What is atheism?
Is it simply a disbelief in deities of any kind or is it more than that?
Is it in practice a philosophical position regards faith and belief in that it is inherently anti-faith?
Faith in anything not just deities?
Does it in fact take faith to be a atheist?
(there is a book by Norma Geisler titled "I do not have enough faith to be an atheist" which I am paraphrasing)
Many critics of atheism seem to imply that atheism is an excuse to be morally flexible and that with no firm foundation for morality atheists are all too willing to attack the moral basis of others whilst refusing to to defend the basis of their own 'slippery' position.
Is this true? Do atheists necessarily lack a firm sense of the moral and immoral?
To those who would describe themselves as atheists - What led them to this conclusion?
To those non-atheists - Is atheism a logically viable position? If not why not?
Do atheists and non-atheists have the same view of what exactly atheism is??
My own position is as follows -
I would describe myself as an atheist. I started along this path with a general dissatisfaction with organised religion and some scientific training that fostered in me the attitude that tentative, evidence based research was the only reliable method to evaluate supposed truths about the world.
Add to this the axiom that the burden of proof should be on that which is to be believed (as opposed to believing until disproved) and a broad examination of the main theistic religions, all of which claim to be the 'truth' yet seem to be equally unprovable and contrary to each other to some degree, and the only sensible course of action seemed to be that of healthy disbelief. I see no internal contradiction with this whilst simultaneously considering myself to be a reasonably moral person.
Although the beginning of this OP asks 'what is atheism' I would rather this thread (if promoted) not turn into a series of opposing dictionary definitions. Use formal definitions where relevant to your point by all means, but I am more interested in what people actually think about atheism than about definitions I could (and in some cases may already have done) look up myself.
We seem to spend a great deal of time on this forum examining the theistic position and it's viability in one form or another.
It seems only fair that the atheistic position undergo the same sort of challenge and scrutiny.
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