Is Lack of Belief the Best You Can Do?

[robvalue]

OK... well, either we are convinced by the evidence or we are not. We don't consciously decide which. Our subconscious is refusing to commit to forming a belief, if it feels the evidence inconclusive. That would be weak atheism. In my case, whether this is a "created" reality or a "natural" one is something I can't possibly comment on. And if it is created, I can't comment on whether it was due to a deliberate intelligent act or not. I have no beliefs about it. If you want to call that a judgement, or maybe an assessment would be a better word, then that's cool. But a lack of a belief is not a belief. A person doesn't simply believe the evidence is inadequate/inconclusive to them; they know that it is. They have the result; at least the result of consideration so far. To say otherwise is to claim people only have beliefs about what they know, which is going way off topic. Of course, such an assessment about evidence is a personal thing and another person may come to a different conclusion based in the same evidence.

I'm glad you agree that it's a respectable position after all. Kudos for that. Strong atheism is going further of course, that the claim is so unlikely to be true that it can safely be assumed false, until further evidence shows up. In my case, once many further things have been claimed in additional to simply an intelligent creator, the likelihood goes down and down. It's getting more and more specific and extraordinary, and also frequently clashing with the evidence I do have.

Someone could be an atheist for whatever reason, though. They could lack a belief in God based on their emotions; but also not rule out the possibility of God based on some other random thing. Not all atheists use what I would consider to be logical processes. So just lacking a belief doesn't tell you how the person ended up lacking the belief.