Negative and Positive Atheism?

[Jillyn'Toast]

I was reading a book called The Impossibility of God and one of the essays by Richard Schoenig listed two types of atheism. I'd never heard of denominations within atheism before, so it confused me slightly. The two types were Positive and Negative atheism. Positive Atheism is disbelieving that a theistic God exists. Negative Atheism is not believing a theistic God exists. Has anyone heard of this before? And if you have, what exactly is the difference between not believing and disbelieving?

[Minnesota]

Take a look at the following.

The Difficulty of Belief

Disbelief in God is nothing new. To find hand-wringing jeremiads about young people and their lack of regard for the faith of their fathers one needn't look to sources any more modern than the Old Testament or Plato's Republic; doubts about the gods, naturalistic explanations of so-called divine phenomena and even outright contempt for religion can be found in some of Western civilizations oldest writings. Atheism and agnosticism seem to be as old as God. But there is something new about the sort of disbelief found in modern Western society: it is very common; it is supported (or at least not discouraged) by government and schools; I dare say that disbelief is now considered the norm. Why has atheism, until the 20th century the bold assertion of the few, suddenly been accepted by such a large portion of the population? Have the ideas merely spread and propogated ever more quickly with the broadened reach of education and cultural sophistication, or does today's atheism differ in character as well as quantity from that of the past? I favour the latter explanation, believing that modern atheism is more tenable because of the ascendancy of positive atheism over negative.

Positive and Negative Atheism
Negative atheism rests on the rejection of specific theistic beliefs; thus atheists through the ages have rejected the Greek and Norse pantheons, the afterlife, the divinity of Jesus, and the very existence of God. But there is also the sort of atheism which comes from positive assertions about the nature of the world based on observations and interpretations that simply don't involved God; this is the atheism of Darwinism, the Big Bang, cultural relativism, and reductionist materialism. Note that I don't mean to distinguish two types of atheist, but two types of atheism; an individual atheist will both disbelieve in specific religious assertions and believe in certain natural philosophies.

Negative atheism is the easier sort to overcome in favour of religious belief. Christian faith is more than believing in improbable miracles and inexpressible mysteries; theology offers rational, well-constructed arguments for God's existence, God goodness, for the necessity of evil, for Christ's incarnation and death, and for the muddle of baseness and nobility that is humanity. And where specific doubts persist, Christian ritual and spirituality which speak to our everyday experiences and perceptions can shore up a flagging faith. And behind reason and experience, religious belief is supported by the seemingly universal human need to believe in something.

Positive atheism, being not simply the lack of a theist worldview but providing rather an alternative philosophical system, offers a more serious challenge to the threat of religious conversion. Religous belief in the face of this sort of atheist requires not merely suspension of disbelief or acceptance of doubt, but rather the overthrow of whole systems of acceptable, rational ideas about what the world, the universe, and humanity really are.

I believe that it is the recent ascendency of postitive forms of atheism that has secured its modern currency, after centuries of near-universal religous faith.

Traditional Atheism
Up until the 19th Century, much of what was considered by contemporaries to be atheism was really more of a partial atheism or agnosticism. While thinkers from Thales of Miletus in the 6th century BC to John Stuart Mill some 2,400 years later rejected the popular religion and gods of their age, they generally stopped short of completely rejecting the idea of God, still willing to concede or even requiring God as a prime mover or distant divine intelligence. Such philosophies are better considered forms of deism or panthesism.

Modern Atheism
The strength of modern atheism is that it is founded more upon positive atheism than negative; rather than just a rejection of contemporary religious beliefs, modern atheism offers a seemingly complete philosophy of the world around us. The contemporary athiest not only sees much that is dubious in Christianity, but sees much that is redundant and just less satisfying than what is provided by modern education, science, anthropology and material culture.

SOURCE (http://kenneth.moyle.com/aa/atheism1.htm#Positive%20and%20Negative%20Atheism)


Then there's this view.

Negative Atheism

No belief in god(s). This absence of belief requires no justification. Those who make particular claims are responsible for justifying those claims. Thus, it is theists who must provide proof of their special belief in the existence of god(s). If they provide no such justification, then there is no reason to adopt such belief.




Positive atheism

Positive atheism, that is, the thesis that a particular god does not exist (such as the Jewish god Yahweh or the Christian god Jehovah, or the muslim god Allah) follows as a corollary of negative atheism. The very specific qualities of each of these hypothetical divinities reduces the probability of its existence to an infinitesimal value.

SOURCE (http://atheisme.ca/main/principes_en.html#negAtheism)

Take your pick

[EvoUK]

I'd never heard of denominations within atheism before, so it confused me slightly.

Probably because there is no such thing as denominations of atheists. Positive and negative (also known as weak and strong) atheism merely refers to how one views gods.

A strong atheist believes a given god doesn't exist, and a weak atheist simply lacks belief that a god exists. You yourself probably are strong atheist towards all gods excluding your own.

Thus many agnostics are weak atheists by definition, and many self-professed atheists are both weak and strong atheist- they disbelieve in a defined god- such as the jeudeo christian god, and are weak atheist towards undefined, deistic gods.

For instance, many theists in here have wet their knickers over a British philosopher known as Flew. Flew has recently moved from weak atheist regarding undefined, deistic gods and strong atheist towards defined gods, to weak deist, and strong atheist towards defined gods.

Not really a massive change of perspective there, however, I'm sure many are prophesising the imminent downfall of atheism due to one old fella falling for a god of the gaps argument based on a subject out of his area of expertise.

[ih8censorship]

A strong atheist believes a given god doesn't exist, and a weak atheist simply lacks belief that a god exists. so if ive got the idea of this right its like

strong atheist- does not want to belive in God, does not have belief God exists
weak atheist- wants to believe in god or values found in theology, but does not have belif that God exists

or isnt that what it is?.. im not sure.. id like to know too :teeth:

i guess ive always defined atheism as "black and white" you either belive in God or dont"... and if your in the middle your agnostic

[Gilgaron]

so if ive got the idea of this right its like

strong atheist- does not want to belive in God, does not have belief God exists
weak atheist- wants to believe in god or values found in theology, but does not have belif that God exists

or isnt that what it is?.. im not sure.. id like to know too :teeth:
No, desire isn't implicit in either.

i guess ive always defined atheism as "black and white" you either belive in God or dont"... and if your in the middle your agnostic
To put it in a simpler, but perhaps less correct way if we take it too far:

Strong Atheist: There is no God or gods.
Weak Atheist: You've not shown that there is a God or gods.

For the former, an atheist might say Athena does not exist because she would have aided the Athenians in maintaining wide power as they had in antiquity.

For the latter, an atheist might say that there is not sufficient evidence to believe that Athena exists apart from being a mythological character.

[Jillyn'Toast]

EvoUK, thanks that helped ^_^

[EvoUK]

so if ive got the idea of this right its like

strong atheist- does not want to belive in God, does not have belief God exists
weak atheist- wants to believe in god or values found in theology, but does not have belif that God exists

What does "want" have to do with anything? It's illogical- a god would exist regardless of if you want it to or not.

[EvoUK]

You may find this link interesting- describes the differnece between atheism and agnosticism, but it's interesting none the less.

http://www.alabamaatheist.org/awareness/questions/agnostic.htm

[Jillyn'Toast]

Again, thanks for the link EvoUK. Clears a lot up for me!

[EvoUK]

No worries