Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Are Infants Atheists?

Today, many non-believers define atheism as lacking a belief in a god. The problem with this definition is that on this view babies and animals and even rocks or furniture would qualify as atheists! While most would tell you that calling a rock an atheist is a bit of a stretch, many of them would tell you that atheism is the default position, and would contend that infants do meet the standard as being atheists.

In light of this, a 2008 article from an Australian newspaper known as The Age is quite interesting. The article notes the work of Dr. Olivera Petrovich from Oxford University. In Dr. Petrovich's study, there was evidence that the belief in God exist within us from the start. The link below takes you to the full article:

Infants 'have natural belief in God'

As Dr. Petrovich concludes, "atheism is definitely an acquired position".

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