Three misconceptions about atheism and atheists

Here is a short list of misconceptions about atheism, which entail causes myths about atheists:

1. "Atheism is identical to naturalism". This claim is not true. Atheism is the lack of belief in God, not the lack of belief in all supernatural entities (Whatever those are). Take ghosts for example. A ghost is almost always defined as being supernatural. As a result many super-naturalists (And maybe non super-naturalists) falsely believe that atheists cannot believe in supernatural beings such as ghosts. So the myth about atheism causes a myth about atheists, that being that no consistent atheist can believe in supernatural beings.

2. "Atheism is identical to materialism". This is similar to (1.), and it also false. While all materialists are atheists (I mean materialists about everything in existence, not simply particulars such as human persons), it is not true that all atheists are materialists. An atheist can consistently believe in the existence of non material things just in case their existence is not dependent on God(s). For example an atheist can believe that abstract objects exist, and some would argue that if abstract objects exist, then only atheism can be true (i.e. Abstract objects are generally defined as necessarily existent and outside causal relations, as a result of their necessity and a-causality some people argue that they are defined out of being created by God, or affected by God, thus God could not be the creator of all things, thus God does not exist).

3. "Atheism entails scientism". This is false. While atheism might be highly correlated with scientism, it isn't true that atheism by definition entails scientism, An atheist can consistently believe that it is possible to not only discover truth sans the sciences, but that non scientific investigation is actually better at discovering truth than it's counterpart. The reason is simple: Atheism only entails that God does not exist, not that fairies are not planting knowledge within us that science cannot investigate.

Considering the above three is important for at least a few reasons. One reason is that the "Theism vs atheism" debate often uses arguments refuting naturalism, materialism, or scientism in an attempt to refute atheism. But atheism is a different view. Atheism is entailed by both naturalism and materialism, but it entails neither of the former. So any argument refuting atheism would refute both naturalism and materialism, but the opposite would not. This is not to say that discussing problems with the three former views is not relevant to the theism vs atheism debate (For example lets grant that I am an atheist because I am a materialist. If a theist found good reasons to reject my materialism, I would have less reasons to reject theism, or I would need entirely different reasons depending on the circumstances).

A second reasons for considering these misconceptions is that some people might assume propositions such as the following:

1. "Materialism (or naturalism) excludes objective morality. Atheism either entails or is identical to materialism. So atheists reject objective morality, or should to be consistent". An atheist can believe the first statement listed, but still consistently believe that objective morality exists (Or at least there are no obviously sound/strong cogent arguments that I know of which suggest otherwise). For example philosopher Richard Swinburne seems to believe that moral truths are necessary and independent, and as a result they are not contingent on God. If what Swinburne thinks is true, then atheism does not exclude morality since morality is not dependent on God. This issue is definitely an important one. Hardly any atheist would wish to be told they believe that child rape is morally okay, or that they are some sort of amoral monster, or that given their worldview there is no reason to be anything except an amoral monster.

Now here is a few truths many atheists want others to know:

1. Some atheists are stupid, and don't believe theism for stupid reasons.

2. Not all atheists hate religion. Many believe that religion should stay, and some simply don't believe in religious tales without any hate.

3. Atheists do not necessarily believe they think they know everything. One of the reasons many people they should be atheists is because we do not know everything. i.e. They do not believe because they would rather scientific inquiries to provide answers prior to using God to fill a gap in knowledge.

4. Darwin is not the God of atheism. Darwin's work might be one of the reasons that some people are atheists, but atheists don't worship the man (Or at least I've seen none who would).