this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2026
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He’s got a point, but somehow mucked it up.
Atheism is faith without proof that there is no god. So atheism, too, is a religious belief.
You can’t have faith in the non-existence of something. That is the default state of all concepts.
It has nothing to do with faith in a deity.
It’s a belief that no such thing could exist without having any actual confirmation.
No. That’s not how anything works. The maker of a claim must provide the proof.
Take the Invisible Pink Unicorn, which is standing right behind you right now. You are not an anti-unicornist because you think I’m full of shit.
Is the claim not that “no god exists”?
If it weren’t, it’d just be agnosticism?
What a strange world it would be if I had to go around claiming that various things didn’t exist.
So . . . What do atheists claim?
Nothing, that’s literally the point.
That's agnosticism not atheism. The definition of atheism is literally in the word a-theism, the opposite of theism. A theist believes there's at least one deity, an atheist believes the opposite, that there are no deities. An agnostic, in a sense, believes nothing. There's no proof God exists, there's no proof God doesn't exist so an agnostic makes no claims about God. By rejecting the the possibility of a God you're making a claim and without proof that claim becomes faith.
That’s not what agnosticism means. Agnostic means that they believe there is no way of knowing whether or not god exists. In contrast, atheists reject the claim outright.
Also it’s absolutely ridiculous to say that rejecting a claim is the same as making a claim. This doesn’t hold up to even the most basic of philosophical rigor.
You are claiming that rejecting a claim needs no proof to be true. Alright, I'll reject your claim. What now?
Now you’re getting it! This is the part where I get to provide evidence for my claim.
I recommend you start with this summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy) Essentially, the concept of “burden of proof” is so universal, it spans Philosophy, Mathematics, Law, and general human discourse.
See also the scientific method which requires that a hypothesis must be falsifiable, otherwise it is useless as a conjecture. Again, this concept is so fundamental it shows up across all disciplines that require rigorous standards of truth.
To go further, any sort of scientific study requires a null hypothesis which is the “default” state for the argument. In the case of this argument, the null hypothesis is “god does not exist”, and the burden of proof lies on the people claiming that there exist one or more gods.
All this together goes to say that it’s fundamentally dishonest to hold religious views to a different standard of evidence than we do everything else. Normally people do because they are ignorant, not because they are hypocrites. But as you learn more about philosophy, logical fallacies and cognitive biases, you start seeing those problems in the arguments pop up everywhere.
So all non verbal intelligence is atheist. Hm. Well that’ll certainly pump up those numbers.
Most atheists are agnostic atheists that do not accept the proposition that a god or gods exist. They make no claims.
Theist: There is a god. (claim)
Atheist : I'm not convinced. (Rejection of the claim)
Because society is so heavily influenced by god belief, there exists a term for those that reject the god claim. Most do not believe bigfoot exists, but there's no special "abigfootist" word for the same exact position about not believing in a god. And people don't go yelling at "abigfootists" to prove bigfoot does not exist.
There are some atheists that claim there is no god, and that would absolutely require evidence.
I thought they were different, i.e.
atheist:
And agnostic:
It's true that all beliefs are a leap of faith to some degree. I would have difficulty stating a belief that "there is no fly in this room" simply because I have not detected it. I am fly-agnostic.
It is also however true, that we can dismiss without proof anything that is alleged without proof. If you tell me there is a fly but I cannot find it, I need not subscribe to fly-agnosticism to presume you were mistaken!
That's like saying "not collecting stamps is my hobby"
No, it isn’t.
You’re conflating a choice to do or not do something with a choice to believe or not believe in something that cannot be proven or disproven.
Not believing IS a choice.
(sometimes it's not, like when indigenous tribes have never been exposed to the concept of gods)
Well, at least you have a sense of humor.
No, I'm being serious.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
🎵🎶
The lack of proof about the existence of something is very different from believing in something without proof.
I believe unicorns don't exist because there is no proof they do. That is not a "religious" belief in the sense of "I choose to believe they don't exist and I don't need or want proof". If such proof were to be provided, I will happily reconsider my position.
I personally wouldn't even say I believed in them if they were proven to exist. I would state that I understand – or know – that they do.
Knowledge is a justified true belief
Incorrect. Knowledge is based on information that can be verified.
You can't prove a negative my man.
It’s not about proving a negative, it’s about acknowledging that we cannot possibly know one way or the other.
The atheists I have interacted with all my life have always told me that there cannot possibly be a god. That’s a belief, by definition.
Because there's no proof, no evidence. Every piece of 'evidence' has been "trust me, bro".
On both sides, yes.
What 'both sides'?
One says, "gods exist, trust me (and my personal experiences without hard verifiable evidence)."
The other side says, "I don't believe you, prove it."
You're forgetting the response from the theist.
Theist: God exists.
Atheist: I don't believe you.
Theist: How can you not believe me? You have no evidence, therefore my God exists.
Atheist: ...
That's effectively trying to prove a negative, which is nigh impossible.
Also, it's commonplace for a believer te be unable to empathize with a nonbeliever: it's unfathomable to them that non-belief could be possible.
It's akin to a person with loving parents to ever consider that their parents could be unloving, their minds can't comprehend it.
So the believer goes about life thinking everything is a belief, even atheism. Which is an incorrect assessment.
That's a bold statement. Can you prove that we cannot possibly know one way or the other?
Most theists believe in an all-powerful god. If such a god exists, it could absolutely prove that it exists, otherwise it wouldn't be all powerful. So far, it hasn't done so, and no one has presented me any convincing evidence, so I don't believe in a god.
You should meet some more atheists. Most atheists are agnostic atheists -- I don't know whether or not there is a god, but I currently do not believe in a god.
Yes, some atheists do think they know there is no god. That is a belief and requires proof, which like the theists, they don't really have.
Prove that there does not exist a negative that can be proven
This you?
No.
But at this point, I get the feeling I would have had a much more productive conversation with him.
A conversation with a cartoon character would be very helpful for you and would save the rest of us a lot of time
You're seemingly not understanding what dozens of people are trying to explain to you.
The issue is you, not the people trying to explain how logic works. You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of basic logic theory. And that's ok. This is something that you can learn and grow beyond.
This is a moment where you have a choice to make. You can continue to do things the way you're doing it, which is only going to be effective in the circles you've already chosen to spend time in; or you can listen to literally everyone in this thread telling you you're incorrect, and consider that you might genuinely misunderstand something about how the world works, and adapt and learn and grow.
Capacity for self inflection and growth is what most theists lack. Not everyone can break out of their indoctrination cycle. It's tough. It took years and years for me to deconvert from christianity. It will be the same journey for you, but the first step is admitting that you're not the smartest person in this room right now, and that is understandably a difficult thing for anyone to do.
There's no shame in that, by the by. But it is necessary to move forward and grow.
Or remain where you're at for the rest of your life and ignore the evidence, and lack of evidence, as you continue to tap dance your way around it, thinking you're more clever than the people you're arguing with, until you die. There won't be any realization that there's no afterlife. Just nothingness. The same nothingness that you existed in before you were born. There will be nobody there to tell you that you were wrong, or they were right, or any of that nonsense. Just, nothingness.
Atheism does not profess any such faith. The null hypothesis is always presumed correct unless evidence is presented for the alternative hypothesis. Non-existence is kind of the ontological null hypothesis for basically everything, going all the way back to "I think therefore I am." From there we have entire branches of philosophy which deal with the nature of perception, knowledge and truth which leads us to several ideas for inferring "existence" through various combinations of observation and reasoning.
Famously though, influential modernists like Kant and Hegel and Hume all tried to reform the idea of "God" into a question of the abstract rather than the concrete, which leads into a much more interesting semantic conversation. Eg, like you can say the phenomenonical unicorn exists because we understand the abstraction without needing to observe it directly. But at the same time, we can say that nobody has ever observed the material Unicorn, or "unicorn in itself." Likewise, atheists can acknowledge God as an abstract concept which has real moral and metaphysical implications, while understanding that there is no evidence of material existence.
It is not an act of faith to conclude that the requisite parameters for a claim are not met.
If a claim requires the laws of thermodynamics to be broken, then until an additional law is proven and replicated as an exception to the existing laws, then I would conclude that the aforementioned claim is false.
Incorrect. Theism is the belief. The "a" in front creates a counter, the opposite.
It's a complete lack of faith or belief.
Atheism is the default state.
Do you not believe in the Easter bunny? Because there has to be an Easter bunny for you to believe in.
See how unsound that argument is?
Having faith without proof is the nuance. Atheism is everyone's default state until they're indoctrinated by a religion or belief system.
This is hilarious, thanks
There is gnostic atheism (I claim to know for sure there is no god) and agnostic atheism (I don't believe there is a god, but I don't claim to know for sure). Most atheists are the latter, which has no faith required.
You have accomplished more with one short paragraph than the joint thesis/manifesto everyone else in this thread wrote.
My experience has always been with the former; Atheists who proudly pronounced that there cannot be a god. That experience has made some people very upset.
Why had I only been exposed to that one kind of Atheist? I dunno. Maybe it has to do with the time period or the location, but I hadn’t encountered any other kind before this, not a topic of interest for me. And after all this, I would rather not ever again. Oh well.
Atheism can refer both to the acceptance of the claim "there are no gods," and/or the nonacceptance of the claim "there is at least one god." Not accepting the claim that there is at least one god is not the same as accepting the claim that there are no gods.
Many self-identified atheists are agnostic atheists, who don't claim any knowledge one way or the other
Go look up Russel’s Teapot.
No, it is literally the absence of faith.