What Is Atheism?

Question: What Is Atheism?

Answer: Atheism is the absence of belief in gods, nothing more and nothing less. In standard English the prefix "a" is defined as "without, absence, privation, lacking." In standard English, "theism" is defined as the belief in at least one god of some sort. Thus atheism, or a-theism," is defined as without, the absence of, the privation of, or lacking a belief in at least one god of some sort.

Atheism is not a religion, ideology, belief system, worldview, or anything like that. Atheism may be part of a religion or ideology and, in some cases, it might even be a very important part. In other cases, atheism might be a trivial or unnecessary part of an ideology. All by itself, though, it cannot be any sort of religion or ideology.

The exact same is true of theism: defined as merely a belief in the existence of some sort of god, theism cannot all by itself be any sort of religion, ideology, beliefs system, or worldview. Instead, theism is part of people's religions, philosophies, and world views. Christianity is a theistic belief system (specifically, a theistic religion). Many new age belief systems are also theistic. A political party founded on Christianity would probably qualify as a theistic ideology.

People demonstrate no trouble understanding that theism can be part of these things, but doesn't qualify as one all by itself. There's no good reason to not acknowledge that the exact same thing is equally true of atheism.