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Positive atheism, also called strong atheism and hard atheism, is the form of atheism that asserts that no deities exist; negative atheism, also called weak atheism and soft atheism, is any other type of atheism, i.e. where a person does not believe in the existence of any deities and does not explicitly assert that there are none. The terms "negative atheism" and "positive atheism" were used by Antony Flew in 1976〔 and have appeared in Michael Martin's writings since 1990.〔 "negative atheism, the position of not believing a theistic God exists" / "positive atheism: the position of disbelieving a theistic God exists"; p. 464: "Clearly, positive atheism is a special case of negative atheism: Someone who is a positive atheist is by necessity a negative atheist, but not conversely".〕 ==Scope of application== Because of flexibility in the term ''god'', it is possible that a person could be a positive/strong atheist in terms of certain conceptions of God, while remaining a negative/weak atheist in terms of others. For example, the God of classical theism is often considered to be a personal supreme being who is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent, caring about humans and human affairs. One might be a positive atheist for such a deity (see problem of evil), while being a negative atheist with respect to a deistic conception of God by rejecting belief in such a deity but not explicitly asserting it to be false. Positive and negative atheism are distinct from the philosopher George H. Smith's less-well-known categories of implicit and explicit atheism, also relating to whether an individual holds a specific view that gods do not exist. "''Positive explicit''" atheists assert that it is false that any deities exist. "''Negative explicit''" atheists assert they do not believe any deities exist, but do not assert it is ''true'' that no deity exists. Those who do not believe any deities exist, but do not assert such non-belief, are included among ''implicit atheists''. Among "implicit" atheists are thus sometimes included the following: children and adults who have never heard of deities; people who have heard of deities but have never given the idea any considerable thought; and those agnostics who suspend belief about deities, but do not reject such belief. All ''implicit'' atheists are included in the ''negative/weak'' categorization. Under this positive/negative classification, some agnostics would qualify as negative atheists. The validity of this categorization is disputed, however, and a few prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins avoid it. In ''The God Delusion'', Dawkins describes people for whom the probability of the existence of God is between "very high" and "very low" as "agnostic" and reserves the term "strong atheist" for those who claim to know there is no God. He categorizes himself as a "de facto atheist" but ''not'' a "strong atheist" on this scale.〔The God Delusion, pp. 50–51 〕 Within negative atheism, philosopher Anthony Kenny further distinguishes between agnostics, who find the claim "God exists" uncertain, and theological noncognitivists, who consider all talk of gods to be meaningless. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Negative and positive atheism」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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