Is Atheism just a lack of belief?

I recently had my previous concepts of atheism, and what it really is, challenged.

This is by no means a bad thing. I arrived at this current point of adopting atheism as a label through challenging my previously held beliefs and ideas many times. However, what I have witnessed is a rift in a community that I am starting to become more entrenched in – and it centres around this challenge specifically; is atheism just a lack of belief in a deity?

The origins of the word would appear so. Theism being ‘belief in a god’ and the ‘a’ at the start meaning ‘without’. However, a word’s etymology barely ever gives the whole story, especially when it comes to nouns. Now, I must stress that I am not a student of philosophy, so the complex logical rationales for who has what burden of proof etc. are not going to be included in this article. Instead, I am going to focus on implications of labeling oneself with the term ‘atheist’ and how it is almost never just a lack of belief in a deity, and why we shouldn't shy away from accepting we are taking an active position on a topic.

Believing in the concept of God comes with caveats (I am using a generalised view of the Christian God here as this is the most common in the UK, and the one I know the most about, but it is just a tool for making my point). If you believe God exists then you also believe he is the creator of the Universe, that he finely tuned it to suit our needs specifically. You believe that he has a personal relationship with you, and that he wants you to do his bidding on Earth so that you can join with him in Heaven. You believe that what is good and what is evil have a transcendent origins that humans are not capable of understanding or judging. You believe that there is an afterlife where you might meet your loved ones again. Whilst these may seem like large concepts that do not affect our everyday lives, they absolutely do. Our perception and implementation of moral behaviour is absolutely affected by what we choose to believe, whether we like it or not. Our belief in an afterlife absolutely affects our view of death and how we manage to cope with it. Our belief in God the Father absolutely helps us to consolidate problems we would otherwise need to simply accept. God affects all of these things, and so lacking a belief in a deity forces you to consider how to manage these concepts as if a deity does not exist.

I would argue, and I think if we are completely honest with ourselves, that because we are not convinced any god exists we therefore believe that no god exists. At the very least we act like no god exists and it impacts our outlook on the world. We look at the Theory of Evolution for explaining the diversity of life, and the beauty in nature. We look at naturalistic explanations for morality. We define our own purpose. We find ways to cope with death that do not involve an afterlife or the potential of meeting our loved ones again. We look at the evidence presented before us and we don’t need a god to explain it. So why do we find it so difficult in saying ‘I believe no god exists’? I think it is because then we feel we have to justify our position, and we feel that if we cannot be absolutely certain then we have no place in saying ‘this is what I believe’. This confuses me. This is a fundamental premise of the science we use to justify why we ‘lack’ a belief in the first place. Science is always changing and adapting due to new information, and it never claims to have absolute certainty over any subject. Falsifiability, the opportunity to prove a theory false, is important. For instance, if I was to say all swans are white somebody could prove this wrong by demonstrating evidence of a black swan. Until a black swan is presented I am justified in my statement that I believe all swans are white. Science uses the best explanation for the evidence we have to hand and changes when things are proven to be false. This is the way in which many atheists adopt this label, they look at the evidence and god is not necessary; this is certainly the case for me.

This might seem like quite a small and pedantic point, but I can see that there are people utilising the ‘it’s just a lack of belief’ to relinquish themselves of having to justify anything, and then also making statements and behaviours that would indicate they believe gods do not exist. It is not fair on the theists that we have discussions with to not be completely honest about our position. Even if you don’t care about the theists that we have discussions with, we should care about the intellectual honesty of our position, as this is the foundation that atheism has built its house on thus far.

If you make this argument I urge you to have a think about whether it is simply a lack of a belief in a deity, or if the wider implications around how you live as an atheist mean that you actually actively do not believe a deity exists. Then come to terms with saying it – it is ok to believe no gods exist. It is not an act of faith – you are utilising the evidence to guide your decisions, and just because you believe it to be true does not mean you are claiming absolute certainty. You are still engaging in critical thinking and skeptical thought, but you are also being truly honest about where your views actually lie. I personally feel that most atheists would meet this threshold, and I think it will improve the conversations that are not only had between atheists, but also wider conversations with theists and deists as well.

This post was produced after discussions with Answers in Reason.