# Why do atheists insist that atheism is a 'non-belief'? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 15, 2010, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281 "2010-12-15T20:50:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 31
**Author:** ![iamnotbatman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/858c86/32.png) [@iamnotbatman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamnotbatman)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/601 "2010-12-22T19:06:14Z")
Even though the rest of his argument doesn’t make sense anyways, I should point out that **magellan01** ’s premise: _from what we know, there are no causeless events_ Is wrong. Physicists do not make such a sweeping claim, so neither should he. For all we know, the universe could be a closed time-like [curve](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_timelike_curve) (causeless), it could have no [beginning](http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/09.30/hawking.html) (causeless), fundamentally the universe be [mathematical](http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0646) (causeless), the universe could even be just a random incoherent jumble of possibilities in which coherent causal histories are picked out anthropically (causeless). The point is, he may want to stop faithing, and start reading (or thinking). And note that above I didn’t even need to point out that in the quantum mechanical description of the universe, there seems to be a fundamental random a-causality. ---
**Author:** ![Galileo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Galileo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galileo)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/602 "2010-12-22T19:08:17Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > All religious people have accepted the tenets of their religion without evidence. Every single one. If you’re religious you’ve accepted your religion’s claims without evidence. Please provide support for your claims. There is plenty of evidence for the tenets of religion. I don’t find it compelling and I have some contradictory evidence. But that doesn’t negate the existence of the evidence. BTW, sorry gotta go. Perhaps I’ll resume this tomorrow. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/603 "2010-12-22T19:10:23Z")
> [@Galileo](#): > > Please demonstrate how a belief in God biases one’s perceptions about some specific examples of the “lot of things” that you mentioned, and then please demonstrate how that belief biases one’s perceptions more that those beliefs that atheists have that interfere with their logical arguments. As an example, look at your run-of-the-mill creationist. He or she has a specific tenet that if evidence, scientific or otherwise, contradicts the Bible the evidence must be wrong. Not all theists are this bad, but I don’t know of any such bizarre distortion of an atheist’s beliefs due to atheism. There may be distortions for other reasons; hell some might be Red Sox or Cubs fans.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/604 "2010-12-22T19:13:57Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > As an example, look at your run-of-the-mill creationist. He or she has a specific tenet that if evidence, scientific or otherwise, contradicts the Bible the evidence must be wrong. > Not all theists are this bad, but I don’t know of any such bizarre distortion of an atheist’s beliefs due to atheism. There may be distortions for other reasons; hell some might be Red Sox or Cubs fans.😃 Cubs fan here, and I take offense. What I have isn’t faith or belief-it’s masochism. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/605 "2010-12-22T19:36:39Z")
> [@Galileo](#): > > Please provide support for your claims. > > There is plenty of evidence for the tenets of religion. I don’t find it compelling and I have some contradictory evidence. But that doesn’t negate the existence of the evidence. > > BTW, sorry gotta go. Perhaps I’ll resume this tomorrow. You want me to provide evidence that there is no evidence? Does that seem fair to you? The religious people are the ones making claims. They are free to provide their evidence any time. ---
**Author:** ![Anduril](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c0e974/32.png) [@Anduril](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anduril)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/606 "2010-12-22T21:29:25Z")
> [@Galileo](#): > > Fine. I withdraw my conjecture.As you may have noticed in debates about theism/atheism, it is fairly common for the atheist to ask the theist for evidence for various claims. It seems to me that’s a reasonable request, as long as it is presented as a request and not some inviolable principle that must be followed for fear of punishment.. It is an inviolable principle if you want to be believed. If you have no problems about not being believed, make all the outlandish claims you want without presenting any evidence to support them. > [@](#): > > Please demonstrate how a belief in God biases one’s perceptions about some specific examples of the “lot of things” that you mentioned, and then please demonstrate how that belief biases one’s perceptions more that those beliefs that atheists have that interfere with their logical arguments. Thanks. A belief in God per se, one that is decoupled from every other belief would not be capable of biasing one’s perception about anything. The problem with God belief (note that my post was referring to theists in particular) is that it is rarely, if at all, decoupled from other beliefs except for some forms of Deism and Pantheism. Belief in God is often attached to belief in God being the supreme moral arbiter, God being the source of life, God being worthy of worship, etc. Surely anyone can imagine how those beliefs will bias your perceptions about sexual mores, euthanasia, abortion, blasphemy, etc. On the other hand, non-belief in God, being necessarily content-less will not bias your perceptions one bit. Belief in God is often NOT content-less - believers often have other commitments that are directly traced to their belief in God. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/607 "2010-12-22T22:25:16Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Atheism a non belief? > Well there is no day I have to get up and go to atheist church. > I don’t have to give money to an atheist organization. No tithing in non belief land. > I don’t have an atheist bible explaining what or why, I should not believe. > There are no priests or rabbis explaining exactly what we should do to get it right. There is nobody on top of a hierarchy. > I don’t have to send my kid to atheist school in case I don’t indoctrinate him well enough. > There are no atheist commandments to follow. > There is no organization telling me to spread my nonbelief to others. > I spend no time worrying about or thinking about it. That was settled long ago. > Exactly how is it a belief system? That has nothing to do with faith or belief, you are describing religious practice which is far removed from belief in something beyond us. Common mistake, religion and god are not always connected. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/608 "2010-12-22T22:39:08Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > The traffic light is either red or green. True, all the evidence says it’s red, but really, who can say for sure? I don’t really see your point here, but yeah if something is physical we can measure it. Also what is green to you I may see as what you would call red, but to me it is green. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/609 "2010-12-22T22:50:21Z")
It all boils down to a tu quoque fallacy. “Your rational lack of belief in the impossible is just as insane as my belief in the impossible.” It’s something religious people do to delude themselves that everybody’s in the same boat. Just like the intolerant protesting that the tolerant are intolerant of their intolerance. Just like the censors claiming that censorship is a form of free speech. It all precipitates on making a word’s meaning so broad and vague that you can link two very different concepts, combined with a dogmatic insistence on not seeing the difference. A traveler is an elephant because he’s got a trunk. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/610 "2010-12-22T22:50:36Z")
> [@Anduril](#): > > Belief in God is often NOT content-less - believers often have other commitments that are directly traced to their belief in God. No belief in god does not have to tarnish behavior, but adhering to cultural interpretations of god does. Not everyone is that lazy, I use Christianity as a template for my life as it is the culture I was raised in. But I also look at other peoples’ lives as points of reference. So yes, I have read “The God Delusion”, “Telling Lies for God”, “A Brief History of the Universe”, “The Bible etc”, lots of religious texts, tons of science fiction and other assorted crap. I have spoken to Buddhists, catholics, atheists, Moslems, fundys, capitalists, socialists, commies, anarchists, etc etc etc. The problem with most people is that they see the world through their own experiences. Ignorance is not whether you or I believe a certain way, ignorance is not accepting that other people may have a valid view and then ignoring it. The universe is a wonderful and awe inspiring thing, one day we may know everything but for now I am content to pursue my path and to try and move to self less love, as this is how I see what people may call god. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/611 "2010-12-22T22:52:21Z")
Mind you, I don’t care what people believe in. I do find the skepticism-is-a-religion dogma to be particularly tiresome. Just leave us alone. For all the bitching, atheists really rarely proselytize in my opinion. When is the last time one knocked on your door? ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/612 "2010-12-22T22:59:59Z")
> [@cricetus](#): > > It all boils down to a tu quoque fallacy. “Your rational lack of belief in the impossible is just as insane as my belief in the impossible.” It’s something religious people do to delude themselves that everybody’s in the same boat. Just like the intolerant protesting that the tolerant are intolerant of their intolerance. Just like the censors claiming that censorship is a form of free speech. It all precipitates on making a word’s meaning so broad and vague that you can link two very different concepts, combined with a dogmatic insistence on not seeing the difference. A traveler is an elephant because he’s got a trunk. Yeah I agree with your point but I do not think that you are irrational in believing there is no god. I think you are totally rational and logical and possibly right. Me, I don’t see it that way, I feel/think/believe that there is something beyond us, but I try not to get into defining it as that only leads to arguing and dogma. Jeez just look at how religions splinter when they start insisting they are 100% right and everyone should think one way! Oh and the whole “Is atheism a belief or non belief” argument is stupid. Of course it is a belief, just like I believe the world is roughly spherical. I believe the evidence and the learned people who study this. Semantics are silly. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/613 "2010-12-22T23:02:36Z")
> [@cricetus](#): > > Mind you, I don’t care what people believe in. I do find the skepticism-is-a-religion dogma to be particularly tiresome. Just leave us alone. For all the bitching, atheists really rarely proselytize in my opinion. When is the last time one knocked on your door? That’s cool, believe what you want but I will never stop trying to make the world a nicer and more loving place. Why do you find it tiresome? I am genuinely asking. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAlecCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SmartAlecCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAlecCat)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/614 "2010-12-22T23:53:19Z")
> [@sisu](#): > > That’s cool, believe what you want but I will never stop trying to make the world a nicer and more loving place. > > Why do you find it tiresome? I am genuinely asking. Maybe not you personally, but many of the folks who “just want to make the world a nicer and more loving place” define that by their interpretation of the Bible and the voices in their heads. Things like outlawing homosexuality, outlawing abortion, preventing stem cell research, teaching creationism in schools, focusing all sex ed on abstinence, pushing religion in the public square, displaying the ten commandments and encouraging laws that follow them, indoctrinating children, etc, etc, etc. Christians who want to go to church and worship however they please and keep their religion out of my life are fine with me. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/615 "2010-12-23T00:11:23Z")
> [@sisu](#): > > That’s cool, believe what you want but I will never stop trying to make the world a nicer and more loving place. > > Why do you find it tiresome? I am genuinely asking. I don’t understand your clause in relation to the antecedent of “it”, which is clearly the position that skepticism is a religion, which you yourself agreed was “stupid.” (your word). I myself try to make the world a nicer and more loving place, and find nothing at odds with also believing people can form their world view from facts and logic. That’s the platform of humanism, and I’m a humanist. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/616 "2010-12-23T00:13:37Z")
More to the point, just because I’m a humanist doesn’t mean I have to go around saying everything is a kind of humanism. I wish it were, but I’m not going to pretend other people are doing the same thing as me. I just don’t get the insistence that “science is a kind of faith!” People who say it is truly don’t know what the words mean. ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/617 "2010-12-23T00:39:45Z")
> [@SmartAlecCat](#): > > I’ll also state that I cannot **know** about the IPU and FSM, but that I believe them to be extremely improbable. As such I don’t believe they exist and I will live my life in accord with that belief. > > Do you really think there is any difference whatsoever between our positions? Nope, they seem pretty compatible. I’d be comfortable with: “I don’t believe the IPU and FSM exist” (I have no evidence or basis for belief in them, and their probability seems very low – I do however believe that the IPU is pink). 😉 > [@SmartAlecCat](#): > > I’ll make this even more precise, using definintions from [MW](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/know). > > I cannot _ **know** _[1] about the IPU and FSM, but I _ **know** _[2] they don’t exist. > > [1] _know_ - to perceive directly : have direct cognition of > [2] _know_ - to be aware of the truth or factuality of : be convinced or certain of Ah, now, this on the other hand… Using two different values of “know” in the same sentence is, while not uncommon in casual conversation, perhaps not such a great idea in more formal use. If I saw a debater doing this I would assume that they were either being rather sloppy or had an intent to deceive. (I’d initially tend towards the former – never ascribe to malice and all that). It’s that sort of language use that gets criticized when certain people say things like: “You have the **Theory** [1] of Evolution, we have the **Theory** [2] of Intelligent Design… they’re both theories, we should teach both and let the students decide”. [1] \*Theory \*- scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena [2] \*Theory \*- an unproved assumption : conjecture ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/618 "2010-12-23T00:40:31Z")
> [@sisu](#): > > I don’t really see your point here, but yeah if something is physical we can measure it. Also what is green to you I may see as what you would call red, but to me it is green. The point is, that when I look at a traffic light, the evidence is very STRONG that it is one color, but it is not ABSOLUTE. The fact that it APPEARS to be green is not PROOF that it is actually green, only very strong evidence. The problem with having the attitude of “ah well, we can’t PROVE God one way or the other” is that the same is true of EVERY question than can be asked about the nature of reality, even seemingly trivial ones like “What is the color of that traffic light?” Agnostics are quite happy to live their day-to-day lives making life-or-death decisions without absolute proof. The “ah well, we’ll never know for sure” stance only comes into play in situations where the evidence runs counter to their theistic illusions. In fact, the very \*unimportance \*of God to living our daily lives is what makes agnosticism a viable epistemology. If deciding whether God exists was as important as deciding whether a traffic light is red, we wouldn’t have all this willful dithering. ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/619 "2010-12-23T01:07:33Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > This “Creator/God/Particle” has no characteristics whatsoever-all we supposedly know is that it somehow did something at sometime in the past. And, according to the very reasonable backers of this concept in this thread: We might even be wrong about that. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281/620 "2010-12-23T07:57:04Z")
Not that it’s terribly important, but I should like to point out that, on the last page, **magellan01** is conflating arguments made by me and by **x-ray vision**. In part, this is because **x-ray** responded to a comment directed at me (presumably because it was similar to an argument s/he had made, though I don’t have the time to hunt for it). FWIW, I’m the one who said I’m an atheist as to God (as in don’t believe) but agnostic as to creation (as in don’t know). As for Post [#580](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13279059&postcount=580), you realize, I hope, **Galileo** , that you’re perilously close to discussing the OP. 🙂 My reaction is that I think almost all those definitions are fine. What follows from that, though, I think, is that the OP can be true of some atheists but not of others. **Voyager** , for example, seems to be willing to go further than do I. Do you have a problem with that parsing? I suspect not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281.md?page=30) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-atheists-insist-that-atheism-is-a-non-belief/564281.md?page=32)