Religious skepticism is a type of skepticism relating to religion. Religious skeptics question religious authority and are not necessarily antireligious/clerical but rather are skeptical of either specific or all religious beliefs and/or practices. Socrates was one of the most prominent and first religious skeptics of whom there are records; he questioned the legitimacy of the beliefs of his time in the existence of the Greek gods. Religious skepticism is not the same as atheism or agnosticism, and some religious skeptics are deists (or theists who reject the prevailing organized religion they encounter, or even all organized religion).
The word skeptic is derived from the Greek word skeptikos, meaning inquiring, which was used to refer to members of the Hellenistic philosophical school of Pyrrhonism which doubted the possibility of knowledge. [1] As such, religious skepticism generally refers to doubting or questioning something about religion. Although, as noted by Schellenberg the term is sometimes more generally applied to anyone that has a negative view of religion. [2]
The majority of skeptics are agnostics and atheists, but there are also a number of religious people that are skeptical of religion. [3] The religious are generally skeptical about claims of other religions, at least when the two denominations conflict concerning some stated belief. Some philosophers put forth the sheer diversity of religion as a justification for skepticism by theists and nontheists alike. [4] Theists are also generally skeptical of the claims put forth by atheists. [5]
Michael Shermer wrote that religious skepticism is a process for discovering the truth rather than general nonacceptance. [6] For this reason a religious skeptic might believe that Jesus existed while questioning claims that he was the messiah or performed miracles (see historicity of Jesus). Thomas Jefferson's The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth , a literal cut and paste of the New Testament that removes anything supernatural, is a prominent example.
Ancient Greece was a polytheistic society in which the gods were not omnipotent and required sacrifice and ritual. The earliest beginnings of religious skepticism can be traced back to Xenophanes. He critiqued popular religion of his time, particularly false conceptions of the divine that are a byproduct of the human propensity to anthropomorphize deities. He took the scripture of his time to task for painting the gods in a negative light and promoted a more rational view of religion. He was very critical of religious people privileging their belief system over others without sound reason. [7] [8]
Socrates' conception of the divine was that the gods were always benevolent, truthful, authoritative, and wise. Divinity was to operate within the standards of rationality. [9] This critique of established religion ultimately resulted in his trial for impiety and corruption as documented in The Apology. The historian Will Durant writes that Plato was "as skeptical of atheism as of any other dogma." [10] [8]
Democritus was the father of materialism in the West, and there is no trace of a belief in any afterlife in his work. Specifically, in Those in Hades he refers to constituents of the soul as atoms that dissolve upon death. [11] This later inspired the philosopher Epicurus and the philosophy he founded, who held a materialist view and rejected any afterlife, while further claiming the gods were also uninterested in human affairs. [12] In the poem De rerum natura Lucretius proclaimed Epicurean philosophy, that the universe operates according to physical principles and guided by fortuna, or chance, instead of the Roman gods. [13]
In De Natura Deorum , the Academic Skeptic philosopher Cicero presented arguments against the Stoics calling into question the character of the gods, whether or not they participate in earthly affairs, and questions their existence. [14]
In ancient India, there was a materialist philosophical school called the Cārvāka, who were known as being skeptical of the religious claims of Vedic religion, its rituals and texts. A forerunner to the Charvaka school, philosopher Ajita Kesakambali, did not believe in reincarnation. [15]
Thomas Hobbes took positions that strongly disagreed with orthodox Christian teachings. He argued repeatedly that there are no incorporeal substances, and that all things, even God, heaven, and hell are corporeal, matter in motion. He argued that "though Scripture acknowledge spirits, yet doth it nowhere say, that they are incorporeal, meaning thereby without dimensions and quantity". [16]
Voltaire, although himself a deist, was a forceful critic of religion and advocated for acceptance of all religions as well as separation of church and state. [17] In Japan, Yamagata Bantō (d. 1821) declared that "in this world there are no gods, Buddhas, or ghosts, nor are there strange or miraculous things". [15]
The term has morphed into one that typically emphasizes scientific and historical methods of evidence. There are some skeptics that question whether religion is a viable topic for criticism given that it doesn't require proof for belief. Others, however, insist it is as much as any other knowledge, especially when it makes claims that contradict those made by science. [18] [19]
There has been much work since the late 20th century by philosophers such as Schellenburg and Moser, and both have written numerous books pertaining to the topic. [20] [21] Much of their work has focused on defining what religion is and specifically what people are skeptical of about it. [22] [2] The work of others have argued for the viability of religious skepticism by appeal to higher-order evidence (evidence about our evidence and our capacities for evaluation), [23] what some call meta-evidence. [24]
There are still echoes of early Greek skepticism in the way some current thinkers question the intellectual viability of belief in the divine. [25] In modern times there is a certain amount of mistrust and lack of acceptance of religious skeptics, particularly towards those that are also atheists. [26] [27] [28] This is coupled with concerns many skeptics have about the government in countries, such as the US, where separation of church and state are central tenets. [29]
Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is either unknowable in principle or unknown in fact. It can also mean an apathy towards such religious belief and refer to personal limitations rather than a worldview. Another definition is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist."
Skepticism, also spelled scepticism in British English, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the person doubts that these claims are accurate. In such cases, skeptics normally recommend not disbelief but suspension of belief, i.e. maintaining a neutral attitude that neither affirms nor denies the claim. This attitude is often motivated by the impression that the available evidence is insufficient to support the claim. Formally, skepticism is a topic of interest in philosophy, particularly epistemology.
An argument from nonbelief is a philosophical argument for the nonexistence of God that asserts an inconsistency between God's existence and a world that fail to recognize said entity. It is similar to the classic argument from evil in affirming an inconsistency between the world that exists and the world that would exist if God had certain desires combined with the power to see them through.
Philosophical skepticism is a family of philosophical views that question the possibility of knowledge. It differs from other forms of skepticism in that it even rejects very plausible knowledge claims that belong to basic common sense. Philosophical skeptics are often classified into two general categories: Those who deny all possibility of knowledge, and those who advocate for the suspension of judgment due to the inadequacy of evidence. This distinction is modeled after the differences between the Academic skeptics and the Pyrrhonian skeptics in ancient Greek philosophy. Pyrrhonian skepticism is a practice of suspending judgement, and skepticism in this sense is understood as a way of life that helps the practitioner achieve inner peace. Some types of philosophical skepticism reject all forms of knowledge while others limit this rejection to certain fields, for example, knowledge about moral doctrines or about the external world. Some theorists criticize philosophical skepticism based on the claim that it is a self-refuting idea since its proponents seem to claim to know that there is no knowledge. Other objections focus on its implausibility and distance from regular life.
Scientific skepticism or rational skepticism, sometimes referred to as skeptical inquiry, is a position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking scientific evidence. In practice, the term most commonly refers to the examination of claims and theories that appear to be unscientific, rather than the routine discussions and challenges among scientists. Scientific skepticism differs from philosophical skepticism, which questions humans' ability to claim any knowledge about the nature of the world and how they perceive it, and the similar but distinct methodological skepticism, which is a systematic process of being skeptical about the truth of one's beliefs.
Nontheism or non-theism is a range of both religious and non-religious attitudes characterized by the absence of espoused belief in the existence of God or gods. Nontheism has generally been used to describe apathy or silence towards the subject of gods and differs from atheism, or active disbelief in any gods. It has been used as an umbrella term for summarizing various distinct and even mutually exclusive positions, such as agnosticism, ignosticism, ietsism, skepticism, pantheism, pandeism, transtheism, atheism, and apatheism. It is in use in the fields of Christian apologetics and general liberal theology.
The existence of God is a subject of debate in the philosophy of religion and theology. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God can be categorized as logical, empirical, metaphysical, subjective or scientific. In philosophical terms, the question of the existence of God involves the disciplines of epistemology and ontology and the theory of value.
Apatheism is the attitude of apathy toward the existence or non-existence of God(s). It is more of an attitude rather than a belief, claim, or belief system. The term was coined by Canadian sociologist Stuart Johnson.
Antony Garrard Newton Flew was an English philosopher. Belonging to the analytic and evidentialist schools of thought, Flew worked on the philosophy of religion. During the course of his career he taught philosophy at the universities of Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele, and Reading in the United Kingdom, and at York University in Toronto, Canada.
Atheism is the rejection of an assertion that a deity exists. In a narrower sense, positive atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities, effectively taking the stance of a positive claim in regards to the existence of any goddess or god. The English term 'atheist' was used at least as early as the sixteenth century and atheistic ideas and their influence have a longer history.
Criticism of atheism is criticism of the concepts, validity, or impact of atheism, including associated political and social implications. Criticisms include positions based on the history of science, philosophical and logical criticisms, findings in both the natural and social sciences, theistic apologetic arguments, arguments pertaining to ethics and morality, the effects of atheism on the individual, or the assumptions that underpin atheism.
Hindu atheism or non-theism, which is known as Nirīśvaravāda has been a historically propounded viewpoint in many of the Astika (Orthodox) streams of Hindu philosophy. Hindu spiritual atheists, agnostics or non-theists who affirm the sanctity of the Vedas and the concept of Brahman, as well as those who follow astika (orthodox) philosophies but reject personal god(s), are also called Dharmic atheists, Vedic atheists or Sanatani atheists.
Jewish skeptics are Jews who have held skeptical views on matters of the Jewish religion. In general, these skeptical views regard some or all of the "principles of faith," whatever these may be, but historically Jewish skepticism is directed either at (1) the existence of the God of Judaism or (2) the authenticity and veracity of the Torah.
Popularized by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, the spectrum of theistic probability is a way of categorizing one's belief regarding the probability of the existence of a deity.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to atheism:
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which is the belief that at least one deity exists.
Agnostic atheism — or atheistic agnosticism — is a philosophical position that encompasses both atheism and agnosticism. Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity, and they are agnostic because they claim that the existence of a divine entity or entities is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact.
Kylie Sturgess is a past President of the Atheist Foundation of Australia, an award-winning blogger, author and independent podcast host of The Token Skeptic Podcast. A Philosophy and Religious Education teacher with over ten years experience in education, Sturgess has lectured on teaching critical thinking, feminism, new media and anomalistic beliefs worldwide. She is a Member of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) Education Advisory Panel and regularly writes editorial for numerous publications, and has spoken at The Amazing Meeting Las Vegas, Dragon*Con (US), QED Con (UK). She was a presenter and Master of Ceremonies for the 2010 Global Atheist Convention and returned to the role in 2012. Her most recent book The Scope of Skepticism was released in 2012. She is a presenter at Perth's community radio station RTRFM, and a winner at the 2018 CBAA Community Radio Awards in the category of Talks, with the show Talk the Talk In 2020 she was in the final eight in the Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) Asia-Pacific virtual showcase.
Skeptical theism is the view that people should remain skeptical of their ability to discern whether their perceptions about evil can be considered good evidence against the existence of the orthodox Christian God. The central thesis of skeptical theism is that it would not be surprising for an infinitely intelligent and knowledgeable being's reasons for permitting evils to be beyond human comprehension. That is, what may seem like pointless evils may be necessary for a greater good or to prevent equal or even greater evils. This central thesis may be argued from a theistic perspective, but is also argued to defend positions of agnosticism.
John L. Schellenberg is a Canadian philosopher who is best known for his work in philosophy of religion. He has earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy from the University of Oxford, and is Professor of Philosophy at Mount Saint Vincent University and adjunct professor in the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Dalhousie University, both in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
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