Talking to mormons

[HappySkeptic]

Gnosticism and anosticism is about knowledge.

Belief just means opinion.
"Is it your OPINION that there are gods?"

If you have no opinion, then you are a non-believer and so, you are an atheist because that is the default position.

This was a discussion point back on the Amazon boards.  Some person was adamant that atheism was NOT the default position, because if it was, the word "atheist" had no meaning. 

This person claimed that an atheist must explicitly consider and reject a particular god concept to be an atheist with respect to that god.  Atheism means "rejecting a god claim" to this person.  Therefore, a baby cannot be an atheist, or the word has no meaning.  Likewise a plant cannot be an atheist.

One problem with this position is that it is a slippery slope towards requiring atheists to shoulder a burden of proof.  "By what standard to you reject a god claim -- what evidence did you use?".  The other is the common-sense use of the word to be an answer to the question:

"Do you believe in any gods?".  This is a question about belief, not about evidence, or knowledge, or burden of proof.  Obviously is can't be asked of babies or plants.  People know if they have a belief or not (or could be in a state of confusion about their belief, which is not the same as agnostic).

If asked "how strongly do you believe", we could get into questions about evidence or reasons for believing or not. Then we get into gnostic/agnostic, or the Dawkins scale of 0 to 7 for belief.