> The critique shows that belief in God is not an easy thing to toss aside/refute as one might think.

It really is.

You're already doing it for all supernatural entities (past, present and future) not going by the name 'God'.

I don't see how that's so. Could you explain?

Some examples, the fine-tuning argument, the origin of everything, the immense order observable in nature and Mathematics. These aren't very easy to explain away as coming from some random chaos.

    And they say back then our universe
    Was an empty sea, until a silver fox
    And her cunning mate began to sing
    A song that became the world we know[1]

Having read that, did it become part of your worldview? Or did you dismiss it?

[1] Björk - Cosmogeny

There is a mythical incident in the Old Testament where worshippers of Apis [0] are slaughtered by their brothers, who had freshly declared allegiance to Jehovah.

In general, the rise of monolatric religions in the Levant and Persia, religions where there are many deities but only one is worshipped, eventually turned to monotheism, where those other deities were derided and ignored. With this change, there were sweeping new priestly laws which insisted that it was blasphemous to worship those other deities.

You might be interested in a critical retelling of the Exodus [1] which puts in an effort to mention and understand the other deities which were worshipped around the time of these events.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apis_(deity)

[1] https://vimeo.com/263398514

> "you have good reasons to think that what you believe is true"

These "good reasons" always seem to be, "I'll feel lost if I don't adhere to and/or profess this superstition."

Atheism has no answer to this psychological vulnerability and feeling of "lostness", except to say "man up, woman up, this is life and these are its bounds."

My objection is not that superstition exists or that it comforts some people. My objection to the practice of superstition is that it misguidedly imposes itself on public policy.

Wouldn’t that be an agnostic rather than an atheist?

If being an atheist required 100% certainty, then only the omniscient could be atheist(and presumably only a deity can be omniscient, making atheism a paradox). In practice, most of us draw the line somewhere around "highly unlikely".

Yes, even Richard Dawkins described himself as being "6 out of 7" sure that God doesn't exist (or something like that), but I think he should still be called an atheist.

Many (most?) Christians are really only about 6 out of 7 sure that they're on the right track, too, and that doesn't seem to make them into something else, either.

Of course. And the confession "Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief" in Mark 9:24 was apparently good enough for Jesus.

The definition of agnostic seems closer to “not knowing and not pretending to know” to me than an atheist.

Although, I guess my personal definition has been that theist assumes a higher being exists, an atheist assumes no higher being exists, and agnostic assumes nothing.

I'm sure I've read this elsewhere and didn't come up with the distinction on my own, but my thoughts on this are:

Theism and atheism refer to a belief or lack of belief in the existence of god(s).

Gnosticism and agnosticism refer to a (claim of) knowledge of the existence of god(s).

I'd consider myself an atheist because I don't personally believe there are gods, but I'm also agnostic regarding the possibility.

I don't have enough info to rule out the possibility of a deity or deities, but I don't have any reason to believe there are any (or at the very least, not any that have a direct and personal interaction with humanity).

That seems like an unnecessary complication of the words “belief” and “knowledge”.

Belief = assumption + ego. I prefer to use the word assumption, it’s much cleaner and means the same thing as belief, without invoking emotions.

Therefore I don’t see any difference in assuming or not assuming the existence of god(s), and knowledge of the existence of god(s), which are still assumptions anyway.

I’m only seeing the utility of defining the following 3 groups:

1) assumes existence of god(s)

2) assumes lack of existence of god(s)

3) assumes nothing regarding the existence of god(s)

Unfortunately, "atheism" is a broad term which covers both people who do not believe in a higher power, and people who claim that no higher powers exist.

What is the difference between not believing in a higher power and claiming no higher power exists?

I lack a belief that there is a person in Argentina called Smergold Abrahamson, as that is a ridiculous name and I have no reason to believe that they exist. But I'm not going to claim with certainty that they don't.

I think the word believe is unnecessarily complicating this. As I stated above in another comment, assumption is a better word to use than believe, so substituting that gives:

“I do not assume that there is a person in Argentina called Smergold Abrahamson, as that is a ridiculous name. But I am not going to claim with certainty that they do not exist”.

Which is more concisely re-written as:

“I assume there is a very low probability of the existence of a person in Argentina called Smergold Abrahamson”.

Which going back to the original comment, I see the difference now:

“not believing (assuming) in a higher power”

is different than

“claiming (assuming) no higher power exists”

An agnostic neither affirms nor denies the existence of God. But atheist affirms with certainty the non-existence of God.

In my estimation, the critique of the book did a good job of showing that Boghossian could do with Boghossian's advice: “You need to become comfortable in not knowing and not pretending to know . . . “

Boghossian hasn't sufficiently proven there is no God...

> An agnostic neither affirms nor denies the existence of God. But atheist affirms with certainty the non-existence of God.

Is that accurate? I thought being atheist just meant you don't believe in a deity.