The Atheists

Literally, atheists are those "without any deity." This label is formed from the Greek theos meaning "god" and the prefix a  meaning "without."  Atheists live without a god-belief.

Interestingly, in ancient times when Jupiter, Juno, and their assorted cadre were the dominant religion and monotheism was making inroads in the Roman Empire, it was the Christians who were called "the atheists" because they were "without the (Roman) gods."

Characterization of the atheist as someone who is seeking to prove there is no God is ill suited to contemporary atheism. Atheists today are not concerned with disproving the claim that "God is." Rather, they say that, because there is no proof of God’s existence and no way to prove that God exists, we are therefore "without God" or "without a god."  They point out that the burden of proof concerning the existence of God (or any gods) rests not upon them, but upon those who make the claim that a supernatural being exists.

A vast majority of atheists today operate from a notion of probability.  They do not declare that a god is impossible, but they regard the probability as exceedingly slight.  Over thousands of years verifiable proofs of the existence of a god (or of any supernatural entities) have been lacking, so atheists deem it highly unlikely that they will encounter a valid proof within their lifetimes.  

Atheists include secularists and naturalists, who base their attitudes, their thinking and their conclusions on scientific explanations of nature and whose life commitment is to the world of the human without acceptance of supernaturalism. The materialists represent another form of atheism. (Materialism in this sense is not to be confused with the different connotation for the term in popular speech—a desire for material things). The following chart briefly outlines the thinking behind these forms of atheism.