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People And Nature ☭ Written by Simon Pirani.

11-September-2026

Experiments with free public transport, introduced in some of the world’s biggest cities to tackle the fuel price crisis, are proving successful.

In Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam and Tehran, Iran – which both have around 10 million people, more than London – people are shifting, in numbers, from private vehicles to buses and the metro.

A bus picks up passengers in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Thuan Van / Tuoi Tre

In Australia, pilot zero-fares schemes have been extended, due to their popularity. In India, eight states now provide free public transport for tens of millions of women. Jakarta, Indonesia, the world’s most populous city, has introduced a partial but generous free transport scheme.

“There are many smaller cities around the world where public transport has been free for years, but now it is being tried out in megacities”, Coral Jones, chair of Doctors in Unite and organising group member of Fare Free London, said.

All cities are different, but this shows that it can be done. Given the endless increases in fuel prices, and the climate crisis, our call on the Mayor of London to consider the potential seems very reasonable.

Fare Free London has a public event on “How to Make Public Transport Free”, on Tuesday 29 September in London. Details, and free registration, here.

The US-Israel war on Iran that started in February, and the resulting fuel price increases, were the trigger for the largest zero-fares schemes.

Ho Chi Minh city (population 10.5 million) introduced free bus travel on 1 July. In July, there were 8.5 million bus trips, 39% more than in the same month of 2025.

Le Hoan of the city’s Public Transport Management Centre said that passenger numbers rose steadily through the month, and that the fare-free policy “also generated positive spillover effects for the metro”, where fares are still charged, but passenger numbers rose by 15% anyway.

Transport operators said that “challenges remain” – too few bus shelters, pavements blocked by illegal parking and street vendors, overcrowding in the rush hour and older passengers struggling with the digital management system. In response, the city authorities are accelerating the use of technology and looking at introducing bus lanes.

Duong Duc Minh, deputy director of the city’s Institute for Economic and Tourism Development research, said that expanding services, and making them fare-free, would help ease traffic congestion, reduce emissions and “provide practical support for low-income residents by lowering living costs and improving access to employment opportunities”.

Ho Chi Minh city, in contrast to London and other cities in the global north, is battling to encourage people not out of cars, but off motorbikes. For every 1000 residents, there are about 100 cars and 800 motorbikes, the city’s Institute for Development Studies estimates.

Nhan Dan newspaper quoted a resident who said:

People will not easily give up their motorbikes simply because bus travel is free. They will only switch when buses offer roughly the same journey time and similar convenience.

Bringing the metro into the scheme would help, and the transport authority abolished fares there too – for one day only – on 2 September, National Day.

Hanoi (population 8.8 million), Vietnam’s second city, has also made bus travel free, for one year from 1 July, inside the ring road around the city centre.

In mid-March, when the US-Israeli bombing began, Iran’s capital, Tehran (population 9.9 million), made public transport – including both the metro and buses – free, as part of a package of emergency wartime measures. In July the city authorities announced the scheme would continue “until the end of the current conflict”.

Murad Qureshi, a former Labour member of the London Assembly, said free transit is seen as a tool for civilian defence. He reported: “Officials are exploring land value capture (taxing the increased value of property near transit hubs) and direct military-emergency funding to bridge the budget gap left by the removal of ticket revenue.”

Fuel prices are a sharply contested political issue in Iran. Petrol price rises were one of the causes of anti-government protests in November 2019, which led to a violent state crackdown. This month a fuel shortage and long queues at petrol stations have been reported.

The world’s largest city by population, Jakarta (population 41.9 million) in Indonesia, in May last year made public transport free for 15 groups of residents, including over-60s; civil servants, education and provincial government workers; workers earning the minimum wage and residents of low-cost flats; war veterans and people with disabilities; and students.

Fares were abolished for everybody else, too, for one day on 24 April (National Transportation Day) and for three days in June (for the city’s 499th birthday).

Not all the zero-fare schemes are so successful. In April, the government of Punjab province (population 127.7 million) in Pakistan made all public transport services free – but this did not apply to the privately-run minibuses, taxis and rickshaws that provide most transport services.

The zero-fares scheme was used by about 800,000 passengers per day, and ended in mid June. The provincial government also subsidised farmers and registered motorbike owners in response to the fuel price shock.

Schemes in Australia – with a smaller, and on average richer, population – fared better. Victoria state (population 7.1 million) abolished public transport fares in April, extended the scheme to the end of May, and then set fares at half-price until the end of the year.

In Tasmania (population 580,000), the introduction of zero-fares in April boosted metro ridership by 37% and bus use by 46%. In May the government announced that fares would remain at zero until July 2027.

In India, eight states with a joint population of more than 400 million provide free public transport to women and transgender people. (The states are: Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and 36West Bengal.)

When Tamil Nadu last month extended its scheme to deluxe and express services, the state chief minister C. Joseph Vijay said the scheme “ill enable students to travel to colleges located far from their homes, help women commute to workplaces and allow them to access medical care”.

The scheme in Karnataka has been running since June 2023. More than 3.1 billion free rides have been taken by the state’s women.

A report published last year by the Sustainable Mobility Network showed that women in zero-fares cities saved between one third and one half of their transportation expenses – money “redirected towards strategic household investments, such as children’s education, emergency funds and health care”. The schemes also faces problems including overcrowding, compromised safety and negative staff attitudes.

Republished from Labour Hub, with thanks

🚌Fare Free London, Fare Free Greater Manchester and Fare Free Yorkshire are working to establish a national campaign for free public transport, provided as a public good by publicly-owned companies.

🚌 Fare Free London’s event, “How to Make Public Transport Free”, is on 29 September at 7.00pm, at the Golden Lane Community Centre, Fann Street, London EC1Y 0SA, and on zoom. Agenda: Q&A with Julie Frêche, vice-president for transport, Montpellier metropolitan area, France – which made public transport free in 2023 / Panel discussion with trade union and community groups / Fare Free London annual meeting. Register to attend (free) here on eventbrite.

☭ People & Nature is now on mastodon, as well as twitter, whatsapp and telegram. Please follow! Or email peoplenature@protonmail.com, and we’ll add you to our circulation list (2-4 messages per month)

Megacities Make Progress With Free Public Transport Schemes

Dr John Coulter ✍ There was a flurry of political activity on the European front with allegations from British PM Andy Burnham of alleged Russian interference in the Brexit referendum a decade ago.

Of course, Putin’s spin doctors - if they have any sense - will never publicly admit to any jiggery pokery in that 2026 vote when Tory David Cameron was Prime Minister.

The outcome was very tight. The Leave camp won by only four per cent with the UK deeply divided - 52% Leave, to 48% Remain, with most of England and Wales voting Leave while Northern Ireland and Scotland voted Remain.

And we all know what the fallout from the specific Northern Ireland result meant! The Protocol, Windsor Framework, Irish Sea Border and chaos at Stormont!

In short, no one got the result they wanted. The Cameron camp who wanted Remain was hoping for a slender victory so that it could wring more concessions from Europe.

The Leave camp, spearheaded by Nigel Farage and a fairly large slice of Northern Ireland Unionists, really did not expect to win and had no Plan A as to how to successfully implement Brexit when the final result was announced.

While Cameron’s Remain camp anticipated a narrow victory result, the Leave campaign was probably expecting a narrow defeat so that the euro-skeptic lobby within the UK could heap pressure on Cameron to clinch those much-desired concessions from the EU.

And as for Moscow; what was its preferred outcome? Simply a substantial victory for the Leave camp which could see the first steps taken in the long-term break-up of the EU.

The Russians regarded the UK as one of the major players financially, politically, and especially militarily in the EU. If the UK had voted convincingly to Leave, it would give a massive boost to the Euro-skeptic movements across other EU member states.

What Moscow really wanted to see in the 2016 referendum was a result more akin to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement referendum in Northern Ireland which saw 71% in favour of the Belfast Agreement, with only 29% against. How the corridors of the Kremlin in Moscow would have been filled with clapping and laughter if the Leave percentage had been 71%.

A bigger Leave majority in 2016 would have allowed Moscow to sneakily but subtly campaign for a greater political distance between the UK and the EU. Russia could even start pushing for similar referendums in key EU states, such as Germany, France, Spain and Southern Ireland.

An EU clearly without the UK would have made Russia’s aggressive expansionist plans on Europe must easier to implement militarily. Let’s face reality - the war in Ukraine is merely a stepping stone to build another Russian empire in Europe.

Communism may have collapsed in terms of the old Soviet Union, but modern-day Russia would welcome the rebuilding of a territorial empire which dictator Josef Stalin enjoyed in the years after the ending of World War Two.

Earlier this month, we witnessed the formal ratification of the Kensington Treaty between the UK and Germany, which contained commitments to develop a number of so-called ‘Lighthouse Projects’, including a defence missile system for Europe.

Just as the UK’s wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill had warned of an Iron Curtain descending over Europe in the form of Russian communism, so too, the Kensington Treaty will go a long way to building an Iron Wall against modern-day imperialist Russia.

It is somewhat ironic that the Kensington Treaty, signed in Berlin, has achieved what Nazi tyrant Adolf Hitler could only dream about - an Anglo-German pact against Russia.

It has been suggested Hitler wanted to form an alliance with Churchill against Stalin, but given the atrocities which the Nazis had already committed by the time the Second World War erupted, there was no way the UK was going to ‘climb into bed’ militarily with Hitler’s SS thugs.

Besides the Holocaust, at that time, who in their right mind militarily would invade Russia? The French Emperor Napoleon in the 19th century and the German Kaiser during the Great War both learned to their cost that all the Russians had to do to combat invasion was to move east geographically as fast as possible and let the horrific Russian winters deal with the invaders.

But in this third millennium, we now live in an era of different warfare tactics and especially the use of missiles and drones. This month’s Kensington Treaty will build on an earlier defence and security partnership between the UK and Germany known as the 2024 Trinity House Agreement.

One of the main projects that Agreement had on the table was a military partnership for a joint fighter jet. One problem which the West has always encountered in trying to combat Russian arms is the variety and compatibility of equipment of the various Western and NATO resources.

During the era of the old Soviet Union, the Russians and their satellite states all used the same resources militarily, especially in aircraft, whilst the West had a variety of planes.

Under the Trinity House Agreement, Western powers could agree on the use of a common fighter jet which could be used across various nations. The new Kensington Treaty will accelerate bilateral agreements on the economy, transport and migration, given the various challenges which both the UK and Germany are now facing.

Both face the threat from Islamic radicals, Iran, problems in the Middle East, and relations with the Trump administration in Washington.

Immigration is also a major problem for both the UK and Germany - the former with the small boat crossings; the latter with an open border policy.

Likewise, PM Burnham has made no secret of his aspiration not just for closer working relations between the UK and EU in a post Brexit era, but also moving to the possibility of a further referendum on the UK rejoining the EU - a move which would certainly strengthen the EU’s capability to combat Russia.

In the meantime, it will not go unnoticed in the Kremlin the growth in Hard Right, populist and Euro-skeptic movements in the current EU membership states. Around half of the present EU members states have a significant Far Right movement.

Germany has recently witnessed the steady electoral growth of the Far Right AfD party, and with the Spanish elections due at the end of next month, the Hard Right could potentially put in a show not witnessed since the days of the fascist dictator Franco. The Hard Right National Rally party is also expected to make gains in France.

There is no doubting that the current Triple Alliance bloc of Germany, Spain and France would be greatly enhanced if it could get the UK back in the EU.

But what would be the economic and financial price tag for rejoining? Would the UK want to rejoin an EU dominated by the Hard Right? And what would be the fate of the Irish Sea Border if the UK voted to rejoin?
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Dr Coulter has been a journalist since 1978 and is currently a political commentator with GB News.

Does Moscow Really Want The UK Back In The EU?

Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.


Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand One Hundred And Twenty Seven

 

A Morning Thought @ 3298

Anthony McIntyre ☠  It has just turned 10 o'clock on a cool crisp Saturday morning. 

The sky is blue and the sun is shining. The only type of climate change I am at ease with and which makes October my favourite month of the year. It works like the Goldilocks porridge - not too hot, not too cold, just about right. 

As I look towards the clear blue sky above and beyond the trees in my front garden, the sunshine leads my mind to drift to what is perhaps the brightest ray of sunshine I have experienced this week. It is called Sally Rooney, probably known to some here as the author of best sellers such as Normal People, Conversations with Friends and Intermezzo. She has sold over 2 million copies.

Sally Rooney learned this week that her books can no longer be sold in the UK.

The UK at one time looked down its nose at the Irish because of this country's church-driven medieval attitude to literature which it had exported into the world of cinema with its ridiculous board of film censors. In effect, bishops could decide what was suitable reading for the Irish pubic to consume. Much was prohibited although the monstrous men of god probably kept a stash of child porn for themselves. That somehow managed to escape the bishopric ban.

Sally Rooney's books have never been banned in Ireland, and in a reversal of roles the UK has drawn on medieval methods of dealing with literature unapproved by whatever power bloc holds sway. While not officially banned her books are effectively banned and can no longer be sold in the UK. Sally Rooney explained:

In July 2025, the direct-action protest group Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the UK. The following month, I wrote an opinion piece expressing my intention to go on supporting Palestine Action, which is not a proscribed or otherwise prohibited group here in the Republic of Ireland. As a result, the fulfilment of contracts to publish my work in the UK could now constitute a serious criminal offence. After a process of consultation and deliberation, and with my full agreement, my publisher Faber has therefore determined that it can no longer supply my work within the UK. I have made every effort to be honest with the public about my beliefs and intentions, and I am wholly prepared to accept the consequences.

Her publisher Faber has said:

Current legislation in the UK has led to circumstances where Faber cannot pass on UK earnings to Sally Rooney for her work. To sell a writer's work and not be able to pass on earnings is an unconscionable situation for a publisher. As such, and in full agreement with Sally, we have taken the decision that we can no longer supply her works in the UK in any format.

The publisher is not to blame for this. The UK government is. It is book banning by stealth, carried out with breath-taking hypocrisy as alluded to in the Irish Times:

Rooney has highlighted that no one was arrested when an Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) mural was recently restored in Belfast, even though the UVF is a proscribed terrorist organisation responsible for the murders of hundreds of civilians. “Palestine Action, proscribed under the same law, is responsible for zero deaths and has never advocated the use of violence against any human being. Why then are its supporters arrested for wearing T-shirts, while murals celebrating loyalist death squads are left untouched?”

Having been present for Sally Rooney's impassioned plea for a cultural boycott of Israel at a very disappointing Irish Writers Union conference earlier this year - a plea shamefully rejected by the union - I watched and listened to a tour de force of the literary world, uncompromising in her opposition to genocide:

Of the British government she has said that it is:

beyond any doubt that the United Kingdom has not failed to act. On the contrary  the British government has taken decisive action . . . to facilitate the genocide in Gaza.

Also this week, a further chink of light broke through the darkness when the writer Phillipe Sands criticised the German government's 'inappropriate silence' during his German book trade's peace prize acceptance speech at the prestigious Frankfurt Book Fair. The jury that made the award referred to the author's: 

commitment to the universal rights of every human being, evidenced in his advocacy for victims of war crimes, racism, torture and colonial injustice.

Sands said that human rights violations must be spoken out against: "It's not antisemitic. It's not anti-Israel. It's the truth."

Sands is internationally renowned for his 2016 work East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. In a very pointed reference to Israel's Nazi-like behaviour in Occupied Palestine he commented:

Germany knows all about ethnic cleansing,. . . So why the silence? Silence is not the way. Not for a family. Not for a community. Not for a country.

This week has shown that the voices of writers like Sally Rooney and Phillipe Sands will neither be silenced nor bought by lucrative contracts. They continue to speak out against the Israeli genocide and the governments who are either silent about it or complicit in it. The pen is mightier than the book ban. 
 
⏩Follow on Bluesky.

Writers Against Genocide

Peter Tatchell ★I’ve been a Green Party member for 22 years. 

I have supported Palestinian rights for 54 years. The Green Party conference narrowly passed the motion, "Zionism is racism".
 
This may result in a significant fall in public support for the Green Party; particularly given the way it is being spun by much of the media & Labour. It is not anti-Jewish but can be perceived as such because of careless wording e.g. no condemnation of antisemitism. This could undo the recent huge successes of the Greens. I doubt most Green Party members support all elements of the motion.
 
It was passed as a result of an organised campaign by key people who had no significant history of support for the Greens. Some openly declared they do not care if the motion results in the Greens losing votes & seats. It might cost Zack Polanski the Holborn & St Pancras by-election if the vote is tight.
 
I am disappointed that Zack failed to speak out more clearly & publicly against the troubling aspects of the motion.
 
I agree with the motion in almost all respects but it is problematic in Three ways.

Continue @ Peter Tatchell.

A Green Problematic

Atheist Ireland ★ It took up to seven centuries for the word atheism develop from meaning a godless insult to being a protected belief. Here is how it happened.

8-September-2026

  1. Overview from ancient Greece on
  2. Early modern Europe
  3. The Enlightenment and Victorian eras
  4. Late twentieth century philosophers
  5. International human rights law
  6. New Atheism meets the Internet
  7. EU Charter of Rights and Lisbon Treaty
  8. What do common or garden atheists believe?
  9. What do dictionaries say?
  10. Summary and conclusion


1. Overview from ancient Greece on

‘Atheism’ is a polysemous word, which means it has more than one meaning depending on context. Today, the three main usages are broadly (a) positively believing there are no gods, (b) passively not believing there are any gods, and (c) in human rights law, a philosophical belief or conviction protected under the right to freedom of religion or belief.

The history of the words ‘atheist’ and ‘atheism’ is fascinating, and it shows how these and previous different meanings have evolved. As with many words, meanings can change over time. And dictionary definitions record actual usage of words, rather than assigning meanings to words.

The ancestor of our current word ‘atheism’ was the ancient Greek ‘atheos’. This combined the prefix a- (without) and the word theos (god), so it meant godless. It did not mean ‘without a belief in god’, but ‘without god’, in the sense of being ‘godforsaken’.

This later evolved into meaning people who denied the traditional gods, which included mostly people who did believe in gods but not in the official gods of the area or era. For example, early Pagans and Christians called each other atheists, because they didn’t believe in the right gods. In this sense, it was close to the word ‘heretic’.

The word ‘atheist’ did not evolve by adding the prefix a- to the word ‘theist’. In fact, it predates the word ‘theist’ by centuries. ‘Theist’ was first used in the 1600s during the Renaissance, and evolved independently for different reasons.

By the Enlightenment, some French materialists had started to self-identify as atheists, openly asserting their belief that there were no gods. During the Victorian era, TH Huxley coined ‘agnostic’ to describe not making claims of knowledge without adequate evidence.

In the late twentieth century, some philosophers developed the nuance of describing atheism as simply a lack of belief in gods. This created an interesting distinction between defining ‘atheists’ and defining ‘atheism’. It is easier to define an ‘atheist’ as a person who lacks a belief, while it is more abstract to define ‘atheism’ itself as merely a lack of something.

Meanwhile the UN, European Court of Human Rights, and European Union started to protect people with nonreligious beliefs, and explicitly confirmed that this includes atheists. This came under the right to freedom of religion or belief in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, European Convention on Human Rights, and Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

Another shift emerged in the early 2000s as Daniel Dennett, Victor Stenger, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens inspired a new era of atheist activism. Some atheist activists used the non-belief meaning to shift the onus of proof onto theists in debates. Others, including Atheist Ireland, used a combination of the meanings: anything from positively believing there are no gods, to passively not believing there are any gods, plus the human rights law meaning of a protected belief or conviction.

This article covers all of these developments in more detail, along with how dictionaries have catalogued the evolving meanings, and how ordinary atheists, in the wild, describe their beliefs about gods. I’ve already addressed the origins of ‘atheos’ in ancient Greece, so let’s pick up our journey in early modern Europe.

2. Early modern Europe

The word atheist reappeared in early modern Europe around the time of the Renaissance and Protestant Reformation. In 1547, ‘Athée’ was used in French to mean ‘one who denies the existence of God and of any divinity’, and ‘athéiste’ soon followed with the same meaning.

Around 1563, Pierre Viret used the word ‘deiste’ to describe people who believed in a creator god but not in an intervening God. He did this to distinguish these people from Christians who believed in the Christian God, and atheists who denied the existence of any divinity.

The word ‘atheist’ was first used in English after 1566, taken from the French ‘athéiste’, and meaning people who denied God, or godless or impious people. Some Catholics called the Protestant Elizabethan government an ‘atheist regime’. Some Protestants called the Pope an ‘arch-atheist’.

The abstract noun ‘atheism’ soon followed. In 1587, an English translation of Philippe de Mornay’s ‘The Trewnesse of the Christian Religion’, used ‘Athisme’ and explained it as ‘utter godlessness’.

The words ‘theist’ and ‘theism’ emerged much later than ‘atheist’ and ‘atheism’. ‘Theist’ is first recorded in English in 1662. Its early use was loose and could overlap with what later became ‘deism’ or natural religion.

The abstract noun ‘theism’ appeared in the 1670s. Ralph Cudworth wrote ‘The True Intellectual System of the Universe’ in 1678, where he contrasted theism with atheism. He described theists as people who believed that an eternally self-existent conscious being caused everything else. He also distinguished ‘mere theists’ from Christians who accepted revelation.

‘Theism’ initially meant broadly belief in a deity, particularly in contrast with atheism. Its meaning then became more specialised. By 1711, it was being used for belief in one God as opposed to polytheism, and by 1714, for belief in God as creator and continuing ruler of the universe, increasingly contrasted with deism.

Meanwhile, in 1705: ‘théiste’ was introduced in French, described as borrowed from English.

3. The Enlightenment and Victorian eras

By the Enlightenment era, a small number of French materialists started to self-identify as atheists. They included Denis Diderot, Baron Paul-Henri d’Holbach, Jacques-André Naigeon, Julian Offray de La Mettrie, and Claude Adrien Helvétius.

They typically used the word to describe positively believing there were no gods. In 1751, Diderot and Jean-Baptiste le Rond d’Alembert’s ‘Encyclopédie’ defined atheism as ‘the opinion of those who deny the existence of a God in the world. The simple ignorance of God doesn’t constitute atheism.’

How did early English dictionaries define the word ‘atheist’? In 1755, Johnson used ‘one that denies the existence of God.’ In 1768, Encyclopaedia Britannica used ‘a person who does not believe the existence of a Deity.’ In 1828, Webster used ‘one who disbelieves the existence of a God, or Supreme intelligent Being.’

In 1860, Chambers used ‘the doctrine of those who deny the existence of God.’ And in 1888, the OED used ‘One who denies or disbelieves the existence of a God; historically also one who ‘practically denies’ God through conduct.’

During the Victorian era, there were some subtle evolutions. In the 1850s, Charles Bradlaugh said as an atheist he simply did not believe in gods. He meant that he could not deny something that did not have a meaningful definition, but he could deny the Christian God.

Then TH Huxley coined the word ‘agnostic’ in 1869. By this he did not mean simply ‘without knowledge’. He was capturing (broadly) the philosophical position of not making claims of knowledge without adequate evidence. This was effectively what Bradlaugh was conveying.

4. Late twentieth century philosophers

And so things broadly remained until the post-war decades, when two new parallel types of usage evolved. One came from philosophers, and the other from the European Court of Human Rights.

Anthony Flew wrote ‘The Presumption of Atheism’ in 1972. He proposed an unusual reinterpretation of the word ‘atheist’ as simply someone who is ‘not a theist’, rather than someone who asserts that God does not exist. He called the former a negative atheist and the latter a positive atheist. He then used ‘atheism’ for the corresponding positions.

Flew acknowledged that the ordinary meaning of the word ‘atheist’ was someone who asserts that God does not exist, and that to use his meaning the word had to be construed unusually.

George Smith then wrote ‘Atheism: The Case Against God’ in 1974. Unlike Flew, he started with the word ‘atheism’, which he defined as ‘the absence of theistic belief’, which was a very abstract concept. He then defined an ‘atheist’ as anyone who lacks such belief.

He divided atheism into implicit atheism, where the belief is absent without conscious rejection, and explicit atheism, where it is absent because theism has been consciously rejected. He supported this by reverse-engineering the etymology of the word as ‘a-theism = without theism’.

In 1990, Michael Martin developed this distinction systematically in ‘Atheism: A Philosophical Justification’. Like Flew, he started with ‘atheist’ meaning somebody without belief in any god. He then described ‘atheism’ as a ‘negative view, characterised by the absence of belief’. He contrasted this negative atheism with positive atheism, which meant the belief there are no gods. He also distinguished broad and narrow forms: any gods versus the specifically theistic God.

The broad ‘lack of belief’ works most naturally with the word ‘atheist’. We can straightforwardly describe a person as lacking a belief. Applying the same definition to ‘atheism’ requires an extra step. To make sense, it should really be something like ‘a view characterised by the absence of a belief’ rather than simply ‘the absence of a belief.’

5. International human rights law

Also during the late twentieth century, international human rights law was developing under the UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the Council of Europe’s European Convention on Human Rights. These were a response to the atrocities of the Second World War.

Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 protected ‘freedom of thought, conscience and religion’. This included freedom to change one’s ‘religion or belief’. This became treaty law in 1966 with Article 18 of the ICCPR. These treaties are overseen by various UN committees.

Article 9 of the European Convention in 1950 gave the same protection as Article 18 of the UDHR. Protocol No. 1 of the European Convention in 1952 also required states in education to respect parents’ ‘religious and philosophical convictions’. This Convention is overseen by the European Court of Human Rights.

Both the UN and Council of Europe gradually developed protection of nonreligious beliefs. In 1960, UN Special Rapporteur Arcot Krishnaswami wrote that ‘religion or belief’ should include ‘agnosticism, free thought, atheism, and rationalism’. And in Arrowsmith v UK in 1978, the predecessor to the European Court of Human Rights accepted pacifism as a protected belief under Article 9.

This developed further in the early eighties. In Hartikainen v Finland in 1981, the UN Human Rights Committee protected school parents ‘who do not believe in any religion’. And in Campbell and Cosans v UK in 1982, about corporal punishment, the European Court set the legal threshold for philosophical beliefs or convictions. They must attain a certain level of ‘cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance’.

Both institutions explicitly protected atheists in 1993. The UN Human Rights Committee’s General Comment No. 22 stated explicitly: “Article 18 protects theistic, non-theistic and atheistic beliefs, and the European Court explicitly said Article 9 protects atheists. In Kokkinakis v Greece, the Court said freedom of thought, conscience and religion is not only important to religious believers but is ‘also a precious asset for atheists, agnostics, sceptics and the unconcerned.’

There were now three main usages for the same word: in philosophical terms, it could mean positively believing there are no gods, or passively not believing there are any gods. And in human rights law, atheists could qualify as having protected philosophical convictions.

6. New Atheists and the Internet

Another shift emerged in the early 2000s, as Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens inspired a new era of atheist activism. This was turbocharged by the emergence of the Internet as a source of information and a force for common endeavour.

The most prominent new atheists used a range of meanings for the word. Daniel Dennett saw atheism as non-belief. In ‘Breaking the Spell’, he said science can study religion as a natural phenomenon. Victor Stenger took a similar naturalistic approach in ‘God; the Failed Hypothesis.’

Sam Harris argued that the word should not exist. He did not even use the word in his breakthrough book ‘The End of Faith.’ At the other end of the scale, Christopher Hitchens, in ‘God is Not Great’, went further than atheism and said he was an anti-theist.

Richard Dawkins, in ‘The God Delusion’, created a seven-point scale of certainty covering strong theist, de-facto theist, weak theist, pure agnostic, weak atheist, de-facto atheist, and strong atheist. He said he was almost certain that God does not exist.

Some online atheist activists drew on only the Flew/Smith/Martin tradition, arguing that ‘atheism’ means only ‘without belief in gods’ and nothing else. This approach had the advantage that theists had the onus of proof for their claims in debates.

Other atheist activists, including Atheist Ireland, used a combination of the meanings: anything from actively believing there are no gods, to passively not believing there are gods, alongside the human rights law meaning which protects atheism as a philosophical belief or conviction.

Atheist Ireland promotes atheism as a more reliable worldview than theism, and lobbies politically for secularism as the basis of a just society. We also have special consultative status at the United Nations where we promote the rights of atheists and secularists.

7. EU Charter of Rights and Lisbon Treaty

Alongside the New Atheism activism, the European Union was strengthening protection for EU citizens with nonreligious beliefs, including atheists.

In 2000, the EU introduced its Charter of Fundamental Rights, which became law under the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. Article 10 of the Charter protects freedom of religion or belief, and Article 21 prohibits discrimination on grounds including religion or belief, within the scope of EU law.

Also in 2000, the EU introduced an Employment Equality Directive. This prohibits discrimination in employment and occupation on grounds including ‘religion or belief’. The Court of Justice of the EU has said this covers both religious and philosophical beliefs, which encompasses nonreligious beliefs or convictions such as atheism.

The Lisbon Treaty of 2009 also gives atheists a platform for our philosophical beliefs, through Article 17 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Under this, the EU respects the status of churches, religious associations, and philosophical and non-confessional organisations, and commits to open, transparent and regular dialogue with them. Under this process, Atheist Ireland has engaged in dialogue with the presidents of the EU and with the Irish government.

So we now have three sets of international institutions, the United Nations, the Council of Europe through the European Court of Human Rights, and the European Union, each of which protects or recognises nonreligious beliefs or convictions which include atheists.

8. What do common or garden atheists believe?

Most atheists simply live their lives as if there are no gods, and don’t engage in the ‘how-many-atheists-on-the-head-of-a-pin’ nuances described in this article.

I haven’t found much reliable research into whether atheists, more widely, make a big distinction between saying ‘I don’t believe in God’ and meaning ‘I believe there are no gods.’

The Pew US Religious Landscape Study of 2023–24, published in 2025, found that 92% of self-identified atheists said, when asked, they did not believe in God or a universal spirit. But when questioned further:

53% were absolutely certain God/universal spirit does not exist
31% were fairly certain
8% were not very/not at all certain
about 7% reported some belief in God or a universal spirit

So over half of self-identified atheists were absolutely certain that gods do not exist, and another three in ten were fairly certain. On the face of it, that’s a lot closer to ‘I believe gods do not exist’ than ‘I have an absence of a belief in the claim that gods exist’.

On the other end of the scale, 7% of self-identified atheists said they do believe in God or a universal spirit. This could reflect individual understandings of ‘God’, belief in an impersonal universal spirit, or simply the messiness of human self-identification.

This is of course just one survey, but it is a substantial one, and it supports the idea that atheists and our beliefs are pretty heterogenous.

9. What do dictionaries say?

So how do sources that record and analyse language use define atheist today? Here are some examples:Cambridge Dictionary (both): “Someone who does not believe in any god or gods, or who believes that no god or gods exist.”

  • Oxford Learner (no gods): “the belief that God or gods do not exist.”
  • Merriam-Webster (both): Atheist “A person who does not believe in the existence of God or any gods.” Atheism “A lack of belief or a strong disbelief in the existence of a god or any gods.”
  • American Heritage (both): “Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.”
  • Dictionary. com (both): “A person who does not believe in the existence of a supreme being or beings”, also “a person who believes that there is no supreme being or beings.”
  • Princeton WordNet (both): An atheist is “someone who denies the existence of god”; atheism includes both “the doctrine or belief that there is no God” and “a lack of belief”.
  • Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (both and more): “The word ‘atheism’ is polysemous—it has multiple related meanings.”
  • Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (no gods): “Atheism is the view that there is no God.”
  • Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (both): “Atheism [is] the view that there are no gods. A widely used sense denotes merely not believing in god and is consistent with agnosticism. A stricter sense denotes a belief that there is no god; this use has become standard.”
  • Concise Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy by William Rowe (who was an atheist) (no gods): “the position that affirms the nonexistence of God.”

10. Summary and conclusion

The evolving meanings came from various motivations.

Early religious people wanted to shame nonconformists. Viret wanted to highlight the nuances of what became deism. Bradlaugh and Huxley wanted to highlight what can and cannot be known.

Flew wanted to allocate the burden of argument. Smith wanted a taxonomy of atheists. Martin wanted philosophical precision. International human rights law wanted to determine who receives protection from state interference.

Dennett, Stenger, Harris, Hitchens, and Dawkins wanted to inspire a new generation to think critically and challenge the negative impacts of religion. The EU wanted to protect its nonreligious citizens. Dictionaries wanted to record actual English usage.

They were all answering different questions, so it is unsurprising that they used the same words in somewhat different ways.

To some extent, these semantic discussions are a distraction from the underlying issue that led to most of us becoming atheists: how we think and behave in relation to the question of whether a god exists and the impact of that on society.

That’s ultimately a question about reality, that has evidence for and against regardless of our internal mind processes and categorisations of words. We should be able to apply reason to that evidence and form beliefs proportionate to the best available evidence.

We’re each free to do that in our own way, and to put whatever labels we want on our own mind’s approach to that. But we can’t expect every other atheist to believe and act the same way we do.

What Does Atheism Mean? From A Godless Insult To A Protected Belief

Ukraine Solidarity Group ✊ A Digest of News from Ukrainian Sources ⚔  12-October-2026.

In this week’s bulletin

⬤ Will Russia invade more of Europe?
⬤ Evidence of Russian torture.
⬤ Forcible transfer of civilians.
 ⬤ UN slams Russia’s attacks on civilians/ Militarisation of children.

News from the territories occupied by Russia

Tortured Ukrainian sportsman, five others get 19-27-year sentences for fake ‘plot’ against Russia-installed Crimean leader (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, October 9th)

Occupation ‘court’ demands addition of 'terrorism' charges in Russia’s persecution of abducted Ukrainian family (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, October 8th)

Weekly update on the situation in occupied Crimea (Crimea Platform, October 8th)

Melitopol man with cerebral palsy sentenced by occupation 'court' to 12 years for helping Ukraine in 2022 (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, October 7th)

A Mariupol teen ends up in the Russian army (Facebook, October 7th)

Russia passes 12-year sentence against Luhansk student abducted two years ago when she was just 18 (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, October 6th)

Abducted and tortured Crimean Tatar lawyer sentenced to 16 years for ‘treason’ against Russian invaders (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, October 5th)

64-year-old from occupied Tokmak sentenced to 14 years for donating 25 euros to Ukraine’s armed forces (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, October 5th)

Progress of the war

Russia steps up assassination attempts on European defence company executives (ZN.Ua, Oct 11)

At least seven in Russian aerial attack on Sloviansk (Kyiv Independent, 11 October)

Death toll in Zaporizhzhia rises to 23 (Ukrainska Pravda, 11 October)

Trump slams Zelensky for attacking Russian refineries (Kyiv Independent, 10 October)

Ukraine strikes Russian tech giant Yandex for second day (Meduza, 9 October)

One strike took out 20 Russian officers in Donetsk (Meduza, 9 October)

Russians forcibly remove 25 Ukrainians from Kharkiv Oblast – Ukrainian human rights commissioner (Ukrainska Pravda, October 9th)

The GRU’s dud drone: How Russian intelligence botched airport sabotage plot (The Insider, Oct 8th)

Russia hits buses in Kramatorsk: 30 killed – photos (Ukrainska Pravda, October 8th)

Silence, delusions & robots: Ukraine’s eastern advances (Centre for European Policy Analysis, 8 Oct)

The FSB's sabotage campaign in Europe: Russia's war on Western arms makers – and what it means for Ukraine (Ukrainska Pravda, October 8th)

Death toll from Russian missile strike on Pryluky rises to 16, including 4 children – photo, video (Ukrainska Pravda, October 7th)

News from Ukraine

The Invisible Resistance of Lviv’s Industrial Workers (Commons.com, October 9th)

Russia is attacking Ukrainian grain and exporting its own abroad (Babel, October 7th)

Fifty shades of green at the Ukraine recovery conference 2026 (Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group, 5 October)

War-related news from Russia

Russian losses in the war, updated (Mediazona, 9 October)

Russian asylum seekers join US immigration detention facility hunger strike (Mediazona, 8 October)

Higher prices, simpler menus, and fewer customers: In year five of the war, Russia's restaurants and bars are finally struggling to survive (The Insider, October 8th)

“We Have Become Rank-and-File Bureaucrats” (Posle.Media, October 7th)

Hunting for cannon fodder: How Russia's private recruitment market for the war in Ukraine really works (The Insider, October 6th)

Comment and analysis

US Congress reminds Trump of Graham Act after his deal with Putin (Ukrainska Pravda, 11 October)

‘It felt like a trap’: how Trump Putin pivot blindsided Ukraine (Kyiv Independent, 10 October)

Is Putin going to attack Europe? (iStories, 9 October)

Comment by UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk on deadly strikes in Ukraine (UN commissioner for Human Rights, October 8th)

The Land of What If: Offline in the Suwałki Gap (Deep Baltic, October 4th)

Will Russia Invade More of Europe? (New Politics, October 4th)

International solidarity

Emergency winter aid appeal for £25,000 (Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, 8 October)

The Green party and solidarity with Ukraine: where next? (Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, 5 October)

Australian Green leader wants to strip Ukraine of ability to defend itself (Radical Civility, 3 October)

From the Labour Conference fringe on Ukraine (Labour Left Internationalists, October 1st)
🔴This bulletin is put together by labour movement activists in solidarity with Ukrainian resistance. More information at Ukraine Information Group.

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News From Ukraine 💣 Bulletin 216

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