(July 11, 2012 at 7:51 pm)MysticKnight Wrote:(July 11, 2012 at 7:45 pm)jonb Wrote: Do you believe there is no God?this leaves two possibilities:
A weak Atheist would say no,
He believes God exists.
He doesn't believe God exists but doesn't believe he doesn't.
Obviously, being an Atheist, if you answer, the 2nd would be what is assumed. That is the category weak/negative atheism, which commonly is referred to as agnosticism.
You're making several mistakes that are typical of theists.
There is no mental state between belief and non-belief. Either one has an active belief or they do not have belief.
And you think that if one doesn't believe in the existence of a god, then they believe that a god doesn't exist. But you are missing another option, not having any belief whatsoever.
Atheism is not another belief, in the exact same way that asymmetry is not another form of symmetry.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.