Blameworthy Atheists

Most atheists realize that there are, as a generalization, two types of atheists: "weak" atheists who simply disbelieve in gods and "strong" atheist who deny the actual or even possible existence of gods. According to Roman Catholic Church, however, atheists can actually be divided in a different manner: blameworthy atheists and sorrowful atheists.

According to Father Raniero Cantalamessa, writing in Zenit:

The world of today knows a new category of people: the atheists in good faith, those who live painfully the situation of the silence of God, who do not believe in God but do not boast about it; rather they experience the existential anguish and the lack of meaning of everything; they too, in their own way, live in the dark night of the spirit. Albert Camus called them "the saints without God." The mystics exist above all for them; they are their travel and table companions. ... The word "atheist" can have an active and a passive meaning. It can indicate someone who rejects God, but also one who -- at least so it seems to him -- is rejected by God. In the first case, it is a blameworthy atheism (when it is not in good faith), in the second an atheism of sorrow, or of expiation.

Cantalamessa pays lip-service to the idea that atheists don't believe in gods, but a person who "rejects" God must still believe in some way and just doesn't want to have anything to do with God. The "sorrowful" atheists also believe, in some way, that God must exist - but also that they themselves have been rejected by God. Cantalamessa reinforces this by describing Mother Teresa as adopting "atheism" a times due to her feelings of having been abandoned by God.

But none of that is atheism - it's theism. Atheists don't feel rejected by gods that don't exist. Atheists don't turn their backs on gods that don't exist. Atheists don't believe in gods, period, so there's nothing to turn our back on or feel rejected by. Some people (like Cantalamessa) try to describe us differently in order to try and pretend that actual atheism doesn't exist because they can't comprehend the idea that someone could actually and completely lack the belief in gods (as opposed to simply hating God or feeling abandoned by God). But their poor imagination places no constraints on reality or on other people.

We atheists exists. Theists and religionists like Cantalamessa need to start dealing with that fact.

Read More:

• Roman Catholicism
• Atheism 101
• Defining Atheism
• Questions About Atheism
• Myths About Atheism
• Atheism in Society
• News About Atheism and Atheists
• Rebuttals to Attacks on Atheism