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I find this debate kind of silly and perhaps pointless. Maybe it has a point on a political level, but on a personal level it doesn't really matter.
It looks just like a battle of the minds. People who believe in God are used to having a belief (let's call it mindset #1) and atheists are used to not caring, being skeptical, or not believing in God (mindset #2). These are two totally different ways of viewing reality so naturally they will try to ascribe their respective realities to one another.
Theists are trying to ascribe an affirmative belief to atheists because that's what their world revolves around. Their minds are accustomed to a theist reality and so they will naturally try to superimpose that onto others when trying to consider their realities. That's where this whole "atheism is a belief" aspect comes in. It's a failure to rise above one's own system. Not that it's their fault, everyone is human and everyone has a mind. But it's important to note that it's an attempt to judge a different framework from within the trapping of one's own framework. It's the same fallacy that is employed when religion tries to become scientific as in the case of creationism.
The tool of atheists tends to be science and so based on the probability analysis of science, God in all likelihood does not exist. The absence of facts and data leads to the absence of belief. It is a neutral position as opposed to a negative one. Those who claim that God does absolutely exist, or absolutely doesn't exist, are living in a fantasy land for sure. Atheists who aren't militant or extremist take the neutral road.
It looks just like a battle of the minds. People who believe in God are used to having a belief (let's call it mindset #1) and atheists are used to not caring, being skeptical, or not believing in God (mindset #2). These are two totally different ways of viewing reality so naturally they will try to ascribe their respective realities to one another.
Theists are trying to ascribe an affirmative belief to atheists because that's what their world revolves around. Their minds are accustomed to a theist reality and so they will naturally try to superimpose that onto others when trying to consider their realities. That's where this whole "atheism is a belief" aspect comes in. It's a failure to rise above one's own system. Not that it's their fault, everyone is human and everyone has a mind. But it's important to note that it's an attempt to judge a different framework from within the trapping of one's own framework. It's the same fallacy that is employed when religion tries to become scientific as in the case of creationism.
The tool of atheists tends to be science and so based on the probability analysis of science, God in all likelihood does not exist. The absence of facts and data leads to the absence of belief. It is a neutral position as opposed to a negative one. Those who claim that God does absolutely exist, or absolutely doesn't exist, are living in a fantasy land for sure. Atheists who aren't militant or extremist take the neutral road.
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