Summary:
• The word atheism comes from an ancient Greek term meaning “without God.” Throughout most of human history, atheism was unpopular and even treated as a crime.
• A religious faith that depends on science to never solve specific mysteries is a fragile faith. When people lose their religious faith, atheism becomes an alternative. After suffering a loss of faith, why would God condemn that person with eternal punishment? A God who is truly all-loving and all-knowing would understand all human doubts. A God who would punish those doubts, forever, is neither.
• Atheism takes many forms. Many people who call themselves atheists may hold spiritual or ideological beliefs that function like a religion. Many atheists ponder moral teachings, perform acts of kindness, and many even meditate. The only trait shared by all atheists is their rejection of a Divine Creator.
• Scientists use atheism as a working principle—not to oppose God, but to focus on explanations rooted in a materialist Universe. This is why even very religious people sometimes prefer that strange events by studied by atheist scientists: those scientists have no personal bias towards a religious explanation.
• Living morally without believing in God, or in an afterlife or reincarnation, can be a life devoted to a meaningful form of spiritual growth. It is based on genuine intention, not on fear or expecting a supernatural reward.
• God is more impressed by your kindness towards others than if you believe in God or not. An atheist who encourages love and dignity is living God’s values more than a religious person who behaves cruelly and is a hypocrite.
• Earth is a place where people can grow spiritually. That growth can include practicing love, empathy, and moral responsibility, even without believing in anything supernatural.
In most European languages the words atheist and atheism come from the ancient Greek word átheos— ἄθεος —which means godless or “without God.” Latin adopted the same word with the same meaning. The word átheos originated thousands of years ago when atheism was not only unpopular, it was considered a crime. Many people worried that the presence of an atheist in their society would disrespect the Gods, putting their society at risk of Divine punishment.
Today, some religious people still believe that atheism is dangerous, but the world is complicated and sometimes spiritual growth requires atheist beliefs.
In Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church has a rule that before performing an exorcism (casting out a demon that is controlling a person’s body), the person must be assessed by scientific experts in psychological health, such as by a professional psychiatrist. That precaution is to ensure that there is no scientific explanation for the person’s strange behavior. Some Church officials prefer that the scientific experts be atheists. That way, the scientific evaluation of those experts has no bias towards a religious explanation.
That precaution is an example of how religion and science can work together while respecting each other’s independence. It is also an example of how even very religious people, including priests, sometimes need the skills of people who have both honesty and atheist beliefs. That combination usually means scientists.
Throughout history, many mysteries once thought to have supernatural explanations were later investigated by scientists and discovered to have rational, materialist explanations. When scientists perform scientific research, atheism can be considered a necessary principle. This does not mean that science is opposed to religion or to God. It means that the mission of a scientist is to discover how the materialism of nature works. The scientist does this by devising and testing scientific theories.
Those theories should adhere to the principle of Ockham’s Razor, which means that simpler explanations are more likely to be accurate than more complicated explanations. A supernatural explanation is not really a simple explanation because, if true, a supernatural explanation would have extraordinary implications. Therefore, most scientific theories exclude supernatural explanations and therefore also exclude God. Treating atheism as a principle helps the scientist to focus on materialist explanations, encouraging curiosity without fear of any religious bias or dogma.
At the same time, atheism as a research principle does not necessarily mean that the scientist, as a person, is an atheist. A scientist can believe in God. Many scientists have. Many do today.
When a scientist faces a mystery that has no clear explanation except for a supernatural one, the average scientist is unlikely to accept the supernatural explanation. Instead, the scientist will probably say the mystery is unsolved but someday it might be solved after more investigation by scientists. For most scientists, that answer is considered a prudent response.
Someday scientists may offer rational, materialist explanations that solve all of the mysteries associated with near-death experiences. Even then, however, NDEs will likely still offer some spiritual wisdom. But if your religious faith depends on science never solving those mysteries, then your faith might be vulnerable. And that vulnerability represents another spiritual purpose of atheism.
There are members of the Christian clergy who, secretly, have lost their faith. They no longer believe in God. For some, their doubts began when they discovered contradictions in the Holy Bible, or they discovered flaws in traditional religious arguments, or they witnessed religious hypocrisy. Perhaps they encountered horrors that an all-loving, all-powerful God should not allow. To them, traditional religious explanations no longer make sense, especially in comparison to scientific explanations. For these same reasons many ordinary Christians have also lost their faith. However, they still love their church and its parishioners, and so they continue to attend religious services, perhaps hoping that their faith in God may someday return.
Are they atheists?
Buddhism, Jainism, and some other religions teach that the Universe has always existed and, therefore, a Divine Creator does not exist. For that reason, those religions are sometimes called atheist. However, those religions also assert that supernatural beings do exist (although not a Divine Creator) and they do teach reincarnation, which is a supernatural process. Are the believers in those religions, atheists?
There are people who do not believe in any supernatural deity, but they do believe in reincarnation and they call themselves atheists. Are they genuine atheists?
There are people who call themselves atheists and insist that any belief in anything supernatural, including reincarnation, is not genuine atheism. They may believe in an ideology that teaches this, but their ideology may also teach that a powerful material force influences human events, almost like a God. They may refer to that force as destiny, or economics, or nationalism, or the tides of history. Believers in that ideology are actually religious without calling themselves religious, because their faith treats a material force as if it were supernatural. They call themselves atheists. But are they really?
In recent centuries, some governments promoted atheism and a few of them have even required it. Throughout much of the twentieth century, for example, the government of the Soviet Union treated all religions as its enemies, as competitors to its own Communist ideology, which was atheist. Against that government were numerous opponents, many of whom were religious but some were atheists. With atheists on both sides, which ones were the genuine atheists? Whatever your answer, some people would disagree with you.
There are scientists who deny the existence of anything supernatural. They insist that nothing exists beyond the material Universe, and they call themselves atheists. Other scientists call themselves agnostics because, they say, they cannot prove whether or not God exists. Some of them are inclined to believe in God, but others are not. Those who are not inclined to believe in God, are they really atheists, despite calling themselves agnostics?
Despite their differences, all of these versions of atheism are contending with moral and spiritual questions. And all of them are offering some possible answers. Spiritual freedom includes the freedom to ask those questions, and multiple answers are possible. That is why there are multiple religions. That is also why there are multiple versions of atheism. Whatever your opinion of them, these versions of atheism are forms of spirituality because they represent the spirit. The spirit is a person’s intentions and actions, including how that person makes moral choices.
Despite the variety of beliefs associated with atheism, only one trait is unique to atheists: they do not believe in a Divine Creator. All other traits are not limited to atheists, including feeling spiritual. Many atheists practice meditation. Some atheists even practice the mystical techniques of religions that worship God. They do not believe in a Divine Creator, but they respect moral and mystical teachings. An atheist can respect that wisdom without believing that it came from a Divine Source.
In today’s world, there are religious people who commit cruelties and there are atheists who perform good deeds. There are also religious people who perform good deeds and atheists who commit cruelties. How you treat others is much more important to God than whether or not you believe in a Divine Creator. If you believe in love, then you believe in God’s most important teaching. If you have lost your faith even in love, then practice forgiveness.
Imagine a young mother who must relinquish her infant child to be adopted and raised by different parents. The child may never know the natural mother, may never know if the natural mother is still alive. Yet, the natural mother can still love the child. We call that a mother’s love, and it is intense. Unfortunately, and probably tragically, she had to relinquish her child for the good of the child.
If God exists, then God is the Ultimate Parent and loves all of God’s children with the infinite intensity of Divine Love. Yet, some people believe that God is terribly insulted if someone does not believe in God. This idea can be found in some ancient religious scriptures, but they were written during a time when human beliefs about God were primitive, as primitive as believing that the world is flat. God is often hidden, and human lifetimes suffer many tragedies. Losing one’s faith in God under those circumstances, or never having believed in God, is quite reasonable. Why would God not understand that? Why would God not understand that you are human? God’s love is greater than a mother’s love. Nevertheless, some people assume that God is so insulted by atheists that God intends to punish atheists, in Hell, forever. Never explained is why a human lifetime, typically less than a hundred years, deserves to be punished for all eternity. Never explained is why the Ultimate Parent would do that to God’s children when God can fix anything and everything.
Earth is a place where you can grow spiritually. That growth can include practicing morality without the personal incentive of believing in God, or in an afterlife, or in reincarnation. That does not mean that God forsakes atheists. Imagine a world full of people who proclaim their love of God but in their daily behavior are petty, greedy, and cruel. They are hypocrites. Now imagine a world full of atheists who treat everyone with dignity and love, actively practicing the principle of love your neighbor as yourself. Which world would a moral, loving God prefer?