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The last sentence in the first opening paragraph reads: "Atheism is contrasted with theism,[5][6] which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists."

The sentence structure seems to convey the idea that theism itself asserts the existence of one deity while allowing for the possibility of more.

I recommend it be changed to "Atheism is contrasted with theism,[5][6] which (in its most general form) entails belief in the existence of one or more deities." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Synaptic Elucidation (talk • contribs) 08:15, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why "entails" rather than "is"? How about "belief that a deity or deities exist", to not unduly emphasize an irrelevant matter of quantity? ~ Robin Lionheart (talk) 18:28, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is some information on the page about the people who write the books and about the social impact but what about the people who transmit these ideas. What about the acts and entertainers who stick their necks out to transmit these ideas to the public. They risk more than just being unpopular and I think they deserve some recognition for making a stand. I am preparing a page about pop group Foxy Freedom when I can find all the information. Have you heard of Penn and Teller the magicians? What about Derren Brown the magician and hypnotist? There is a filmed interview with Dawkins. Brown also did a tv show exposing psychics and another one when he visited the US to expose the tricks that faith healers use to fool people. He showed how to fool a crowd into thinking that a blind person had been cured. I know people who became atheists after seeing that on TV. So I feel that people who are risking so much should be recognised. Nevertheless, keep up the good work.Spread knowledge not ignorance (talk) 06:20, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is this: List of atheists. SkyMachine ⁽⁺⁺⁾ 07:36, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This article is not meant to be a propaganda tool for atheism. Notable atheist thinkers, and the reception of them, should of course be mentioned, but your personal experiences about entertainers and magicians are not sufficient rationale for them to be included in the article. There are among other things issues of notability, undue weight and prevalence of reliable secondary sources to be taken into consideration. --Saddhiyama (talk) 14:07, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The phrase "de Botton returns to the idea in his seminal work Religion for Atheists (2012)" seems to make a judgment on the importance of a work that was just published. How can it be a seminal work when it was just published?

38.98.192.82 (talk) 19:46, 9 February 2012 (UTC)helpy helperton Feb. 9, 2012[reply]

Agreed. I cut the offending adjective. eldamorie (talk) 14:22, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Atheism 3.0 is surely just a branding exercise. There is little evidence/support that is a 'movement'. And the 3.0 label implies it is better than previous versions. The idea that religion can be used for positive social ends is hardly new, it is at least as old as Plato.

By all means if there is a current debate amongst atheists about using the positive elements of organised religion then it should be mentioned. Calling it Atheism 3.0 though a) gives it more credence than its support would indicate b) implies an ordinal improvement other forms of atheism and c) is in effect brand advertising on its behalf. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.17.224.17 (talk) 19:04, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be based on two dead links. One of the quoted texts doesn't seem to mention Atheism 3.0 and the other seems a relatively minor mention. Perhaps it is undue weight? I can't check them fully as they are dead links IRWolfie- (talk) 20:41, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

IIRC, the article was deleted because (as far as we had sourcing) the term was coined by one not-really-notable guy and not really covered elsewhere. I did a quick search on google scholar and only came up with these two: [1], [2]. Both are essentially Christian evangelism. I think we should absolutely cover the term if we have sources for it, but I don't really see any. I'll boldly remove the content until we can dredge up proper sources. Thanks.   — Jess· Δ♥ 20:49, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

According this study, Evans, "Epistemological and Moral Conflict Between Religion and Science", Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 50, Issue 4, pages 707–727, December 2011[3], "After controlling for important variables such as education level, income, age, ethnicity, and gender, Evans found that there was no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that religious believers rejected science across the board. In fact, he found that evangelic Protestants had actually taken more college-level science classes than the average non-religious respondent, and that mainline Protestants were more scientifically literate than ordinary Americans! Even conservative fundamentalist Protestants were no less likely to understand important scientific concepts and methods than non-religious Americans with comparable education levels."[4].
I don't know if this is the right WP article for this study but as I read in the article in the Demographic section that "An international study has reported positive correlations between levels of education and not believing in a deity" I could suppose that Evans study could find place in the same section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.40.169.142 (talk) 07:45, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Offhand, I would think that Relationship between religion and science might be the best place for that information. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:08, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Offhand, the author is clearly attacking a straw man. Also, I'd hate to see his definition of "science". Yet more evidence that our education system is failing miserably. :( Kevin Baas^talk 14:03, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]