Atheism

[SteveII]

And my point is that atheists do make claims and hold beliefs about that evidence. Perhaps different claims, but the simple non-belief thing is nonsense.

The claims of agnostic atheists don't include 'there is no God'. We don't claim to make no claims about anything. The only claim inherent to atheism is the definition: that it's the state of not believing in any deities. The only claim inherent to identifying as an atheist is that the definition of atheism applies to their mental state concerning deities. Of course we have opinions on the soundness of the evidence presented, who says we don't? Your 'point' seems like a non sequitur to me.

I think you are right about the definition, but that is not my point. I am claiming that when an atheist says something akin to: "You are wrong but I don't have to say why because I make no claims..." they are completely wrong. They are making both implicit and explicit claims to knowledge the moment they say the evidence is insufficient (or worse, there is no evidence).  I have no problems with atheists who don't tell me I'm wrong -- they don't have a burden of proof. But I am not sure there are any here.

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an·ec·do·tal

adjective: anecdotal

(of an account) not necessarily true or reliable, because based on personal accounts rather than facts or research.

Every thesaurus has the following words as synonyms for anecdotal:

unreliable, untrustworthy, based on rumour, unscientific

So, I stand by my previous statement.

No matter how many unreliable, untrustworthy, based on rumour and/or unscientific accounts there are, the results are not good evidence.

I am not saying that anecdotal evidence is the best evidence. But (1) that it is evidence and (2) it carries weight in proportion to the amount available.