Jayhawker.
Thank you for your clarification if I seemed to suggest that the atheist asserts a set of beliefs that are at odds with the theist.
It is a subtle, but VERY important distinction you allude to. Kindly let me clarify by analogy: A juror who believes that the accused is guilty, has a conviction that is expressed as a positive assertion, i.e., that the accused IS guilty. However, a juror who is NOT convinced by the evidence, and who asserts that the accused is NOT guilty, is making a negative assertion. The status of this negative assertion is not to posit a (positive) assertion or set of beliefs, but to simply DENY the positive assertion of the other juror. Please, I implore any reader not to dismiss this as "BS" or verbal trickery. It is a sensible fundamental "law" of logical reasoning. Example: If I assert to you that the Queen of England is a Sumo wrestler, and you say that you don't believe it, your reply is NOT an assertion. I realize this is perhaps a picky point, but you will concede, I trust, that it is, nonetheless, a legitimate one?
In haste, I may have suggested that the atheist and theist have opposing beliefs, but, strictly speaking, only the theist is making an assertion; the other is simply denying this assertion, and is not offering an opposing assertion.
I will concede that in most cases, the denial of the atheist is attended by rational explanations, such as the origin of life and its evolution, etc. In which case, I dare say, most theists and atheist DO in fact have very incompatible viewpoints. Although any opposing rational explanations on the part of the atheist are, strictly speaking NOT a derivative of atheism, so much as an inevitable result of a decidedly clearer mind.
