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What is Atheism · Abide Meditation App

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  Speaker 1: If you wandered through London in January two thousand and nine,
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  Speaker 1: you would have seen a bunch of double decker buses
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  Speaker 1: rolling around with one of these signs, there is probably
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  Speaker 1: no God, Now stop worrying and enjoy your life. This
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  Speaker 1: was the so called atheist bus campaign, conceived by the
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  Speaker 1: comedian Arian Sharin with the support of famed atheist activist
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  Speaker 1: Richard Dawkins. This campaign came during the height of the
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  Speaker 1: new atheist movement. In quick succession, atheist writers like Dawkins,
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  Speaker 1: Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and i on Hercyli
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  Speaker 1: had all published best selling books critical of religion. They
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  Speaker 1: were staging debates against prominent Christian apologists, organizing large scale
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  Speaker 1: conferences and rallies such as the twenty twelve Reason Rally
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  Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. All of this propelled atheism into
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  Speaker 1: the mainstream spotlight and for many established a stereotypical understanding
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  Speaker 1: of what atheism is. You may have seen terms thrown
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  Speaker 1: around online like angry atheist or evangelical atheist, terms that
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  Speaker 1: equate atheism with in your face religion critical activism like this,
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  Speaker 1: But is this an accurate understanding of atheism? Wherever someone
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  Speaker 1: is talking about religion, there's a scholar of religion behind
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  Speaker 1: the scenes, collecting what is said and done as data.
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  Speaker 1: And over the past decade, non religion has become a
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  Speaker 1: growing topic within the field of religious studies or should
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  Speaker 1: I say non religious studies. So what is atheism? How
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  Speaker 1: should we define it? And what does it mean when
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  Speaker 1: someone calls themselves an atheist? Defining atheism seems like an easy,
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  Speaker 1: straightforward process. Just break down the word. It comes from
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  Speaker 1: the Greek theos, meaning God, adding that a at the
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  Speaker 1: beginning of the word negates its meaning, turning God into
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  Speaker 1: without God or lack of God. So atheism is often
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  Speaker 1: defined as an absence of belief in the existence of
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  Speaker 1: a God or God's Sometimes this is understood in a
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  Speaker 1: negative or positive sense, or a strong and weak sense.
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  Speaker 1: Negative atheism could refer to people who have never encountered
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  Speaker 1: religious ideas before, or simply never think about questions of God.
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  Speaker 1: Positive atheism, on the other hand, indicates some level of
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  Speaker 1: conviction or certainty, meaning that this type of atheist actively
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  Speaker 1: refutes the idea of God. But already you might notice
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  Speaker 1: that our seemingly simple definition is starting to expand, and
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  Speaker 1: it gets very complicated very quickly, Let's consider the word again,
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  Speaker 1: atheism without God, It's a term that can exist only
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  Speaker 1: in relation to another concept, God. God concepts are widespread
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  Speaker 1: in the world's religions. In fact, they're probably one of
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  Speaker 1: the most widespread concepts you'll find in the whole history
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  Speaker 1: of religion. But God concepts are not universal, nor are
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  Speaker 1: they necessarily central to all forms of religiosity. The sociologist
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  Speaker 1: Rome Baggot asks, well, what about religions that are more
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  Speaker 1: concerned about ambiguous nature spirits or the spirits of the ancestors?
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  Speaker 1: What about supernatural forces like Mana in some Polynesian cultures
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  Speaker 1: or Chi in Chinese religions? Does atheism necessitate an absence
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  Speaker 1: of belief in these as well? For many atheists, the
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  Speaker 1: answer is yes. Of course, atheism often goes hand in
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  Speaker 1: hand with philosophical naturalism, or an understanding that the universe
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  Speaker 1: only the operates on this worldly natural laws. So atheism
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  Speaker 1: in this sense not only refers to a lack of
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  Speaker 1: belief in God, but also a lack of belief in
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  Speaker 1: the whole buffet of supernatural agents or phenomena that we
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  Speaker 1: encounter in religion, and some atheist activists like to point
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  Speaker 1: out that even theists are technically selectively atheistic, lacking belief
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  Speaker 1: in the rest of the world's pantheons. A Christian is
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  Speaker 1: technically atheistic about Vishnu or kates Ulkoa. But atheism gets
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  Speaker 1: even more complicated because people are not consistent. For example,
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  Speaker 1: there are Christians who believe in reincarnation, which historic Christian
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  Speaker 1: orthodoxy has never taught. In other words, religion as it's
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  Speaker 1: practiced on the ground often doesn't match official definitions, and
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  Speaker 1: sure enough, when sociologists interview atheists, they find a lot
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  Speaker 1: of complexity, diversity, and contradiction. A recent study conducted on
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  Speaker 1: atheism around the world found that most people who self
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  Speaker 1: identify as atheists also claim to believe in at least
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  Speaker 1: one supernatural phenomenon such as ghosts or karma. In the
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  Speaker 1: United States, only thirty five percent of self identified atheists
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  Speaker 1: are philosophical natural life. This is especially true in countries
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  Speaker 1: that are considered to be majority atheists, such as China
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  Speaker 1: or Japan, where religion looks very different on the ground
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  Speaker 1: compared to Western religions. According to that same study, only
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  Speaker 1: eight percent of self described atheists in China are philosophical naturalists.
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  Speaker 1: So consider a Chinese person who calls themselves an atheist
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  Speaker 1: but believes in chi and lights incense for their ancestors.
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  Speaker 1: Are they an atheist or are they like a vegan
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  Speaker 1: who eats meat? And if we say they are not atheist,
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  Speaker 1: does this mean we are changing the definition of atheism
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  Speaker 1: to avoid confronting inconvenient evidence. To quote the scholar of
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  Speaker 1: non religion Jonathan Landman. Moreover, a lot of people who
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  Speaker 1: say they don't believe in a God don't identify as atheists.
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  Speaker 1: Some may call themselves nothing In particular, some of the
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  Speaker 1: staunchest atheists out there say they are technically agnostic, meaning
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  Speaker 1: that they can't say for sure that God doesn't exist. Still,
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  Speaker 1: others might refer themselves as spiritual but not religious, meaning
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  Speaker 1: that they lack a belief in God, but at the
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  Speaker 1: same time they engage in other kinds of meaningful beliefs
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  Speaker 1: and practices that they consider spiritual. People's belief about the
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  Speaker 1: existence or non existence of a God doesn't always map
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  Speaker 1: perfectly onto how they self identify. As we'll explore in
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  Speaker 1: the next section. This means that there are a lot
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  Speaker 1: of technical atheists out there who might never show up
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  Speaker 1: on a sociological survey because they don't claim the name
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  Speaker 1: for themselves. It gets even more complex when we consider
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  Speaker 1: what we mean when we talk about belief in the
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  Speaker 1: first place. If someone checks the I believe in God
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  Speaker 1: box on a survey, but they never think about God
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  Speaker 1: or never act as though God exists, are they technically
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  Speaker 1: a negative atheist oblivious to their own atheism? And when
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  Speaker 1: theists have a dark night of the soul and doubt
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  Speaker 1: the existence of God, do they temporarily become an atheist
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  Speaker 1: until their conviction returns. The fact that atheism is inextricably
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  Speaker 1: tied to a cognitive process believing in a proposition highlights
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  Speaker 1: how ambiguous atheism can be, considering the contradictory and fluid
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  Speaker 1: nature of human thought. So all this is say, defining
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  Speaker 1: atheism as the absence of belief in a God or
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  Speaker 1: God's has some use. Scholars do use this definition in
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  Speaker 1: their recent search all the time, but clearly atheism means
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  Speaker 1: different things to different people and takes different forms on
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  Speaker 1: the ground, whether it's the ironic activism of Pastafarianism or
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  Speaker 1: the Satanic temple the philosophical naturalism of so called new
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  Speaker 1: atheists like Richard Dawkins, or the Chinese atheist who still
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  Speaker 1: turns out for the annual ghost festival to appease the
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  Speaker 1: hungry ghosts. Scholars these days who study unbelief try to
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  Speaker 1: be more precise with their terminology. For example, scholars use
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  Speaker 1: the term non theism to refer specifically to not believing
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  Speaker 1: in God. Non theism doesn't necessarily exclude believing in other
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  Speaker 1: supernatural agents and forces. They'll use terms like metaphysical naturalism
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  Speaker 1: or philosophical naturalism to refer specifically to non belief in
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  Speaker 1: any supernatural phenomena. A study published back in twenty nineteen
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  Speaker 1: identified three types of atheism. First, spiritual atheists people who
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  Speaker 1: don't believe in God but have high rates of belief
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  Speaker 1: in other supernatural phenomena, less negative opinions about religion, and
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  Speaker 1: less certainty about their belief than there are. Analytical atheists,
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  Speaker 1: people who also don't believe in God, but are much
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  Speaker 1: more confident about their views, with much more negative opinions
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  Speaker 1: about religion, and what the scholars call uncertain non believers,
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  Speaker 1: again non believers in God, but much more ambivalent about
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  Speaker 1: their opinions. All this to say, atheism is one example
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  Speaker 1: of the many varieties of non religious experience. Like the
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  Speaker 1: term atheism, non religion can only exist in relation to
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  Speaker 1: another concept, religion, itself, a famously difficult term to define.
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  Speaker 1: The scholar of religion Lois Lee defines non religion as
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  Speaker 1: indicating anything which is primarily defined by a relationship of
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  Speaker 1: difference to religion. It doesn't encompass everything that is not religion,
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  Speaker 1: but rather, non religion encompasses whatever is understood to be
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  Speaker 1: religious in any specific case. Scholars generally use non religion
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  Speaker 1: as a big umbrella term, encompassing a whole bunch of
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  Speaker 1: overlapping and interrelated concepts that get their meaning in relation
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  Speaker 1: to religion, including atheism, but also agnosticism, anti theism, apatheism, humanism, secularism, irreligion, unbelief,
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  Speaker 1: and more. Just as religions are always in eternally diverse,
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  Speaker 1: non religion is too time to add even more complexity.
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  Speaker 1: Bubbling under the surface of this whole discussion, you might
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  Speaker 1: have noticed a distinction between atheism as a definition and
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  Speaker 1: atheism in practice. In other words, atheism as a word
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  Speaker 1: describing a type of non belief and atheism as an
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  Speaker 1: identity or worldview. Like other isms, Buddhism encompasses way more
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  Speaker 1: than just a set of beliefs. It can also refer
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  Speaker 1: to a way of life in practice. Veganism extends way
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  Speaker 1: beyond dietary choices to a comprehensive set of ethics. So atheism,
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  Speaker 1: too can be seen as shaping one's entire approach to
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  Speaker 1: understanding the world and living within it. It's not just
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  Speaker 1: the denial of a god. Atheism can be a public identity.
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  Speaker 1: It can be a communal identity, with atheists gathering at
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  Speaker 1: conferences or Sunday Morning services, or being part of a
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  Speaker 1: YouTuber's online community brought together by a shared secular worldview.
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  Speaker 1: So to answer the question what is atheism, we also
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  Speaker 1: need to consider what it means when atheism refers to
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  Speaker 1: an identity and a worldviews. Example, let's consider probably the
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  Speaker 1: most famous forms of atheism in practice, the so called
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  Speaker 1: new atheism that we started with. Just to get this
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  Speaker 1: out of the way, no one really likes this term
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  Speaker 1: new atheism. Sam Harris, one of the so called four
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  Speaker 1: horsemen of new atheism, just considers it a publishing phenomenon.
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  Speaker 1: When four atheist authors, including himself, published religion critical books
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  Speaker 1: in the early two thousands. Scholars have tried to make
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  Speaker 1: sense of this term as well, variously referring to new
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  Speaker 1: atheism as a cultural phenomenon or a political movement characterized
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  Speaker 1: by secular activism. The researcher Thoma Zank writes there is
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  Speaker 1: simply no manifesto of new atheism, and there is no
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  Speaker 1: all embracing organization in which all or even most of
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  Speaker 1: the so labeled persons are united. But other scholars like
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  Speaker 1: Christopher Cotter and Ryan Craigan have argued that we can
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  Speaker 1: use new atheism as an admittedly clumsy term to categorize
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  Speaker 1: a distinct secular worldview and social group. Doctor Cotter defines
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  Speaker 1: new atheism as a naturalistic worldview with a strong emphasis
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  Speaker 1: on reason and science as the best means of understanding
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  Speaker 1: reality in contrast to religious claims regarding revealed truth foods.
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  Speaker 1: This worldview is also characterized by moral judgments of the
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  Speaker 1: immorality of religion and religious institutions, and an emphasis on
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  Speaker 1: raising the profile of atheism in public life and atheistic identities.
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  Speaker 1: Doctor Craigan estimated that as of twenty fifteen, somewhere around
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  Speaker 1: thirteen to sixteen million American atheists fit these three criteria.
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  Speaker 1: A naturalistic worldview, an emphasis on science and reason to
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  Speaker 1: understand the universe, and a somewhat critical stance, if not
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  Speaker 1: stridently critical stance against religion. The emphasis on raising the
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  Speaker 1: profile of atheism and atheistic identities is a key aspect
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  Speaker 1: of defining atheism as a social identity and secular worldview,
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  Speaker 1: which brings us to the concept of organized atheism. Within
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  Speaker 1: the last few decades, researchers have found that individuals have
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  Speaker 1: started to build communities around non religious identities. In the US,
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  Speaker 1: in particular, there are growing numbers of atheistic congregations who
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  Speaker 1: borrow the ritual format of Christian services, such as Houston
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  Speaker 1: Oasis and Texas and Sunday Assembly. We've seen this among
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  Speaker 1: transhumanists as well. Transhumanism is a project that seeks to
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  Speaker 1: transcend human physical and mental limitations through technology, and it
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  Speaker 1: often takes an atheistic philosophical materialism as its underlying framework.
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  Speaker 1: Transhumanists have in fact formed a church based in Florida
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  Speaker 1: called the Church of Perpetual Life. This church refers to
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  Speaker 1: itself as a science based church and is focused on
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  Speaker 1: the goal of age reversal, and it hosts gatherings that
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  Speaker 1: include music, food, and presentations by scientists and health experts.
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  Speaker 1: Researchers consistently find that organized non religion is about building
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  Speaker 1: communities of like minded people, but also about advocating for
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  Speaker 1: a set of political policies. Activist groups like American Atheists,
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  Speaker 1: the Freedom From Religion Foundation and others work to build
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  Speaker 1: community among people who identifies atheists as well as other
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  Speaker 1: non religious people, but they also work to advocate for
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  Speaker 1: political issues like the separation of church and state. So
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  Speaker 1: for many atheists, atheism encompasses way more than a simple
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  Speaker 1: belief or disbelief in deities. Like other isms, atheism refers
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  Speaker 1: to a more comprehensive worldview that influences and shapes how
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  Speaker 1: they interact with and interpret the world. However, researchers have
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  Speaker 1: found that people who publicly identify as atheists are more
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  Speaker 1: likely to fit certain social demographics. In a twenty sixteen paper,
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  Speaker 1: the sociologist Evan Stewart used survey data to compare people
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  Speaker 1: who adopt the atheist label and those who say they
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  Speaker 1: don't believe in a god but don't call themselves atheists.
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  Speaker 1: He called this a comparison between atheists and atheistic people.
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  Speaker 1: Doctor Stewart found that people who self identified as atheist,
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  Speaker 1: people who publicly use the label for themselves, were significantly
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  Speaker 1: more likely to be young, male, white, middle class, have
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  Speaker 1: a university education, and be politically progressive when compared to
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  Speaker 1: the group that he called atheistic people. This tells us
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  Speaker 1: something interesting about atheism as a secular worldview and social identity.
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  Speaker 1: This means that there are many, many, tens of thousands
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  Speaker 1: of people around the world who are atheistic but don't
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  Speaker 1: call themselves atheists. This is partially because atheists have been
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  Speaker 1: morally stigmatized for hundreds of years, and prejudice against atheists
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  Speaker 1: is still going strong in American culture. In a two
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  Speaker 1: thousand and six paper published in American Sociological Review, the
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  Speaker 1: researchers found that Americans rated atheists as less likely to
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  Speaker 1: share their vision of society, and said they were less
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  Speaker 1: likely to approve of their child marrying an atheist than
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  Speaker 1: any other racial or religious minority group. They replicated these
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  Speaker 1: findings in twenty sixteen in another paper, finding that rates
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  Speaker 1: of anti atheist sentiment hadn't really changed over the course
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  Speaker 1: of a decade. So there are people out there who
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  Speaker 1: reject the existence of a God or God's and are
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  Speaker 1: therefore technically positive atheists, but they feel social pressure not
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  Speaker 1: to label themselves outright. Researchers call this social desirability bias.
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  Speaker 1: This happens when people tell survey researchers answers that they
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  Speaker 1: think the sociologists want to hear instead of answers that
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  Speaker 1: are more accurate, either because they don't want to face
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  Speaker 1: stigma or because they want to present themselves in a
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  Speaker 1: certain light. Social desirability bias. Maybe wise, self identified atheists
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  Speaker 1: are more likely to be white, male, and educated because
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  Speaker 1: it may be easier for them to publicly adopt a
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  Speaker 1: stigmatized identity compared to someone from a more marginalized community.
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  Speaker 1: For example, there are heavy taboos around black atheism in
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  Speaker 1: the US, women being aists nearly everywhere in the world,
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  Speaker 1: and atheism among indigenous groups that are encouraged to identify
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  Speaker 1: with traditional spiritualities. Do you know an American Indian atheist?
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  Speaker 1: Many non white atheists feel they need to conceal their
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  Speaker 1: non belief due to social stigma. When it comes to gender,
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  Speaker 1: the scholarly Eric Schmid argues that historically women in the
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  Speaker 1: US have been associated with an ideal of pious femininity.
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  Speaker 1: By this, she means society expects women to be pious
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  Speaker 1: and expects them to go to church, and so a
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  Speaker 1: woman being an atheist is particularly scandalous. Other scholars, such
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  Speaker 1: as Katya Gunther, have found that women are much less
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  Speaker 1: likely to identify with the new atheist movement because they
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  Speaker 1: perceive it as an unwelcoming culture to women. So atheism
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  Speaker 1: can mean a lot of things to different people. At
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  Speaker 1: its most basic etymological level, atheism is the absence of
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  Speaker 1: belief in God. From many, this extends to the absence
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  Speaker 1: of belief in any supernatural agents or phenomena, from fairies
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  Speaker 1: to demons, to karma or chi. But, as the scholar
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  Speaker 1: of non religion Nicholas Conrad argues, focusing on atheism only
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  Speaker 1: as a type of non belief sets up a false
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  Speaker 1: diakota me that excludes the middle one is a believer
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  Speaker 1: or not a believer if you only look for those
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: who call themselves atheists. This leaves out a vast number
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  Speaker 1: of people who closely fit the description of atheist but
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  Speaker 1: never take the name. So while new atheists like Sam
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  Speaker 1: Harris or Richard Dawkins often epitomize the stereotype of an atheist,
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  Speaker 1: we may be entering a period of fragmenting and proliferating
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  Speaker 1: varieties of non religion, involving varying degrees of self awareness,
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  Speaker 1: social coherence as an identifiable social group, and varying levels
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: of opposition to religion, some more critical than others. Hey everyone,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: thanks for watching. This was episode one in a ten
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  Speaker 1: episode series on atheism. I'll be releasing an episode every
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: month or so on all sorts of topics. What are
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: the causes of atheism? Is Buddhism atheistic? What was atheism
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: like in the USSR? We really cover a broad spectrum
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: of topics. It was made possible through the support of
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, managed by the
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Queen's University of Belfast. Queen's University Belfast is home to
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: an incredible program called exc Blaming Atheism, which brings together
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: researchers to advance both the academic and public understanding of
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: the origins and possible futures of non belief around the world.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: You really should check out their website and especially check
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: out their background reading page, which lists a whole bunch
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: of scholarship on non religion and unbelief. So back in January,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: it was an unsettled time for YouTubers. A lot of
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: big name YouTubers announced that they were stepping back from
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: their channels to take a break, but at the time
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: I felt this overwhelming urge to double down on religion
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: for Breakfast. My mission here to boost everyone's religious literacy
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: is not over. In fact, I think it's more important
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: than ever, so now that we're over halfway through the year,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to give a quick update because I'm
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: super proud of the work we've done so far. We've
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: continued the long running Chinese religion series with an episode
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: on the goddess Madzu. I've started to roll out Hinduism
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: videos with an episode on avatars, and there are more
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Hinduism videos in the pipeline, so stay tuned for that.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: And we had a massive hit with the video what
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Is the Kaba, which rocketed to over one million views
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: in just a few weeks. It's now one of the
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: top performing videos on the entire channel, and I love
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: that because this video in particular is a great example
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: of ever green religious literacy content. It will show up
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: in search results for years to come and will hopefully
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: be a resource for students, teachers, and journalists. Publishing content
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: on YouTube is a roller coaster of highs and lows.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Some videos do really well, like what is the Kaba,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: while others don't, despite the same level of effort and
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: passion and resources that I put into each and every video.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: A great example of this is our back to back
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Buddhism episodes back in May, when I publish an episode
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: on Greco Buddhism and then a week later one on Vesoc,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: arguably the most important Buddhist holiday. Greco Buddhism was a
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: viral hit at over six hundred thousand views, while vessock
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: only got seventy thousand views. But from a purely educational angle,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: the VESOC video is more important for religious literacy. Greco
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Buddhism is a really cool topic, but it's a niche
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: topic for those interested in history. But I want a
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: high school teacher to know what vessoc is just in
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: case they have Buddhist students in their classroom. Too many
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: underperforming videos in a row can threaten the viability of
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: this channel and just seaking personally, it is super stressful
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: for me. That's why your support on Patreon is so
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: absolutely vital. By supporting me on Patreon, you provide a
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: revenue floor for this channel. You help to level out
• 18:09
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  Speaker 1: capricious YouTube algorithm. But you don't just remove my stress.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: You also give me the freedom to pursue videos that
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I know won't be a viral hit, but are important
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: to publish anyway for the sake of religious literacy. So
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: if you believe in our mission to boost religious literacy,
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• 18:31
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• 18:34
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  Speaker 1: believing in our mission and for your incredible continued support.