Congratulations, you’re an agnostic

My issue with atheism is that I think it establishes the lack of a God or gods as the truth.

Atheism is not about truth, it is about belief. Atheists do not believe there are gods.

If an atheist says that it is an absolute truth that there are no gods, they are an atheist, but also a gnostic. Gnostics claim to know essentially unknowable things as truths.

That’s agnosticism. Atheism is still a hard set belief. Agnostics know that they don’t know.

The concept of “god” implies not being bound by physical laws. So science simply doesn’t apply here. We can never scientifically prove or disprove god’s existence, because if we could, then whatever we proved or disproved wouldn’t fit our concept of “god” anymore. It would just be another natural phenomenon that can be studied.

But our world functions very well without a god. If one does exist, it doesn’t seem to affect anything meaningfully and noticeably. So is it really a god if you can just ignore it with no ill effects?

And without any real proof of its existence, it becomes equivalent with any other explanation that may or may not be true and can never be proven, like the flying spaghetti monster or the invisible pink unicorn. It becomes meaningless and useless, so it can be discarded as untrue.

Atheism doesn’t claim there is no god. You can’t prove a negative beyond “we’ve been unable to find convincing evidence that it does exist, therefore it probably doesn’t”.

Atheism claims there isn’t sufficient evidence that a god exists, therefore we don’t believe in it. That’s it.

If god shows up on earth and can prove being god, like idk by spawning a live dinosaur out of thin air, atheism dies instantly.

As a more concrete example: I can’t prove my glass of water won’t kill me. What I can do however is perform a series of tests and establish that it contains no known toxins to man, with the likelihood of it killing me being so minuscule I can be reasonably confident it is safe to drink. Bring me evidence people do die at an increased rate after drinking it and I’ll gladly reevaluate. But until then, I call it safe because evidence overwhelmingly tells me it’s safe.

My conclusion given the world as presented to me and the information I have is that there is no God.

There also is no Thor, no Santa Claus, no miracles, no ghosts, no easter bunny, and no afterlife. These are my conclusions from my time alive. If information is presented to me that changes these beliefs I’ll change my conclusion. But for now, that is my conclusion. That’s all. I’m not stating that “no matter what, no matter what information is presented, there can not be or has there ever been a god!”, rather I’m saying that I don’t believe there are any gods. It’s just the conclusion from the evidence.

It is possible to reasonably demonstrate there are no gods by disproving the opposite claim.

I.e. by disproving the claims by theists.

I do not claim there is no god, as hard fact. I do, however, see the absolute lack of evidence for a divine being as justification to believe that divine beings don’t exist.

Do you believe in Santa Claus? Leprechauns? Do you have the same concern with saying they don’t exist either? Gods and Santa Claus and leprechauns are all human constructs.

First of all there is no atheist movement. Not sure where that’s coming from.

Atheism establishes nothing. It is the default position. It is the religious who make the claim of a god and put forth no objective and independently, peer-reviewed evidence to support it. It is not the burden of atheists to bring anything to this debate.

So we keep to our default position.

You have this quite, quite backwards. If religionists would provide some actual tangible evidence of their god, that is scientifically verifiable, then we would be the first to change our position.

Strangely, religionists don’t seem to comport to that same, actual, open-mindedness and understanding.

That seems an oversimplification.

Afaik, atheism is more an absence of a belief in any deities. Sort of a “I do not believe that this is justified, based on the evidence I can currently see” rather than “I have definitive proof that no God or gods exist”.

Though like everything else - Christianity, politics, gender, which Star Trek meme community you enjoy visiting on the Fediverse - it is all things to all people, yet not equally so.

Most first-generation atheists are extremely angry at the religious systems & peoples that hurt them, so it is tempting to extrapolate that to the general definition that that is what atheism is, but that would be like saying that conservatives are uneducated (as in, mostly true, but yet… although…). Though I also think that this is less true than it was, e.g. fifty years ago (regarding atheism I mean, whereas for conservatism it is probably the other way around).

Switching now to talk about religion, I think that to the extent that ANYTHING is hypocritical, it proves that it is false. e.g. “pro-life” policies that kill people rather than affirm health, people who show up on January 6th to “defend” the Constitution but who actually attempted something that while very inept yet still solidly lay within the definition of a coup, religious fruitcakes no yeah that’s actually what I intend here, nutjobs is another word, but also fanatics, who ignore the very teachings that they claim to be “holy” (Love one another, do not heap heavy burdens upon others, the worker deserves his wages, etc.; btw did you know that there was one group of people that Jesus literally hated? No not the people at the temple predating upon the poor & ignorant - yeah he whipped them and then moved on without giving them much thought later, while more generally he talked about such false believers A LOT, calling them e.g. “whitewashed tombs, looking good on the outside but inside full of rot and decay”), the list can go on and on.

Yet the fact that bad examples of things exist does not negate that good examples of things can also exist. I love this verse: “Want religion that is pure & holy? Then take care of widows & orphans.” (James 1:27, essentially talking up socialist healthcare policies millennia ago) People who actually show kindness, gentleness, concern about human well-being, whether they be atheist or Christian or Muslim or Mormon (capitalizing those as proper nouns while the former is not?) or whatever, I don’t even care, I just stand with people who actually give a fuck. Especially over those fuckwits who claim to believe in one thing while simultaneously believing the precise polar opposite of that exact thing.

Ahem, anyway there are multiple types of atheists. Some just don’t really care, while some are outright militant, and I understand both POVs. There are several sub-categories of atheist too - implicit vs. explicit, weak vs. strong (e.g. a child who hasn’t been exposed to religious ideas is a weak atheist, not having made a conscious choice to reject that category of thinking), positive vs. negative, etc. I’ll leave you with this interesting (to me) quote:

In fact, “atheism” is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a “non-astrologer” or a “non-alchemist”. We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.

The chances of any particular theistic belief being correct by sheer chance are beyond astronomical. Even if I believed there was a possibility of a deity (and that depends a great deal on exactly what qualities were ascribed to a divinity), I would be 100% certain it’s not what anyone currently believes.

This seems to me like a categorical error. You speak about proof and facts, which are ultimately connected to the scientific method. Scientists often say “There is no evidence, that this happens/exists” (that phrase is important) and will disregard it, until there is evidence. That doesn’t make them close minded. Changes in knowlege are applied when they arrive, not through speculation without evidence beforehand. That way we can approximate the truth in our physical world. There is no scientific evidence of a god existing, so scientists disregard her, until such evidence appears.

Now you could say, that a god would exceed the physical limits of our world/existance. But then the whole scientific method becomes useless (as how would you get scientifical evidence for something outside of the scientific world) and you cannot speak about facts or truth or proof. This is the realm of belief, not science. And it will stay this way until a god would bridge over this devide.

So i would say: When talking about science, proof and facts, you need to stay in the reach of the scientific method. When talking about something outside of its reach (metaphysical), then its belief. Even you talking about the possibility of a god is a question about belief.

Being attached to current facts is the rational thing to do. Of course they are going to become obsolete, but if a prehistoric man was convinced that black holes exist, it wouldn’t be a genius, but a guy with irrational beliefs. You can be "right’ for wrong reasons, that is not a valid reason to decide that current knowledge is worthless.

In the end you can believe in god if you want, but the rational thing is to not believe in god as long as there is no evidence of its existence. But of course not everything needs to be rational, and if believing in god makes one feel better about their life, why not. As long as it doesn’t impact others badly obviously.

The biggest issue I have with your points are you can apply that same logic to all kinds of absurdity. Pick one or create one and it applies.

I also disagree with you that it is a healthier mindset to believe in essentially an unlimited amount of possibilities (unlimited because you can’t define an unknown in this case) but whether something is healthier or not is not a factual statement. It is just a subjective statement that is based too much on the individual and the mental status of that individual to determine if it is healthy or not. I could argue that it was unhealthy to believe in what I used to believe(specifically evangelical/Protestant Christianity) because of my underlining condition of dealing with obsessive compulsive disorder and depression, but that claim of being unhealthy doesn’t hold much weight because again, it depends on the mental state of an individual.

For myself, yes I am an atheist and yes if I come across evidence that convinces me differently then my views will change, but that doesn’t make my current stance any different or say weaker as some weak atheism(I find that term laughable), especially when I don’t have the knowledge of what that evidence would be to convince me.

Also remember, theories are believed to be true until proven wrong when it comes to science. The word theory is used differently in science then in colloquial type of discussions. So for example, just because we believe the theory of evolution is fact, that doesn’t mean we think a creation story myth is possible because we use the phrase, theory of evolution. I bring that up only because, the fact science has changed in the past doesn’t mean we can’t believe our current understanding as fact.

All good atheists are open to the possibilities, because we do not have atheism as a belief, but as a word to express that we are a=without + theism=religion.

Personally, even if a deity showed up and perform a miracle right before my eyes, I would not convert without a massive discussion because my personal moral compass would not allow myself to worship a being that holds so much power, but actively refuses to reduce suffering in such a large scale, but that is just me.

If it had a good reason such as being imprisoned by an evil deity and just having freed itself, and coming back to us to help us, then it would get my full support and belief, after some scrutiny of course.

Being certain of something, doesn’t mean that you’re closed minded. I am certain there is no God, as defined by any popular description I’ve heard in my life.

But if God themself, in whatever form, appeared to me, explained the situation and performed a few petty miracles at my request, I would then be convinced that they actually are God and that I understand the extent of their abilities and intentions.

I’d probably pop up in here and be like “ok, I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out…” Because I assume most other atheists would rather know the truth, than prove that they’re right. Many of course would think I’m trolling, maybe a few would ask questions, maybe I’d eventually get one or two to believe me. I’d probably get better results if I could convince God that appearing to more people might help his PR, but, mysterious ways and all…

Anyway, I’m convinced because of the evidence before me, new evidence might lead to a new view, but it has to happen first. 🤷🏻‍♂️