• possibly a cat@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Positive/strong atheism is the subvariant of atheism that actively asserts there is no deity. Many atheists are negative atheists and are better defined by their lack of focus on religion - whether for, against, or otherwise - in their daily lives.

    In my experience negative atheism is popular where the culture is not predominantly religious, whereas positive atheism is more common in fundamentally religious societies (although it is not necessarily publicly expressed) where secular thought is in the minority.

      • bigschnitz@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You can be atheist agnostic - you don’t actively participate in religion or worship but believe it is fundamentally unknowable if there is or is not a god, you can also be theistic agnostic (though this is rare in the modern lexicon) which would be where you do participate in religion (or religious practices) but still believe it to be unanswerable. To be gnostic is to believe it is knowable (and perhaps that one does know), it too can be either theist or atheist in nature.