atheist
English
Etymology
From French athéiste (athée + -iste), from Latin atheos, from Ancient Greek ἄθεος (átheos, “godless, without god”), from ἀ- (a-, “without”) + θεός (theós, “god”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈeɪθiɪst/
Audio (US) (file) - Hyphenation: a‧the‧ist
Noun
atheist (plural atheists)
- A person who does not believe in deities.
- 1910, The Vermont Digest 1789-1905, volume 2, Burlington: Free Press Printing Co:
- Atheists. One who does not believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, an atheist, is incompetent as a witness, being incapable of being sworn. […] Changed by Acts of 1851, No. 12 (P. S. 1593), under which, no question can be raised as to a witness's "opinions on matters of religious belief."
- (narrowly) A person who believes that no deities exist (especially, one who has no other religious belief).
- 1571 October 20, Golding, Arthur, “The Epistle Dedicatory”, in Psalmes of Dauid and others, with M. John Caluin's Commentaries:
- Ageine, the Atheistes, which say in their hartes there is no God; […]
- 1953 November 3, Russell, Bertrand, “What is an Agnostic?”, in Look:
- An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not.
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- (broadly) A person who rejects belief that any deities exist (whether or not that person believes that deities do not exist).
- 1843, Holyoake, G. J., “A Reciprocal Dialogue”, in Paterson, Thomas, editors, The Oracle of Reason, Or, Philosophy Vindicated, volume 2, number 64, page 89:
- Minister—Are you really an Atheist?
Atheist—Yes.
M.—Do you deny that there is a god?
A.—No. I deny that there is sufficient reason to believe there is one. There may be a god, but I think it rather unlikely.
- 2006 September 18, Dawkins, Richard, “The God Hypothesis”, in The God Delusion, 1st Am. edition, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, →ISBN, LCCN 2006015506, OL 7606171M, LCC BL2775.3.D39 2006, page 51:
- Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. ‘I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.’
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- (loosely) A person who has no belief in any deities, such as a person who has no concept of deities.
- 1772, Good Sense without God: Or Freethoughts Opposed to Supernatural Ideas, London: W. Stewart, translation of Le Bon-Sens, ou, Idées Naturelles opposées aux Idées Surnaturelles by Paul Henry Thiry baron d'Holbach, published 2004, §30, page 21:
- All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God. Are they then criminal on account of their ignorance?
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- (uncommon) A person who does not believe in a particular deity (or any deity in a particular pantheon), notwithstanding that they may believe in another deity.
- 1840, Gibbon, Edward, chapter 16, in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume 1, new edition, page 183:
- Malice and prejudice concurred in representing the Christians as a society of atheists, who, by the most daring attack on the religious constitution of the empire, had merited the severest animadversion of the civil magistrate.
- 2009, Lyndon Lamborn, Standing For Something More: The Excommunication of Lyndon Lamborn, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 171:
- Throughout history, atheists were simply people who did not believe the prevalent God of the day. For the sun-worshippers, Christians were atheists. For Jewish people, Christians were atheists. Whoever does not believe in your God is by definition, an atheist. […] With all the countless Gods concocted by man, I claim that my Christian friends and I have something in common. We are all atheists, I just believe in one less God than they.
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Quotations
For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:atheist.
Antonyms
Hypernyms
Hyponyms
Related terms
Translations
a person who believes that no deities exist
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a person who rejects belief that any deities exist, whether or not that person believes that deities do not exist
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked
Adjective
atheist (comparative more atheist, superlative most atheist)
- Of or relating to atheists or atheism; atheistic.
- c. 16th-17th century, Francis Bacon, Of Unity in Religion,
- He would have been seven times more Epicure and atheist than he was.
- c. 16th-17th century, Francis Bacon, Of Unity in Religion,
Translations
relating to atheists — see atheistic
See also
- Appendix:Glossary of philosophical isms
Further reading
- atheist at OneLook Dictionary Search
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