Introduction
Atheism can be defined as the absence of any belief regarding the existence of divine or spiritual power. In other words, it can also refer to the rejection of all the beliefs in the world that follow the existence of any deities. Those who belong to this mindset call themselves atheists, which rejects all religions. The opposite of atheism is theism.
In theism, one believes that at least one deity exists. Particularly, atheism is not a belief regarding the rejection of God’s existence nor does it indicate any specific belief of the person who belongs to his mindset. It is simply the opinion in which a person rejects the possibility that God exists. There’s a common misunderstanding that it’s a belief rather than a lack of belief. Furthermore, the discussion will cover the perspectives of atheism from border to a narrow version with outcomes of the consequences and problems affiliated with it (Shelley, 2015).
Description
All three major religions in the world, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, indicate the presence of one God, and this belief confirms that only one God is the creator of the whole universe. Everything that has happened, happens, and will happen is in the control of God, and He is the sovereign of all creations. It includes all the human beings and other living creatures who are dependent on Him (Cotter, 2015). These religions have defined morality and immorality according to His teaching. Under this power, it is to believe that the belief in one God is absolute without any question, and all living creatures will answer to all the acts done during the specific time period He gave. To understand atheism, the belief of all rejection must first be taken into consideration, and all the beliefs mentioned have been rejected by atheism. The existence of God or the spiritual being by claiming it is untrue because no empirical evidence gives birth to the mindset of atheism (Zimmerman et al., 2015).
Atheism is also described otherwise if considered. It is not only about the existence of God. A few of the researchers also claimed that the variation of atheism depends on the person’s belief strength. If the acceptance of God’s existence exists but the acts which are not done under the command described by the religious laws, it also comes under atheism. A few religions believe in no God but also hold the status of religion, including Buddhism. However, modern definitions contradict such conditions (Doane and Elliott, 2015). The ranges of atheism are divided among philosophical, historical, and social approaches. These approaches explain that philosophically, the lack of evidence of the existence of God, the social approach rejects the notion of divine power when it comes to all the evil around the world, and the historical approach shows the concern of inconsistency of the revelations from God. The philosophy of secular humanism argues that both atheists and theists share an equal burden when it comes to providing proof of whether the existence of God is true or not. The Global perspective regarding atheism has shown variation in the results when it comes to the evidence of the people who belong to atheism. The atheist population mostly exists in China, which comes in East Asia, and Australia is on top when it comes to whites. The other perspective shows that so far, 2% of the world’s population identifies themselves as Atheists (LaBouff and Ledoux, 2016).
The criticism of religion brings atheism to the general population. There are several reasons why people are attracted to atheism. Those reasons include that they declare untrue because of lack of evidence and leading a life of falsehood is what atheist people think about religion. According to them, there’s no rational way of thinking about religion, the other reason they declare religion is insufficient is that it makes people rely on something they haven’t seen rather depending on themselves (Froese, 2014). Many wars have been fought on the basis of religion which they think is a negative aspect of it. The other reason is religion doesn’t promote democracy which is against the basic rights of people and their liberty. The last and most important argument is that religion discriminates against women and gay people. Apart from all these, atheists also willingly take an interest in religious things such as art and music, charities, wisdom, and togetherness (Langston, Hammer, and Cragun, 2015). Those who get influenced by this mindset belong to different types, such as those who are intellectual and who, without any empirical evidence, refuse to believe in God. Then comes the non-intellectuals who were influenced by the upbringing and education of their parents. The culture in which they were born has the common mindset of not believing in God. An example is China’s culture, in which it is common for anyone to be an atheist (Miedema and Bertram-Troost, 2015).
The national perspective of atheism in a country like Pakistan is a big concern and has greatly influenced people’s lives. The survey on those people who are atheists suggests the danger to people who are atheists is a life-threatening matter. Despite growing threats, there are still many people who, behind doors, are united and support each other. Support has also been provided to them from outside the country. The views of atheist people shared online mostly, but the government has also launched a cybercrime bill to track down people who post such content online should be caught (Salamon, 2015). The result of this law came right after when one person was caught and sentenced to death because he posted content related to atheism on social media. The other example is 6 activists who were abducted mysteriously because they also expressed their views regarding atheism. This shows that in Pakistan a good citizen should also be a good Muslim. Pakistan was founded in 1947, and it became an Islamic nation. But after 1956, the constitution is declared fully Islamic which has turned into a worrying state for Atheists in the country. From that onwards, the practice of Islam became visible, and people adopted the Saudi style of practicing their faith (Kakabadse, Korac-Kakabadse, and Khan, 2015).
According to Islam, being an atheist is not particularly considered to be a sin claimed by many modern Muslim scholars. But still, it is a life-threatening thing and many people have lost their lives when people found out that those people turned into atheists. That is why they meet secretly and share their views without sharing them with the public in order to avoid the people declaring death as an able sin and the government sentencing imprisonment to those people who are atheists. The change in religious views happens for several reasons, sometimes peer influence, poverty, and any social incident that changes any person’s religion (Reetz, 2017).
The belief system works differently for everyone. The world is full of people, and every one holds a different perspective from another. The theories from the scientific methods give the evidence, but the belief one holds depends on the perspective of any human, which is not compulsory to be backed by evidence. The scientific system requires collecting data and creating a hypothesis, which leads to an investigation. But it’s not important for beliefs to be backed by anything except one’s personal thoughts. There’s no law that can stop anyone from holding any belief. According to me, it’s the psychology of any person really matters when it comes to atheism. The difference between believers and non-believers is that believers are the ones who strongly believe in their intuitive thoughts, and on the other hand, atheist people are more likely to see facts and proof before believing in anything. While going over the theory of mind, the research shows that empathy comes from mostly religious people, and when it comes to gender, females are more religious as compared to males. But it’s all about the culture and upbringing of someone who created attributes in any human being. Research shows that the theory of mind only took one indicator: both people are normal. It’s all about people’s psychology and their beliefs (Foster, Megoran, and Dunn, 2017). Morality and ethics are already present in every human being, but religion helps bring them out as motivating forces. There are a number of people who, no matter what they believe, teach their children about morality and become good citizens. The condition in Pakistan is not very favorable for atheists and this influences the image of religious people. Beliefs are personal and should only spread humanity rather than hate. The only thing that gives the negative aspect of religion is extremism in what they believe; otherwise, the teaching is to spread love (Speed, Coleman III, and Langston, 2018).
The consequences of being an atheist are mainly in a person’s social life. The place and the people around matter when a person changes his belief. Spain can be an example where the culture teaches people that religion is a personal thing so people never interrupt the religious affairs of others. But in a country like Pakistan, a person is not free to believe in anything. Atheism influences social life and can even create threats (Doane and Elliott, 2015). There are several cases in which the atheist was caught by the people and lynched. Even the law didn’t spare anyone who tried to change his/her religion and chose any other belief. Other countries that are developed and give the right of freedom of speech give all citizens leverage to choose anything they want to believe. As mentioned above the problem which always influences the people who belong to atheism is that they face social hatred from other people who belong to any religion. This influences everything from the job to studies to relatives. That is why they have to lie about what their thoughts are and if they are willing to follow any religion. The possible course of action is to create awareness and promote tolerance (Delfino, 2015).
Conclusion
The conclusion is that people’s rights should not be violated, and it’s the basic right of people to have the freedom to believe and speak. Atheism is simply the opinion that a person rejects the possibility of God’s existence. There’s a common misunderstanding that it’s a belief rather than a lack of belief. Religion includes all human beings and other living creatures who are dependent on Him. These religions have defined morality and immorality according to His teaching. Under this power, it is to believe that the belief in one God is absolute without any question, and all living creatures will answer to all the acts done during the specific time period He gave. To understand atheism, the belief of all rejection must first be considered, and all the beliefs mentioned have been rejected by atheism. As mentioned, the Global perspective regarding atheism has shown a variation in the results when it comes to the evidence of the people who belong to atheism. Those claim religion is not good because many wars have been fought on the basis of religion which they think is the negative aspect of it. The other reason is religion doesn’t promote democracy which is against the basic rights of people and their liberty. The last and most important argument is that religion discriminates against women and gay people. The culture in which they were born has the common mindset of not believing in God. An example is China’s culture, in which it is common for anyone to be an atheist. It’s the psychology of any person really matters when it comes to atheism. The difference between believers and non-believers is that believers are the ones who strongly believe in their intuitive thoughts, and on the other hand, atheist people are more likely to see facts and proof before believing in anything.
References
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