[Serious] Atheist Dogma

[Mr.wizard]

I don't think there is anything wrong with the current definitions, the only two people amongst this entire site of atheists who seem to have a problem with the definitions are the two of you. The current definitions are simple short and accepted by almost every atheist I have ever talked to. The definitions are not even the important part of the god discussion, it's the concepts that are important.

I don't think the current definitions are a problem either. There are at least two, and we have to figure out which one a person is using when we read his statement. David Mitchell uses it one way, you use it another. No problem.

---

"atheism," is inaccurately defined as simply lack of belief.

I agree with you that atheism defined as lack and only lack is not a good position. I don't think it's possible in an adult human with a functioning brain. 

To insist on this definition, it seems to me, is to deny what is really going on.

People have a web of beliefs (=things they hold to be true). This web of beliefs may well exclude the belief that God exists. For thinking people, however, the exclusion is made possible by the other beliefs that they hold. It is a lack, but a lack that is maintained by believing other things. 

So for example, someone hears the claim that God made the world in six days. This is easy to dismiss, because we have many other beliefs about the history of the earth that are better attested. We lack the belief that God made the world in six days, because we have better beliefs. 

We reject the claims of religious people because we have other beliefs that we hold to. These are likely to include beliefs like, "revelation is not a good source of information," or "science works and science is incompatible with God." Things like that. 

I am not talking about the history of how a person becomes an atheist. This is not a temporal process, but a simultaneous web in which we hold our beliefs. The commitment that science is better than revelation maintains the belief that we can reject the claims of religious peopl

Please explain this response, Atheism is a lack of belief in a god or gods. Maybe I am reading this wrong but do you think Atheism is lacking beliefs entirely?