Hi, kbertsche.
Forgive me for butting in here, but I wanted to add some of my own thoughts to Diomedes' and AZPaul's.
kbertsche writes:
We cannot prove scientific theories. Yet we believe that many scientific theories are true, based on evidence. We are convinced of them, even though we cannot prove them.
In the purest language of logic, we wouldn't say we 'believe' or 'are convinced': we would say we 'tentatively accept' or 'cannot reject.'
This is where the atheist lies. We reject the 'god' hypothesis, because we can't back it up with empirical evidence. This results in our accepting the null hypothesis, which is that god does not exist.
In my mind, the difference lies in the difference between 'accepting' and 'believing'.
'Accepting' is what good scientists and empiricists are supposed to do as a means of making proper decisions, and they are supposed to be willing to change which hypotheses they accept based on a re-evaluation of the evidence.
'Believing' is what good crusaders and salespersons are supposed to do as a way of promoting a cause or agenda. It generally implies some level of resistance to re-evaluating the evidence.
So, the 'ideal atheist' (i.e., the type of atheist we all claim to be and would like everyone to believe we are) would be an empiricist who currently lacks belief in god but is genuinely willing to consider re-evaluating evidence for the existence of god, as opposed to being .
The number of us that actually live up to that ideal is probably quite small (most of us are probably more resistant to theistic ideas than is strictly rational), but that's just the classically human trait of falling short of our ideals. Everybody is a work in progress, right?
-Blue Jay, Ph.D.*
*Yeah, it's real
Darwin loves you.