My explanation of Atheism

NOTE This is my personal view, it is shared by many but I don't wish to speak for all who call themselves atheists. Atheism is not dogmatic, there is no worship & it is not a religion. We simply reject the claim that a god exists. We are not claiming a god can't exist, only that there is not good evidence in support of one. END NOTE

Atheism is the most misunderstood viewpoint on the planet. The basic concept of atheism is as follows:

A religious person makes a claim, "I am 'religion of choice' and I believe in this 'deity of choice.'"

The atheist's response to this is as follows:

"What reason has led you to believe this?"

Many reasons are always given but the problem is that they are never grounded in demonstrable facts, the only thing ever given is anecdotal assertions of the relevance of "holy books" such as the "Bible" for example. Unfortunately, these are not evidence of the beliefs asserted, they are further assertions that beg further questions and raise bigger questions rather than provide answers.

One might ask, "Well how do you know there is no god?"

That's a great, but misguided question, firstly this question is fallacious falling victim to the "straw-man" argument. In other words, it is a misrepresentation of the opposing view whether by improper understanding or purposeful misrepresentation. Atheists aren't making any claims about a god specifically existing or not. To explain this point further one must understand the difference between knowledge & belief.

"Gnostic" is the Latin word for knowledge.

"Theism" is the Latin word for belief.

The prefix "a" is the negation of whatever it precedes (ex. atheist)

With understanding this you must also understand, none of this has any inherent connection with religion. The religious context is just the most common association.

Now in the context of a deity, for example, the Christian "God" there is no evidence that anyone has any true knowledge of "God" or any other so by default everyone is agnostic by definition. The difference now comes in with belief, either you are a theist and believe or an atheist and don't believe. Therefore there are only two categories:

Agnostic Theists or Agnostic Atheists

Now as said before, atheists are not making a claim they are rejecting many claims. Many religions claim that their deity is in existence and the atheist's position is very simple & straightforward, "What reason is there to believe that this deity exists?"

The reason why it is fallacious to ask an atheist why there is no god is that they never made the claim there isn't, they only denied the claim that there is a god because they don't have sufficient evidence to substantiate the claim.

It all comes down to what is known as the "burden of proof" which is simply this:

If one makes a claim, one must provide evidence to substantiate the claim.

This is why asking an atheist to prove there is no god is like if you were asked to prove there is no Allah or Buddha or fairies, pixies or goblins, evidence has to be given by the one asserting any of these are real, otherwise what is the motivation for belief?

Religions like to believe their particular view is absolutely correct and not open to criticism. Something that is overlooked is that they can be considered an atheist with respect to every religion except for the one they believe. Atheists just take it, one god, further.

The problem with the concept of faith is as follows:

All religions are based on it but can't account for how their faith is superior to the other. There is a reason for this:

Faith is the excuse one gives when they don't have a good reason for what they believe if one truly had good reasons for what they believe they wouldn't need faith, so what good is faith then?

And this becomes a recurring theme amongst all religions, they typically try to promote some form of anecdotal testimony through their chosen holy book but that itself can't be evidence if the god assumed responsible for the book's existence is in question, to begin with. It's circular logic which is again fallacious.

Most atheists due to their study of philosophy & science are better versed in understanding more fundamental & complex concepts on which reality is based on, which leads to better understanding of the universe and its properties through years of dedicated interest, study & effort to obtain knowledge. It is very ignorant to simply look at the sky, mountains & life and blindly assume that it only could come into existence from a god.

It demonstrates your ignorance to the mountains of verified empirical evidence to the contrary to what you believe. Atheism is based on being skeptical of claims until evidence is presented but being open enough to research and consider claims without automatically dismissing them.

In general, atheists are skeptical individuals who are persuaded by evidence & reason. They are not bad people, in fact, the contrary is evident based on data from polls taken of secular nation versus religious. The correlation is absolutely on one side, societal health & happiness is always higher in secular nations versus religious. A large proposed reason for this is that religions are based on dogmatic assertions of what is to believe to be true & how to act which is why things such as death penalties, anti-gay movements & racism exist in religious countries.

A major reason I personally find the atheist viewpoint to be far more moral is that for a large number of religious individuals, their motivations for acting in moral ways are based on a desire for the reward of a heaven, a fear of a hell or both. For an atheist, we don't see a reason to believe in either and act as morally as we can because we genuinely want to and think it's the right thing to do. Also, another motivation for atheists is that working together is more productive than against each other.

Hopefully based on this you are more enlightened on the viewpoint of the atheist and understand the view whether or not you agree or perhaps this explanation has led you to consider a change in view. Either way thanks for reading!