atheist

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   related to or characterized by or given to atheism

   Atheist leanings.

2. 2
   noun

   A person who does not believe in deities or gods.

   Atheists. One who does not believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, an atheist, is incompetent as a witness, being incapable of being sworn. […] Changed by Acts of 1851, No. 12 (P. S. 1593), under which, no question can be raised as to a witness's "opinions on matters of religious belief.".

3. 3
   noun

   A person who does not believe in a particular deity (but may believe in another deity).

   Malice and prejudice concurred in representing the Christians as a society of atheists, who, by the most daring attack on the religious constitution of the empire, had merited the severest animadversion of the civil magistrate.

4. 4
   noun

   A person who does not believe in any religion (not even a religion without gods); a nonreligious person.

   This is one of the strongest Grounds of Suspicion to me, and assures me that he has very little Regard to Religion in general; that he can pretend to marry you, and know nothing whether you are a Heathen or Christian; an Atheist or religious Person, a Papist or a Protestant; the Man can have no great Value for Religion, that is so little concerned whether his Wife has any, or no; for I take the Thing to weigh as much on one Side as on the other, where there is any serious Confideration at Bottom.

From Middle French athéiste (athée + -iste), from Latin atheos, from Ancient Greek ἄθεος (átheos, “godless, without god”), from ἀ- (a-, “without”) + θεός (theós, “god”).

Topics

External links

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