Atheistic arguments
Information Sheet
6
IS 6
What is atheism?
Atheism literally means without/no God’ However, there are many reasons why people may hold an
atheistic position.
Turn to WS6 and complete tasks 1 and 2.
As you will have discovered from doing task 1, there is no single reason for holding an atheistic stance.
Some may hold spiritual views which do not allow room for the God of classical theism. Others may feel
that religious belief is irrational and can be explained in terms of other phenomena or social structures,
What is agnosticism?
The term was coined in the nineteenth century by Thomas Huxley, as the opposite of gnostic, the Greek
term used in the early church to describe those who claimed special revelatory knowledge of the divine. An
agnostic may well claim to be open to the possibility of knowledge leading to belief rather than non-belief;
but may not be able to say what it would take for them to make that move. Hence, it is possible to say that
agnosticism is merely another form of atheism.
Now complete task 3 on WS6.
Critiques of religion: sociological arguments
Durkheim’s functionalist theory
The French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858—1917) argued that religion plays a function in society: to
unite and preserve the community. He defmed religion as:
A unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things.. beliefs and practices which unite
into one sing/e moral community called a church, all who adhere to them.
He likens a religious community to a primitive clan which worships a totem, symbolising God and the unity
of the clan. The clan and God are one and the same, hence there is no separate entity called God, and thus
God does not exist. What does exist is a unified social group that believes it owes its being to God. This
belief is expressed in shared rituals, values and identity, and it discourages change.
Now complete task 4 on WS6.
Criticisms of Durkheim’s view
Consider now these criticisms. Are they valid and useful evaluations of Durkheim’s theory?
• Religious believers distinguish between membership of their religious community and belief in God.
Their loyalty is to God, not to the community.
• The theory does not explain how religious believers are sometimes prepared to go against society and
even to reject it.
Atheistic arguments
6
Information Sheet continued
Society constantly changes; beliefs about the nature of God are timeless and unchanging.
Karl Marx (1818—83) argued that God was an invention of the human mind, created in order to satisfy
emotional needs. Only by loving one another rather than God could humans regain their humanity and
reclaim the powers that belonged to them but which they had ascribed to God. Religion was used by the
ruling classes to dominate and oppress their subjects, offering them an illusion of escape. Marx maintained
that when a revolution overthrew the ruling class, and religion was abolished, the oppressed masses could
be liberated.
Now complete task 5 on WS6.
Critiques of religion: psychological arguments
Sigmund Freud (1865—1939) argued that religion is a projective system, a universal neurosis’ which
should be disregarded as illusory. Like Durkheim, Freud saw the origins of religious belief as lying in the
primitive horde. The tension between the dominant male and the subordinate males leads to the overthrow
of the father (a manifestation of the Oedipus complex), but the subsequent guilt of the sons leads them to
elevate his memory and to worship him. The superego takes the place of the father as the source of
authority, which is derived from the family, education and the church. Freud maintained that man was still
dependent upon religion to make his helplessness tolerable;
Now complete task 6 on WS6.
Other atheistic theories
The problem of evil could be seen to be the strongest atheistic argument. This is covered in
Thpic 7.
Science and rationalism have made a significant contribution to atheistic belief since the enlightenment. It is
possible to explain the world religiously and non-religiously, as we saw in our discussions of the
cosmological and teleological arguments, and therefore the existence of God cannot be decisively proved
by referring to the evidence provided by the natural world,
Now complete task 7 on WS6.
Can God be disproved?
If it is not possible to prove decisively the existence of God, it could also be argued that it is impossible to
disprove it. Consider now whether the atheist really is on any stronger ground than the theist, remembering
that the same rules of proof and probability must apply to an atheistic argument as to a theistic one.