Robert Mugabe

The Atheism Portal

Atheism is the philosophical position that either affirms the nonexistence of gods or rejects theism. In its broadest definition, atheism is the absence of belief in deities, sometimes called nontheism. Although atheists are commonly assumed to be irreligious, some religions, such as Buddhism, have been characterized as atheistic. Many self-described atheists share common skeptical concerns regarding supernatural claims, citing a lack of empirical evidence for the existence of deities. Other arguments for atheism are philosophical, social or historical. Although many self-described atheists tend toward secular philosophies such as Humanism, rationalism, and naturalism, there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere. The term atheism originated as a pejorative epithet applied to any person or belief in conflict with established religion. With the spread of freethought, scientific skepticism, and criticism of religion, the term began to gather a more specific meaning and was sometimes used as a self-description by atheists.

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Metaphysical naturalism, or ontological naturalism, characterizes any worldview in which reality is such that there is nothing but the natural things, forces, and causes of the kind that the natural sciences study, i.e. the things, forces and causes which are required in order to understand our physical environment and which have mechanical properties amenable to mathematical modeling. Metaphysical naturalism entails that all concepts related to consciousness or to the mind refer to entities which are reducible to or supervene on such natural things, forces and causes. More specifically metaphysical naturalism rejects the objective existence of any supernatural thing, force or cause, such as are described in humanity’s various religions and mythological accounts. In this view, all "supernatural" things are ultimately explainable purely in terms of natural things. It is not merely a view about what science studies now, but it can also emphasize what science will encompass in the future. Metaphysical naturalism is a monistic and not a dualistic view of reality. In practice the use of the term metaphysical naturalism reduces to the more specific ontological view of “scientific naturalism”, according to which reality consists only of what the concepts of the natural sciences (and especially physics) refer to. Scientific naturalism is closely related to physicalism. It is often simply referred to as naturalism, Religious Naturalism or spiritual naturalism and occasionally as philosophical naturalism or ontological naturalism, though all those terms have other meanings as well, with naturalism often referring to methodological naturalism.

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Credit: Niklas Jansson

Touched by His Noodly Appendage by Niklas Jansson, a parody of Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam, utilizing the Flying Spaghetti Monster

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In this month

• 9 March 1957 - Birth of PZ Myers, American biology professor with a focus in the field of evolutionary developmental biology
• 24 March 2004 - Supreme Court of the United States agrees to hear the case Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow
• 25 March 1811 - Percy Bysshe Shelley (pictured) expelled from University College, Oxford after publishing the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism
• 28 March 2006 - Publication of the book The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

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Isaac Asimov (January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992), originally Исаак Озимов but now transcribed into Russian as Айзек Азимов) was a Russian-born American Jewish author and professor of biochemistry, a highly successful and exceptionally prolific writer best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov wrote or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards, and has works in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System (lacking only an entry in the 100s category of Philosophy). Asimov is widely considered a master of the science-fiction genre and, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, was considered one of the "Big Three" science-fiction writers during his lifetime. Asimov was a long-time member and Vice President of Mensa International, albeit reluctantly; he described the members of that organization as "intellectually combative". He took more joy in being president of the American Humanist Association.

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Did you know...

• ... that, according to the answers Friedrich Engels (pictured) gave in a Victorian Confession album, his idea of happiness was the wine Château Margaux 1848?
• ...that the Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne, based on the 1755 Lisbon earthquake exhibits Voltaire's rejection of optimism and Providence, and is considered an introduction to his famous work Candide?
• ...that on the festival celebrated in the month of Toxcatl the Aztecs sacrificed, flayed and ritually cannibalized a young man who had been impersonating the god Tezcatlipoca for an entire year?

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Main project: WikiProject Atheism

Related WikiProjects: Religion • Mythology • Philosophy • Spirituality • Holidays • Alternative views  Rational skepticism • Countering systemic bias

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We have become so accustomed to the religious lie that surrounds us that we do not notice the atrocity, stupidity and cruelty with which the teaching of the Christian church is permeated. — Leo Tolstoy

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Topics

Atheism

• Concepts: Religion · Nontheism · Antireligion · Antitheism · Agnosticism · Humanism · Metaphysical naturalism · Post-theism · Weak and strong atheism · Implicit and explicit atheism
• History: History of atheism · Enlightenment · Freethought
• Arguments: Against religion · For nontheism · Against god · Against atheism
• Demographics: Atheism · Irreligion · Famous atheists · State atheism · Discrimination · Persecution