this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2026
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I’m not taking it that way!
I assume we agree that in general, a belief is defined as “an acceptance that a statement is true” and while on the surface atheism seems to be nearly the opposite - a claim that many statements are false - we can we can easily reword any such claim to instead be an acceptance of truth. I believe that it’s true that there is no higher power and that when I die there is no aspect of my own consciousness which will continue to exist.
There are additional beliefs that some atheists hold which make them insufferable, like the belief that atheism must be evangelized.
This can be used to make anything into a belief system, then.
I believe there are no invisible unicorns in the room with me right now.
In no way am i trying to say that people who happen to believe the invisible unicorns are wrong or bad in any way. Does that mean that my belief system is defined by this lack of belief?
Yes, it can and does. I don’t think any single belief defines a person’s belief system, but each individual belief is a contribution to it.
Your belief that there are no invisible unicorns (or at least none that are with you right now) doesn’t simultaneously require you to also believe that people who do believe in them are bad, though I wouldn’t say the same about believing that they’re wrong (unless we’re truly applying the “in the room with you right now” qualifier and they’re in a different room than you are or time has progressed).
I can't fundamentally agree that non-belief is the same as belief.
I don't think "i do not believe in invisible unicorns" is making a positive claim even if you change the grammar around. If someone had evidence that supported the idea of invisible unicorns and i discounted that evidence, that would be an assertion on my part.
I don’t think I’m saying that belief and non-belief in a given thing are the same - fundamentally they are opposites, but both are things that someone arrives at through a collection of beliefs that form their belief system.