Negative and Positive Atheism

Negative And Positive Atheism

(Sizes in the diagram are not meant to indicate relative sizes within a population.)

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Positive atheism (also called strong atheism and hard atheism) is the form of atheism that asserts that no deities exist. Negative atheism (also called weak atheism and soft atheism) is any other type of atheism, wherein a person does not believe in the existence of any deities, but does not explicitly assert there to be none.

The terms negative atheism and positive atheism were used by Antony Flew in 1976, and appeared again in Michael Martin's writings in 1990. However, usage of the strong/weak terminology has grown since the mid-1990s on the Internet, particularly due to the newsgroup alt.atheism.

Read more about Negative And Positive Atheism:  Scope of Application, Alternate Meanings

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    “But they that hold God to be [an incorporeal substance] ... do absolutely make God to be nothing at all. But how? Were they atheists? No. For though by ignorance of the consequence they said that which was equivalent to atheism, yet in their hearts they thought God a substance ... So that this atheism by consequence is a very easy thing to be fallen into, even by the most godly men of the church.”
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