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The approach taken varies between Christian denominations, and Christian ministers may intelligently distinguish an individual's claims of atheism from other nominal states of personal perspective, such as plain disbelief, an adherence to science, a misunderstanding of the nature of religious belief, or a disdain for organized religion in general.
Respondents to religious-belief polls may define "atheism" differently or draw different distinctions between atheism, non-religious beliefs, and non-theistic religious and spiritual beliefs. [180] A 2010 survey published in Encyclopædia Britannica found that the non-religious made up about 9.6% of the world's population, and atheists about 2.0%.
In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. [2] [3] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. [3] [4] Atheism is contrasted with theism, [5] [6] which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists. [6] [7]
Catholic atheists accept the culture, traditions, rituals and norms of Catholicism, but deny the existence of God. Miguel de Unamuno 's 1930 novel San Manuel Bueno, Mártir depicts Catholic atheism. According to research in 2007, only 27% of Catholics in the Netherlands considered themselves theist ; 55% were ietsist or agnostic deist and 17% ...
Deism and theism changed meanings slightly around 1700 due to the influence of atheism; deism was originally used as a synonym for today's theism but came to denote a separate philosophical doctrine. [23] Atheism was first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Europe, specifically denoting disbelief in the monotheistic ...
Secular Buddhism—sometimes also referred to as agnostic Buddhism, Buddhist agnosticism, ignostic Buddhism, atheistic Buddhism, pragmatic Buddhism, Buddhist atheism, or Buddhist secularism—is a broad term for a form of Buddhism based on humanist, skeptical, and agnostic values, valuing pragmatism and (often) naturalism, eschewing beliefs in the supernatural or paranormal.
David Hume was accused of atheism for his writings on the "natural history of religion"; [3] Pierre Bayle was accused of atheism for defending the possibility of an ethical atheist society in his Critical Dictionary, and Baruch Spinoza was frequently regarded as an atheist for his "pantheism". However, all three of these figures defended ...
Religion for Atheists: A non-believer's guide to the uses of religion is a book by Alain de Botton published in 2012. It argues that while supernatural claims made by religion are false, some aspects of religion are still useful and can be applied in secular life and society.