Negative and Positive Atheism

Negative And Positive Atheism

(Sizes in the diagram are not meant to indicate relative sizes within a population.)

Part of a series on
Atheism
Concepts
  • Antitheism
  • Atheism and religion
  • Criticism of atheism
  • Implicit and explicit atheism
  • Negative and positive atheism
History
  • History of atheism
  • New Atheism
  • State atheism
Arguments for atheism
  • Arguments against God's existence
  • Argument from free will
  • Argument from inconsistent revelations
  • Argument from nonbelief
  • Argument from poor design
  • Atheist's Wager
  • Fate of the unlearned
  • God of the gaps
  • Incompatible-properties argument
  • Oblivion
  • Omnipotence paradox
  • Problem of evil
  • Problem of Hell
  • Russell's teapot
  • Theological noncognitivism
  • Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit
People
  • Demographics
  • Discrimination / persecution of atheists
  • Notable atheists
Related concepts
Agnosticism
  • Agnostic theism
  • Agnostic atheism
  • Ignosticism
  • Apatheism
  • Weak agnosticism
  • Strong agnosticism
  • List of agnostics
Irreligion
  • Criticism of religion
  • Freethought
  • Freedom From Religion Foundation
  • Anti-clericalism
  • Antireligion
  • Parody religion
  • Post-theism
Naturalism
  • Humanistic
  • Metaphysical
  • Methodological
  • Religious
Secularism
  • Secularity
  • Secular Humanism
  • Secularist organizations
  • Portal
  • WikiProject

Positive atheism (also called strong atheism and hard atheism) is the form of atheism that asserts that no deities exist. Negative atheism (also called weak atheism and soft atheism) is any other type of atheism, wherein a person does not believe in the existence of any deities, but does not explicitly assert there to be none.

The terms negative atheism and positive atheism were used by Antony Flew in 1976, and appeared again in Michael Martin's writings in 1990. However, usage of the strong/weak terminology has grown since the mid-1990s on the Internet, particularly due to the newsgroup alt.atheism.

Read more about Negative And Positive Atheism:  Scope of Application, Alternate Meanings

Famous quotes containing the words negative, positive and/or atheism:

    “Parents need to recognize that the negative behavior accompanying certain stages is just a small part of the total child. It should not become the main focus or be pushed into the limelight.”
    —Saf Lerman (20th century)

    “Success goes thus invariably with a certain plus or positive power: an ounce of power must balance an ounce of weight.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “Nothing shall warp me from the belief that every man is a lover of truth. There is no pure lie, no pure malignity in nature. The entertainment of the proposition of depravity is the last profligacy and profanation. There is no scepticism, no atheism but that. Could it be received into common belief, suicide would unpeople the planet.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)