Q about arguments for God's existence.

[Mr.wizard]

State of mind is your mood or mental state at a particular time, my entire state of mind can not be atheist. My state of mind could be logical and could lead to atheism when presented with god claims. i.e. If you told me vampires existed and I didn't believe you my state of mind wouldn't be A-vampirism.

A state of mind can have countless definition - In cognitive psychology, it can be used to describe your intellectual position and mental projection/thoughts about what you think about a specific issue. In this case atheism is a state of mind.

Saying I believe no gods exist is not the same as claiming no gods exist. It is not a positive claim.

Yes but they are both atheist propositions. One simply takes it further, but none of them is less of an atheist. They are both atheists.

I didn't say anything about strong atheism and I didn't say it wasn't a position, don't put words in my mouth. I said anything you add to atheism is extra and does not change what atheism is.

It's not an extra, it's a different conception I chose to adopt altogether, but it's still atheism. A lack of belief in gods is atheism. A belief gods don't exist is atheism.

An atheist can also choose to make a claim of knowledge, and then we shorthand that as a strong/gnostic atheist. That doesn't mean all atheists are strong atheists, so unless you also make that claim, you have no burden of proof. All you have to do is say, "I refuse to believe the claim based in insufficient evidence".

You have the burden of proof for any positive claim you make, regardless of your personal position on the god hypothesis. If a Christian claims that Islam is false, he has as much obligation to prove it as an atheist who claims the exact same thing. I am not trying to say atheists need to provide proof god doesn't exist, but when we make any positive claim, we need to provide evidence. I've already given examples

If you want to continue with your definition, that's totally fine, but you'll be at odds with just about everyone else.

Rob, I'm not saying other people aren't atheists - I am saying not everyone picks the definition that atheism is just a lack of belief in gods. I am not less of an atheist or a different atheist because of that - I am still an atheist.

I would say that atheism is a state of mind, it's the state of mind of not being convinced by God claims. Belief or non belief is a state of mind. But we don't have to claim to know things in order to believe them or not believe them. You can however also claim knowledge that the claim is false. Optionally

The claim can be false or true depending on how much evidence you provide. I can prove the Christian god doesn't exist, so in my case I know he doesn't

The idea that your thoughts on every issue is a different state of mind is ridiculous. The same state of mind leads me to using the same criteria when evaluating a claim, the state of mind is the same regardless of the answer I get. I don't believe in god or vampires for the same reason, that doesn't mean not believing in god is my state of mind and not believing in vampires is my state of mind. My state of mind would be not believing in things that don't meet my criteria. Atheism would be the product of my state of mind.


Atheists are atheists because they don't believe in a god. Just because a particular atheist decides to be a strong atheist by saying he knows a god doesn't exist, does not change what atheism is. You can not get to strong atheism from atheism without adding something. You cant say because there are atheists who go one step further and make a positive claim then atheism itself adopts a burden of proof. There is a reason strong atheism is defined differently from just atheism.