6. All atheists believe the same thing - view "x."
Many religious writers claim that some other view is an essential part of atheism, and they proceed to attack that other view in an attempt to counter
atheism. The other view may be communism, egoism (selfishness), pessimism, existentialism, Darwinism, Freudianism, anarchism, etc. The misconception
here is that atheism is a particular view of life or some aspect of life instead of the view that there are no gods (sic). In Atheism: The Case
against God, George H. Smith writes:
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Just as the failure to believe in magic elves does not entail a code of living or a set of principles, so the failure to believe in a god does not
imply any specific philosophical system.
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Further, the label "atheist", writes Smith, "does not announce one's agreement with, or approval of, other atheists." For example, I don't
believe that there are magic elves, and, I suppose, neither does Reverend Billy Graham. However, this does not entail that Graham and I share any
particular set of beliefs. Similary, if I were to find out that a neighbour of mine is also an atheist, I could not conclude from that alone that we
share any particular set of beliefs.
The claim that all atheists have the same set of beliefs is the cornerstone of many misguided and misleading Christian works which purport to refute
atheism. It is quite common for Christian writers to declare that a particular person is a spokesperson for atheism and then proceed to criticize that
person. Sometimes it is Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Jean-Paul Sartre, or others. Some Christians are so misguided that they even attack the
Christian philosopher Kierkegaard!
These theists hope to refute atheism by attacking a particular atheist's philosophy. Such attempts are a waste of time. They are based on fallacious
reasoning. Atheism is not the result of the view of a particular individual. There were atheists in ancient Greece, in the Middle Ages, in the
nineteenth century, and there are atheists now. One could examine the views of an atheist from each of these points in history and find out why he or
she was an atheist, and it is possible that each had a worldview unlike any of the others and reasons for being an atheist unlike the reasons of any
of the others. There were atheists before comunism, before the theory of evolution, before modern science, before psychoanalysis. Someone can be an
atheist without believing any of those things. Indeed there may be any number of other reasons why one might conclude that there are no gods (sic),
but, regardless of the reasons, if the conclusion is that there are no gods, then it is an atheistic view.
Atheism itself is not a worldview, it is not a philosophy of life. It is an important part of a larger view, but atheism alone is not
supposed to be a comprehensive philosophy of life. Consider this example. You believe that there are no unicorns. Would it be reasonable to expect you
to have a comprehensive philosophy of life based solely on that belief? Of course not. Similarly, the atheist believes that there are no gods (sic).
This is not, in itself, a worldview. It is not supposed to be. Atheism is the result of a worldview, but it is not a comprehensive worldview
itself. Thus, attempts to refute atheism by attacking a much larger philosophy, one which has atheism as one of its many parts, are fruitless. Theists
who attack such positions mislead their followers into believing that atheism is some other view than what it truly is.
Atheism is the belief that there are no gods. (sic) It's that simple.
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