OTHER ARGUMENTS FOR ATHEISM

Because atheism is, at core, a disbelief rather than a belief, much of the argumentation between atheists and theists revolves around refutations of the Arguments for the Existence of God. This largely derives from the idea that, as theists are the ones making claims for the existence of something, the burden of proof lies with them.

However, atheism need not be completely negative, and there exist many other, more positive, arguments for atheism (or “atheological arguments”), the most important of which will be summarized in this section:

• The Problem of Evil
• The Problem of Religious Diversity
• The Lack of Empirical Evidence
• Naturalism Predicts the Real Universe
• Morality in the Here and Now
• Freedom from Dogma
• The Harmful Influence of Religion on Society
• Religion Denies the Basic Rights of Children
• The Argument from God’s Silence
• The Argument from Reasonable Non-belief