don’t Believe in God
What Most Atheists Do Believe
What Few Atheists Believe
Answering the Question: Is Science Incompatible with Belief in God?
Part 2: Following Atheism Through the Ages
Chapter 4: Finding Atheism in the Ancient World
Uncovering What the Ancients Believed (or Didn’t)
Leaping Forward: The Axial Age
Inferring Unbelief in Ancient Judea
Finding Unbelief in Ancient China
Visiting Ancient India: 320 Million Gods and None at All
Whispering Doubts in Ancient Greece and Rome
Chapter 5: Going Medieval
Continuing to Doubt in India
Sweeping Out Superstitions in China
Trash-Talking in Medieval Islam
Freezing Out the Gods in Iceland
Giving Europe the Third Degree
Chapter 6: Enlightening Strikes
Transmitting the Classics
Getting a (Bad) Name: Athée
Discovering a Whole New Way to Think: The Scientific Revolution
Stirring the Pot: The Clandestine Manuscripts
Singing the War Song of an Atheist Priest
Thinking Dangerous Thoughts: The Enlightenment Philosophers
Challenging the Powers That Be: The French Revolution
Checking Out the U.S. Founders
Chapter 7: Opening a Golden Age of Freethought
Killing God: Philosophers Do the Crime, a Pantheist Writes the Eulogy
Freethinking with Early Feminists
Watching Religion and Science Collide
Challenging the Religious Monopoly in Politics
Creating a Religion Without God
Chapter 8: Growing Up in the Tumultuous 20th Century
Clashing at the National Levels: Atheism and Religion
Birthing Modern Humanism
Disagreeing with Gandhi
Meeting the Most Hated
Courting the Separation of Church and State
Doing Religion with an Optional God
Burying God, Keeping Jesus
Skipping Yahweh
Reconciling Science and Religion (or Not)
Chapter 9: Voicing a New Atheism for the 21st Century
Tracing the Birth of an Atheist Movement in the 2000s
Feeling “Deep Grief and Fierce Anger”: The Four Horsemen
Hearing the Chorus of New Atheists
Spreading Humanism Worldwide
Exploding Online
Taking the Cultural Temperature
Chapter 10: Welcoming the Shrugging Seculars
Growing into a Major Presence?
Taking Seats at the Political Table
Meeting the Most Secular Generation
Encountering the Relaxed Religious
Seeking a Spiritual Secularism
Part 3: Plunging into the Great Works of Atheism
Chapter 11: Uncovering Lost, Secret, Censored, and Forbidden Works
Speaking Volumes in Two Sentences: Protagoras’s
On the Gods
Hearing Echoes of the Lost Sūtras of Cārvāka
Listening to al-Razi on “Fraudulent” Muhammad
Discovering the First Explicitly Atheist Book:
Theophrastus redivivus
Making a Whispered Myth Real:
The Treatise of the Three Impostors
Expelling the Atheist: Shelley’s “The Necessity of Atheism”
Disguising Darwin’s Autobiography
Censoring Himself … for a While: Mark Twain
Chapter 12: Sampling Landmark Writings
Spotting the Survivors
Appreciating Unorthodox Believers
Clearing the Way
Building a New Vision
Chapter 13: Laughing in Disbelief: Divine Comedies
Getting Satirical in Print
Standing Up
Blaspheming at the Movies
Drawing on the Sacrilegious
Downloading Disbelief
Chapter 14: Reawakening Atheism in the Early 21st Century
Sparking an Atheist Renaissance
Continuing the Conversation with Online Creators
Chapter 15: Exploring Different Ways to Be Secular
The New Humanism
Looking and Listening
Part 4: Living a Full Life Without a Belief in God
Chapter 16: Getting Personal with Atheism Today
Counting Heads: The Growing Nontheistic Presence Worldwide
Figuring Out the Who, What, and Where of Atheism
Talkin’ About the New Generations
Answering the Question “Why Are Atheists So Angry?”
Opening Up the Freethought Movement
Creating a Satisfying Community for Nonbelievers of Every Stripe
Living as an Atheist Around the World
Chapter 17: Being Good Without Gods
Defining Morality
Sorting Right from Wrong Without Religious Belief
Digging Up the Natural Roots of Morality
Chapter 18: Seeing the World Naturally
Feeling Freedom and Relief
Accepting Responsibility
Setting Aside Bronze-Age Ideas
Embracing Mortality
Gaping in New Wonder at Reality
Discovering Life’s Meaning
Raising Kids to Think for Themselves
Chapter 19: Being an Atheist Among the Religious
Living in a Mostly Religious Culture
Getting Religiously Literate
Living as an Atheist in a Religious Extended Family
Chapter 20: Getting the Best of Religion and Leaving the Rest
Realizing Why People (Really) Go to Church
Creating Communities Without Church (or at Least Without God)
Turning Inward
Celebrating Special Days
Giving Support Without Religion
Doing Good Together
Asking Whether Anything Is Sacred
Chapter 21: Grappling Godlessly with a Complex Future
Defining Humanness Without a Cheat Sheet
Confronting Global Challenges on Our Own
Creating the Story We Need Right Now
Part 5: The Part of Tens
Chapter 22: Ten Things You May Not Know About Atheists
They’re All Around You, and More All the Time
They Know a Lot About Religion
They Tend to Behave Themselves
They Have a Lot in Common with Everyone Else
They Often Seek Spiritual Experience
They Aren’t All on the Political Left
They’re in Foxholes, Too
They Don’t Usually Raise Their Kids to Be Atheists
They’re No More Worried About Death Than the Religious
They Often Seek to Coexist and Cooperate with Religious People
Chapter 23: Ten Groups of Humans with a Lot of Nonbelievers
Animators
Scientists and Laureates
Comedians
Politicians
Public Intellectuals
Entertainers
Feminists
Philanthropists
Activists
Uh…Clergy??
Chapter 24: Ten Fun and Easy Ways to Explore Atheism
Read the Books
Follow the Podcasts
Subscribe to the Videos
Listen to the Music
Think About Thinking
Read the Bible
Learn About Evolution
Watch the Movies and Shows
Talk to an Atheist
Imagine
Index
About the Author
Connect with Dummies
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Begin Reading
Index
About the Author
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Atheism For Dummies®2nd Edition
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Introduction
In 2012, when I mentioned that I was working on the first edition of Atheism For Dummies, a friend replied that it’d be the skinniest book on the shelf. “Just one sentence long,” he said. “‘Atheists are people who don’t believe in God.’”
I replied by suggesting a one-sentence book on the Grand Canyon: “The Grand Canyon is a big hole in Arizona.” Of course, that sentence would miss most of what’s really worth knowing about the Grand Canyon — its geology and geography, how it came to be, its wildlife and formations, and its significance among other formations on the planet.
Likewise, a book on atheism that stops at the definition of the word would miss what’s really interesting about the startling idea that (despite what your mother and your hunches may tell you) God doesn’t actually exist. It’d be just as incomplete as saying, “Religious people believe in God,” and leaving it at that. There’s a bit more to say.
One year and 384 pages later, the first edition of Atheism For Dummies was on the shelf. It covered the long, rich history of religious disbelief; the great figures; the important works; arguments for and against its conclusions; the way it plays out in fiction, comedy, and debate and in film and on television; the way it fits into different cultures; and most importantly, how average people around the world live it every day.
In 2024, I mentioned online that I was beginning work on the second edition of Atheism For Dummies. “Is there more than one sentence on one page in that book?” commented a friend. “Because that would seem to cover it.”
Sigh.
In addition to most of the topics described in the original, this second edition tells the extraordinary story of what has happened in the 12 years since: an explosion in the numbers of the nonreligious, their greater influence in society and politics, new media bursting on the scene as others have plummeted, the rise of the most secular generation ever (with a very different approach to all this), and new ways of thinking about the future of the human species without the lens of supernatural ideas.
I’ve also changed since the first edition. Still an atheist, thank God, but like anyone who’s fascinated by a subject, I’ve kept learning and experiencing new things about religion and irreligion. I’ve always been a pretty relaxed and co-existent guy, but I’ve come to an even better understanding of the needs that religion satisfies in recent years, even if I don’t have those needs myself — and I know that a little twist of fate would’ve put me in a religious person’s shoes and them in mine. I hope that comes through as you read.
People who’ve entertained the possibility that gods don’t exist, and sometimes even said it out loud, make up a seldom-explored thread of human history that intersects with the biggest questions in human life:
How did everything get here?
What’s the meaning and purpose of life?
How can you (and more importantly, that person over there) be good and moral?
What happens when you die?
Seriously, is somebody steering this thing?
The idea that an unseen power created and runs the universe is surely as old as the human mind. From the first time one Homo habilis saw their neighbor fall down and never get up again, the curious human neocortex would’ve demanded an explanation. Lacking any good way of figuring out what happened, that same neocortex would’ve provided an answer that seemed true.
But every guess in human history that seemed right has almost certainly been doubted by somebody in the room. When the guess is “God,” and the doubt rises to the level of strong conviction, you have yourself an atheist.
People are conditioned to flinch at certain words. When I grew up in the 1970s, communism was a flinch word. Before I could actually learn anything about it, I’d heard it hissed so many times that I couldn’t think about it at all. All I could do was flinch.
The same is true of atheism. It’s much less flinch-worthy than you may think. One purpose of this book is to bring that flinch all the way down to a shrug.
About This Book
This is a book about atheism written by an atheist. I’m also an agnostic and a humanist, which makes more sense when you finish Chapter 2. If you finish Chapter 2, I should say, because this whole book is written for dipping and diving. Skip Chapter 2 completely if you want, or any other chapters. Heck, skip them all, and the rest of us can talk about you.
Atheism For Dummies, 2nd Edition, isn’t the first book about atheism written by an atheist, but it’s different from most. Like all the books in the For Dummies series, it’s designed for people who want to know more about the topic. It does include some of the reasons atheists are atheists, but it’s not written to convince you to become one. If that’s what you’re after, other books may serve you better. And though it includes some of the complaints atheists have about religion — hey, that’s part of the picture — it’s not a broadside against religious belief, either. In fact, I spend a good deal of ink talking about the good things religion has to offer and the things believers and nonbelievers have in common. Chapters 15, 19, and 20 have a lot of that sort of thing — one of the likely surprises for readers of Atheism For Dummies.
Although many atheists spend a lot of time (and rightly so) fighting against the bad things done in the name of religion, just as many atheists are interested in co-existing with religion and religious people. And sometimes the same person goes back and forth, depending on the issue or where they are in their own development. If the idea of atheism freaks you out a bit, my hope is that this book can help you relax. Atheists are mostly perfectly normal folks, and everyone will be better off if they’re less fearful of each other.
On a personal note: You see a lot of personal notes in this book. It’s one of the differences between Atheism For Dummies and, say, Catholicism For Dummies. Atheism has no Vatican, no catechism, no scripture, so I can’t point to a central, defining authority to tell you who atheists are or what they believe. I rely on surveys, on the reports of organizations, on research, on histories, on anecdotal evidence from the thousands of atheists and humanists I’ve met during my years in the freethought movement, and on my own personal experience as an atheist and humanist.
The lack of an atheist Vatican is a good thing, in my humble opinion. Just as not all Catholics believe what the Vatican defines as “Catholic belief,” so would any central atheist authority instantly fail to represent the true diversity of opinions among those who claim one of the many labels under that great big umbrella. If three Mormons wrote three versions of Mormonism For Dummies, the books may be pretty similar, drawing as they are on a shared set of doctrines, official beliefs, and church history. But three different atheists are certain to write three wildly different versions of this book.
As you flip through, rather than a single grand procession through history, you can see religious disbelief as it really is: a collection of millions of individual voices; millions of separate stories; and millions of individual human beings asking questions, questioning answers, and finally arriving at the conclusion that God, for better and worse, is all in our heads.
Though a lot of nonbelievers capitalize atheist and humanist, many others don’t. I’m with the lower-casers: I prefer to underline our humble origins and our tiny place in the scheme of things by keeping the capitals to a minimum. The capital also feels too much like a religious designation to me. I do follow the convention of capitalizing the names of religions, and I capitalize God when used as a proper name (“they believe in God”), just like I capitalize Steve (“they believe in Steve”). But when it’s a generic god or gods (“they worship a big blue god”), no cap. I plan to be pretty inconsistent on this one to give my editors a tic.
Finally, no one should expect a complete reckoning of the world of atheism. It’s not possible or desirable — or the purpose of this book. Instead, I try to stick to the things that are most interesting and relevant to the past and present of atheism, and then give you tips for finding out more if you want to.
Foolish Assumptions
From the start, I assume a certain ideal reader. Here are the assumptions that I make about you:
You’re probably not an atheist yourself and don’t know much about the subject, but you’re curious and want to find out more.
If you
do
identify as atheist, agnostic, or secular humanist, you can still come away from this book knowing and appreciating more about the history and underpinnings of this worldview. If you can stand being relegated to the nosebleed seats for this performance, I promise to occasionally aim the KissCam at you or lob a T-shirt your way.
You’re not actually a dummy. In fact, one of the best assumptions the publishers of the
For Dummies
series make is that its readers aren’t dummies in general — just uninformed about a particular subject and eager to know more. So although I’ve tried to keep the tone light and the details brief, I assume you can chew on some serious ideas and handle a few unfamiliar terms.
Icons Used in This Book
You may notice these small icons in the margins that map important points in this book. Here are the icons I use:
This icon signals information that’s especially important to remember.
This icon points you to advice that can help you think about a difficult issue.
This one warns about common misconceptions. If you want to avoid jumping to conclusions, pay special attention to these.
This icon appears next to information that you may find interesting but that won’t kill you to skip.
Beyond the Book
In addition to everything you’ll find in this book, you can access the cheat sheet for this title by going to www.dummies.com and type Atheism For Dummies cheat sheet in the Search box. You’ll find interesting tidbits about atheism and the fascinating world of nonbelief that are sure to help you get down to the nitty gritty fast.
Where to Go from Here
If you go straight into Chapter 1, you can get a more detailed synopsis of the contents of this book. If you’re a dip-and-diver, Chapter 1 can help you figure out where to go next. You can also check the table of contents or index, find a topic that interests you, and start reading. Or read straight through.
I’ll stop talking now so I can start talking.
Part 1
Understanding What Atheism Is
IN THIS PART …
Introducing atheism and the world of nonbelief
Learning the differences between atheist and agnostic
Discovering what atheists believe, don’t believe, and why
Chapter 1
Meeting Atheism
IN THIS CHAPTER
Discovering a natural way of looking at the world
Watching the progression of a startling idea through the ages
Tracing atheism through works of writing
Living as an everyday atheist
The idea that no god or gods exist is a startling one. Most people grow up hearing that the existence of a supernatural being is a settled question and that nothing else can explain this complex, astonishing world.
But through the centuries, some people have always doubted the God conclusion — and some have even come to the firm conviction that humans created God, not the other way around.
Of course, saying such a thing out loud tends to cause a lot of sputtering and fainting from people who disagree, not to mention the occasional smell of something burning. That’s why most of those who didn’t believe in the religions and gods of their times kept quiet about it.
But other nonbelievers spoke up anyway, thank God, and they keep doing so today; otherwise this book wouldn’t exist, and you’d be looking at your palms. People would talk. But the book does exist, and this chapter gives you a flying overview of what to expect as you leaf through it.
Getting a Grip on Atheism
Atheism is a big umbrella. It covers anyone who thinks that this natural world is all there is — no gods, no angels, no spirits, or afterlife. But under that umbrella are many shades and grades of disbelief and many people with different ways of approaching and expressing it.
Atheists become atheists for many different reasons, and they rarely have anything to do with unanswered prayers or major life calamities. In fact, major trauma drives people into belief at least as often as it drives them out of it.
Seeing the many forms and faces of religious disbelief
You can find about as many ways to disbelieve as you can ways to believe — different degrees, different emphases, and different expressions.
Here are some examples:
Antitheists
are atheists who actively oppose religion and want a world without it.
Accommodationists
are atheists who emphasize the common ground between the religious and nonreligious rather than the differences.
Agnostics
emphasize their uncertainty about God’s existence and often claim that nobody can know the answer.
Apatheists
don’t know whether God exists and (this is important)
don’t care.
Secular humanists
are nonbelievers who focus on how to live a good human life in a natural universe.
Religious atheists
include many Buddhists, Hindus, Unitarians, and Jains who keep their religious identities and philosophies without bothering any gods.
Freethinkers
form their opinions about the universe without the undue influence of religious authority.
Unaffiliateds
or
“Nones”
aren’t religious but generally aren’t interested in any label at all, thank you very much.
Even some religious opinions (like Deism and pantheism) exist that are so far removed from any traditional conception of God that many people include them under the atheist umbrella. And a single nonbeliever can, and often does, claim several of these labels at once, or change labels several times throughout a thoughtful lifetime. Remember: These designations emphasize different things, but most aren’t mutually exclusive. Check out Chapter 2 to further complicate your idea of what an atheist can be.
Examining what nonbelievers believe and don’t believe — and why
I learned about history from historians and history teachers. I learned about religion by listening to believers and reading their scriptures directly. But most of what people think they know about atheism they learned from people who aren’t atheists and don’t especially like or even understand atheists.
That’s a recipe for misinformation if ever I heard one.
I went to church for 25 years for various reasons, including family and job, and was every bit as much an atheist as I am now. Doing so was a big part of my own religious education. But over and over, I heard myself described from the pulpit in ways that made me sad and upset. Being an atheist, I was apparently a very nasty and selfish guy, not all that smart, and bad to the core. I heard that I didn’t care about others and couldn’t be trusted, and that I’d come to my beliefs by hardening my heart, by serving false gods, by not wanting to acknowledge God’s power over me.
I’ve since met enough churchgoing atheists to know that I was never the only nonbeliever in the crowd.
One Sunday I sat with my (awesome) Christian wife for a sermon in which Christians who were married to nonbelievers were urged to leave their spouses (2 Corinthians 6:14: “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?”).
That’s when I stopped going entirely.
If you want to find out more about a religious perspective, I’m a poor choice for a guide. But if you want to know what atheism is actually about, I suggest asking an atheist. I happen to be available, so read on!
In Chapter 3, I spend some time describing what atheists actually believe and debunking some common myths about us. Most atheists take ethics very seriously, for example, and find life deeply meaningful and inspiring. We’re not mad at God — at least no madder than the Pope is at Chaac, the Mayan rain god — and though some atheists may lose their belief in God after something bad happens to them, that’s not the most common path.
Most atheists come to their conclusions after really working on it for a while and then becoming convinced by things like those I outline in Chapter 3.
Seeing the Progression of Atheism
A lot of people think that atheism is a recent idea. But religious disbelief has a documented history older than Christianity and Islam. Imagine that. The chapters in Part 2 take you on a quick ride through that history. Just as a student of Christianity should learn about some significant things that happened 20 centuries ago, someone who wants a better understanding of atheism needs to know what atheism has been up to for the past 30 centuries.
In the distant past and different cultures
People tend to think of certain times and places as completely uniform in religious terms. India is full to the brim with Hindus. The Greeks all worshipped the gods of Olympus. Everyone in medieval Europe was Christian. Right?
A closer look shows all these claims to be misleading. Just as political “red states” (Republicans) and “blue states” (Democrats) in the United States are really all various shades of purple, every place and time in human history includes a lot of different beliefs — including atheism.
Not all points of view have the same chance to speak into the cultural microphone in a given place and time. The main religion tends to call the shots and write the histories, especially before the 18th century. Add the fact that atheism has often been punishable by imprisonment or death, and you can see why atheists in certain times and places tend to whisper.
Ancient and medieval eras
Atheism in the ancient and medieval world is a story that very few people — even most atheists — know. But the voices are there, including some in the distant past and in cultures both in and out of Europe. In Part 2 of this book, you meet
Atheists in ancient China, where atheism was a welcome part of the conversation among philosophers
Atheists in ancient and medieval India, including religions with completely godless branches
Atheists in ancient Greece, where they were welcome at first and then absolutely not
Religious skeptics in early Islam who called Muhammad a liar
An atheist hero in 13th-century Icelandic legend
Three 14th-century French villagers whose disbelief was ferreted out by a shocked bishop during the Inquisition
The Enlightenment
By the early 18th century, disbelief was gathering serious steam in Europe. Secret documents challenging religious belief had been circulating for 50 years, just steps ahead of the censors. In 1729, French parishioners going through the papers of their recently deceased Catholic priest found copies of a book he’d written for them telling how much he detested and disbelieved the religion he’d taught them for 40 years.
By the end of the century, philosophers in France, Germany, and England were challenging religious power and ideas and establishing modern concepts of human rights and individual liberty. It all culminated, for better and worse, in the French Revolution, when a brief flirtation with an atheist state was followed by the Cult of the Supreme Being and the Reign of Terror — at which point atheism understandably hit the snooze button for a bit. (Flip to Chapter 6 for details on this era.)
In the 19th century
The idea that God doesn’t really exist never completely went away, even when someone like Napoleon shut it down for a while. It was always bubbling under the surface and occasionally shooting out sideways through someone who just couldn’t stand to keep it quiet.
The poet Percy Shelley proved to be one such person, getting himself kicked out of Oxford in 1811 for expressing an atheist opinion. Then the early feminists of England and the United States made clear that they considered religion to be a stumbling block in the way of women’s rights.
Science really put the wind in the sails of atheism in the 19th century. By paying close attention to the natural world, Darwin turned himself from a minister in training to an agnostic and solved the complexity problem that prevented so many people from letting go of God. As the biologist Richard Dawkins once said, atheism may have been possible before Darwin, but Darwin made being an “intellectually fulfilled atheist” possible. But a flurry of activity after Darwin’s death tried to hide his loss of faith, including some selective editing of his autobiography and a false deathbed conversion story dreamed up by a British evangelist.
In Darwin’s wake, a golden age of freethought opened up in the United States and the United Kingdom. I lay it all out for your enjoyment in Chapter 7.
In the 20th century
Atheism doesn’t guarantee good behavior any more than religion does, and “absolute power corrupts absolutely” became a tragically apt phrase in the 20th century. Examples of corruption and immorality abound in positions of unchecked power, both by atheists (like Mao in China, Stalin in the USSR, and Pol Pot in Cambodia) and theists (like Hitler in Germany, Franco in Spain, and Idi Amin in Uganda).
The good news included the growth of humanism as a movement and court victories for the separation of church and state — something that benefits both the church and the state.
The 20th century also saw one of the most fascinating developments in the history of religion as two God-optional religions formed: Unitarian Universalism and Humanistic Judaism. Chapter 8 gives you more on that topic.
In the new millennium
A movement that some called “New Atheism” was born the moment religious beliefs allowed adherents to fly planes into buildings on September 11, 2001. Though atheists had been around for thousands of years, the horror and clarity of that moment, and the very clear part religion played, were the last straw and a call to action for many nonreligious people. A powerful, unapologetic new form of atheism grew up in response, calling for an end to the free pass from criticism that religion had traditionally enjoyed.
An upsurge in atheist thought, identity, organization, and action followed the initial wave. Driven by the young medium of the Internet, the freethought movement did in ten years what many other social movements take generations to achieve.
Later still came a quieter, more humanistic form of disbelief, one that
Makes an effort to discern between benign and malignant expressions of religion
Seeks common ground between the religious and the nonreligious
Focuses on building human community and defining a positive vision for the future
These two sides of contemporary atheism spend a lot of time kvetching at each other over the best way forward. Though it does break a little China, kvetching can be a good way of sorting good ideas from bad.
As I write this in the 2020s, being nonreligious has become so mainstream that many people without a shred of religion are so relaxed about their beliefs that they don’t even bother naming it.
Chapter 9 brings you a hopelessly incomplete but hopefully tantalizing snapshot of the big, messy, complicated wonder of atheism today.
Examining Atheism in the Written Word
The history of atheism is the history of an idea. To understand that history, you have to look primarily at the written word — books, letters, diaries, pamphlets, and, more recently, blogs. Part 3 takes a survey of the great works expressing and exploring the idea that gods don’t exist, including
A telling two-sentence fragment from an ancient Greek play
An ancient Indian
sutra
that suggests religion is a human invention and the authors of the sacred Vedas are “buffoons” and “knaves”
An ancient Chinese philosopher who explains why “heaven” can’t have a mind
An Islamic doubter who calls Muhammad “fraudulent” and dismantles the idea of prophecy
A secret, anonymous 17th-century book of skeptical writings from the past that suggests that every great philosopher has been an atheist
A Catholic priest writing a secret book filled with his atheist opinions
One of the most beloved authors in American history calling Christianity “bad, bloody, merciless, money-grabbing, and predatory”
Hilarious satires and other humor that skewer the sacred
The fake scripture of a delicious parody religion
Powerful denunciations of religious belief in the 21st century
A humanist chaplain’s description of how a billion people are good without God
An atheist exploring rituals that create meaning without religion
With all those diverse voices of unbelief, you just may see something worth picking up yourself.
Understanding What Atheism Means in Everyday Life
After someone becomes an atheist, their question about whether God exists is replaced by questions about the best ways to live life without God following them around, solving their problems, nagging them, and giving them a place to put their feet up after they’re dead.
In other words: How do I live as an everyday atheist?
The chapters in Part 4 are all about regular folks who don’t believe in God, including
How many exist and where they live
Why simple things like the numbers and locations of atheists are really tricky to figure out
The most interesting corners of the disbelieving world (*cough* Québec)
How atheism plays out in political identity
Why young adults of today are so secular
Why (some) atheists are (sometimes) so angry
What September 11, 2001, did to modern atheism
How the generations that followed have relaxed into their atheism
That’s all in Chapter 16, one of my favorites.
Chapter 17 tackles the silly question of whether a person can be good without belief in God. Spoiler: The answer is yes. That should be a relief to everyone because nonbelief is growing rapidly, possibly even coming to a next-door neighbor near you. This chapter also describes how morality actually works and helps everyone relax about it.
Chapter 18 is all about how the world looks with no gods blocking the view. Conventional wisdom has it that the loss of faith is followed by a plunge into an abyss of despair, after which the newly minted atheist climbs out of the abyss and starts stepping on puppies.
I can report that “freedom and relief” is a much more common description of the post-religious life than “despair and puppy smooshing.” A feeling of overwhelming responsibility and accountability is also common after you realize that it really, truly is just humanity here, and that people could all use a hug once in a while. Or a nice, smoky, single-malt scotch.
One of the most pressing questions for the nonreligious is how to interact with and respond to the religious world around them. Chapter 19 explores the many issues around that, including church-state issues, “coming out,” and learning about religion.
Chapter 20 looks at the many ways nonreligious people are finding to achieve the benefits that religious communities enjoy without the supernatural beliefs. It starts by understanding the real reasons people go to church — not my opinions, you understand, but actual research on the topic — and then follows up with
Creating community
Celebrating life’s landmarks
Counseling and support without religion
Doing good together
Chapter 21 is all about untangling humanity’s strange and uncertain future, including AI, digital immortality, and a chaotic climate, without the admittedly handy benefit of an all-powerful Friend who knows how the story ends.
GETTING PERSONAL: WHY I’M AN ATHEIST
Atheists come to their conclusions for a lot of different reasons. Here’s a brief look at mine.
My own path to atheism was smoother than some. I didn’t have a painful break with religion, and I was certainly never “mad at God.” I figured if he did exist, he was probably exasperated at the way most religions described him — petty, egotistical, and more than a little inconsistent. And if he was real, I thought he was likely to be a better sport than to burn me for guessing wrong about him. I wondered from a very early age whether he actually existed or humans had made him up.
Our family went to church, but I was never pushed to declare any particular beliefs. I also had a ravenous curiosity about the world. Everything about it fascinated and amazed me. My parents encouraged my curiosity as much as they could and gave me space to think and explore. One of the things I explored was whether any god or gods exist. How could I not? It’s the most interesting question in the world! If a supernatural being created and controls everything, that’s astonishing. If the universe developed and runs without such a being, that’s astonishing. I just wanted to know what was actually true. In short, I treated the question of God as a real question.
I explored the question in every way I could think of. I went to church for 25 years, asked believers why they believe this and not that, and read scriptures from every religion I could lay my hands on. And I thought about it — a lot.
I also studied the sciences a lot. Eventually I came to see them both as expressions of the human mind’s thirst to know. For most of human history, leaving a lot of question marks in the human brain about how the world worked wouldn’t have felt safe. People needed to fill those blanks in with something so they could cultivate the illusion that they were in control of things — or at least that someone powerful and good was in control. Science is asking many of the same questions, but by controlling human biases, it has a much better chance of getting the right answers.
I’ve left out most of the details, of course; Chapter 3 fills in the rest. But that’s my basic story. I’m an atheist because I felt the question of God was wonderful enough to deserve an honest answer.
Chapter 2
Unweaving the Rainbow of Disbelief
IN THIS CHAPTER
Understanding basic terms and labels associated with atheism
Sliding along the scale of belief and disbelief
Getting comfortable with doubt
Feeling the humanist pulse of atheism
Examining categories of disbelief that defy categorization
For as long as religious claims have been made, some people have surely been standing in the back of the room, hands in pockets, declining to buy into them. And the ways and degrees and reasons they disbelieve, not to mention the things they actually do believe, are fascinating and varied. This chapter introduces the characters who populate that world — including the atheist, the agnostic, the freethinker, the skeptic, the humanist, and more — and shows how one person can be several of those at once.
Here you also discover that religious belief isn’t an on-off switch but a sliding scale and begin to explore the rich landscape of humanism, the life philosophy that flows from the decision to set supernatural beliefs aside.
Tomato, Tomahto? Perusing the Wide, Weird World of Atheist Labels
Labels can be helpful. A good, clear label can guide me to the right offramp or keep me from shampooing my steak. Likewise, labels can provide a quick and useful shorthand for understanding what a person does, who they are, or even what they believe is true about the world.
Labels can be unhelpful if they cause you to make assumptions that aren’t true. If you’ve heard the word atheist used as a shocked accusation, seeing that word in a more neutral, descriptive way may be hard. The fact that you picked up this book is a good sign that you’re up to the challenge.
Many atheists feel that atheist says too little. Even worse, it’s phrased as a negative. The Greek prefix a- means “without” or “lacking,” and theos means “god.” Instead of saying what I believe is true, it points to someone else’s beliefs and says, “Yeah, not that.” How would people in England feel if their passports simply said, “Not French?”
But ever since the atheist label was first hurled at someone in Golden Age Greece, it has stuck. Like nonviolence or nonsmoker, it became a way of showing that a person is intentionally shunning a common but (by them) undesired thing.
Eventually, people wearing the label wanted a richer and fuller way of describing how they saw the world around them, so a slew of terms have been created that emphasize values or feelings beyond the simple fact that someone thinks God is pretend. This section explores some of those.
But first, a request: Don’t take these designations too seriously. Many atheists are in a constant pie fight over what the labels mean and which one everyone should use. This arguing is silly. Labels can help a person understand their own beliefs better. They can show the variety within disbelief. But their meanings drift, like all language, and they’re used with laughable inconsistency, which means two different “humanists” will disagree on exactly what the word means. I switch from one to the other throughout this book to underline their squishiness. In any case, insisting that everyone fall in line behind a single term is a bit too (what’s the word I’m looking for?) religious for me.
Booting babies out of the atheist club
A quote from an 1861 speech by the pioneering feminist and atheist Ernestine Rose shows how a lot of atheists think of their beliefs. “It is an interesting and demonstrable fact that all children are atheists,” she said, “and were religion not inculcated into their minds they would remain so.” In other words, people who set religious belief aside are returning to a state that’s natural for humans — atheism.
That’s really misleading. Sure, if you define atheism as simply “the absence of belief in God,” a newborn baby (not to mention a pastrami sandwich) qualifies as an atheist. But I’m inclined to see the difference between my absence of belief at birth and my absence of belief now as a pretty important one. These two terms capture that difference:
An
implicit atheist
is one who doesn’t believe in any gods but hasn’t consciously rejected such belief.
An explicit atheist is one who has consciously chosen to disbelieve — who has, to put it plainly, an actual opinion on the matter.
Whenever I talk about atheism in this book, I’m referring to explicit atheism — not the implicit atheism of babies and deli sandwiches.
Other labels like implicit negative, explicit negative, weak versus strong atheism, and soft versus hard atheism range from mildly interesting to silly. For my sake as much as yours, I skip those and turn to labels that matter a bit more.
Coming to terms
If you ask a religious person to identify their belief, you almost never hear them say, “I’m a theist!” It’s accurate, but it says too little. They may say, “I’m a Christian,” “I’m a Lutheran,” or even “I’m a Missouri Synod Lutheran,” and all three may be true at once. The same goes with Jewish, Jewish Orthodox, and Lubavitcher Hasidim. Several labels can apply to one person, each emphasizing a different aspect or degree of detail. It’s like being an athlete, a baseball player, and a shortstop. Same with atheism, as I explain in the following sections.
Don’t think for a minute that this section is a complete list … and hey, you’re welcome for that. But as long and often silly as the list can seem, the name game is an admirable attempt by those who have set religion aside to clearly state what they consider to be important and true. As with any label, the most important thing is that every individual has the right to choose their own — or none at all.
Identifying some of the more common labels
A few of the most common descriptive terms in and around atheism are
Atheist:
Some say it’s “a person who lacks belief in a god.” I prefer the explicit version: An atheist
holds the opinion
that no gods exist. They’re willing to consider new evidence, but until then, their vote is in.
Agnostic:
An agnostic withholds judgment on whether gods exist, and sometimes also thinks that it’s unknowable.
Freethinker:
The freethinker holds opinions based on independent reasoning without the undue influence of authority, doctrine, or tradition.
Skeptic:
Skeptics withhold judgment until sufficient evidence is available.
Humanist:
A humanist believes that concerns in this world and this life are of primary importance, and people have the responsibility to care for each other. It’s possible to be a Christian and a humanist in this sense.
Secular humanist:
A secular humanist is a humanist who also asserts disbelief in the existence of a supernatural god.
I am all these things, as this imaginary conversation demonstrates:
Q:
Do you think God exists?
Me:
No, I’m an atheist.
Q:
How can you be certain?
Me:
I’m not certain. I’m an agnostic.
Q:
Who told you to believe as you do?
Me:
Nobody; I’m a freethinker.
Q:
But if there’s no God, who will take care of us?
Me:
That’s our own responsibility. I’m a humanist.
You get the idea.
The important takeaway is that these designations aren’t mutually exclusive. You can be an atheist and a secular humanist, for example, and most people who are one are also the other.
Viewing how some secondary labels are used
Some secondary labels also allow atheists to describe other aspects of their belief system, like the way they choose to interact with religion. Are you an atheist who believes religion poisons everything and therefore should be not just declined but actively opposed? You’re an antitheist. An atheist who seeks common ground with religious believers despite differences? That’s an accommodationist — or, if you want to be snarky, a faitheist.
You also have the big picture: how to describe all these labels in a big-bucket, global term. Some like the word naturalist, meaning someone with no supernatural views. This option really appeals to me, but naturalist instantly brings to mind David Attenborough in a safari hat, whispering and pointing at a rare blue-footed booby. Other people prefer secularist, describing a life and perspective without religion.
Believing and Disbelieving by Degrees
Thinking of religious belief as a kind of on-off switch is common. Either you have it or you don’t. But the reality is much more interesting — more of a dimmer switch, if you will. (Which end of the belief spectrum is dim and which is bright is the subject of perpetual debate.)
This section helps bring this analogy to life, showing the many degrees and shades of color in the rainbow of disbelief.
Roberts’s rule: “We are both atheists”
Don’t slap a worldview label on someone against their will. If you want to annoy an atheist, for example, tell them they really do believe in God, deep down.
Like most thought-provoking ideas, Roberts’s rule was surely around for centuries before it was crystallized in a concise and memorable way. In this case, the crystallizer wasn’t a famous philosopher or bestselling author but regular guy Stephen F. Roberts, a database designer in Virginia. In 1995, Stephen began signing his online posts with the following tagline:
I contend we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
The passage originated in an online debate he’d had around that time. When a Christian in the discussion asked why Stephen ignored the evidence for the Christian God, he asked in turn why the Christian chose to ignore the evidence for Shiva, Zeus, or any of the other possible gods.
I’m not entirely sold on the argument myself. Theists are disagreeing on the flavor of their gods, while atheists have stopped eating. Big difference there.
Russell’s labels: Why most atheists are agnostics and vice versa
British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) expressed an idea that’s both simple and striking: He felt that all opinions should be held conditionally (capable of being changed), not dogmatically (etched in stone). When people feel the evidence for a claim is strong, they can consider it true and act accordingly, but they should always keep their minds open to new evidence or further thinking that may change their opinions.
The idea is quite simple, but people seldom think this way. Russell thought life would be much better if they did. Imagine if every statement of opinion ended with the words, “Of course, I may be wrong.” Discussing even the most delicate subjects would be possible without coming to blows:
Theist:
I feel very strongly that God exists. Of course, I may be wrong.
Atheist:
I feel just as strongly that he doesn’t. I may be wrong as well.
Suddenly, a real conversation becomes possible. Both sides can offer forceful, passionate arguments, and the admission that some degree of doubt always exists allows each to better hear what the other has to say.
Once in a while, the conflict between Russell’s understanding of how opinions should be held and the way other people understood it created a problem for him. When he traveled to a foreign country, for example, he was always asked by officials (as was the convention at the time) what his religion was. He never knew quite what to say. Russell was of the strong opinion that God didn’t exist, and he admitted (as he did with all his opinions) that he may be wrong about that. In other words, he fit comfortably in two categories that most people think are mutually exclusive: atheist and agnostic.
Russell was well aware of the popular misconceptions that atheists claim to be 100 percent certain and that agnostics are exactly in the 50-50 middle. But he and other philosophers knew that’s not how it works. So when speaking to philosophers, as he often did, Russell always described himself as agnostic, saying, “I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God” — and philosophers would understand what he meant.
But he also wanted to give an accurate impression to everyday people. If he described himself as agnostic to a general audience, he knew they’d think he was smack in the middle between belief and disbelief, shrugging his shoulders, when in fact he leaned overwhelmingly in the direction of disbelief. If he was going to call himself agnostic about the Christian God, he once said, he should really also call himself an agnostic toward Zeus, Apollo, and the rest of the Greek gods as well. He didn’t think they existed either, but he certainly couldn’t prove it. Proof of Zeus could come to light tomorrow afternoon. But that’s so incredibly unlikely that most people would find saying they’re agnostic toward the existence of Zeus to be strange.
Russell’s position on the God of the Bible is exactly the same as most people’s position on Zeus. Because most people consider themselves fully atheistic toward Zeus and friends, Russell would call himself an atheist when addressing a general audience.
In 1958, Russell hit on a useful analogy to explain this position even more clearly. He asked his readers to imagine their reaction if he said he believed that a tiny bone china teapot is in orbit around the sun between Earth and Mars — one too tiny to be seen even by the most powerful telescopes. Would you be obligated to believe the teapot exists just because you couldn’t disprove it? Of course not. Nobody thinks the existence of such a thing is likely enough to be taken into account in practice, Russell said. And he considered the Christian God just as unlikely as the teapot.
To understand Russell’s meaning, take a moment to prove conclusively that no such teapot exists, or that the gods of ancient Greece don’t exist. (Be sure to show your work.) Russell said doing so is impossible. I certainly can’t do it.
Yet even though such certain proof can’t be found, living as if celestial teapots and gods don’t exist seems reasonable. Russell felt very much the same about the God of the Judeo-Christian Bible. Agnostics today who share his position often call themselves “teapot agnostics” in tribute to that evasive little kettle.
Agnostic underlines the uncertainty; atheist underlines the opinion that one answer is much more likely than the other.
The seven-point belief scale
Biologist Richard Dawkins (b. 1941) was renowned as a popularizer of science for more than 25 years before turning his attention to advocating for atheism and critiquing religion.
Even though most atheists agree that God’s nonexistence can never be stated with absolute certainty, most people who know of Dawkins assume that he, surely, claims to be certain that God doesn’t exist. But actually, he doesn’t say that, and never has, and almost certainly never would.
