I agree. Atheism categorically affirms 'There is no such thing as a God' and then is unable to bring forward any compelling arguments to prove it.
I consider myself an atheist, but I don't categorically affirm that "there's no such thing as a god". You'll certainly hear me use that line on occasion, but that's a practical leave-me-alone-already type of utterance rather than a statement of faith. You may not know what's it like to live as an atheist among theists (Roman Catholic Christians with a range of protestant minorities in my case). I don't suffer any discrimation or hostility. But there's just so much in the daily speech and interactions. When you're feeling depressed people will suggest you pray or talk to a priest. But when you're depressed is the last time you'll want to put up with that stuff, because parsing God-speak takes energy you don't have. So you say "God doesn't exist," and you mean it, and people get it, and you have your peace and can do what actually works for you. That's just one example.
I used to call myself an agnostic
in opposition to an atheist for a while, because I bought that line about "atheism being a faith, too". I call myself an "atheist"
in addition to an agnostic now, because I realised that the atheist-is-a-faith line is really just another instance where you - the atheist - let the theists determine how to talk about the topic. It's not a faith. It's just daily life. There may or may not be a faith attached to it. Secular humanists believe that it's special to be human and that certain imperatives follow from that (rational thought, empathy...). Naturalists believe that natural laws can explain most of the things that matter. Materialists believe another thing, nihilists believe that everything's equally worthless and so on. They're all atheists because what they have in common is that they don't believe in God. But they disagree with each other as much (and in some cases more) than with theists.
The amount of energy atheists expand on denying the existance of God is proportional to the perceived social dominance of theism; the lack of God is rather irrelevant to their personal philosophies, whatever they might be. If theists think that atheism is a faith, it's because they take God so granted that they think the lack of God in a persons philosophy or faith is the most important thing about that, when it's really quite irrelevant and wouldn't be there at all if theism wasn't so dominant.
Whether I call myself an atheist or an agnostic depends on context. If it's about daily life (see depression-example above) I'll call myself an atheist, because it's the lack of God in my life that's responsible for prayers being a burden rather than a help. When it's about "proof or disproof of God" I call myself an agnostic, because it's about how we know (or don't) that God exists. It's a matter of context.
The contemporary scientific method refuses to consider anything that cannot be empirically observed. Scientifically measurable causes must lead to scientifically measurable effects before there is any possibility of scientific certitude, but God cannot be scientifically measured so any causes that point to a divine cause are automatically disregarded.
There's no such thing as "scientific certitude", though there are certainly scientists who are certain. However the scientific method is all about explanations lasting as long as there aren't any better ones. It's why both naturalists and theists can do science. It's a handy method for a lot of topics, just not for proving or disproving God (or gods).
But then it works both ways. Science cannot disprove God's existence either since, again, it cannot evaluate him.
Exactly. It works both ways. I remember, during the early stages of the neuroscience craze, someone created a metaphysical experience in the lab, I think through brain stimulation. I saw a discussion on TV, and a neuroscientist thought that this has disproved God. No. How? Let's say God exists and causes a vision. Wouldn't that show up in the respective brain? If so, why shouldn't we be able to create that in the lab. If we could stimulate the brain in a way that makes people say the word "cat", nobody would come to the conclusion that people can't really speak - it's all in the brain. That's nonsense. Science can't talk about God, and it's my impression (though I may be wrong about that) that if you define God in away that science can deal with Him, He'd stop to be God.
I'll also note that I'm an atheist specifically in opposition to Christian/Judaist/Muslim monotheism (which is culturally and historically connected). I also don't believe in say Shiva, Zeus, Amaterasu, or Quetzalcoatl, but I'm unlikely to have to defend myself against their intrusion into my private lives. If those Gods count, too, then monotheists are also atheists with respect to a myriad of Gods. But (western) atheism is really a counter-movement to Monotheist dominance.
Atheism isn't a faith so much, as it's a shared fate of people who have vastly different faiths from each other (or none at all). And saying that atheism
is a faith amounts to saying that what's most important about, say, secular humanism or naturalism is that they don't believe in God, when that's really little more than a footnote. There are plenty of atheist believe systems, but atheism itself isn't one.
I realise this is sort of off topic, but it's an irritant and posting scratches that itch. For what it's worth, I don't look at we're-all-living-in-a-simulation much differently than at theism. But it's certainly an atheist concept (at least if you assume that God didn't provide the ware).
Joking, of course.)
