If atheism in the non belief of Gods doesn't it mean they have to believe in something in order to not believe

Question

My 11 year old son came to me this morning telling me that a friend of his said the author of "The Golden Compass" doesn't believe in God. I explained to him that just because someone doesn't have the same views or same opinion as he does doesn't make them a bad person. I truly believe that and believe that "Do not judge others" is one of the most important passages that frequently gets ignored by everyone.

Any way this led me to ask this question becaue I thought it was interesting. If Atheism is the belief in the non existance of God or other dieties doesn't that mean that they have to believe in something in order to say that they don't believe?

Love all the answers so far. Thanks to everyone for participating. I honestly just posted this becaue I thought it would be interesting to get others opinions and views. I respect all of your answers and really appreciate you taking the time to post back.

Answer 1

Perhaps you're not even aware how good this question is. I'm an atheist, but let me give it a shot and address this topic assuming there is God. Just bear with me, please :)

Imagine that you exist all alone in the universe. There is no physical matter. No light. No sound. Nothing of which to be aware, and yet you are aware. The only thing which exists is your awareness of the fact that you are aware. (This is hard to wrap one's mind around, but try anyway.)

Now, from this state of simple awareness, can you describe yourself? What are you? Who are you? How do you define yourself with no point of reference? I believe this is what it was like before God created anything. God was nothing, because there was nothing against which to juxtapose Himself.

Within God, there existed all knowledge; as pure consciousness, God was aware of all possibilities. However, God had no experience of such, nor of Himself. Knowledge without experience is only half-assed, and so God did a wise thing.

He made me! (And you of course.)

He also inserted us into a dualistic world. So now there is hot and cold, short and tall, male and female, and (dare I say it?) Good and Evil.

All of these things and more exist in the world as tools for God to define Himself with. Without options, one cannot define anything. If everything is exactly the same size, then nothing can be defined as big or small. If everything is the same texture, then nothing can be described as rough or smooth. If everyone engages in the same actions, then no one (including God) can be defined as Good or Evil.

Gnosticism teaches that we are all individuations of the Divine Spirit, and that as such we give God experience and definition. It is one thing to know that there exists in you the possibility of pleasure and pain, and quite another to experience pleasure and pain. It is yet another thing to decide who you are (and who you want to be) in relation to these two phenomena.

This is the purpose of all of Life. This is not a test. It is not a war between Good and Evil, right and wrong, saved and damned. Life exists as an opportunity to discover, and to create. If only all faith systems could elevate their religiosity to spirituality, the world would be a much brighter place.

No more flying planes into buildings. No more blowing up abortion clinics. No more stoning ‘sinners’. No more ranting and raving about the inevitability of Judgment Day. No more, no more, no more.

If in the beginning nothing existed for God to be conscious of, then how could He have counted himself as conscious? If there is nothing to be conscious of, then isn't consciousness rendered unconscious? I planned on overlooking this...confusion, but I decided not to. In a period before stimulus, God could not possibly have had anything to stimulate Him to create! Therefore, there must have existed something before God, which indeed was greater than Him, and spurred Him towards creation. Does God have a God then? If so, who is God's God's God? Very curious indeed....)

A great question! Thank you. As you can see, I have never excluded God as an option. I call myself atheist because I believe there is not enough evidence to prove His existance. All of the above still remains a theory.
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Answer 2

Atheism is not a system of beliefs or a belief system. It is a stance on the existence of god(s). Nothing more. Theism is not a belief system either, it is a stance that a god (or gods) exists. Christianity is a belief system. Islam is a belief system. Judaism is a belief system. Christianity, Judaism and islam are all belief systems of theists. There are no belief systems of atheists, because atheists do not organize into spearate sects or denominations according to beliefs. It is safe to assume that each individual atheist has beliefs, and thus a belief system, but that system of beliefs does NOT revolve around what an atheist does not believe: god(s). As for: "Since atheism cannot be proven and since disproving evidences for God does not prove there is no God, atheists have a position that is intellectually indefensible." This is true of gods as well. Theism (the existence of gods) cannot be proven, thus theists have a position that is intellectually indefensible. The only intellectually defensable position is that of the agnostic, which, if we are honest enough to admit it, we all are. I am not sure if you are aware of it, but your argument has done as much against theism as it has for atheism. The only difference is that it doesnt make any difference to atheists. I, as an atheist am more amused at such an attempt to undermine a "belief system of atheism" when you clearly do not know enough about atheism to attack it legitimatly. Instead you have attacked it as you would attack christianity and as a result done more damage to christianity as a theist belief system, than agaisnt atheism which is not a belief system.

Answer 3

This is a very common ignorance of the ultimate reality.Useless to put God in our petty time capsule, however we try God alway is! "before Abraham was I AM".. In other ways science prevails in claiming there can never be a time when there was nothing...but Gods infinite Power.From this power He alone creates the gravitational forces and light energy to forge our particular time capsule with its own set of scientific constants,laws and elements. Who know what scientific laws operate outside our own? Good study nevertheless. Yet unless you become as a little child you will not see the Kingdom of God.How wonderful that Jesus put children above all the religious ,political and philosophical fools of His day.Indeed our own age too!

Answer 4

Wow. Just wow.

I'm called an atheist. I don't know if any deity exists or not. So I don' t have a belief in any.

I do deny people's claims of 'personal gods' (JC God, Allah, Zeus, Isis etc) for which there is no evidence. I also do not believe in them.

Let me ask you a similar question to yours, using the same logic:

If someone claimed that they were visited by a green leprechaun in the middle of the night and given caramel charms from the ears of Unicorns, then would you have to *believe* in leprechauns and unicorns in order to *not believe* in them?

Answer 5

Atheism: a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods. There is nothing more to this. This is exactly what atheism is, nothing more, nothing less. You're over thinking it. What you are saying is something along the lines of "because I don't believe in fairies I have to believe in something to not believe in them." This doesn't make sense to me.

Answer 6

Atheists don't believe in anything. That's the point of being Atheist.

There is no, "Oh, we don't believe in a deity because we believe in flying bears and lollipop sticks!"

I was a good catholic. I believed.


Something happened.

Now I don't.

I don't believe in anything as a substitute for not believing (That's an oxymoron).

I just -don't- believe in a higher power.


Speaking of the Golden Compass... I'm seeing that today. I hope it's bitchin and reeking of atheism.

Answer 7

Lack of belief in gods, as opposed to believing that gods do not exist. For example, everytime you pass the closet in your bedroom do you have to believe that there is not a lion in there?

Answer 8

No. The point is that for various reason we do not see any reason to believe in the supernatural. There is no reason to think that people need to believe in something. That's not quite true as there are three genes that affect your propensity to be spiritually inclined, so some people are more likely to believe in something.

Answer 9

Not the "believe in the non existence" it's the LACK of a belief in God.

Answer 10

"they have to believe in something in order to say that they don't believe?"

Not sure where you're coming from. Atheists don't believe deities to exist just like you don't believe the Tooth Fairy to exist.

"you have to believe that intelligent life was accidentally created from nothing by total random chance."

"God" would also be intelligent life, therefore the theist would believe this also.