Is Lack of Belief the Best You Can Do?

[Esquilax]

Which is an incredibly lazy tactic IMO.  I don't see many people here using that technique on our theists: "You don't really believe in God.  Deep down you know it's ridiculous."  If that were all WE had, well...that would be pretty sad.  

Well, atheists haven't been given dispensation to do that by a magic man, which is sort of the problem with theistic overreach generally. Of the two groups, only theists have a book of instructions for which "preserve the core claim" is the sole purpose, the actual aim of theistic argumentation is to reach a preferred conclusion rather than allow evidence to inform their conclusions, and given that there's no evidence for theistic claims, we get dirty tactics like "you secretly agree with me," instead. Holy books cannot substantiate their wild claims, and so what they're left with is silencing all those who might point that out, which is why the bible gives believers license to impute malevolent or ignorant motivations onto non-believers with accusations of sin or demands that creation is just obvious, rather than evidence that might establish the existence of a god.

Theists have no evidence, but they're committed to the truth of their conclusion, and so instead of the conclusion being wrong, you just don't believe it for evil or illegitimate means. Pay no attention to the lack of evidence, says the book, nor to those who argue against the claim. They're only saying those things because of sin, or because of secret additional beliefs that make them totally as unreasonable as the claim!

You won't get atheists doing that because atheists aren't taking their cues from a source text that prioritizes erasing dissent over critical discourse.