Atheism is the position or the conviction that there is no god or supreme being. It also denies the truth of all faith or belief related to divine or supernatural beings, or doctrines based on their existence.
The word, as such, is formed from the word atheist, which comes from the Greek ἄθεος (átheos), which in turn is composed of the prefix ἄ- (a-), which means ‘without’, and the noun θεος (theos ), which means ‘god’. It is formed with the suffix – ism , which means ‘doctrine’ or ‘tendency’.
Philosophically, followers of atheism make several arguments to question the existence of God. On the one hand, they call into question the empirical evidence of their existence, on the other, they point out the contradictions of their omnipotent and benevolent nature, according to which God then should not allow the existence of evil and suffering in the world, as well as the argument of revelations, inconsistent and contradictory with each other in the different religions of the world, etc.
There are two different types of atheism in terms of its position and conception of the divine fact. Namely:
- Strong or positive atheism, which flatly denies the existence of any god or supernatural entity.
- Weak or negative atheism, which is more lax, and, consequently, closer to agnosticism, since it does not categorically deny the possibility of the existence of gods, but simply does not believe in them.
On the other hand, the opposite of atheism is theism, which is the belief in God or in gods or supreme beings that transcend the earthly plane. In general, theism is channeled and dogmatized by a certain religious doctrine.
Atheism and agnosticism
Atheism and agnosticism are two different positions regarding the existence and nature of the divine. Agnosticism, although it cannot affirm the existence of God, because it considers that this knowledge escapes the capacity for human understanding, nor does it deny it flat. Atheism, on the other hand, is a position that categorically denies the existence of God, of the gods or of any form of higher entity that transcends the strictly material plane.
