Can you link me to something authoritative that shows that atheism makes the Positive Claim that “there is no god”? I’ve never seen that, and it seems wrong.
"Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes. It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. "
I’m not talking about evidence, and I’m making no claim about evidence here. I’m talking about logic and reasons to have a specific conviction.
To believe in anything that I have no evidence for, would leave me believing in a million different and contradicting things. I don’t have any evidence for the cosmic teapot, for the invisible pink unicorn or the flying spaghetti monster (Pesto Be Upon Him). And withholding judgement on the existence of pixies, wall-socket-kobolds, voltage-growing-trees and the Schinamarug is simply removed from practicality, because you cannot prove a negative, but in every day life I HAVE to act like there is NOT an invisible puppy everywhere where I want to step. For all intents and purposes, I KNOW there is no teapot orbiting Saturn and I KNOW there is no invisible pink unicorn. For these reasons it is illogical to withhold judgement on an existence that I have no evidence for AND absolutely no other reason to believe in.
Hard atheism is (in my opinion) simply the sane and practicable conviction. Because if you tell me “I’m not convinced there is a teapot orbiting Saturn right now, but there might be.” Then I can only tell you that, no, if you think there might be a teapot orbiting Saturn right now, you’re wrong, even without me having any evidence disproving it. And you can’t tell me that my conviction that there definitely is no teapot in an orbit of Saturn right now, is in any shape or form unreasonable.
Can you link me to something authoritative that shows that atheism makes the Positive Claim that “there is no god”? I’ve never seen that, and it seems wrong.
Here’s my counter reference:
https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/about-atheism/
"Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes. It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. "
It’s not just about atheism in this, it’s about the gnosticism in combination.
Gnostic Theism = I am convinced by the claim there is a god. And I know my conviction is correct.
Agnostic theism = I’m convinced by the claim there is a god, but I don’t know if I’m right about that.
Agnostic atheism = I’m not convinced by the claim there is a god, and I don’t know if I’m right about that.
Gnostic atheism = I’m not convinced there is a god. And I know my (negative) conviction is correct.
Gnostic atheism is often also called positive, strong or hard atheism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism
I’m a strong atheist myself, following this reasoning:
The “no arguments argument” for atheism:
It follows from (1) and (2) that
Absence of evidence is weak evidence of absence. Not strong.
I’m not talking about evidence, and I’m making no claim about evidence here. I’m talking about logic and reasons to have a specific conviction.
To believe in anything that I have no evidence for, would leave me believing in a million different and contradicting things. I don’t have any evidence for the cosmic teapot, for the invisible pink unicorn or the flying spaghetti monster (Pesto Be Upon Him). And withholding judgement on the existence of pixies, wall-socket-kobolds, voltage-growing-trees and the Schinamarug is simply removed from practicality, because you cannot prove a negative, but in every day life I HAVE to act like there is NOT an invisible puppy everywhere where I want to step. For all intents and purposes, I KNOW there is no teapot orbiting Saturn and I KNOW there is no invisible pink unicorn. For these reasons it is illogical to withhold judgement on an existence that I have no evidence for AND absolutely no other reason to believe in.
Hard atheism is (in my opinion) simply the sane and practicable conviction. Because if you tell me “I’m not convinced there is a teapot orbiting Saturn right now, but there might be.” Then I can only tell you that, no, if you think there might be a teapot orbiting Saturn right now, you’re wrong, even without me having any evidence disproving it. And you can’t tell me that my conviction that there definitely is no teapot in an orbit of Saturn right now, is in any shape or form unreasonable.