Problems with being an Atheist (or Evolutionist)

Is not believing in Santa Claus your belief system? Is not believing in Vishnu your belief system?Or is a belief system based on what you have a positive belief in? When asked for your belief system do you list the thousands of gods you don't believe in, or do you list the one god you do believe in?Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

I would agree that a majority of atheists are not sitting on the fence as to the existence of a deity. Atheists have been waiting since the dawn of time for theists to present us evidence that their gods exist. None has been presented. So we don't expect that there is a god, and for good reason. However, we don't have an absolute belief that there are no gods. If Zeus appeared in front of me I would certainly be surprised, and I certainly wouldn't be expecting it. However, I would absolutely accept that Zeus exists. That is not analogous to the atheist position. We say that no one has detected God. Therefore, there is no compelling reason to believe that God does exist. Could there be a God? Sure, but we really don't expect God to exist given the absence of any detectable evidence for the existence of God. This doesn't require faith to state that there is no evidence for the existence of God.To go back to your cube analogy, it doesn't take faith to claim that there are no known tests that detected anything in the cube, God or otherwise. We would then ask what evidence the theist had for claiming that God is in the cube. After the theist is incapable of coming up with the evidence we are back at square one, no evidence for God. There we sit, waiting for evidence of God. A true scientifically minded person, or logically minded person, would never assert that a being exists for which there is no evidence. Therefore, they would be an atheist.

I, as an atheist, agree.Instead of making this about belief vs. non-belief perhaps we could use a different word. Atheists are not convinced that there is evidence for a deity. IOW, we are skeptical of these claims. I think this captures the situtation much better because it does leave open the possibility that we can be convinced further down the line if new evidence comes to light. Then comes the hard part, getting the objective evidence to back it up.

When someone asks you what your religious beliefs are do you list off the thousands of gods you don't believe in? Or do you tell them about the god that you do believe in?

Then apparently God wants to be left alone, and I am more than happy to oblige.