Atheism: Belief or not a belief?

Wow, this thread really did take off. I guess that's understandable seeing as how most of us are here for religious/spiritual reasons anyway.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: To say "There are no Gods" is a belief. But this is not atheism. Since you can never prove there are no Gods it becomes a belief and could possibly even be construed as a worldview.

But to say "I don't accept the existence of a God because there is no evidence to support it" is a position on a single issue. Its not a belief and its not a world view. This is the default stance on any single issue. If I say I have an invisible purple unicorn in my garage, your default position is to not believe me unless I can prove to you that I, in fact, do have an invisible purple unicorn in my garage. This is the premise that not only Atheism but any logical process operates under. An atheist takes the default option of disbelief in the claim that a God exists, not that no Gods exist no matter what.

That's a very comprehensive comparison of the two kind of atheism. I agree with what someone said about Christians always trying to convert atheists. One of the two people I like to watch on periscope is Matt Cawthorn, a former Lutheran turned atheist. He's very knowledgeable and friendly in his approach to the beliefs of others. I highly recommend him if you're into periscope. He always has Christians on there trying to convince him that he's wrong. It really is quite entertaining.

I have experienced unexplainable phenomena at various times in my life as well as visions (drug induced and sleepy dream variety) where I communicated with being that are not of this world. I cannot explain most of what I've seen, let alone prove that it was real. Scientifically speaking, I would say that none of it actually happened, but that doesn't mean that it isn't real in some sense. It's real to me and that's why I believe in it. All belief is subjective. Did we really lands on the moon? How do you know? Faith. Did the Egyptians build the pyramids or find them? Are all the hieroglyphics factual? Faith. Does God exist? Faith is required to answer all these questions. As such, agnostic is the only valid "default belief" as I see it. Atheism is just another way of dealing with the concept of God by saying, "nope."

Edan, when you don't care if there is a god or not it's called "Apatheism". Welcome to the flock of DGAF.

Atheism is absolutely a system of belief since it cannot stand alone with evidence and proof. You can neither prove the existence or non-existence of a deity with 100% certainty.

But you certainly CAN not care one way or the other. hahaha

Oh, and nobody "ran" Mahogany off; she wasn't a martyr. She tucked tail and ran all on her own.

Did nobody from the second wave of these posts read the first waves discussion?

rugadd wrote: Did nobody from the second wave of these posts read the first waves discussion?

I can only speak for myself, but I skipped most of it. I might have made it to page two? Not meaning any disrespect by the lengthy and well-reasoned responses that people gave, but I got places to go and things to do, so I addressed the points that I wanted to address and left it at that.

rugadd wrote: Did nobody from the second wave of these posts read the first waves discussion?

I did!!!! :laugh:

rugadd wrote: Did nobody from the second wave of these posts read the first waves discussion?

Does it matter? Stop trying to control me man!

Atheists may believe many 'things', a deity may not be one of them.

I do not feel atheism is a belief any more then I feel one can have a belief about something they have no knowledge of. They simply see no evidence that it exists. That is not a statement of for or against the existence its simply a statement of what they can see or not see. To say that I do not see something is to not say it is not there its simply to say I cannot see it. Just my own perspective. However there are hard core people that call themselves atheist that say its impossible to have a god/s but I think they might be better termed anti-theist. Further there are atheist ( a much more common group) that say its unlikely. Which is stating a belief in odds based on their knowledge of the moment. But in my own opinion the term atheist in and of itself is not a belief for or against anything.

Alan wrote: Atheists may believe many 'things', a deity may not be one of them.

any other time i would probably have been like "whatever" but i just finished english comp (today) and this sentence is funny as hell to me right now

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actually, i guess hell isnt funny

then again, it IS an atheism thread lol

:silly:

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Edit
i know, i know, if i just finished english comp i should be better at english lol
luckily, my prof doesnt know my screen name

@Luthien, Rugadd
What I mean is that the fundamental stance of an atheist is either the belief in no gods or the lack of belief in any gods, but that the difference between the two definitions is ultimately purely semantic.
All opinions, all accepted knowledge with exception to certain undoubtable things (e.g. "Doubting exists"), are beliefs. The existence of your favorite movie series is a belief ("I believe that Star Wars exists"). Similarly, saying that you don't believe in something is really the same as expressing a belief in the nonexistence of something. "I don't believe in unicorns" really means "I hold a belief (by having an opinion on this matter) that no unicorns exist." As long as an opinion is held, it's a belief.

Supposing someone didn't know anything about religion and also didn't believe in any Gods, not knowing what a God is in the first place, then there would be an atheist who would not believe in God but also not hold any specific belief. This only possible through complete ignorance to the subject, I think.

As for agnostic atheists, I don't really see the point, personally. There is major doubt, but there is no real belief involved. I see it more as "I am in the process of deciding between theism and atheism and I am leaning towards atheism" than "I am an agnostic atheist". But I would say pretty much the same thing about agnosticism in general, too.

It should be noted that I base most of what I say here on The Fixation of Belief by Charles Peirce .