(July 23, 2010 at 8:50 am)Godhead Wrote: Before you become aware of the concept of god, yes you can say that you had no opinion either way. But as soon as you do become aware of the concept, you will of course form an opinion one way or the other. You will either say "yes I believe there is one", or you'll say "No, I believe that there isn't one".As Ace said, one can not believe in God, rather than believe that he doesn't exist. Semantic differences in this case are very important in distinguishing between two categories of atheist.
I'll also point out that non-beliefs don't require you to answer any question, or say anything about them. They are non-beliefs; absences of belief. Whatever the belief is, a non-believer doesn't have that belief. This might be due to them knowing about the belief and thinking it is ridiculous, or them not knowing about the belief and therefore not having a belief by default.
So having no opinion either way simply means that the person is a passive atheist; someone who has no beliefs in God (through circumstances that meant they had never heard of the concept before).
