The Irrationality of Atheism

by Jason Stotts

Atheism is a term that is often misused by both religious people and those who call themselves atheists. The term atheism comes from the Greek atheos, or lack of belief in the gods. Thus one who self-proclaims to be an atheist is proclaiming that they do not believe in gods. Yet, there is a something wrong with this. First, things should never be defined negatively. While a ball is certainly a non-square, it’s also a non-cup, and a non-car. Things have one set identity, which follows from the law of identity and the nature of existence, but one can also predicate of them an infinite class of things that they are not. This is, in fact, a corollary of the law of identity: things are not, what they are not. Thus for any object “X”, we can say that X is X, but also that X is not the set of all things which are not X (X=~{~X}).

The problem should be becoming clear now. People who do not believe in gods should not call themselves atheists. Nothing can exist as a lack of something else. It reminds me of an old proverb that “those who stand for nothing will fall for anything”. If one wants to know why “atheism” as a movement has never taken off, this is why – who wants to fight for a nothing? If religious belief is ever to be gotten rid of, it must be replaced by a positive philosophy. This positive philosophy must be one that people can rally behind and that can show them the grandeur and purpose of human life. If today’s Atheistic movement were to succeed, we would likely see something worse rise in the rift left by religion: nihilism. People obviously find some value in religion or else they would not practice it. It is this value that must be understand and replaced by true value if religion is to go away and a true rational society is to emerge. This is the only way religion can be done away with. Without replacing the value of religion, destroying the current religion will cause nothing but different gods.

So, if you do not believe in mystic fantasies, stop calling yourself an “atheist” and start thinking about what you stand for!