Antitheism – Wikipedia

Opposition to theism, and usually to religion

Antitheism, or anti-theism, is the philosophical position that theism should be opposed.[1][2] The term has had a range of applications. In secular contexts, it typically refers to direct opposition to the belief in any deity.

The word antitheism (or hyphenated anti-theism) has been recorded in English since 1788.[3] The etymological roots of the word are the Greek anti and theos.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines antitheist as "One opposed to belief in the existence of a god". The earliest citation given for this meaning dates from 1833.[4][2] The term was likely coined by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon[5]

Antitheism has been adopted as a label by those who regard theism as dangerous, destructive, or encouraging of harmful behavior. Christopher Hitchens (2001)[6] wrote:

Other definitions of antitheism include that of the French Catholic philosopher J. Maritain (1953), for whom it is "an active struggle against everything that reminds us of God".[7]

The definition of Robert Flint (1877), Professor of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh was similar. Flint's 1877 Baird Lecture was titled Anti-Theistic Theories.[8] He used "antitheism" as a very general umbrella term for all opposition to his own form of theism, which he defined as

Flint wrote[8]

However, Flint also acknowledged that antitheism is typically understood differently from how he defines it. In particular, he notes that it has been used as a subdivision of atheism, descriptive of the view that theism has been disproven, rather than as the more general term that Flint preferred. He rejected the alternative non-theistic

Opposition to the existence of a god or gods is frequently referred to as nontheism, or dystheism, or misotheism.

Examples of belief systems founded on the principle of opposition to the existence of a god or gods include some forms of Atheistic Satanism and maltheism.

Christopher New (1993)[9] proposed an altered definition of the word antitheism as part of a thought experiment: He imagines what arguments for the existence of an evil god would look like, and writes

New's changed definition has reappeared in the work of W.A. Murphree.[11]

See more here:
Antitheism - Wikipedia