Talk:Atheism

Atheism in the purest sense of the word

Atheism comes from the Greek word atheos (without god/s), up to that we all agree, the problem is that then each person opts for one or another meaning, making this "-ism" very confusing.

If it is not too much to ask, I would like another meaning to be added that I see is not in the article (since the page is protected I cannot do it myself), being an atheist because even though the gods exist, they do not deserve worship or their worship is not necessary. Two great examples would be Diagoras of Melos the Atheist and the emperor-philosopher Marcus Aurelius:

• Diagoras was an atheist because he did not believe that the gods deserved worship;
• Marcus Aurelius was "atheist" because he believed that the good gods did not care whether they were worshipped or not, only whether you were good to yourself and your neighbor, while the bad gods did not deserve worship.

The "non-worship" or atheism of evil gods is represented in popular culture with Dungeons & Dragons, gods exist but there are mortals who are atheists due to the fact that they do not believe that gods deserve any kind of worship.

Also, I don't see it is discussed that, for example, christians are "atheists when it comes to Satan", but wouldn't fear or hatred of him be a form of worship even if it was from a negative perspective?

83.58.144.190 (talk) 17:14, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

This case would seem to fall under other articles, such as dystheism, misotheism and, well, theism. What you are seeking to add is no longer considered a form of atheism, as evidenced by the fact it is not reflected in the reliable sources we have drawn from. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:35, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Well, I have to disagree with your take, I never said the meaning I posted is or must be the main meaning of the "-ism", I just said it should be added as another meaning alongside the rest that already appear. Maybe as a part of the "Etymology" section or the "History" one, or an independent one as "Popular culture" (in reference to D&D).

And about "is no longer considered a form of atheism", depends on the person you ask, there are many atheists that are atheists no because they know 100% there are no gods, but because even if the gods exist (good, neutral or evil ones), there is no point in worshipping them.

This article is not about what form of atheism is correct (this is not religion where there's an orthodox view and the rest of meanings are heresies), but what atheism means, and not adding the most essential meaning of the word atheos (lit. "without god/s") is a little ridiculous.

And about the other "-isms" you mentionated, they explain about point of view from the perspective of the relationship between god/s and humankind, not from the lack of relationship, in othe words, atheism.

83.58.144.190 (talk) 18:18, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but if you and "many atheists" believe in the existence of one or more gods, even if those gods are not worthy of worship or don't need it, then you are all theists, not atheists. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:44, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't believe in gods, so I'm an atheist in the mainstream meaning of the word. But you're wrong, atheist came from atheos, without god/s, therefore (again) even if gods exist, you are an atheist if you don't worship them.

Atheist also was used for people that were proper believers but were forsaken by their gods, using (again) the original meaning of the word: "without god/s".

This article is about Atheism, all meanings of the word should appear, don't matter if they're modern or not.

83.58.144.190 (talk) 16:50, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

I think your point is not without merit. In practice, I like many atheists understand the word "atheism" to mean both "there are no gods in my world-view" and "there are no gods in my life", and the second part of that is possibly the more important part. Many atheists will say they are not interested in debates about the theoretical possibility that there is a god out there somewhere, because even if one does exist, it would make no difference to their lives. Now you are imagining a person who actively believes there is a god, but gives it no place in their life - Scjessey is right that atheism is not the best word to describe that, but if you tone down the active belief to a "dunno", that is actually where many atheists would position themselves. Doric Loon (talk) 17:51, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

(But to be clear, I am agreeing with Scjessey that this doesn't belong in the current article unless you have reliable sources showing that a significant body of informed opinion uses the word in this way. I am agreeing with you that atheism can have as much to do with a lifestyle choice as with an intellectual opinion, but if your characterization of Diagoras of Melos and Marcus Aurelius is correct, they are at best tangential to what atheism is today.) Doric Loon (talk) 18:16, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

I would argue the section on etymology fully explains how the meaning of the word has evolved to the one we use today, so the construct posited above is already adequately covered. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:49, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

My point is the section of etymology is incomplete, that's my point.

Also, Doric Loon, your sentence "Now you are imagining a person who actively believes there is a god, but gives it no place in their life" is the whole point of Alatrism, which was the point of view of Pythagoreans and Neo-Pythagoreans.

Alatrism could be described as an "atheistic deism", therefore there is a Creator (Deus -> deism), but once the Creator had finish his creation and gave it the laws (like the relativity, etc.), he no longer intervines (no god -> atheos -> atheism). 83.58.144.190 (talk) 15:38, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Are there sources mentioning this? It seems a bit like WP:COATRACK. Ramos1990 (talk) 18:23, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, but since the article page is protected, I can't add them. 83.58.144.190 (talk) 14:43, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps I was vague. Are there sources saying this is a common view among scholars of atheism? If so, can you mention them? It seems this fits better in the articles Scjessey mentioned. Ramos1990 (talk) 20:07, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

@Ramos1990 this discussion reminded me of the Terry Pratchett novel 'Small Gods' where a God who runs out of believers ceases to exist :-D Duncnbiscuit (talk) 05:31, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

I recalled another Pratchett novel - Feet of Clay where the ceramic Golem Dorfl declares his atheism and concludes after one of the Gods strikes him with lightning that that action is not an intellectually convincing argument. :-D Arnoutf (talk) 18:50, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Science as an argunent against the assumption of god

The arguments put forth in favor of atheism here focus on philosophical and logical arguments. Not that there is anything wrong with this, but the success of scientific explanations (e.g. the Big Bang, abiogenesis, evolution by natural selection) play a key role in the lack of belief in deities. Science explaining the natural world is only briefly mentioned here. I think it should play a more significant role in the article. Thoughts? FriendlyNeighborhoodAspie (talk) 21:38, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

As always with Wikipedia, it's all about what is represented in the preponderance of reliable sources. If you can find plenty of sourcing to back up the statement that "scientific explanations [...] play a key role in the lack of belief in deities," we can talk about putting that into the article. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:25, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Mental Health Concerns

I don't understand why this is being removed. This is the NY Times plus a National Institute of Health review of at least 444 studies. The other source heading is "Are Atheists Sadder but Wiser?" This article is cited for "logic" but the other half of the article has been consistently removed. The fact that my edit was removed in less than 3 minutes (far too short of a time to actually review the sources) is indicative that the removal was not from a neutral point of view. Below is the quote from the NY Times:

“There is overwhelming empirical support for the value of being at a house of worship on a regular basis on all kinds of metrics — mental health, physical health, having more friends, being less lonely,” said Ryan Burge, a former pastor and a leading researcher on religious trends. Pew’s findings corroborate that idea: Actively religious people tend to report they are happier than people who don’t practice religion. Religious Americans are healthier, too. They are significantly less likely to be depressed or to die by suicide, alcoholism, cancer, cardiovascular illness or other causes. PerseusMeredith (talk) 16:13, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

@Zefr: would welcome your thoughts on this.

One serious doubt about your text would be that your text claims a fundamental human condition (ie something identical across the public). However the citation you add seems to focus on the US alone. In religious issues the US is rather special (see e.g. Wealth and religion) as it is more religious than you would expect based on its development. This creates a strong social norm to be religious in the US context (and hence create a spurious correlation that might lead to the data you quote) which in turn makes it a fallacy to extrapolate the US findings to all humans (as your edit implies). Which makes in turn the evidence (at global scale) rather underwhelming.

Even for the US situation there can be some doubt about the causality. It may also be that those who have more friends, are well connected, have better health are part of communities (social classes) where religiosity is expected and hence the social norm of belonging to this well-to-do community may cause visiting house of worship. The quote you provide does nothing to defuse this alternative explanation nor does it suggest such.

So all in all, you need much more nuanced claims backed by much much stronger sources (think of top level academic publications) than a newspaper reporting observation without any claims to causality. In fact much of my argument (which I read without reading your sources first) is central to the sceptical inquirer source you cite which says "So, according to the evidence, atheism appears to be a choice to be sadder but wiser, but, in fact, we are not justified in drawing that conclusion. It is important to recognize that all the evidence cited in this column is correlational,". So in fact your own sources invalidate your own text. Arnoutf (talk) 18:03, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. First, this isn't just the US, the NIH is based on 444 studies. It cites Finland, Gallup World polls, World Health Organization and by no means is limited to the US:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3426191/

If you want additional countries, the phenomena is not limited to the US. Below is Brazil:

https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/religion-natural-antidepressant/

This is for 29 European countries which found religious services is protective against depression:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020715217736361?icid=int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.7

This is also from Europe (Protestants and Catholics have lower depression rates, Islam is more complicated since they experience discrimination).

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277953619303612

I'm happy to include these additional studies/articles as citations.

When you say the "Sadder but Wiser" article is my source, it actually is already cited in the Wealth, education and reasoning style. Moreover, it certainly does not establish causality (one of the sources cited is a "draft paper" and should be removed and the other is a study of studies of 63 studies). In order to be consistent, if my post with the studies and reliable sources is removed, then the references to IQ should also be removed since the sourcing is not nearly as reliable as depression.. PerseusMeredith (talk) 19:54, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

You again assume causality by using the word "protective" which goes way beyond the correlational claims your source makes. But I would agree that atheism does not lead to higher IQ for much the same reason (my alternative hypothesis would be that higher IQ leads to lower belief). Arnoutf (talk) 16:51, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

The studies are using the word “protective” not me. Again, this seems to be well-accepted….

“Religiosity as a protective or prognostic factor of depression in later life; results from a community survey in The Netherlands.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9296551/ PerseusMeredith (talk) 10:00, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

There are several problems with what you say here (1) You cite the title of the article (which is often a bit more provocative than the contents and goes beyond what the abstract - also often a bit more provocative than the whole paper - says). (2) You leave out the all important or clause "prognostic" (it is like saying that the (true) claim that "Ukraine may win or lose the war" is evidence that Ukraine will lose the war as the word lose is used). Omission of the word prognostic is hence synthesis (WP:OR) (3) The publication is from 1997 referring to later life so basically of people born before 1930 when religion was very dominant in the Dutch culture - extrapolating to today (30 yrs later) is also original research (4) Be careful with citing primary sources Wikipedia:Identifying and using primary sources (5) please give the actual reference not the database reference - it is - Braam AW, Beekman AT, Deeg DJ, Smit JH, van Tilburg W. Religiosity as a protective or prognostic factor of depression in later life; results from a community survey in The Netherlands. Acta Psychiatr Scand. 1997 Sep;96(3):199-205. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1997.tb10152.x. PMID: 9296551. (or https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1600-0447.1997.tb10152.x) (your reference is little better than https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Religiosity+as+a+protective+or+prognostic+factor+of+depression+in+later+life%3B+results+from+a+community+survey+in+The+Netherlands&btnG= ) Arnoutf (talk) 10:18, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm fine if you want to include "prognostic" in the article. I also apologize for not giving the actual reference.

This isn't one source from 1997 (please see below from Pew), I could spend a lot of time finding additional sources.

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/01/31/religions-relationship-to-happiness-civic-engagement-and-health-around-the-world/

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/society/happiest-people-america-poll-ef7c854c?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=ASWzDAgj6SZqyt0VmC4o42z5TOvJEVu6foZU8Z5Ng7OAd5C-YrKnBxbtK827_dW4Ly8%3D&gaa_ts=684c3e62&gaa_sig=sDrKQS01P7pCQ86yRkQtrN9LRJ1nzqf5lcDY2yrR5BTJp9Y9I9DWZvEAi-LTw6lqa4knT8SMHbcjLZYSY1UvbQ%3D%3D

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/08/14/want-sustained-happiness-get-religion-study-suggests/

Again, it is generally accepted that religious people live longer and happier lives. It might not be casual but that is a very high bar which usually requires a double blind study. Moreover, it isn't a requirement in wikipedia for including the article. You have not answered the question if the depression aspect of the source is not included in the article, how do you justify keeping the IQ portion?

To not include this is clearly Cherry picking. PerseusMeredith (talk) 14:53, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

Again, it is generally accepted that religious people live longer and happier lives.

No it isn't. Weasel words do not a fact make. There are some dubious articles and studies claiming some sort of correlation, but we all know that correlation does not imply causation. Moreover, the whataboutism you are using about the IQ-related stuff is inappropriate. If you wish to discuss that, then please do so in a separate section, because the two are not linked in any conceivable way. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:04, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

What are you basing your opinion? Do you have any studies that refute this position. I cited WSJ, NY Times, Washington Post, Pew and a re view of 63 studies. It would be hard to find a more reliable group that that.

The policy you cite provides:

”However, sometimes people commit the opposite fallacy of dismissing correlation entirely. That would dismiss a large swath of important scientific evidence. Since it may be difficult or ethically impossible to run controlled double-blind studies to address certain questions, correlational evidence from several different angles may be useful for prediction despite failing to provide evidence for causation.”

Here, it is impossible to conduct double blind studies (you can’t have people go back in time and renounce or gain their religion).

also, the title of the article cited for the IQ provision was “are atheists sadder but wiser?” So it is clearly linked in the exact citation. This is cherry-picking. PerseusMeredith (talk) 22:16, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

Note that the comments by Arnoutf are not addressed to an edit I made, but to one by PerseusMeredith.

I reverted Special:Diff/1287190851 and Special:Diff/1279346056 by PerseusMeredith because the sources are a) opinion articles or blogs, b) insufficient (impossible) evidence of causality, and/or c) published in unreliable journals, such as Depression Research and Treatment, a Hindawi journal which is not MEDLINE-indexed and is among other unreliable Hindawi publications considered as dubious on WP:CITEWATCH.

There are no good WP:MEDRS reviews to support or refute "that religious people are happier, live longer lives and that atheists tend to be more depressed than religious individuals" (quote from PerseusMeredith). Such studies would be burdened with inevitable errors in experimental design, leaving atheism or religious beliefs to an individual interpretation among many variables affecting happiness or depression. Zefr (talk) 20:09, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

First, it is not an opinion or a blog. It multiple NY Times articles.

Second, where does it say that is has to be causal to be included in an article? The IQ certainly isn't causal but that is included?

Third, this is the United States National Library of Medicine (and other reliable journals sources).

"Such studies would be burdened with inevitable errors in experimental design, leaving atheism or religious beliefs to an individual interpretation among many variables affecting happiness or depression."

Again, this would be the same as the IQ or reference. The sources are used for the IQ but not for the other portions. This is [[1]] PerseusMeredith (talk) 20:43, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

You are pushing a narrative, and nobody else agrees with you (see all the other comments in this thread). Your oft-repeated comments have already been refuted. At this point, you're just being disruptive. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:45, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

I disagree. I keep asking you for the basis of your opinion. Interestingly, you’ve provided nothing. I’ve provided multiple reliable sources which have shown that the correlation should be included. I have asked multiple times and cited the Wikipedia policy that shows that correlation can and should be included when cited by multiple sources. You’ve provided no sources in return.

Someone’s own personal religious beliefs aren’t a basis for keeping a topic out of an article. PerseusMeredith (talk) 11:27, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

The same editor previously attempted to shoehorn this dubious material into the article, and it was discussed in this thread. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:41, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

But now we have even additional reliable sources that have weighed in on this. There wasn't a legitimate reason to keep this out then and there certainly isn't a legitimate reason now. PerseusMeredith (talk) 20:45, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Just stop it. Scjessey is right. The NYT article is an opinion piece, even if informed opinion; the NIH article doesn't say what you want it to say (even if only because it deals with "R/S", and "S", spirituality, is a different animal); and the Skeptical Inquirer article may claim it has the status of a real peer-reviewed review article, but I question that. Drmies (talk) 21:08, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

It is not an opinion piece. Below is the opinion section, please show where the article appears in it.

https://www.nytimes.com/section/opinion PerseusMeredith (talk) 21:27, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Don't patronize me: the article itself makes it perfectly clear that it's one person writing this, though based on extensive research--one not entirely objective/neutral person. It's a fun article but it is not going to let you make the general point that "Overwhelming evidence has found that religious people are happier". And "overwhelming evidence is really just a ridiculous statement if that's what you get out of one NYT article. I also find it interesting how perfectly selectively you use the evidence from the NIH article. Drmies (talk) 21:48, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

If you want to put in other statements for the NIH, I'm all for that. What I'm not for is citing to an article that proclaims that "Atheists are sadder but wiser" and only put in the wikipedia article the IQ portion and leave out the depression piece. That's cherry picking. PerseusMeredith (talk) 23:52, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Note to PerseusMeredith: the published article you cited is not a publication of the US National Library of Medicine or NIH, but rather it's from PubMed – a searchable database provided by NLM, explained here. NLM and PubMed do not publish research. Also see the WP:MEDFAQ sections on PubMed, popular press, and primary research.

Citations for content on mental health would have to satisfy a high certainty of evidence, WP:MEDASSESS, while your sources occupy the bottom of the right pyramid as low quality of evidence. Zefr (talk) 21:53, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. I will review. My guess is of the many studies that I cited, it probably does meet the criteria for high certainty.

That being said, my primary issue, is the cherry picking. Why does the IQ section, which cites far less reliable sources, meet the eligibility criteria for the inclusion but the depression part of the article does not? PerseusMeredith (talk) 23:24, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

If you got a problem with that section's sources, bring it up for discussion. I didn't see you cite "many studies": you cited one, and it didn't really say what you wanted it to say. I'm also surprised that someone who's been here for a few years would just drop those bare URLs in a reference. Drmies (talk) 00:06, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

It was a review of 444 studies. Below are some additional ones which also were cited, I'm sure I can find a lot more (this took about 10 minutes, the data on this is voluminous).

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3426191/

https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/religion-natural-antidepressant/

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020715217736361?icid=int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.7

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277953619303612

Other than wikipedia, as the NY Times suggests, this is well-established.

This is the article in question. Below is a quote about the IQ problem.

"I should begin by acknowledging that any discussion of intelligence or IQ is going to be difficult."

https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/are-atheists-sadder-but-wiser/

The other citation is a Live Science article which only talks about correlation.

In summation, if there isn't enough reliable sources for depression, there certainly isn't enough for IQ. PerseusMeredith (talk) 01:26, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

As Drmies said above. The IQ-Religiosity claim is another topic and should be dealt with in a different thread. Arnoutf (talk) 16:53, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

Honestly having used to be atheist, it is really depressing. That's just a fact of life. Pretending it's otherwise is almost antithetical to being atheist. I object to almost everything PerseusMeredith says, however removing their addition in a mere 3 minutes is ridiculous even if in retrospect there are grounds, and no one brings up the abuse of power and stereotyping here. But oh well. 2600:4040:AEBA:C200:5D48:D017:3DFF:481 (talk) 12:07, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

This thread is long, and now editors start putting new comments somewhere in the middle - making it almost impossible to follow what is going on. The main thrust of the editor proposing to enter this material is that the correlation has been observed (mainly in the US) by reliable sources. Nobody denies that. However the argument against adding claims stating or even implying that atheism causes mental health problem is that correlation does not imply causation - which is a universally known fact. The rest of the discussion is in my view mainly hearsay, personal opinion, bringing in other correlates and metaphors but in my view no additional insights. As is, there is clearly no consensus to add the material and that is unlikely to change soon. I would therefor suggest to close this thread. Arnoutf (talk) 06:43, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

I think this is probably correct. PerseusMeredith (talk) 10:28, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Lede proposal

The article currently begins: "Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities." This has been discussed previously on the talk page, most recently in 2024, but I want to revisit it. Three definitions are here: 1. "an absence of belief in the existence of deities;" 2. "a rejection of the belief that any deities exist;" and 3. "the position that there are no deities." Although I can see the logic of making definitions 2 and 3 as separate definitions, isn't this splitting hairs? For example, is there any person who rejects the belief that any deities exist but accepts the position that there are deities? (Such a person might say "I think that God exists, but I don't believe that God exists", which seems to me to be self-contradictory for all practical purposes.) Conversely, is there any person who takes the position that there are no deities yet accepts the belief that deities exist? (Such a person might say, "I believe that God exists, but I take the position that God does not exist" which again seems self-contradictory except for the special case of describing a theist who temporarily takes on the rhetorical position of atheism for purposes of engaging in a debate.) It seems to me that definitions 2 and 3 are, for all practical purposes, indistinguishable from each other, unless in the context of discussing a formal debate. Therefore, definitions 2 and 3 should be merged. Addendum: alternatively, later in the article, the distinctions between positive and negative, and implicit and explicit atheism are discussed. Why not bring these into the lede? T g7 (talk) 13:02, 11 May 2025 (UTC)