Isn’t Atheism a world view without reasons and arguments?

[Windwalker]

You can't provide proof where there is an absence of evidence but you can use an absence of evidence as a reason for disbelief.

This is true, but then that lack of evidence provides a justification for that disbelief and therefore makes it a positive affirmation of a belief which finds support in rationality. As many argue, the claim atheism is nothing more than the absence of a belief in a god, does not seem to hold up in how it is held as a positive statement of how one views reality. I have no problem with atheism as a positive belief statement. I only have a problem with the denial that is what's actually going on.

Why is it so hard for many to just say atheism is a positive belief statement? When I used to identify myself as an atheist, I certainly didn't feel a need to deny it was a positive belief statement. It didn't seem logical to me, then or now to claim it wasn't. It always impressed me as a "too close to home" thing for many and hence the rationalizations surrounding it.

 

[Jesster]

People have claimed a dozen times that atheism is not a positive view, that it is not a truth claim etc. This just is what denying strong atheism is. Unless you skipped most of the thread, I do not see how you could make this statement.

Should I point back to what I was saying about general vs specific again? The most basic form of atheism isn't making a truth claim. Specific forms (strong atheism) can. Nobody is denying this.

 

[Nakosis]

This is true, but then that lack of evidence provides a justification for that disbelief and therefore makes it a positive affirmation of a belief which finds support in rationality. As many argue, the claim atheism is nothing more than the absence of a belief in a god, does not seem to hold up in how it is held as a positive statement of how one views reality. I have no problem with atheism as a positive belief statement. I only have a problem with the denial that is what's actually going on.

Why is it so hard for many to just say atheism is a positive belief statement? When I used to identify myself as an atheist, I certainly didn't feel a need to deny it was a positive belief statement. It didn't seem logical to me, then or now.

Sure it's a positive claim. It's a positive claim that I don't have a belief about God. I'd suspect most atheists have their reasons not having such a belief. Just don't go about asking me to disprove the existence of a God.

 

[Jesster]

Why is it so hard for many to just say atheism is a positive belief statement? When I used to identify myself as an atheist, I certainly didn't feel a need to deny it was a positive belief statement. It didn't seem logical to me, then or now.

Because in it's most basic form, it's not a positive belief statement. There are atheists that do make a positive belief statement. There are several labels different people use to differentiate this (gnotic atheism, strong atheism, positive atheism, etc.). It was fine for you to take that position as an atheist, but please recognize that this doesn't define all atheists. The minimum requirement to be an atheist is to not accept beliefs in a god or gods. That's the position for many of us.

 

[Windwalker]

Sure it's a positive claim. It's a positive claim that I don't have a belief about God.

Well yes, exactly! And I completely respect that. It's honest, accurate, and valid.

I'd suspect most atheists have their reasons not having such a belief. Just don't go about asking me to disprove the existence of a God.

Yes of course. There are substantial reasons for why they don't, and I respect that as well. It just drives me mad when they try to soft-peddle or downplay that because the word "belief" in the context of speaking about God seems to cause discomfort in many. For God's sake, just own it, I say. Nothing wrong with that as a belief.

 

[Windwalker]

Because in it's most basic form, it's not a positive belief statement. There are atheists that do make a positive belief statement.

I'm just now having an interesting thought. When someone makes a statement about another that they are an atheist, then it is not a positive belief statement. For instance, some church goer sees some non-churchian, "Bob", who spends his Sundays doing something else and never sets foot in a church as an "atheist". That is merely saying that person doesn't share their belief with them. That person who has said nothing about his beliefs is assumed a "non-believer". That is "atheism" as not a positive affirmation of beliefs on the part of Bob.

However, if Bob were to declare, "I do not go to your church because I do not believe God exists", than now is in fact a positive statement about his beliefs he saying. He literally believes that God is not real. That is an affirmation of his personal beliefs. It is a positive statement about the existence of God. "Does not exist" is a positive statement about his beliefs.

There are several labels different people use to differentiate this (gnotic atheism, strong atheism, positive atheism, etc.).

Each of these are still positive affirmations. They only are a matter of degrees, from soft to hard. Agnosticism is the only alternative, not mentioned here, which can be accurately said as a non-position. The rest are taking positions. And taking any position at all, is a positive statement, be that a kind and gentle position, or a radical militant one, the same as any theist holding God views.

It was fine for you to take that position as an atheist, but please recognize that this doesn't define all atheists.

Saying that any position on that sliding scale of atheism self-definitions is a positive statement regardless of where someone sees themselves on this, is not defining it for them. That's just a statement of fact reflected in the use of language itself. "I do not believe in X" is a positive statement, regardless of how strongly someone asserts that.

The minimum requirement to be an atheist is to not accept beliefs in a god or gods. That's the position for many of us.

It is a position, correct. Any position is the taking of a positive stance. Taking no position, is agnosticism.

 

[wandering peacefully]

Isn’t Atheism a world view without any positive reasons and arguments for its truthfulness?
Regards

I don't believe it is. In fact it is not even capitalized the way you have spelled it. I think you are making it out to be more of a big deal than it really is with that statement.

a·the·ism
ˈāTHēˌizəm/
noun

1. disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.
   synonyms: nonbelief, disbelief, unbelief, irreligion, skepticism, doubt, agnosticism;
   nihilism
   "atheism was not freely discussed in his community"

 

[`mud]

OK...we have `strong atheism`, ` negative atheism`, positive atheism`, ` militant atheists`, ` neutral atheists`, and of course `Agnostic Atheists`, which have as many variations as the AAs.
None of them totally believe in the flying rulers in the sky.
Aside from them some others believe in the trinity.
`God`, `Jesus' ghost, and the holy ghost all flying around in their heaven casting judgment on all of humanity. They're sending angels to Earth to try to help the `good` people like Trump and friends attain salvation. Sometime in the futher; trumpets will screech out announcing the salvation of mankind. A minute please.............while I laugh out loud.....give me a break !
These people really believe this stuff, give them a break and forgive their fallicious worshiping.
Geee...I'm running on aint I....oh well...
NuffStuff

 

[Valjean]

A faith statement is "something that is believed especially with strong conviction" and " firm belief in something for which there is no proof" (Merriam -Webster)

Atheism is a strong conviction and a firm belief that there is no God or gods. They don't have proof that there isn't, so it is a belief system that is religiously held on to.

In technical discussion the 2nd definition is more apt -- though I could also quibble about "proof."
Science seeks knowledge, what you might call faith a great deal of evidential support; a very high degree of confidence.

There is a hierarchy of knowledge. You could take it from the Cartesian level, where everything but one's own existence is speculative, regardless of evidence, to pure folklore with no evidential support whatever.

Atheism, to most atheists, is not a conviction that there are no gods, it's a simple lack of belief -- pending evidence.

 

[PureX]

No. You're asserting my position again, but that's not what it really is. You're also adding in a lot of things I never said, and I'd certainly never take those positions you've ascribed to me. I don't know where you are getting any of this outside of your own preconceptions. Are you willing to listen to me instead of talking over me?

I am getting this from the definitions of "atheism", and "agnosticism". Atheism is not "unbelief". Atheism is the REJECTION of the theist's assertion that God/gods exist. Atheism is also not agnosticism, as atheism bases it's rejection on human knowledge (and on the lack thereof) as being able to validate/invalidate the existence of God/gods. While agnosticism specifically denies this knowledgeability.

Gnosticism addresses your claim to certain knowledge. A- is a prefix that means "not" or "without", so agnosticism means without a claim to certain knowlege.

Agnosticism has nothing to do with "certainty". Agnosticism is simply the belief that human knowledge does not include divine knowledge. And we therefor cannot know of God/gods exist or not, or if it/they exist, in what manner. Certainty is irrelevant.

Theism means a belief in a god or gods.

No, it doesn't. Theism is a philosophical term referring to the realm of philosophical inquiry and debate related to the existence of God/gods. "Beliefs" are the purview of religion, not theology. Therefor, atheism is the rejection of the philosophical assertion, in all it's forms, that God/gods exist and thereby effect our existence in some way. Atheism is the REJECTION of the theistic proposition that God/gods exist. And that rejection is based either on the counter-proposition that gods do not exist, or the premise that such knowledge unavailable to us.

Stacking those two together, you get to my stance: agnostic atheism.

The two positions don't "stack together". Not logically, anyway. Unless your rejection of theism is based on something other than knowledge.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I am getting this from the definitions of "atheism", and "agnosticism". Atheism is not "unbelief". Atheism is the REJECTION of the theist's assertion that God/gods exist. Atheism is also not agnosticism, as atheism bases it's rejection on human knowledge (and on the lack thereof) as being able to validate/invalidate the existence of God/gods. While agnosticism specifically denies this knowledgeability.
Agnosticism has nothing to do with "certainty". Agnosticism is simply the belief that human knowledge does not include divine knowledge. And we therefor cannot know of God/gods exist or not, or if it/they exist, in what manner. Certainty is irrelevant.
No, it doesn't. Theism is a philosophical term referring to the realm of philosophical inquiry and debate related to the existence of God/gods. "Beliefs" are the purview of religion, not theology. Therefor, atheism is the rejection of the philosophical assertion, in all it's forms, that God/gods exist and thereby effect our existence in some way. Atheism is the REJECTION of the theistic proposition that God/gods exist. And that rejection is based either on the counter-proposition that gods do not exist, or the premise that such knowledge unavailable to us.
The two positions don't "stack together". Not logically, anyway. Unless your rejection of theism is based on something other than knowledge.

You do not get to define what atheism is any more than a Muslim gets to define what Christianity is.

 

[QuestioningMind]

The fact that so many people echo this statement shows that it's a statement that needs to be adressed. All of you (and others who I didn't bother quoting) are going by a very particular version of atheism and are equivocating it with atheism in general. Some of these posts do it implicitly and others explicitly deny that atheism means anything else than "lack of belief", "not believing" or something else along those lines.

This is indeed what many atheists take their atheism to mean, however it is far from being the only way atheists have understood their position. Throughout centuries (and even today) there are plenty of positive atheists who hold a positive belief that "There is no God" and who thereby make a truth claim and a claim to knowledge.

They thus do bear a big burden of proof and have attempted throughout history (and still do just as actively) to present positive arguments for the truth of atheism (the claim that there is no God). Examples of these famous attempts would be the various versions of the problem of evil or perhaps (more recently) the problem of non-resistant non-belief.

The whole distinction between negative and positive atheism is a relatively recent one as early proponents of the distinction such as Flew admitted that atheism (in the negative sense) would have to be understood in a very unusual way, different from how it was understood before both by theists and atheists.

Bottom line is, atheism is not a view that can be generally limited to any one thing. There are different kinds of atheism and not all of them are negative, so just as it is unhelpful for the OP to limit atheism to a positive sense, it is equally unhelpful for you lot to limit it to the negative sense.

Atheism is simply the lack of belief in any god(s). Anyone who has a lack of belief in god(s) is an atheist. There are SOME people who have a lack of belief in god who take it one step further and declare that there is no god(s). That of course is something MORE than just a simple lack of belief, which makes it something more than just simple atheism.

ALL atheists have a lack of belief in god(s). NOT all atheists claim that there is no god, thus the latter group is a subset of atheism.

 

[PureX]

It's quite rude to accuse one of "pretending"
to believe what one says one believes.
She's a straight shooter, & you misjudge her.

We humans "pretend" we know, understand, believe, etc., all kinds of things that we don't know, understand or believe. And we are as likely to fall for our own pretenses as anyone else is.

Theists fall for the pretense that they "know God/Jesus loves them" all the time. And they mean every word when they say it. They are "strait shooters", too. Yet the fact is that they can't know what they're claiming to know. They can only choose to believe it's so because they want it to be. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's called faith. But there is a difference between faith and pretense, and the difference is choosing ignorance, or honesty. Both of which we all engage in to varying degrees. So I'm not insulting anyone by suggesting that they appear to be engaged in the former, as opposed to the latter, regarding this issue at this time. It's like being insulted because someone calls you "human".

 

[Revoltingest]

....there is a difference between faith and pretense, and the difference is choosing ignorance, or honesty. Both of which we all engage in to varying degrees. So I'm not insulting anyone by suggesting that they appear to be engaged in the former.....

We'll have to agree to disagree on that.

 

[QuestioningMind]

Of course they do. We all do, just as much as by what we DO believe to be true. How could it be otherwise? The truth, for we humans, is as defined by what it's not as by what it is.
All those things exist, and you know this as well as I do. We just don't believe they exist as autonomous physical entities. Interesting how the moment I toss in a crack about the dishonesty of atheists, that coveted atheistic logic and reason suddenly flies out the window, and the knee-jerk auto-defense mechanism takes over.

"All those things exist, and you know this as well as I do. We just don't believe they exist as autonomous physical entities. Interesting how the moment I toss in a crack about the dishonesty of atheists, that coveted atheistic logic and reason suddenly flies out the window, and the knee-jerk auto-defense mechanism takes over."

Talk about being dishonest! Of COURSE all of those things exist as CONCEPTS. And you KNOW that I was talking about them not existing as autonomous physical entities. Clearly the only way you can 'toss a crack into the dishonesty of atheists' is to blatantly lie about what they are trying to say. Rather pathetic.

And yes, it's POSSIBLE to define a person's worldview by declaring what they do NOT believe in, but of course you KNOW that there isn't anyone who DOES define their worldview in that way. People define their worldview by what they DO believe in. How sad that the only way you can score a point is by completely misrepresenting reality.

 

[HonestJoe]

Isn’t Atheism a world view...

No it isn't.

A bit of friendly advice for the future. Atheism is essentially the exact opposite of theism so next time you come up a question along the lines of "Is atheism...", ask yourself the equivalent "Is theism..." question and see if it makes any kind of sense. If the answer is no, the atheist version probably doesn't either.

 

[Jesster]

I am getting this from the definitions of "atheism", and "agnosticism". Atheism is not "unbelief". Atheism is the REJECTION of the theist's assertion that God/gods exist. Atheism is also not agnosticism, as atheism bases it's rejection on human knowledge (and on the lack thereof) as being able to validate/invalidate the existence of God/gods. While agnosticism specifically denies this knowledgeability.
Agnosticism has nothing to do with "certainty". Agnosticism is simply the belief that human knowledge does not include divine knowledge. And we therefor cannot know of God/gods exist or not, or if it/they exist, in what manner. Certainty is irrelevant.
No, it doesn't. Theism is a philosophical term referring to the realm of philosophical inquiry and debate related to the existence of God/gods. "Beliefs" are the purview of religion, not theology. Therefor, atheism is the rejection of the philosophical assertion, in all it's forms, that God/gods exist and thereby effect our existence in some way. Atheism is the REJECTION of the theistic proposition that God/gods exist. And that rejection is based either on the counter-proposition that gods do not exist, or the premise that such knowledge unavailable to us.
The two positions don't "stack together". Not logically, anyway. Unless your rejection of theism is based on something other than knowledge.

You aren't listening to a word I'm saying, are you?

 

[Jesster]

I'm just now having an interesting thought. When someone makes a statement about another that they are an atheist, then it is not a positive belief statement. For instance, some church goer sees some non-churchian, "Bob", who spends his Sundays doing something else and never sets foot in a church as an "atheist". That is merely saying that person doesn't share their belief with them. That person who has said nothing about his beliefs is assumed a "non-believer". That is "atheism" as not a positive affirmation of beliefs on the part of Bob.

However, if Bob were to declare, "I do not go to your church because I do not believe God exists", than now is in fact a positive statement about his beliefs he saying. He literally believes that God is not real. That is an affirmation of his personal beliefs. It is a positive statement about the existence of God. "Does not exist" is a positive statement about his beliefs.Each of these are still positive affirmations. They only are a matter of degrees, from soft to hard. Agnosticism is the only alternative, not mentioned here, which can be accurately said as a non-position. The rest are taking positions. And taking any position at all, is a positive statement, be that a kind and gentle position, or a radical militant one, the same as any theist holding God views.


Saying that any position on that sliding scale of atheism self-definitions is a positive statement regardless of where someone sees themselves on this, is not defining it for them. That's just a statement of fact reflected in the use of language itself. "I do not believe in X" is a positive statement, regardless of how strongly someone asserts that.


It is a position, correct. Any position is the taking of a positive stance. Taking no position, is agnosticism.

I'll go over this again so you can follow along with how I'm using these labels as well.

Gnosticism means taking a position of certain knowledge. The prefix A- means "not" or "without", so agnosticism means not taking a position of certain knowledge.

Theism means belief in a god or gods. If we apply that A- prefix again you can get atheism, which means without a belief in a god or gods.

Since one of these deals with your position of certainty of knowledge and the other deals with belief, the labels are not mutually exclusive. For example, I am an agnostic atheist. This means I do not hold a belief in a god or gods and I am not making any claims of certainty about them. This position is not a position of positive assertions at all. "Agnosticism" isn't an alternative to my position. It is a part of it.

 

[Kenny]

You do not get to define what atheism is any more than a Muslim gets to define what Christianity is.

But you do define Christianity quite often. Not to mention that the Merriam Webster dictionary also defined it as I had noted.

Now, that atheists differ in definition is as true as Christians define Christianity differently.

Atheism, to most atheists, is not a conviction that there are no gods, it's a simple lack of belief -- pending evidence.

That is quite possible but certainly even on this forum, it isn't always the projection.

I find also that it isn't necessarily "pending evidence" as interpretation of evidence varies. Perhaps more like "pending evidence to my satisfaction"?

For an example, the person who has an inoperable tumor with a 2 months death sentence that all of a sudden (after prayer) it disappears and no longer viewable on an MRI... spontaneous and a natural change? or God? An interpretation that will vary between a believer and an atheist.

 

[Jesster]

For an example, the person who has an inoperable tumor with a 2 months death sentence that all of a sudden (after prayer) it disappears and no longer viewable on an MRI... spontaneous and a natural change? or God? An interpretation that will vary between a believer and an atheist.

If there's no explanation, I stick with "I don't know". It's the most honest position.