atheist

See also Atheist, and atheïst

English

Wikipedia

Etymology

From French athéiste (athée + -iste), from Latin atheos, from Ancient Greek ἄθεος (atheos, “godless, without god”), from ἀ- (a-, “without”) + θεός (theos, “god”)..

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈeɪθiɪst/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: a‧the‧ist

Noun

atheist (plural atheists)

1. (narrowly) A person who believes that no deities exist (especially, one who has no other religious belief).
   • 1571 October 20, Arthur Golding, “The Epistle Dedicatory”, in Psalmes of Dauid and others, with M. John Caluin's Commentaries^[1]:

     Ageine, the Atheistes, which say in their hartes there is no God; […]

   • 1953 November 3, Bertrand Russell, “What is an Agnostic?”^[2], 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.

2. (broadly) A person who rejects belief that any deities exist (whether or not that person believes that deities do not exist).
   • 1843, G. J. Holyoake, “A Reciprocal Dialogue”, 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, Richard Dawkins, “The God Hypothesis”, in The God Delusion^[3], edition 1st Am., Boston: Houghton Mifflin, LCC BL2775.3.D39 2006, ISBN 978-0618680009, LCCN 2006015506, OL 7606171M, 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.’

3. (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^[4], 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?

   • 1910, The Vermont Digest 1789-1905^[5], 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.

4. (loosely, 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, Edward Gibbon, chapter 16, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume 1, edition new, page 183:

     Malice and pejudice concurred in representing the christians^[sic] 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.

   • 2002, Richard Dawkins on militant atheism^[6]:

     An atheist is just somebody who feels about Yahweh the way any decent Christian feels about Thor or Baal or the golden calf. As has been said before, we are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.

Related terms

Related terms

atheism atheistic atheistical atheophobia

pantheist polytheist theist monotheist

Translations

a person who believes that no deities exist

• Arabic: ملحد (ar) (múlHid) m, كافر (ar) (kaafir) m
• Armenian: աթեիստ (hy) (at’eist)
• Catalan: ateu (ca) m
• Dutch: atheïst (nl) m, atheïste (nl) f (rare), godloochenaar (nl) m and f (pejorative, polemical), goddeloze (nl) m and f (pejorative, polemical)
• Esperanto: ateisto (eo)
• Finnish: ateisti (fi)
• German: Atheist (de) m, Atheistin (de) f; Gottesleugner (de) m (pejorative, polemical), Gottesleugnerin (de) f (pejorative, polemical)
• Hungarian: ateista (hu)

• Irish: aindiachaí (ga) m
• Jèrriais: athée m and f
• Polish: ateista (pl) m, ateistka (pl) f
• Portuguese: ateu (pt) m
• Romanian: ateist (ro) m, ateistă (ro) f, ateu (ro) m
• Russian: атеист (ru) (ateíst) m, атеистка (ru) (ateístka) f
• Spanish: ateo (es) m, atea (es) f
• Swedish: ateist (sv) c
• Turkish: ateist (tr), tanrıtanımaz (tr)

a person who rejects belief that any deities exist, whether or not that person believes that deities do not exist

• Arabic: ملحد (ar) (múlHid) m, كافر (ar) (kaafir) m
• Armenian: աթեիստ (hy) (at’eist), անաստված (hy) (anastvaç)
• Catalan: ateu (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 無神論者 (cmn), 无神论者 (cmn) (wúshénlùnzhě)

• Czech: ateista (cs) m, ateistka (cs) f
• Dutch: atheïst (nl) m and f, atheïste (nl) f (rare), agnost (nl) m and f, agnosticus (nl) m (archaic)
• Esperanto: ateisto (eo)
• Estonian: ateist (et)
• Finnish: ateisti (fi)
• French: athée (fr), athéiste (fr) m
• German: Atheist (de) m, Atheistin (de) f; Nichtglaubender (de) m, Nichtglaubende (de) f; Agnostiker (de) m, Agnostiker (de) f
• Greek: άθεος (el) (átheos) m, αθεϊστής (el) (atheïstis) m; άπιστος (el) (ápistos) m (colloquial)
• Hindi: नास्तिक (hi) (nāstik)
• Hungarian: ateista (hu)
• Irish: aindiachaí (ga) m
• Italian: ateo (it) m

• Japanese: 無神論者 (ja) (むしんろんしゃ, mushinronsha), 無信仰者 (ja) (むしんこうしゃ, mushinkōsha)
• Jèrriais: athée m and f
• Korean: 무신론자 (ko) (musinlonja) (無神論者 (ko))
• Latin: atheos (la) m
• Malay: ateis (ms), mulhid (ms)
• Norwegian: ateist (no) m
• Polish: bezwyznaniowiec (pl) m, niewierzący (pl) m
• Portuguese: ateu (pt) m, ateísta (pt) m and f
• Romanian: ateist (ro) m, ateu (ro) m
• Russian: атеист (ru) (ateíst) m, атеистка (ru) (ateístka) f, безбожник (ru) (bezbóžnik) m, безбожница (ru) (bezbóžnica) f, неверующий (ru) (nevérujuščij) m, неверующая (ru) (nevérujuščaja) f
• Spanish: ateo (es) m, atea (es) f
• Swedish: ateist (sv) c
• Turkish: ateist (tr), tanrıtanımaz (tr)
• Volapük: Godinoan (vo), godinoan (vo) (male or female); Godihinoan (vo), godihinoan (vo) (male); Godijinoan (vo), godijinoan (vo) (female)

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 Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

• Albanian: ateist
• French: athée (fr) m and f
• Interlingua: atheo m, athea f

• Italian: ateo m, ateista m and f
• Central Kurdish: کافر
• Persian: کافر
• Portuguese: ateu (pt) m, atéia (pt) f
• Romanian: ateu m atee f
• Slovene: ateist m, ateistka f

Synonyms

• nontheist

Antonyms

• theist

Hypernyms

• (neologism) bright

Quotations

For more examples of usage of this term, see the citations page.

See also

• agnostic
• deist
• pandeist

Adjective

atheist (comparative more atheist, superlative most atheist)

1. Of or relating to atheists or atheism; atheistic.
   • circa 16th-17th century, Francis Bacon, Of Unity in Religion,

     He would have been seven times more Epicure and atheist than he was.

Translations

relating to atheists — see atheistic

Anagrams

• staithe

See also

• Appendix:Glossary of philosophical isms