Why atheism is irrational

[Fidel_Castronaut]

One thing I'm sure about is that people almost always claim to "convert" to atheism. They cite an age, a moment in time, a turning point for their atheism. This suggests that there is a conscious shift, and people are not born atheists.

I have never once had a positive belief in a god or gods. As far as I'm concerned, I was born an atheist, and have remained so my entire life to this very point that I click the post button.

I understand what you are trying to say regarding atheist = positive belief, correct me if I'm wrong.

You say we are born agnostic, lacking any sort of knowledge on the notion of a deity (however defined, another debate entirely no doubt). I would say this is true, although I would propose further that the scope of knowledge when we are born is limited entirely to base instincts, and so the realm of knowledge is difficult to define.

Would it not also be true however that, knowing the above, we also lack belief in deities too? If we are born without the knowedlge of a god or gods, how can we be born not-atheist? That would infer belief but no knowledge, which my personal experience seems to contradict (I am not the only one on here that has never been a theist, or believed in anything regarding a supernatural 'higher' power).

You claim that atheism = a belief, and I believe this claim is made under the following assumptions (again, correction if wrong). We reach a point in time when god x is proposed. We either accept or reject that claim based on the claim itself and, further, the avaliable evidence to support it.

Rejecting said claim leads to the notion (in your example) of a belief in not-god. i.e. we use the proponents claim as given, but chose to actively not believe in it based on our said standards for whatever reason (evidence, generally, or lack thereof).

I accept this as true, but I don't believe it thus follows it negates atheism as a lack of belief being true.

Consider how many deities there are out there. It's impossible to know, and always will be. There could be an infiite number of deities, with an infinite number of attributes, and all could be proposed from now until the end of time, whenever that could be.

For atheism to be a universal belief in not-gods, one would have to reject every claim ever made, or to be made, in the entirety of god-propositions. I feel this is unreasonable, as I have no active belief (neither do I have any knowledge or understanding) of these gods, becuase they are yet to be proposed.

One can easily still reject, say, the normative Christian god (which, is still, completely impossible to define as the deitiy changes depending on the proponent), but active disbelief in this respect does not thus negate the inherent lack of belief. I still lack a belief in it, I also disbelieve in it (or, rather, the claims of the proponents). There is not a black and white perspective of 'belief and non-belief' as there is clearly a position of no active belief either way (my example is all the infinite gods you and I have no knowledge of).

I also think it is unreasonable to equate atheism in humans (the only beings that we know of that are able to form coherent beliefs about the 'self' and propose beings such as gods) to atheism in, say, a rock. I think it fudges the debate, because could extend this to attribute all manner of things to inanimate objects or animals that have no comprehension of the ideas being discussed.

As always, Qualiasoup puts my viewes forward much more succinctly than I can: