Is atheism a belief?

[Simon Moon]

Belief is defined by cognitive scientists and philosophers, as the mental state in which one accepts a premise or proposition to be true, or likely true.

Belief is a binary mental state. Either one accepts the proposition that a god exists, or they do not accept that proposition. There is no happy middle ground between belief and disbelief. If you think there is, and that's how you define your agnosticism, then you are using the colloquial definition, not the formal one.

This is not correct.  In order to arrive at a belief statement, the following must all be true:

1)  You need to presented with a well-framed question which CAN be considered in terms of belief.
If I ask you if you believe in boobledyboo, the right answer is: "I don't know.  What is boobledyboo?"  You shouldn't claim that since in not knowing what it means I lack an active belief in boobledyboo, I'm an a-boobledybooist.  If you ask me if I believe in God, then if you're talking about Skydaddy, I'm a gnostic atheist.  If you're talking about some mysterious philosophical principle or quantity which allows for the existence for the Universe despite problems with paradox or infinite regress, then I'd say quite possibly.  If you just say "Do you believe in God?"  I'd answer that I don't know.

I'm not sure where you find disagreement.

"I don't know", is not accepting the proposition that a god exists as being true. If you accepted the proposition that a god exists as being true, there is only one answer, "Yes". All other answers, besides yes, are not accepting the proposition as being true.

2)  You need sufficient time for your brain to provide you with an answer.
Once you understand the question, you must process it.  Your brain has to poll your cortex, compare patterns, remember life events, and potentially collect more information in order to confirm that you do/don't have a belief.  Unless you want to be more specific, "Do you, right here right now, have some vision of God in which you definitely believe," then you'll have to accept not-knowing as one of the answers to your belief question.

I figured this is a given, considering that there is a mental state in which one either accept the proposition, or one does not.

As to your question posited here, "Do you, right here right now, have some vision of God in which you definitely believe", if the answer is "yes", then one accepts the proposition. If the answer is anything else, then one does not accept the proposition.

3)  You must not be psychologically conflicted about the answer.
The idea that a person is an individual entity, and that Yes/No questions can therefore always resolve to a single unambiguous answer, is illusory, and represents a philosophical abuse of our understanding of the brain.  It's perfectly possible that some brain systems skew toward "yes," some brain systems skew toward "no," and that the individual ego attempting to reconcile them cannot process the answer unambiguously.  You can rudely claim that such a person is atheist because they can't express an unambiguous belief.  But that's not how such a person experiences the attempt to answer-- rather, when they look at it one way, they DO have the belief, and when they look at it another way they DO NOT have the belief, and your question has not resolved for them the issue of which way to look at it.

But 'skewing toward' a yes or a no, is still either accepting the proposition, or not accepting it, no matter how weakly one accepts the proposition, or not.

As Hume said, “A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence”.

4)  The belief is conditional on an unknown quantity, i.e. the belief is dependent on a state of knowledge.
I'd say if panpsychism is true, then I'd define the Universe itself as God, and such a God would be real by definition.  I suspect that panpsychism is true, because of issues I have with QM, but I cannot confirm it to be true.  So I have a clear definition of God, I can formulate an unambiguous answer, but I still cannot state whether I believe God under this definition is real.  My belief DOES REQUIRE knowledge, it's not just a hunch.

I never said otherwise. People do not wait until they have knowledge before they believe things.

As far as your position toward panpsychism goes, if you suspect it is true, then you believe it, no matter whether you have knowledge or not.

By the way, it seems to me, that if you suspect it is true, based on problems you have with QM, it seems like you believe based on the fallacy of personal incredulity.

All of these amount to a simple principle-- that it is perfectly possible not to know whether you do / don't have a belief, because your brain cannot arrive at an unambiguous response to a yes / no question.  Sometimes "I don't know" has to be taken at face value, and your insistence on a bi-axial view of mind is impolite.

If one answers, "I don't know" to a question about if they believe something, and they understand the question, had time to consider the question, etc, then one does not, at least for the time being, accept the proposition, under consideration, as being true. They might also not accept it as being false, either. But that is not what is under consideration here. All we are considering is whether one accepts it as being true.

To use Matt Dillahunty's jar of marbles thought experiment.

There is a jar of marbles with an unknown number in it. It is a fact, that either the number of marbles is either even or odd. If someone claims, without knowledge, that there is an even number of marbles in the jar, I am justified in not accepting their claim. By not accepting their claim, does not mean that I believe there is an odd number in the jar, it just means I do not accept that there is an even number.

There are 2 separate claims; either there is an odd number, or there is an even number. Both have to be parsed individually.

Just like with the god claim. It is a fact, that either there is a god or there is not. If someone claims there is a god, if they are unable to meet their burden of proof, I am justified in not accepting their claim. That does not mean I know accept the claim that there is no god, as being true.

But all that is required to make me an atheist, is not accepting the former as being true. Even if I barely disbelieve, strongly disbelieved, or claimed I have knowledge that no gods exist, all are those positions are not accepting the proposition as being true.