In a conversation with my very good friend Helen, we came to talking about atheism (which I cannot stop spelling incorrectly as athiesm). Helen and I, with her being strongly rooted in her Christianity, often come to the topic of religion and God and athiesm. After entertaining ourselves with some website's claim that very few prison inmates are non-religious, she asked me what my definition of athiesm would be.
After a bit of googling I (re)found www.positiveatheism.org and came across this transcript of a public radio address by Joseph Lewis. Very well spoken, very good read. If you read it, make sure you understand what you're reading. Don't gloss over any point he makes. That won't do you any good. For instance, Lewis says the following:
If Atheism is sometimes called a "negative" philosophy, it is because the conditions of life make a negative philosophy best suited to meet the exigencies of existence, and only in that sense can it be called "negative."
I sorta got what he was saying but I had to mull over this for a while to really get it. After getting it though, it helped my understanding very much.
In this address, Lewis puts it well, closely matching what I believe atheism to be defined as:
It [Athiesm] has dedicated itself to a passionate quest for the truth. It believes that truth for truth's sake is the highest ideal, and that virtue is its own reward.
So the point is its primarily about understanding who we are, where we are, what we're doing, and what's going on around us. It's about learning the truth, and upholding the truth. Simply thus.
Very good read.
