What is atheism?

Atheism is the lack of belief in a god or gods. Atheism is not the lack of a religion. There are many religions which do not have gods. Buddhism is one such.

How can it be proved that there is no god? Naturally, it cannot. If you think gods can be disproved, try to disprove the simpler idea that invisible angels push the planets around with their wings. If you can't see them, and they produce effects ident ical to gravity, how can you prove that they are not there?

Humans have created countless gods. Gods are never disproved. They simply no longer have followers. Of course, there are still some gods left who do who have followers. Other pages on this site consider two of them - YHWH, the god of the Christians an d the Jews, and Allah, the god of the Muslims.

It goes without saying that followers of these gods will find much on those pages that is offensive to them. I have tried very hard to double-check everything that I say on those pages, but if you are easily offended by the thought that people do not share your belief in your God and do not share your admiration for your religion's leading figures, then do not read those pages.

One common misconception

Atheists are not people who are angry at God for something. That is not atheism, that is apostasy.

Atheists are simply people who have no need for a belief in god. Many believers find that a belief in god helps them to make sense of the world as they see it. To them, the statement 'I believe in God' is a statement about themselves, not about God. It means that at that moment in time, they find it useful to believe there is some sort of higher force which brings some sort of order to their lives that they think they cannot find on their own. When a believer no longer has need for a god, he or she stops believing.

Atheists only have a quarrel with people who claim that everybody should believe in god, because God is an objective fact which is supported by overwhelming evidence that the atheist is deliberately suppressing. This is not the case. There is no overwhelming evidence for god.

More information on atheism can be found at the following links.

• The Atheism Web
• The Internet Infidels' Secular Web
• Atheism at Mining Co Highly Recommended
• Adrian Barnett's Page Highly Recommended
• Secularism in the UK
• Freethinker Magazine
• An Atheist's Values by the late Professor Richard Robinson
• Professor Niklas Berggren's Excellent Atheism Page
• Lady Godiva
• Atheist Thought
• The Other Side by Chris Ashton
• Idiocy And Ignorance
• The Argument from Design by J.B.S.Haldane
• Atheism and Religious Education in Schools
• Nazis and Atheists
• The Professor With No Brain

http://www.links2go.com/topic/Atheism

A bit of humour.....

• If... by J.B.S.Haldane
• Christ Demands More Money

All In the Mind by Ludovic Kennedy

What Is Atheism? : A Short Introduction

Here is the publisher's synopsis.

Many questions and concerns arise when believers question the purpose and meaning they suspect is lacking in the lives of nonbelievers. Douglas Krueger contends that atheism is a powerful alternative to religion, yet it is also one of the most misunderstood because people harbour preconceived ideas about atheism. This concise introduction to subject has been designed with the general audience in mind.

'A History of God' by Karen Armstrong. Karen Armstrong, who was a nun, has written an excellent, scholarly, readable and comprehensive account of how the idea of God has been created by people. She explains how the idea of God has been recreated and changed over the course of history to produce new gods who were more in keeping with what believers thought a god should be like.

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