Atheism's Definition - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

[LesPaul00]

Good afternoon everyone. My first post here. It is good to participate in this.

I always think of the gumball model when I think of this issue. Let's say you have a jar of gumballs and you do not know how many are in there. There are either an odd number or an even number of gumballs. That is a true dichotomy.

Now if I say that I believe there are an odd number of gumballs without presenting any justification for that belief, you can easily say that you have no reason to believe that there is an odd number of gumballs in the jar. That does not mean that you automatically believe that there is an even number of gumballs in the jar. In fact, you could easily say that you have no reason to believe that there is an odd number or an even number. AND.....you do not know the exact answer. Because of this, you do not believe AND you do not know. There is no contraction here.

The same applies to God. There either is or is not a God. This is a true dichotomy. It is just as easy for an atheist to say that he/she does not believe one exists and also say that they do not know either way.