On Defining Atheism: An Essay

[robvalue]

Do I believe you have a watch on? No, I have no reason to believe that.

Do I believe you don't have a watch on? No, I've no reason to believe that either.

I'm withholding judgement on the watch. It's a perfectly reasonable idea, which could easily be true or untrue. But until I see some evidence either way, I can't make a judgement. This is the neutral, default position. This is analogous to weak atheism.

Now. Do I believe you've got a dragon in your garage? No.

Do I believe you haven't got a dragon in your garage? Yes.

The difference is that the claim is so outrageous that the likelihood of it being true is very small, and so it's perfectly reasonable to believe it is in fact untrue if no evidence is being presented. This is like strong atheism. But no one is required to answer "yes" to the second question. They can withhold judgement, as in the watch example, and remain a weak atheist.

I've talked about beliefs here. Do I know you don't have a dragon in your garage? No, I can't be absolutely sure. But I don't need to be absolutely sure of things in order to make decisions. We can't spend our lives trying to investigate every ridiculous claim that is put to us, we'd never do anything else. It's up to the person making the claim to show you the evidence. If they don't have any, they are wasting our time.