Explicit Atheism
Smith observes that some motivations for explicit atheism are rational and some not. Of the rational motivations, he says:
The most significant variety of atheism is explicit atheism of a philosophical nature. This atheism contends that the belief in god is irrational and should therefore be rejected. Since this version of explicit atheism rests on a criticism of theistic beliefs, it is best described as critical atheism.For Smith, explicit atheism is subdivided further into three groups:
- a) the view usually expressed by the statement "I do not believe in the existence of a god or supernatural being";
- b) the view usually expressed by the statement "God does not exist" or "the existence of God is impossible"; and
- c) the view which "refuses to discuss the existence of a god" because "the concept of a god is unintelligible" (p. 17).
Although, as mentioned above, Nagel opposes identifying what Smith calls "implicit atheism" as atheism, the two authors do very much agree on the three-part subdivision of "explicit atheism" above, though Nagel does not use the term "explicit".
Read more about this topic: Implicit And Explicit Atheism
Famous quotes containing the words explicit and/or atheism:
“... the Ovarian Theory of Literature, or, rather, its complement, the Testicular Theory. A recent camp follower ... of this explicit theory is ... Norman Mailer, who has attributed his own gift, and the literary gift in general, solely and directly to the possession of a specific pair of organs. One writes with these organs, Mailer has said ... and I have always wondered with what shade of ink he manages to do it.”
—Cynthia Ozick (b. 1928)
“He talks about the Scylla of Atheism and the Charybdis of Christianity—a state of mind which, by the way, is not conducive to bold navigation.”
—Norman Douglas (1868–1952)