Is atheism a belief?

[EgoDeath]

Some gods definitely don't exist, because they contradict themselves or reality. As bennyboy pointed out, the tri-Omni deity defies observed reality (as well as being logically incoherent). The God of Abraham that flooded the earth and stopped the sun in the sky for the convenience of the Hebrew army doesn't exist because those things never happened. The God of Deism is a different kettle of fish, really only suffering from being unfalsifiable and there being no good reason to think it's real. I put the God of Deism at close to, but not actually, zero probability.

As an aside, fredd bear, I would say 'There is no God' attracts the burden of proof, but 'I believe there is no God' does not. How would you prove that's what you believe to someone who won't take your word for it, and how could anyone prove you don't really believe that? We have posters who take the position that atheists don't really disbelieve, one of the reasons it's irritating is that it's basically calling anyone who claims to be an atheist a liar, and you can't prove you're telling the truth to someone who can never be convinced you're not lying about what you think is the case in your own head.

I agree with what you're saying, but that some gods are more unlikely than others doesn't mean the possibly more likely ones get any sort of pass. Like you said, I still put the probability of most of the gods at zero or at very close to zero. There's simply NO reason to think that such a thing exist. People accept it as self-evident because it's an idea that a lot of people believe in that has been around for a long time. In reality, there's no real reason to accept the idea of a divine creator any more than that there are invisible unicorns that control the weather.

The former idea has been around for a long time and is embedded in many cultures/traditions, so even people who don't buy into those cultures/traditions tend to say, "Well, some VERSION of what they're saying must be true, otherwise, why do so many people believe it?" - whereas the latter is seen as an utterly ridiculous idea that isn't given a moments thought. But really, there's no reason to believe one more than the other.