Contact DisComforting Ignorance

Have thoughts, comments, criticisms, requests, or proselytization? Email disco.igno@gmail.com

No prayers. (Why not?)

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Schisms Within Atheism

MrFreeThinker writes in response to a post about the many denominations of Christianity:
What about allthe different type of atheism? Weak atheism ,strong atheism , Agnostic Atheism , naturalistic atheism. There are so many divisions within atheism too.
Actually, there are only two types of atheism: non-theism (weak atheism), and anti-theism (strong atheism). The other two aren't types of atheism. There are certain philosophies and ideologies you can take towards atheism, such as naturalism or skepticism, but they aren't types of atheism. Some atheists may also embrace certain types of philosophies or ideologies, such as humanism and agnosticism, but still, these aren't types of atheism.

Theism is the belief a god exists. Religion incorporates theism and there are so many different types of beliefs concerning a god. Atheism is not having a belief that a god exists; how can there be many different types of non-beliefs concerning gods? But further, the divisions within Christianity are concerning the different beliefs regarding one particular god.

The main problem, though, this statement suffers from is its analysis of atheism as a religion, as this was in response to pointing out how many different types of Christianity there are.

No comments: