The assertion comes from the religious. That there is a God and He is responsible for the life, the universe, and everything.
Atheism isn't the belief that there is no God. It's the lack of belief in any God.
No, that's the modern Dawkins-cult claim, commonly proselytised by Internet Atheists. Atheism has always been a more assertive position - there is no god.
Atheists' attempts to encroach on the much more rationally safe territory of agnosticism is crafty, but a sign of defeat.
Not Internet Atheism, HN is being read worldwide. Just an European with common sense. We tought like that since decades.
The wishy-washy recent re-definition of atheism as "without belief" was given modern impetus by Anthony Flew (who later converted to deism) in the late 1970s and popularised by the "New Atheists" - especially as an internet debating tactic - in the early part of this century.
Yes, religion does assert this, but that is also the defacto resting state for mankind. Allow me to explain:
For nearly all of human history, certainly all of recorded human history, there has been a strong belief in a God or Gods. It's a relatively recent concept that there might not be a God.
It is indisputable fact, that even today, in 2020, you are among the extreme minority of living people that do not believe in a God or Gods[1].
Therefore, being the newcomer, sporting a new assertion that there is no God, you must provide evidence to support this contentious claim. Since you cannot provide any evidence, and since no evidence currently exists to support this contentious claim, all you have left is a contradictory belief.
> Atheism isn't the belief that there is no God. It's the lack of belief in any God.
It is true one definition of Atheism is the absence of belief in a God. It becomes a belief when an assertion is made such as "God does not exist", because of the lack of evidence to support this claim[2]. That is the belief there is no God, because you have no empirical evidence to support your belief.
Belief means "confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof"[2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations
I see no Zeus throwing rays in Athene's sky nowadays.
And the Roman Empire with the Greek/Roman Gods was VAST. Huge. Hu-ge. Europe and a good chunk of Northern Africa.
Have a look on the Parthenon, please. Those are the scraps of their beliefs. That's all what's left. Marble, and ruins.
The only usable things from the Romans/Greeks were the practical ones:
- Greek/Latin
- Math
- Philosophy
- Arts
- Pillars of science with Aristhotle, even if he was wrong. Science allowed the world to correct his failures.
It's unreasonable to suppose that the burden of proof lies with the party in the minority or with the person positing a change in analysis rather than the one making the claim in the first place.
The idea that people who believed disease was caused by bad smells or evil spirits accepted an unfalsifiable claim uncritically does not mean we are forever stuck with it. This would literally mean that any group of people would be stuck with every unverifiable belief from the last millennium either forever or until we could democratically convince the majority. Truth isn't a democracy.
Science and logic says that we not only reject verifiably false claims we reject those that just don't make testable claims in the first place. Every mainstream religion is a mixture of potentially falsifiable claims with vague hand waving that is neither here nor there. After dismissing the actual it is not necessary to address the hand waving. If it doesn't make any claims its not worth discussing.
The notion that god doesn't exist doesn't require absolute mathematical as its a probabilistic statement of my confidence as to the likelihood of the existence of a literal creator not a mathematical one as in fact are most of your statements about most things. When one feels sufficiently confident in an analysis one often feels sufficiently confident one says such a statement is false. After dismissing the reality of 99 it is entirely reasonable to consider dismissing the existence of god even while acknowledging that this will probably never be a scientific answer to unfalsifiable claims. The notion that the deist may dismiss the need for evidence while the atheist is required to submit proof of a negative is just another sort of burden shifting.
- improbability
- lack of proof
- zillions on contradictions on their own manual
As I said, the burden of proof (God existence) it's up to the believer, not mine. Science says "nope", or unprobable enough clashing with near all common logic facts to not being declared a myth.
It literally doesn't, and cannot, say "nope". It wouldn't be science if it passed any judgement on Religion, because it literally cannot provide evidence to support or contradict Religion.
> Religion should be declared a myth
That's your opinion, which is fine. I share your opinion too, but that's all it is.
As an aside - from observation, the use of "Science!" has become it's own sort of religion. Blindly offering "Science!" as a reason something is true or untrue is totally the antithesis of actual science, and unfortunately is becoming far too common.
I would suggest that every mainstream religion is so full of holes after you reject such claims as to have little remaining value. I have not personally evaluated thousands of individual belief systems due to lack of time and energy but evaluated enough to have developed the theory that there aren't any good ones among the philosophies that would self describe as religions and especially those that make supernatural claims.
It's the religion cult the accountable one who need to probe their magic.
> "Science!" has become it's own sort of religion
No, Unicorns are better. And magic. Magic explains everything.
In short, not all atheists would say "I believe there is no God," and even if they did, not all beliefs are religions.