atheist
Pluralatheists
Pluralatheists
Formsatheists, atheisting, atheisted
- 1A person who does not believe in the existence of any gods or deities.
The author identifies as an atheist but respects religious traditions.
Many atheists rely on science rather than scripture to explain the world.
Similarnonbeliever, unbeliever, disbeliever
Note
The umbrella sense, which the narrower uses refine, is built from Greek átheos, "godless, without god": a- "without" plus theós "god". The word once carried legal weight. The Vermont Digest 1789-1905 (1910) states that an atheist was incompetent as a witness, "being incapable of being sworn", a rule that a later statute changed.
- 2Someone who is sure that there are no gods, or who believes it can be proven that there are none.
As a committed atheist, he argued that the nonexistence of gods could be proven.
Strong atheists go beyond doubt, insisting that no deities are real.
Similardisbeliever, unbeliever, nonbeliever
Note
The strict, philosophical sense treats atheism as a claim to knowledge rather than a mere absence of belief. Bertrand Russell put it neatly in 1953: the atheist, like the Christian, holds that we can know whether there is a God, and simply reaches the opposite answer. When precision matters, writers call this position strong, positive or gnostic atheism, setting it against the doubter's looser sense.
- 3A person who doubts the existence of deities, a sense broad enough that even an agnostic may count as one.
By this broad definition, even a doubting agnostic might be called an atheist.
Some atheists never deny gods outright; they only question the evidence for them.
Similardoubter, skeptic, unbeliever
Note
Here the word names doubt rather than denial, and its precise label is weak atheist. G. J. Holyoake's 1843 dialogue draws the line exactly. Asked whether he denies there is a god, his atheist says no: he denies only that there is sufficient reason to believe in one. Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion (2006) calls the same stance de facto atheism, which judges God very improbable but not impossible.
- 4Relating to atheists or to the beliefs and outlook of atheism.
The magazine published an atheist critique of organized religion.
His atheist convictions shaped how he raised his children.
Similarsecular, irreligious, nonreligious, unbelieving
- 5Any person who lacks belief in deities, including someone such as a child who has never been aware of religion.
Under the widest definition, an atheist is simply anyone without belief in a god, even unknowingly.
Atheists in this broad sense include young children who have never encountered the idea of religion.
Similarnonbeliever, unbeliever
Note
Stretched this far, the word asks only for an absence of belief, with no reflection behind it. The argument is an old one. Good Sense without God (1772) declares that all children are born atheists, having no idea of God, and asks whether they are criminal on account of their ignorance.
- 6A person who does not follow any religion, not even a godless one; a nonreligious person.
In everyday talk, an atheist is often just someone with no religion.
Plenty of atheists keep away from every faith, including ones without any gods.
Similarnonbeliever, unbeliever
Oppositebeliever
Note
Here the word stretches from gods to religion as a whole, and the use is sometimes proscribed for that reason, since a person can reject every deity yet follow a religion without gods. It often appears in lists of faiths, as in Anne-Marie De Mejía's Power, Prestige, and Bilingualism (2002): "not Buddhist, Hindu or Atheist." In careful writing, nonreligious says the same thing without the dispute.
Less common meanings
- 7A person who does not believe in a particular deity, while possibly believing in another.
In a polytheistic society, anyone who denied a single official god could be branded an atheist.
Early Christians were called atheists for rejecting the Roman gods.
Similarunbeliever
Oppositebeliever
Note
In this relative use, an atheist is whoever rejects the god a society takes for granted. Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire describes how early Christians were represented as "a society of atheists" for defying the empire's religion. Richard Dawkins turned that logic around in 2002: "we are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in."
- 8To turn a person into an atheist, causing them to give up belief in any deity.
The professor's relentless logic seemed to atheist his students one by one.
War atheisted many soldiers who had once prayed daily.
Note
This rare verb turns the noun straight into an action, with regular forms: atheists, atheisting, atheisted. It is transitive and always needs a person as its object. Samuel Bolton's The arraignment of errour (1646) pairs it with its opposite. A multitude of opinions may atheist a man, so that "he will be nothing", or un-atheist him and send him searching for the truth of God.
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Origin
It comes from Middle French athéiste, from Latin atheos, from Ancient Greek ἄθεος (átheos, 'godless, without god'), formed from ἀ- (a-, 'without') and θεός (theós, 'god').