Atheism

 The word “atheism” originates from the Greek “atheos,” meaning “godless.” An atheist does not believe in any kind of god or gods. Atheist is an individual who does not believe that there exist any kinds of supernatural beings controlling any aspects of the world, of human lives, or of the entirety of existence.  Atheists do not actively despise any god, in part because it is difficult to despise what one does not believe to exist. Many monotheists make the mistake of alleging that atheists hate their God in particular. But if someone were to suggest that atheists hate Vishnu or Zeus or Thor or Amon-Ra, such allegations would clearly be recognized as empirically false. Many atheists not only do not hate those deities; they enjoy reading myths and stories where such deities play an active role. In many such stories, the gods even behave in an admirable manner – and most atheists are ready to acknowledge this. Atheism is much older than virtually any prevalent political philosophy of our time. The first known famous atheist was the ancient Greek thinker Diagoras in the late 5th century B.C. In more recent times, atheism was espoused by such thinkers as the Enlightenment thinker Paul-Henri Thiry, the Baron d’Holbach (1723-1789), the analytic philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), and Ayn Rand (1905-1982), the founder of Objectivism. Not only is atheism not a religion; it is not even a philosophy or worldview. Atheism is simply a negative – adisbelief in a deity.