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Antitheism
Opposition to theism, and usually to religion From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Antitheism, also spelled anti-theism, is the philosophical position that theism should be opposed.[1][2] The term has had a range of applications. In secular contexts, it typically refers to direct opposition to the belief in any deity.
Etymology
The word antitheism (or hyphenated anti-theism) has been recorded in English since 1788.[3] The etymological roots of the word are the Greek anti and theos.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines antitheist as "One opposed to belief in the existence of a god". The earliest citation given for this meaning dates from 1833.[4][2] The term was likely coined by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.[5]
Opposition to theism
Antitheism has been adopted as a label by those who regard theism as dangerous, destructive, or encouraging of harmful behavior. Christopher Hitchens (2001)[6] wrote:
I'm not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful.[6]
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Opposition to the idea of God
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Other definitions of antitheism include that of the French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain (1953), for whom it is "an active struggle against everything that reminds us of God".[7]
The definition of Robert Flint (1877), Professor of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh was similar. Flint's 1877 Baird Lecture was titled Anti-Theistic Theories.[8] He used "antitheism" as a very general umbrella term for all opposition to his own form of theism, which he defined as:
the "belief that the heavens and the earth and all that they contain owe their existence and continuance to the wisdom and will of a supreme, self-existent, omnipotent, omniscient, righteous, and benevolent Being, who is distinct from, and independent of, what He has created."[8](p 1)
However, Flint also acknowledged that antitheism is typically understood differently from how he defines it. In particular, he notes that it has been used as a subdivision of atheism, descriptive of the view that theism has been disproven, rather than as the more general term that Flint preferred. He rejected the alternative non-theistic: not merely because of its hybrid origin and character, but also because it is far too comprehensive. The theories of physical and mental science are non-theistic, even when in no degree, directly or indirectly, antagonistic to theism.[8](p 444–445)
Other, similar terms
Opposition to the existence of a god or gods is frequently referred to as nontheism, or dystheism, or misotheism.
- Dystheism would actually mean "belief in a deity that is not benevolent".
- Misotheism, strictly speaking, means "hatred of God".
Examples of belief systems founded on the principle of opposition to the existence of a god or gods include some forms of Atheistic Satanism and maltheism.
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Different definitions of "antitheism"
Christopher New (1993)[9] proposed an altered definition of the word antitheism as part of a thought experiment. He imagines what arguments for the existence of an evil god would look like, and writes:
Antitheists, like theists, would have believed in an omnipotent, omniscient, eternal creator; but whereas theists in fact believe that the supreme being is also perfectly good, antitheists would have believed that he was perfectly evil.[9][10]
New's changed definition has reappeared in the work of W.A. Murphree.[11]
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