Merely A Denier?

This article comes from Chanchal Krishna. Chanchal is a 20 year old engineering student from India. In this article, he discusses the common misconception that atheists are 'deniers' of God.

Who is an atheist? I often find that the dictionary definition comes to something like ‘one who denies the existence of God or gods’. Being a person who calls myself an atheist I find that definition or label too narrow. Anti-Christ’s, Satan worshippers etc can be called deniers of god. Would that make them atheists? I don’t think so.

Denying God, in this context implies “to refuse to believe; reject”. Which means that an atheist is someone who denies or rejects god. The problem is, if there were gods or if at least there was the bare minimum of evidence to support the existence of gods: most atheists would gladly accept that fact. So we atheists simply do not go around saying or rejecting something that exist just for the heck of it. An atheist doesn’t believe in God because there’s no proof or evidence to support His existence.

Let’s look at it by way of an example. Let’s just for the moment say there is life on mars. Alien creatures are spotted and all the evidence is there to support this. Now in such a case a person who goes around saying there’s no life on mars can rightly be called a denier. But, in reality, as far as our current exploration reveals, there’s no evidence to suggest there is life on mars (for those who care only to argue, there is at least no complex life form we know of). Now say, there are people who believe there is life on mars and people who don’t believe it as there’s no evidence. Who’d be the deniers here? Of course those who believe life is there, because they are simply denying the mountain of evidence merely to satisfy their desire to believe. The case is similar with atheists; we 'don’t believe' because evidence dictates that this is reasonable, not because we hate god or not because of a deep seated desire to deny His existence.

So it’s an error to call us simply ‘deniers’. Consider the case of Malayalam language – my mother tongue. In Malayalam, ‘atheist’ is translated as nireswara vadhi, which literally means one who argues or denies god. That’s not what I am; a mere denier, and labelling us as mere deniers does not do justice to the word ‘atheist’. That’s why I’m forced to write about this topic.

So who’s really an atheist? An atheist is a rational being with a world view based on true science and an understanding of nature. An atheist relies on his or her reason and common sense as a guide for their beliefs and actions. An atheist is a realist who prefers to accept truth as it is, however inconvenient it may be. An atheist is a sceptic with a curious mind, who’s longing to understand not believe. If this common misconception can be changed we will have advanced some way to improving the status 'atheism' worldwide.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Young Freethought's editors.