A question about atheistic “beliefs” (opinions, guesses, etc.)

[Angrboda]

Agnostic and Gnostic Refer to knowledge. Theist and Atheist refer to belief.

Yeah...theists "believe" there is at least one god; atheists "believe" there are none.

Two sides of one coint.

(I know, I know...the atheist fiction comes out here. "All we are doing is lacking 'belief.'")

Horseshit. You people do "believe" there are no gods...or you "believe" it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one."

People who call themselves "atheists" are as much "believers" as people who designate themselves theists.

I actually describe myself as religiously unaffiliated, but by the general consensus of atheists, I am an atheist. I think I'm definitely one of "you people."

I've already stated quite clearly that I can't say much about gods in general, so what you say is false on that score.

But you've already asked about your definition of gods. As I noted at the time, I think your definition includes things that are not gods and so I see no point in discussing it. There is a theory that we might live in a simulated universe. There's nothing about creating such a simulation which requires any godlike characteristics. We might be able to do so at some point in the future. We might be able to do so now. The creators of such a simulation, if they are like us, are responsible for the creation of what we refer to as the physical universe, and by definition are therefore gods. I'm completely agnostic about such gods, and so what you say is again contradicted.

The problem is that you're trying to create an equivalence between believing there are no gods and knowing there are no gods. An atheist is free to believe there are no gods, and they are free to be agnostic, not knowing, whether there are no gods. You seem to want there to be a contradiction between being an atheist and being an agnostic. I don't think there is any conflict.

But you say that you define an atheist as someone who identifies as atheist. That suggests to me an interesting thought experiment. Let's say you're learning Chinese, and you know a good bit of Chinese but have yet to learn the word for atheist. Now suppose you're talking to a person who speaks only Chinese, and you want him to tell you what the Chinese word for atheist is. Stating it in English, what would you ask your Chinese friend in order to get him to tell you the word for atheist in Chinese?