"Atheism as rejection of religious beliefs". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol.1 (15thed.). 2011. p.666. 0852294735. 2011年5月12日時点のオリジナルよりアーカイブ。2011年4月9日閲覧。 Atheism, however, casts a wider net and rejects all belief in “spiritual beings,” and to the extent that belief in spiritual beings is definitive of what it means for a system to be religious, atheism rejects religion. So atheism is not only a rejection of the central conceptions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; it is, as well, a rejection of the religious beliefs of such African religions as that of the Dinka and the Nuer, of the anthropomorphic gods of classical Greece and Rome, and of the transcendental conceptions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Generally atheism is a denial of God or of the gods, and if religion is defined in terms of belief in spiritual beings, then atheism is the rejection of all religious belief.
“New Atheists”.The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.14 April 2016閲覧。“The New Atheists are authors of early twenty-first century books promoting atheism. These authors include Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. The 'New Atheist' label for these critics of religion and religious belief emerged out of journalistic commentary on the contents and impacts of their books.”
Harvey,Van A..Agnosticism and Atheism, in Flynn 2007, p.35: "The terms ATHEISM and AGNOSTICISM lend themselves to two different definitions. The first takes the privative a both before the Greek theos (divinity) and gnosis (to know) to mean that atheism is simply the absence of belief in the gods and agnosticism is simply lack of knowledge of some specified subject matter. The second definition takes atheism to mean the explicit denial of the existence of gods and agnosticism as the position of someone who, because the existence of gods is unknowable, suspends judgment regarding them... The first is the more inclusive and recognizes only two alternatives: Either one believes in the gods or one does not. Consequently, there is no third alternative, as those who call themselves agnostics sometimes claim. Insofar as they lack belief, they are really atheists. Moreover, since the absence of belief is the cognitive position in which everyone is born, the burden of proof falls on those who advocate religious belief. The proponents of the second definition, by contrast, regard the first definition as too broad because it includes uninformed children along with aggressive and explicit atheists. Consequently, it is unlikely that the public will adopt it."
Stenger 2007, pp.17–18, citing Parsons,Keith M.(1989).God and the Burden of Proof: Plantinga, Swinburne, and the Analytical Defense of Theism.Amherst, New York:Prometheus Books.ISBN978-0-87975-551-5
Keysar,Ariela;Navarro-Rivera,Juhem(2017).“36. A World of Atheism: Global Demographics”.InBullivant, Stephen;Ruse, Michael.The Oxford Handbook of Atheism.Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-964465-0
2.3% Atheists: Persons professing atheism, skepticism, disbelief, or irreligion, including the militantly antireligious (opposed to all religion).
11.9% Nonreligious: Persons professing no religion, nonbelievers, agnostics, freethinkers, uninterested, or dereligionized secularists indifferent to all religion but not militantly so.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Atheism". Encyclopædia Britannica (英語) (11thed.). Cambridge University Press. The term as generally used, however, is highly ambiguous. Its meaning varies (a) according to the various definitions of deity, and especially (b) according as it is (i.) deliberately adopted by a thinker as a description of his own theological standpoint, or (ii.) applied by one set of thinkers to their opponents. As to (a), it is obvious that atheism from the standpoint of the Christian is a very different conception as compared with atheism as understood by a Deist, a Positivist, a follower of Euhemerus or Herbert Spencer, or a Buddhist.
Martin 1990, pp.467–468: "In the popular sense an agnostic neither believes nor disbelieves that God exists, while an atheist disbelieves that God exists. However, this common contrast of agnosticism with atheism will hold only if one assumes that atheism means positive atheism. In the popular sense, agnosticism is compatible with negative atheism. Since negative atheism by definition simply means not holding any concept of God, it is compatible with neither believing nor disbelieving in God."
Holland,Aaron.Agnosticism.https://archive.org/details/jstor-25667906, in Flynn 2007, p.34: "It is important to note that this interpretation of agnosticism is compatible with theism or atheism, since it is only asserted that knowledge of God's existence is unattainable."
Martin 2006, p.2: "But agnosticism is compatible with negative atheism in that agnosticism entails negative atheism. Since agnostics do not believe in God, they are by definition negative atheists. This is not to say that negative atheism entails agnosticism. A negative atheist might disbelieve in God but need not."
Barker 2008, p.96: "People are invariably surprised to hear me say I am both an atheist and an agnostic, as if this somehow weakens my certainty. I usually reply with a question like, "Well, are you a Republican or an American?" The two words serve different concepts and are not mutually exclusive. Agnosticism addresses knowledge; atheism addresses belief. The agnostic says, "I don't have a knowledge that God exists." The atheist says, "I don't have a belief that God exists." You can say both things at the same time. Some agnostics are atheistic and some are theistic."
Nielsen 2013: "atheism, in general, the critique and denial of metaphysical beliefs in God or spiritual beings. As such, it is usually distinguished from theism, which affirms the reality of the divine and often seeks to demonstrate its existence. Atheism is also distinguished from agnosticism, which leaves open the question whether there is a god or not, professing to find the questions unanswered or unanswerable."
"Atheism". Encyclopædia Britannica Concise. Merriam Webster. 2012年1月21日時点のオリジナルよりアーカイブ。2011年12月15日閲覧。Critique and denial of metaphysical beliefs in God or divine beings. Unlike agnosticism, which leaves open the question of whether there is a God, atheism is a positive denial. It is rooted in an array of philosophical systems.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Atheism". Encyclopædia Britannica (英語) (11thed.). Cambridge University Press. But dogmatic atheism is rare compared with the sceptical type, which is identical with agnosticism in so far as it denies the capacity of the mind of man to form any conception of God, but is different from it in so far as the agnostic merely holds his judgment in suspense, though, in practice, agnosticism is apt to result in an attitude towards religion which is hardly distinguishable from a passive and unaggressive atheism.
Zuckerman, Phil. "Atheism: Contemporary Numbers and Patterns." The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Ed. Michael Martin. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Cambridge Collections Online. Cambridge University Press. 03 February 2012 doi:10.1017/CCOL0521842700.004
Michael Martin & Ricki Monnier, ed(2006).The Improbability of God.Buffalo, New York:Prometheus Books.ISBN978-1-59102-381-4