Is atheism a belief?

[EgoDeath]

So yea, none of these ideas have any more merit than really any other version of god that has been proposed. At best, they're a little more palatable for the modern deist than the god of the Bible or the Quran. At best.

The problem with these ideas is that they are plausible enough philosophically, but there's really no way to gain the knowledge required to sensibly form an actual belief around them.  One might believe on a hunch, but there's nothing more to go on.

Right, I'm of the opinion that if we don't know, we should just say we don't know. Though, we can all speculate:

A personal belief of mine - I think we simply live in a "dead" universe. I think life/consciousness is basically a growth; give it the right conditions and it will take root. I think we are like mold on a sandwich and we are "eating the sandwich," so to speak.

I don't think it's at all improbable that we live in a mostly empty, albeit very interesting, universe. I'm sure there is other life out there, due to statistical probability and logic, but I think we simply live in a universe that just 'exists.' We HAPPEN to have evolved and are conscious, intelligent beings so our existence SEEMS very important and SEEMS to beg some extraordinary explanation - but in reality it probably doesn't.

Just my thoughts.