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

Famous quotes containing the words negative, positive and/or atheism:

    “Isolation in creative work is an onerous thing. Better to have negative criticism than nothing at all.”
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    “We find the most terrible form of atheism, not in the militant and passionate struggle against the idea of God himself, but in the practical atheism of everyday living, in indifference and torpor. We often encounter these forms of atheism among those who are formally Christians.”
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