User:Silence/Atheism

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This is a chart of nontheistic positions I'm working on to try and figure out how the different types of atheism relate, because it's awfully confusing and complicated. I'm posting it here mainly to see where people disagree with any of this or can expand on it, since that way I'll know if my understanding of any of these terms is flawed or incomplete. If you have any problems with it, feel free to edit the chart directly, or just add your comments below or something.

Note: From what I've seen, among explicit atheists (i.e. those nontheists have consciously rejected theism, rather than not caring, not being sure, or not knowing anything about it), the difference between "positive belief" and "negative belief" has more to do with how people view the nature of belief than with their actual beliefs regarding God, with "positive" consisting of people who consider their lack of theism to be a belief in its own right, and "negative" consisting of people who consider their lack of theism to be nothing more than the lack of a belief (i.e., the lack of theism), and having no positive content of its own any more than lack of belief in Santa Claus would. Of course, most laypeople wouldn't view the statements "I don't believe that Santa Claus exists" and "I believe that Santa Claus doesn't exist" to be anything but inverses of each other, reflecting little, if any, actual difference in opinion on Santa Claus. But to people who find the terms "strong atheism" and "weak atheism" useful, such a seemingly slight distinction makes a world of difference, apparently.

• II. loosely-defined atheism / nontheism: absence of theism.

• IIA. narrowly-defined atheism / explicit atheism: absence of theism due to conscious rejection of it.

• IIA1. strong atheism / positive atheism / hard atheism / gnostic atheism: positive belief that no deities exist.
• IIA2. explicit weak atheism: absence of theism due to conscious rejection of it, but without positive belief that no gods exists. (same as IIB1)
• IIA3. critical atheism / rejectionist atheism: view that no deities exist, based on the view that belief in a deity is irrational. arguably a subset of strong atheism.

• IIA3a. open critical atheism: view that no deities probably exist, but not that the existence of deities is impossible.
• IIA3b. closed critical atheism: view that no deities exist and the existence of deities is impossible.
• IIA3c. ignosticism: view that the concept of deities is inherently meaningless and unanswerable.

• IIA4. non-critical atheism: view that no deities exist, not based on the philosophical ground that theism is irrational.

• IIA4a. psychological atheism: view that no deities exist, based on personal or psychological reasons, such as depression, a personal tragedy, natural distaste for theism, etc.
• IIA4b. social atheism: view that no deities exist, based on social or political reasons, such as being brought up in an atheistic environment.

• IIB. weak atheism / negative atheism / soft atheism / neutral atheism / agnostic atheism(2): absence of theism without positive belief that no gods exist.

• IIB1. explicit weak atheism: absence of theism due to conscious rejection of it, but without positive belief that no gods exists. (same as IIA2)
• IIB2. implicit atheism: absence of theism without conscious rejection of it.

• IIB2a. apatheism: conscious lack of any opinion on or interest in the existence of gods.

• IIB2ai. apathetic agnosticism: absence of theism, belief that it is impossible to ever gain enough knowledge to determine whether or not gods exist, and conscious lack of any opinion on or interest in the existence of gods. (same as IIC1a)

• IIB2b. involuntary implicit atheism: absence of theism without ever having had contact with theistic beliefs. includes infants and anyone else who has neither ever been told of the concept of gods nor ever thought it up him/herself.

• IIC. agnostic atheism(1): absence of theism, and belief that there is insufficient knowledge to reasonably judge whether or not deities exist.

• IIC1. strong agnostic nontheism / hard agnosticism / closed agnosticism / strict agnosticism: absence of theism, and belief that it is impossible to ever know to any reliable extent whether or not deities exist.

• IIC1a. apathetic agnosticism: absence of theism, belief that it is impossible to ever gain enough knowledge to determine whether or not gods exist, and conscious lack of any opinion on or interest in the existence of gods. (always implicit, weak) (same as IIB2ai)

• IIC2. weak agnostic nontheism / soft agnosticism / open agnosticism / empirical agnosticism: absence of theism, and belief that there is not currently enough information to reasonably judge whether or not deities exist, but that it is possible for there to be enough evidence in the future.
• IID. spiritual atheism: absence of theism, but with other supernatural or spiritual beliefs.

• IID1. organized religious atheism: absence of theism, but with other supernatural or spiritual beliefs within an organized system. includes nontheistic-but-still-spiritual Liberal Christians.
• IID2. other spiritual atheism: absence of theism and organized religion, but with other supernatural or spiritual beliefs. includes nontheistic Buddhists and Confucians.

Incidentally, I was also making a chart of theist beliefs (it started with "I", hence why the atheist ones are all under "II"), but it got so complicated and elaborately bizarre that I simply had to give up. I may pick it up again when I have the energy and willpower to sort through the many different monistic beliefs someday.

—Silence 15:34, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

For some more compact tables of a/theism-related beliefs, see User:Silence/Theism.

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