atheism

Nonbelief in, or the positive denial of, the existence of a God or gods. A related concept is agnosticism. Like theism, its opposite, atheism cannot be proved or disproved conclusively.

Perhaps the strongest atheistic argument concerns the existence of evil, which is hard to reconcile with the notion (in Christianity and other religions) that the world was created by an omnipotent, all-loving God. Theologians have responded with a variety of theodicies, or justifications for the existence of evil.

Buddhism has been called an atheistic religion since it does not postulate any supreme being. The Jains are similarly atheistic, and so are those who adopt the Sankhya system of philosophy in Hinduism. Following the revolution of 1917 the USSR and later communist states, such as Albania, adopted an atheist position.

Dogmatic atheism asserts that there is no God. Sceptical atheism maintains that the finite human mind is so constituted as to be incapable of discovering that there is or is not a God. Critical atheism holds that the evidence for theism is inadequate. This is akin to philosophical atheism, which fails to find evidence of a God manifest in the universe. Speculative atheism comprises the beliefs of those who, like the German philosopher Kant, find it impossible to demonstrate the existence of God.