Is atheism a belief?

[downbeatplumb]

Atheism is absolutely a belief.

Those who say it is a mere "lack" of a belief do not know what they are talking about. Actually, atheism can be just as dogmatic as religion if not worse. If we lived in a universe, in a Reality, in which there was no God, no religion, no theistic notions of any kind, then perhaps people there could be said to be atheists in the sense that they lack belief in a God.

Problem is, this isn't that kind of universe.

Instead, we live in a universe where we have to "pick a side" in a sense, and order our belief systems accordingly. Those who adopt atheism, adopt also the things which go along with atheism and the rejection of beliefs and values that don't go along with it. Now, I'm not saying that materialism and atheism, for example, go hand in hand by a strict logical necessity, but a disbelief in God still carries with it a "casting off" of many notions which "gell" with it.

I would also say that atheism in itself is not religious in anyway, but in it's relationship and application to people, it has religious overtones. At least in potential.

I don't know how to put this exactly. But the fact is, everything is in relationship to everything else, and atheism is not exempted from this fact. Sure, one can say it is a "lack of a belief", but it is a "lack of a belief" in-the-face-of various theisms practiced by people of respective religions, some of which religions view infidels as worthy of death. Religions that may teach that everyone has a religion in a way because we are made in the image of God except that human nature has been distorted/disfigured by sin, etc. So atheism is therefore an idol of man, hence religious.

So already here you have a division of 'us' against 'them.' And this is incontrovertible in my view. Everything is in relationship to everything else. At least conceptually. And I think... socially, psychologically, and many other ways as well.

I am an atheist because I find the ideas put forward for gods as laughably idiotic, so I don't believe them.

Let me illustrate this.

Imagine some idea you think is stupid.

Lets say someone said a eating 85 big macs a day is great way to stay in shape.

Thats how I feel when someone tells me what of their idea of god. I cant believe that anyone takes the idea of god seriously.

So my atheism is a reaction to your stupid idea.

[Pat Mustard]

Nope 

All adult atheists, who have heard and rejected religious claims, have one belief in common. 

They believe that the claims of religion are unpersuasive.

My word but you are wrong a lot. Atheism is a belief in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby or bald is a hair colour.

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For me, as an atheist, I find it rational to believe the Sun exists based upon the evidence we have for it's existence.

It's actually irrational to believe the sun exists. We have more than sufficient evidence to accept the existence of the sun, just like I have more than sufficient evidence to accept the existence of the chair I'm sitting in or the keyboard I'm typing this post with.

Belief only comes into play when there is insufficient evidence for acceptance, or with religion, an utter lack of evidence at all.

[T0 Th3 M4X]

All adult atheists, who have heard and rejected religious claims, have one belief in common. 

They believe that the claims of religion are unpersuasive.

My word but you are wrong a lot.  Atheism is a belief in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby or bald is a hair colour.

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For me, as an atheist, I find it rational to believe the Sun exists based upon the evidence we have for it's existence.

It's actually irrational to believe the sun exists.  We have more than sufficient evidence to accept the existence of the sun, just like I have more than sufficient evidence to accept the existence of the chair I'm sitting in or the keyboard I'm typing this post with.

Belief only comes into play when there is insufficient evidence for acceptance, or with religion, an utter lack of evidence at all.

If someone says:

"I believe the earth's orientation is flat "

and I say:

"I believe the earth has a spherical orientation."

Is my statement to them irrational?  Where did you get the idea that "belief" is irrational?  Do you have an objective source for this?

[Rahn127]

Nomad, I suggest you look up the definition of the word belief.

[Belacqua]

All adult atheists, who have heard and rejected religious claims, have one belief in common. 

They believe that the claims of religion are unpersuasive.

My word but you are wrong a lot. 

I am sure that I am wrong a lot!

Please help me to understand why you think I'm wrong.

 Atheism is a belief in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby or bald is a hair colour.

Let me clarify what I'm saying here, and then I hope you'll tell me which of my statements is incorrect.

~ All adult atheists have heard claims made by religious people. For example: "God made the world." 

~ All of us reject these claims. We do not find them persuasive.

~ We reject these claims because we have solid convictions about what constitutes good evidence. For example, "scientific evidence is better than revelation, and there is no scientific evidence that God made the world." 

~ Therefore, all adult atheists have commitments concerning the way we evaluate truth claims, and these commitments lead us to reject the claims made by religious people. 

~ If we didn't have commitments concerning the way we evaluate truth claims, it would mean that we reject religious claims based on no reasons, but merely on a whim or by personal preference. 

If any of this is wrong, please explain why. Thanks.

[The Grand Nudger]

I was an atheist before I had any solid convictions about evidence, and even today, questions of whether or not some fucking fairy created the earth..as a gnostic atheist, don't have much bearing on my atheism. That shit is just hilariously false, but that's just a tick of human beings, not some damning comment on gods in their entirety. Very few gods were creator gods. It's not that we don't have any evidence that gods created this world that I laugh at that childish conjecture, but that all evidence points to the contrary. even among that limited set. If the purported creator gods existed...at least that much about their background stories is demonstrably false....and it honestly doesn't matter whether or not you believe in gods in the general, that much is inarguable, in good faith.

I have simply never believed. I suppose it would be fun to tell you that I was a brilliant five year old who'd read popper and what not...and was similarly well read in the conundrum of a justified true belief, but that would be fiction. So..theres some grand irony..in that who I am now, well...I actually do fit the characterization of an atheist with positive beliefs about the existence of gods...but even -I- didn't start out that way.

Still there remains the fact, like the fact I opened up with...that most of these guys just don't hold the position that I do. They're agnostics. Maybe they don't believe in -your- god, and maybe that much is a positive belief, but your god is a tiny bit of the sample. Positively not believing in your god simply isn't enough to determine that they have a positive belief that gods don't exist in general. It's not exactly their fault that your god is so silly that a bunch of agnostics can come down off the fence for a half second.

[T0 Th3 M4X]

I was an atheist before I had any solid convictions about evidence, and even today, questions of whether or not some fucking fairy created the earth..as a gnostic atheist, don't have much bearing on my atheism.  That shit is just hilariously false, but that's just a tick of human beings, not some damning comment on gods in their entirety.  Very few gods were creator gods.  It's not that we don't have any evidence that gods created this world that I laugh at that childish conjecture, but that all evidence points to the contrary.  

I have simply never believed.  I suppose it would be fun to tell you that I was a brilliant five year old who'd read popper and what not...and was similarly well read in the conundrum of a justified true belief, but that would be fiction.  So..theres some grand irony..in that who I am now, well...I actually do fit the characterization of an atheist with positive beliefs about the existence of gods...but even -I- didn't start out that way.

Twas magical pop rocks.

[Bucky Ball]

My word but you are wrong a lot.  Atheism is a belief in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby or bald is a hair colour.

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It's actually irrational to believe the sun exists.  We have more than sufficient evidence to accept the existence of the sun, just like I have more than sufficient evidence to accept the existence of the chair I'm sitting in or the keyboard I'm typing this post with.

Belief only comes into play when there is insufficient evidence for acceptance, or with religion, an utter lack of evidence at all.

If someone says:

"I believe the earth's orientation is flat "

and I say:

"I believe the earth has a spherical orientation."

Is my statement to them irrational?  Where did you get the idea that "belief" is irrational?  Do you have an objective source for this?

You're equivocating the word" belief". 
Used in the common way "it is my position ("belief") that the Earth is not flat" (based on a myriad of evidence)  if FAR different than invoking the concept of religious "faith" belief, based on no evidence.

[The Grand Nudger]

I was an atheist before I had any solid convictions about evidence, and even today, questions of whether or not some fucking fairy created the earth..as a gnostic atheist, don't have much bearing on my atheism.  That shit is just hilariously false, but that's just a tick of human beings, not some damning comment on gods in their entirety.  Very few gods were creator gods.  It's not that we don't have any evidence that gods created this world that I laugh at that childish conjecture, but that all evidence points to the contrary.  

I have simply never believed.  I suppose it would be fun to tell you that I was a brilliant five year old who'd read popper and what not...and was similarly well read in the conundrum of a justified true belief, but that would be fiction.  So..theres some grand irony..in that who I am now, well...I actually do fit the characterization of an atheist with positive beliefs about the existence of gods...but even -I- didn't start out that way.

Twas magical pop rocks.

So....nothing to say, like usual?

[Belacqua]

I was an atheist before I had any solid convictions about evidence, and even today, questions of whether or not some fucking fairy created the earth..as a gnostic atheist, don't have much bearing on my atheism.[...]

Here is a typical claim about God, which would be familiar to any Neoplatonic Christian, from Augustine to Simone Weil: "All good in the world derives from and ultimately points back to the form of the good, which is God." 

I assume you reject this claim. Would it be correct to say that you find it to be nonsense?

When you reject it (if you do) do you have reasons to reject it? Or do you reject it out of habit, or for no reasons?