Is atheism a belief?

[Angrboda]

You do see where this is going, I hope.

Here's where I think this is going. 

Criteria for judgment are something, not nothing. They may lead to a lack of belief in god, but they are themselves beliefs (in the sense of something you hold to be true). 

A simple example:

Suppose someone, let's call him Mr. A, asserts the following: "There is no evidence for the existence of god, therefore I reject the claims of religious people that there is a god." 

While the result is a lack of belief, the assertion in fact involves several truth claims. 

First, the claim that there is in fact no evidence. Personally, I think this claim is true, but the point I'm making is that it is a truth-claim, and as such may be challenged or defended.

Then there is the meaning of the term "evidence" which is implied in the claim. Let's say that for Mr. A, the only type of input that he is willing to call "evidence" is empirical observation that is intersubjectively repeatable -- that is, science-type evidence. Mr. A is here making a truth-claim, that only such input is worth considering. Christians, of course, also consider revelation, authority, tradition, the logic of "natural theology," and the logic of metaphysics also to be evidence. They may be silly for doing so, but to debate them Mr. A would have to make certain claims considering the value of evidence. Thus his position depends not merely on a lack but on positive beliefs (things he holds to be true) concerning evidence. 

He is also arguing from the position that god is something that science-type evidence could possibly detect. While this is probably a reasonable position to hold, it is in fact a truth-claim, and may be challenged or defended. Since early on (Plato, Aristotle, the Cappadocians, etc.) some people have argued that god is a metaphysical "ground of being" or something like that, which by definition is not a sense-detectable object. Their claims may be rubbish, but Mr. A's claim that they are wrong, and that only science-detectable things are real, is a truth-claim, and may be challenged or defended. 

In other words, what seems like merely a lack to Mr. A in fact involves a number of beliefs (things he holds to be true) concerning the issues involved. He has reached his conclusion -- that the claims of believers may be rejected -- based on these things he holds to be true. 

He has a position, which is not the only possible position, which has led him to his atheism in its current state. 

Please note, once again, that I am making no statements concerning the quality of anybody's arguments. Only that people reach their conclusions based on intellectual commitments that they hold. And this includes atheists.

The problem with that is, if you share the criteria such as evidence based and so forth with a theist, who also employs that reasoning in evaluation of claims, then it isn't the criteria themselves that are doing the work in separating the theist from the non-theist. In order to meaningfully assert that atheism or non-theism were a belief, the beliefs in question must be both relevant and necessary to forming that conclusion. In this case, one can hold the standards and not come to the same beliefs or lack thereof, so the belief in these criteria is accidental, not a necessary part of the identity. Accidental properties do not define a thing.