@debanjandey123 said in #33:
> Atheism is their personal belief. People should say Atheist Hindu or Atheist Christian, etc
@Capablanca_Chess1234 said in #18:
> A religion have some religious rules and some other religious stuff , atheism is a belief and why they would think it's a religion.
A belief in what?
Theist have a concrete claim. God exists.
I am not convinced they have fulfilled their burden of proof. Im skeptic about it. Theist invented a word for that specific case. Atheist. But either term is fine, both mean the same, it properly describes im not convinced about a claim.
The word belief is also problematic. When religious people use the word belief, they use it as a synonym of faith. Which in essence is described as "confidence without justification" IE "God will cure me from my sickness".
When we use the word belief, we use it as a synonym of confidence. as in after watching a basketball player having 85% in free throw attempts. I believe, aka im confident that he can score around 80 or 90 shots every 100. Im justified in "believing that"
If someone is in a trial for a crime. They are not deliberating if the guy is guilty or innocent. They are deliberating if the guy is guilty or NOT guilty. Remember O.J.? We knew he was not innocent. It was a matter of if they could prove he was guilty. Same here.
Theist are accusing god of existing, they are making a guilty claim. We dont find enough evidence to support that posture. Hence the not guilty veredict.
Atheism is not the opposite of theism. Anti-theism is the opposite of theism. So when you have the trial analogy Guilty-Innocent. You have theism-Antitheism.
A major problem is that a god cant be demonstrated. So you either believe it does, with faith, because you cant demonstrate. Those are called theists.
Or you believe it doesnt exist, because you cant prove that something that doesnt exist doesnt exist right? The one holding this claim is an anti theist.
Atheism is not holding either of those 2 positions. We are just skeptic about the claim a god exists.
While it is true that we will lean more to anti theism if you ask which of the theist - anti theist dilemma is more likely, is not necessary to do that, because saying "god doesnt exist" is shifting the burden of proof to yourself.
But regardless. if you start defending anti theism, the tag atheist doesnt really apply anymore.
So atheism is not a posture of "god doesnt exist"
Is an skeptic posture against the claim it does.
Is not a belief. Its the lack of belief in a claim. You are not saying the claim is false, you are saying you are not convinced that the claim is true.
