Does Atheism = No beliefs?

Commit? I was born an atheist, and so were you. If you come to believe in any supernatural beings for whose existence you have no evidence, then that is a commitment of sorts.Objectively investigating the question of whether or not vampires exist would involve asking yourself the question "Do I see any positive evidence to support the existence of such beings?" If not, then it is wise to remain in a state of disbelief that there are beings who can transform themselves into bats unless or until some evidence for such a phenomenon presents itself.Many atheists take this attitude towards gods. It's easy, and does not require an active belief that gods (or vampires) are impossible. And why not? Either vampires exist or they don't, so there are two sides to that question, and you can remain open minded by not believing in them unless you have evidence for their existence, and believing if and when that evidence crops up. You have no obligation to a permanent state of disbelief.If you examine the way in which you sort out reality, you will probably find that you pursue this course in relation to most propositions for which you have no evidential support (the Prime Minister of Australia is a werewolf, for example).So, why not do the same thing for gods?

Yes. There are plenty of right wing atheists. Probably millions. No. Atheism emphatically does not mean humanism. Some atheists are humanists, but the correct point that's been made repeatedly in this thread is that atheists are not united by any common philosophy or political beliefs. (And your quote wouldn't even unite all humanists).The only thing that all atheists have in common is that they don't believe in any gods. Trying to find something else is just like trying to find something that all people who do not believe in elves have in common. It's impossible. Forget it!

Ayn Rand was a well known one, if you count dead people. Bruce Willis? Why are you interested in well known ones? Google "conservative atheist" and you'll find web sites, blogs and discussion groups by and for the genre. No. Atheism predates evolutionary theory, for one thing, and I doubt if the followers of traditional non-theistic religions like the Jains would go for purely naturalistic evolution. If you mean united by the theory of evolution, a book by two atheists came out recently criticizing natural selection. Also, babies are implicit atheists, and they're hardly likely to have strong opinions on biology, are they?There's at least one nutty alien-believers sect that is atheistic and anti-evolutionist as well. But the point that you're missing is that atheism doesn't imply any beliefs other than that which is in the word's definition.Think of it like the description "American". There's nothing you can say that is particular to absolutely all Americans that isn't part of the word's definition. Or "theist." There is nothing that unites all theists outside the definition of the word.

I think that you're not expressing what you want to say very well. The only known source of intelligent design (us, and arguably some other animals) can be directly observed in action. Perhaps what you mean to say is that a speculative source of intelligent design from outside our life system has not been directly observed. We don't necessarily know whether that need be the case (gods, for example, are reputed to manifest themselves, and aliens could come and introduce themselves).Then, you need to use the phrase "indirect observation" for what you're saying here: Meaning, I think, that we could infer the existence of external intelligent design by observations, a bit like the inferring of planets from the wobble of stars. That's indirect observation, and yes, it's certainly possible.So, have I clarified what you're trying to say?You then claim that: Here, if you're trying to say that biology cannot make indirect observations ( that it cannot work on indirect evidence) you're wrong, and you're disagreeing with all biologists, including (most certainly) the I.D. types like Michael Behe. Should be? Actually, it would be up to any intelligent design theorist to make predictions, but never mind, evolutionary biologists could easily think of many things that could qualify. Finding lots of fossilized mammals in 400 million yr. old rocks would seem to blow out any possible explanatory theory for natural history that did not involve intelligent interference of some kind, for example. We can think up thousands of such examples. Mastodons suddenly reappearing in North America would convince me that intelligent design was involved.The reason why what's been put forward as evidence has been rejected is that it isn't actually evidence. Wishful thinking is not the same as evidence.You seem to want to ask atheists what they would accept as evidence of the existence of gods. Again, that's easy, and we can think of thousands of examples. Think about it. If the clouds arranged themselves to spell out "I am god; I am here" in all human languages that had a written form, then who wouldn't believe?We can easily dismiss the idea of a powerful god who wants us all to believe in him, because if such a being existed, we all would.When that's pointed out to theists, they might make something up like "God is testing us" or "God wants us to believe through faith by our free will". But such ideas don't make sense if they come from people who are claiming that there is evidence of a god, only coming from those "pure faith" theists who agree that there isn't.Incidentally, why aren't you asking people who don't believe in vampires what evidence they would require for the existence of vampires? And why aren't you asking mono-theists why they all believe in different "one true gods" with different personalities (because they do - there are as many gods believed in as there are theists).