atheist is who don't believe in God or in any "higher being". The word comes from the Greek “atheos” which means “without God, who denies and forsakes the gods”. It is formed by the negation particle "a" together with the radical "theos" (God).
The term was born in Ancient Greece to describe those people who rejected the deities worshiped by much of society. They were considered ungodly for not believing in the many revered gods.
In monotheistic religions (which involve belief in a single divine being), an atheist is one who denies the existence of a being. supreme, omnipotent (who can do anything), omniscient (who knows everything) and omnipresent (which is at the same time in all places).
O atheism is a "philosophical posture" of atheists, which rejects the idea of the existence of any gods. It is an attitude of disbelief in the face of the religious statement that there are deities and that they exert influence on the universe and on human conduct.
An atheist may have an active attitude (when he vehemently defends the absence of any God) or a passive attitude (when he denies it only because there is no evidence to demonstrate the existence of divinity).
Difference between atheist and agnostic
The main difference between an atheist and an agnostic is the belief about the existence or not of a god. If, on the one hand, atheists claim that God does not exist, agnostics do not deny his existence, but neither can they confirm it.
Agnostics, therefore, are rooted in the doubt, because they do not believe they can claim the existence or non-existence of a god. Atheists, in turn, argue that the existence of God should be proven by those who believe in him.
Agnostics can be classified as strong and weak. The strong believe that it is not possible to know if God exists; and the weak say that the existence of a god might be discovered at some point.
know more about agnosticism, agnostic and atheist.
Difference between atheist and theist
Atheists are those people who do not believe in God and therefore do not follow any religion. Theists also do not follow any religion, that is, they do not participate in rites, celebrations and religious rituals, but they believe in the existence of a god or gods.
Theists can be monotheists when they believe in the existence of one God; polytheists, when they believe in various gods; or henotheists, when they believe in the existence of several gods, with one God supreme over all others.
atheists in the world
There are today about 750 million atheists in the world, which represents a percentage of 11% of the population. Although this number has been growing in recent years, if we compare the rates of adherents to major religions, we can see that the percentage of those who do not believe in God is still low.
Percentage of adherents to major religions in the world according to CIA:
- Christianity: 31.4%
- Islam: 23.2%
- Hinduism: 15%
But these percentages vary across countries, which may be more or less religious. Sweden, Denmark and Vietnam, for example, are countries where more than 80% of the population consider themselves an atheist. Other countries where there is a high number of atheism are: Norway, Japan, Czech Republic, Finland, France and South Korea.
Brazil, in turn, is a very religious country. According to the 2010 IBGE Census, only 8% of the population declared themselves without religion, which corresponds to about 15.3 million people. Of this group, only 615,000 declared to be atheists.
Being an atheist is a crime in some countries
Although choosing whether or not to have a religion and whether or not to believe in God seems like a personal decision, in some countries it is a reprehensible attitude. Atheism, as well as belief in certain religions, can be considered a crime, with penalties that can lead to death.
Maldives, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Afghanistan are examples of countries where being an atheist can lead to capital punishment. In other countries, such as Egypt and Indonesia, although there is no death penalty, not following any religion is expressly prohibited.
Currently this phenomenon is more common in Muslim countries, but not long ago being an atheist in the Western World was also liable to condemnation.
In some of these countries, citizens must register as followers of some religion, usually Judaism, Christianity or Islam. This means that atheists, agnostics or followers of other religions need to lie about their beliefs.
Learn more about Atheism, Theism, Monotheism and religious diversity.