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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Irreligion, irreligiousness, or nonreligion is an umbrella term which, depending on context, may be understood as referring to atheism, agnosticism, deism, skepticism, freethought, secular humanism, general secularism, or heresy. Irreligion has at least three related yet distinct meanings: absence of religion (either due to not having information about religion or to not believing in it), hostility to religion, and behaving in such a way that fails to live up to one's religious tenets. Although people classified as irreligious might not follow any religion, not all are necessarily without belief in the supernatural or in deities; such a person may be a non-religious or non-practicing theist. In particular, those who associate organized religion with negative qualities, but still hold spiritual beliefs, might describe themselves as irreligious.

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Credit: Yamavu

The Invisible Pink Unicorn (IPU) is the goddess of a satiric parody religion aimed at theistic beliefs, which takes the form of a unicorn that is paradoxically both invisible and pink. These attributes satirize the contradictions in properties that some attribute to a theistic deity; this makes her a rhetorical illustration used by atheists and other religious skeptics.

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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 Ferrante Pallavicino (pictured) was the anonymous author of Il Divortio celeste (1643), a satire wherein Jesus Christ asks God for a divorce from his eternal bride, the Roman Catholic Church?
• ...that Lewis Call developed an account of post-anarchism based on the work of philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and cyberpunks such as William Gibson?
• ...that the Magdeburg Centuries is a 1300-year history of the Catholic Church, written particularly as a criticism of the papacy?

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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 are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. — Richard Dawkins

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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