Yes, but what about non-belief being a belief.  That's the most difficult thing for me to argue against.  I know somehow that it can't be but am unable to articulate this.  I believe there is some conflation of a belief with a knowledge claim going on... right?

It looks like they got you caught up in one of those verbal loops. You said "believe" but you really ment "I KNOW there's no god". Their arguments would only hold up IF, IF, IF, IF, IF in fact there was even a possiblity that a god could even exist, which there isn't.

The whole point is that they BELIEVE, and we KNOW...

Slimm,

 Get 'Em!!!!

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!! I was thinking the same thing!

Slimm,

Obviously you can not hold a particular belief without having to hold that its opposite is true. Are these theists trying to say that you cannot be in an undecided or ambiguous state of mind?

I show you a box. I tell you that there is a book inside the box. Then I ask you whether you also believe that there is a book inside the box. What is your response?

It is, of course, "I don't know." Out of politeness, you might claim to take my word for it, but inside you wouldn't assign anything more than a 50/50 chance to their actually being a book in the box without way more information.

So you don't hold a belief that there is a book in there and you don't hold a belief that there isn't a book in there. You are an atheist on the question, precisely because you hold no positive belief.

I suppose you could say that you hold a belief that you do not know but even this is a third way that doesn't involve holding one positive belief or another on the question at hand.

Quote:

I believe I single-handedly became the first person to successfully argue that atheism is a religion.

Nothing like arguing in front of a mirror...

Belief: Anything that a person holds to be true.  Belief, in epistemology, is positive.  In other words, we must believe in something.  Therefore, it is improper to say that anyone believes in nothing, unless one is saying something like, "I believe there is nothing in that box."  In that case, nothing is something.  It's a vacuum, or an absence of solid objects, or perhaps the statement meant, "You won't find the murder weapon in that box."

There is a false dichotomy that theists often use with belief.  That is, they assert that either you believe something exists, or you believe it does not exist.  This is obviously not true, and can be proven rather easily.  I suggest to you that somewhere in Guam, at this very moment, there are two Swatch watches, stacked perfectly on top of each other, and the stack is resting on a poster advertising Rolex watches.  I admit to you that I have no evidence that this is true.  I'm just suggesting that it is true with no basis other than speculation.

This silly example demonstrates neutral disbelief.  Enough said.

Now, on to the god concept.  Todangst has mentioned this before, and it's important to notice that there's a distinction that we must make.  I can prove to you that any god with the word "supernatural" in it's definition does not exist.  I can prove it with deductive certainty, for the word "supernatural" is nonsensical and incoherent.  As defined, that god most certainly does not exist.  The belief that he does not exist is fully justified logically.

Is it possible that I have not been given an accurate description of god, and that it exists?  Absolutely.  I can only remain neutral because I can't think of a workable definition, and none has been provided for me, so like any other concept of which I am unaware, I can neither believe it nor disbelieve it.

So, theists are both right and wrong when they accuse atheists of a positive belief.  I gladly accept the epithet when it applies to Yahweh.  As long as he's defined as supernatural, I believe he does not exist.  However, I am completely neutral as to any god concepts that I have not heard of, or those which I know too little to make a decision.

I think your opponent is speaking based indeed on his own experience and knowledge acquired to date, but that he is expressing himself woefully and falling into his own semantic traps. It is a common occurrence in that kind of discussion, where the subject matter - belief in the existence or non-existence of a deity whose very definition includes the precept that the harder it is to define through empirical deduction the greater the likelihood therefore of its reality - invariably invites use of language tending towards the abstract. If it didn't then as a concept god would never have lasted as long as it did. Like the emperor's clothes, the first honest observational refutation of the premise's requirement to ignore reality would have destroyed it.

So, while I would cede that he is speaking with conviction, I would have to cede also that this conviction has led him into a form of expression that is, at least semantically, blatantly dishonest.

He thinks, for example, that he's summed up his definition of atheism and atheists with the statement "Atheists make a 'leap of faith,' when they decide that god doesn't exist."
 

Now, it doesn't take a semantics professor to point out the two fallacies in that sentence. A "leap of faith" is an expression used to indicate when a person takes an action which logic and reason does not support. Whatever you might say about atheism, that it defies logic is not one of them. Of all the stances one can take in relation to peoples' obvious tendency to apply a psedo-reality to a fiction, the atheist's, in refusing to admire the emperor's invisible clothes, is the one that not only embraces logic but could be said to be founded on little else. The other fallacy, that the atheist's committment to understanding reality using reason, deduction and proof is simply a "decision" - the implication being that the opposite viewpoint holds equal validity - does such violence to the English language that it serves merely to alert the listener to the fact that the speaker is suspect in all that he says, such is his ignorance of the meaning of the words he uses, or worse, his wilful manipulation of their meaning to make bad points sound like reasonable ones.

It is the language of the theistic apologist and it is dishonest. That it comes from a person who describes himself as an agnostic simply further confirms what I have always suspected about people claiming to be of that "opinion". They are still attracted to the possibilities that theism purports to offer them, and that this promise is made and justified through dishonest expression is something that they are blind to - through ignorance or with intent. The proof of this is that they will use the same language without a second thought (and I am being generous in assuming that there is even always a first).

Some thoughts:

Belief is holding some state of affairs to be true, AND 'believing' that one has good reasons for holding to that belief.

The 'reasons' may be:

1 what we would consider 'evidence', ie some observable data that one can point to, that should also be apparent to another person;

2. a personal (psychological) experience, which the believer probably considers to be evidence;

3. something other than 'evidence', perhaps a related 'belief' that holding to some particular idea without evidence, or even in spite of apparently contrary evidence, ie 'faith', is a fundamentally good thing in itself;

There are probably further variations one could describe.

It seems that there are at least two 'beliefs' involved: the primary belief, eg, that there is a God, plus a belief that one's reasons for that belief are adequate.

EDIT:

I personally incline to describe my state of mind about things where the evidence is not strong as 'assumptions', with varying degrees of justification. Many things require decisions based on little or no 'hard' evidence or justification, so one picks one which has some plausibility and maybe at least some hints that it is justified, so I have proceed on the assumption that it is true, and hope it all works out. 'Belief' seems to me to imply something stronger, and some people seem to unable or unwilling to hold a position in this weak, tentative mode, which obviously is why they have a problem getting their head around how Science works.

That said, I see the all but total lack of positive evidence for a 'higher (god-like) power', and the incoherence and/or vagueness of any 'definitions' of God I have seen to be very strong justification for assuming that there is none, and treating the whole idea as a nonsense.

When we see clear non-sequiters such as equating a belief to a religion, or referring to adopting some position as a 'leap of faith', we get a hint that there is an 'agenda' here, an un-voiced inclination that the God position has a strong appeal, as already observed.

 So, what everybody else said, and also point me at the forum. Give me a link or something. These guys need a spanking.

I am not an Ahteist. I firmly believe in tea, I have seen it, touched it, smelled it, and tasted it. Tea is REAL! You don't have to have a belief in tea to know it is real, because you can empirically know it is real.

Let's take a look at this one, since it's a terrific example of a false dichotemy.

You flip a coin. You call 'heads', your gambling partner calls 'tails'. You turn and ask me for my wager.

I do have a third option, which this fellow neglects to mention: I can abstain from wagering. In otherwords, I say, "I don't know which side of the coin will wind-up being face-up."

When dealing with an unknowable variable, that's the most intellectually honest answer.