Atheism IS Irrational Belief
Offline Many of you hold that it is irrational to believe in God because there is no evidence. The premise clearly underlying that position is that it is irrational to take a position that is unsupported by evidence. The popular atheist books abound with this precise claim: there is no evidence; we shouldn’t believe it.
Here is a proposition: “God exists”.
Here is a position on that proposition: “The proposition ‘God exists’ is false”.
That position can be paraphrased—for example, as “God does not exist”.
There is no evidence for that position. So, if it is irrational to hold a position without evidence, it is irrational to hold that “God does not exist”.
P1) it is irrational to believe that a proposition is true without evidence.
P2) there is no evidence for the proposition “God does not exist”.
C) it is irrational to believe that God does not exist.
Whatever response you may have, do not claim that atheism is really just a “lack of belief”. That is semantics, in the bad way.
I do not believe there is a God means I lack the belief that there is a God means I believe there is no God. Those are the same in the way that 3+5 is the same as 4 + 4. Those are beliefs in the same way as I do not believe there is a pomegranate on my desk is a belief—lack of belief would be if I never even thought about God or pomegranates to begin with.
Let P be the proposition “God exists”. An atheist holds that ~P. That is a position with regard to P. It is a position unsupported by evidence. It is irrational.
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If you're going to claim that the universe was specially designed for human life, let's look at this from the perspective of an actual designer. If I was a deific being and building a universe to house life forms I would probably, unless I am incompetent or malevolent, build said universe to be able to sustain them. The issue is that most of what we have seen does not support life. If we look at the idea of 'sweet spots' IE exact things needing to come together to create life it might look miraculous but the fact is that would seem to argue AGAINST the idea of a creator, since said creator would be capable of making all planets capable of producing life forms. Not to mention the fact that the anthropogenic principle has its own issues, the biggest being what I'll call the puddle problem. If you see a divot or hole in pavement or concrete that a puddle forms in after the rainstorm, while the puddle may fill it completely and may even appear to be in a place that was MADE to form a puddle, it's there as a side effect, there was no direct design or intention causing it. Life on any world that can support it evolves based on the requirements of that world. And to be blunt, we should be looking at the fact that we're tool users and social to our survival on this planet more than any kind of deific intervention.
That seems to boil down to "If I were God I would make every single planet liveable and I would make them all perfectly hospitable, and since God didn't do it that way, he probably doesn't exist." I don't buy that as a response at all.
Of course I've heard the bit about the puddle. I don't see how that applies here: I can understand how it relates to the fact that life that evolved on earth is adapted to living on earth; I don't see how that applies to the teleological argument from fine-tuning of the constants of nature.
Funny joke. He makes way more damn sense then you, man. I notice you avoid responding directly to his posts. As in, the CONTENT of the posts?
Whenever someone defeats, or challenges one of your 'theories' or 'arguments' you essentially say "Lol Okay Whatever man i'm leaving" and then start arguing something slightly different.
Secularist, Atheist, Skeptic, Freethinker
There would have to be some content to respond to.
For example, with regard to the teleological argument: He invoked the anthropic principle claiming we shouldn't be surprised the universal constants are finely-tuned because if the universe had not been suitable to life we wouldn't be here to be surprised by it. I responded to that and he just repeated what he said before.
He made another attack on it, claiming that the chance of any sperm fertilizing an egg are 10^7, so we should be mystified that we're here. I pointed out how that was an inadequate analogy, and he just repeated it.
Repeating an argument that was shown to be completely fallacious is not arguing. If he repeats the same thing over and over, then yeah, I don't want to respond anymore, and, as the argument has not been defeated by his repetition and mistaken analogies, I can continue arguing it.
By the way, "But you are a Jesus thumper who is pretending to a position of neutrality and therefore you are lying." is not an example of making sense.
1) Im a "Jesus Thumper". (which is not true)
2) I am pretending to a position of neutrality. (I'm not pretending, but if I was, it's irrelevant)
3) Therefore, a logically deductive argument is "lying".
A whole lot of sense.
Ok here is what I mean. You are a subtle troll for most of the time. But the rest of the time you are like a seven year old:
The fuck is this? Lol, okay? What a response
Good argument. calling him and idiot troll.
Nice, real mature. Still no response here. Just childish immaturity.
Like I said, no arguments, just counter-trolling at best, and poor strawman trolling at worst
Just reversing what he said about you onto him doesn't really mean anything. For what reasons is he Christian and out to make Atheists look stupid? You want to prove any of this?
I disagree. He may be belligerent, but yet again you do not cite anything specific.
Once again you are not even trying to discuss the issue, just mocking it. Obvious troll is obvious.
Want to give a more specific reason this forum is a atheist circle jerk? Most of what I have seen here is atheists trying to understand why in the world some people believe what they do. When theists come on here and preach and get angry that atheists don't agree they usually shit all over everything and leave. I see logical minds trying to debate civilly but have to get past intense bitterness towards those who come time and time again with the same inane pointless drivel trying to force the bible on them.
Secularist, Atheist, Skeptic, Freethinker
You're right about the counter-trolling. I feel embarrassed that I got caught up in that. But what kind of response can I give to his constant insistence that I'm a "Virgin Jesus lover" and/or "Jesus thumper"? Plus, he seems to think, and shouts it all over, that he's figured me out. He's figured out that a) I'm not very bright and b) that there are actually two of me, one of which is even dumber than the other and can't figure out the quote function. That's debating civilly?
Now you're not happy that I should just play his game and respond with the exact same nonsense, and you're not happy that I would respond with a simple "LOL, okay". There's nothing else to say to "I figured you out. You're a Jesus thumper, and there's two of you, and you're both dumb". If you want to suggest I simply ignore him, then say that. It would be good advice
With regard to not responding to his 'arguments', I have responded to them. With regard to fine-tuning and the cosmological argument, I explained why the anthropic principle fails to do the job he wants it to do. I explained why the analogy to sperm is incorrect. He did not suggest where my argument was wrong, but merely repeated his point and added that I'm a lying "Jesus thumper".
Where I ask him to clarify what position he's taking, he refused to do so:
"Which of these represents your belief:
a) there is a god
b) there is no god
or c) you don't know"
His response:
"Get your partner in these posts to teach you how to quote.
d) none of the above
If you cannot see that you are not very bright and it is clear why you are the dumb half who cannot figure out the quote function. If you think you can limit the choices such that they support yoru foolish nonsense you are a virgin to public debate, like the Virgin Jesus.
Only an idiot would choose to believe what he freely chooses to imagine. It is like a psychotic who knows he only imagined his imaginary friend but still considers him real because he was imagined.
Imagining something into existence is no different from wishing into existence is silly magic of the dumbass kind."
Limit the choices? As far as I can imagine the options I listed are exhaustive.
With regard to his claim that because he has one mouth the design is poor and therefore there is no God, I don't know. I don't see that having one mouth is a proof that there is no God.
With regard to this original post, he didn't respond to the argument, at all. The argument went: 1) To believe something without evidence is irrational, 2) There is no evidence for the proposition "There is no God". 3) Therefore to hold "There is no God" as a true proposition is irrational.
The first premise is the claim we find in the New Atheist books. The second premise is obviously true. The conclusion follows. He did not bring any defeaters against either of those two premises.
With regard to your comments that all you're doing is trying to figure out the shit some people believe and "I see logical minds trying to debate civilly but have to get past intense bitterness towards those who come time and time again with the same inane pointless drivel trying to force the bible on them," I don't even know what to say.
I don't believe the bible is anything more than a book, as I have said countless times. That's true despite the fact that Mouse keeps calling me a lying theist Virgin Jesus lover. With regard to "shit some people believe" and "inane pointless drivel", that's exactly what makes me sick about the new atheism as a cultural phenomena. You're not here to understand anything, as evidenced by the fact that you've already made up your mind that it's inane drivel, just as many other people on here have, and you're here to talk to people and rant, just to here those people agree with you. That's what I mean by circle jerk.
So, if you want to get something done here, maybe you can ask your friend to respond to the arguments given, make clear arguments himself, and not repeat points that have been shown to be incorrect. If I'm (me and my mysterious dumb partner, cause allegedly there's two of me) going to be called a lying theist mole Virgin Jesus thumper, over and over and over again, I'm going to respond with either a "Lol, okay" or by calling him a moron.
And you quoted me as saying that I wanted to make a point to ignore him.
That's what I would do to someone in real life who told me "All there is to Israel and the Jews is that they stole the land and the owners want it back, and it's that simple". I would take that as clear evidence of the absolute most simplistic dull mind, and I would not debate with them regarding Israel, or anything else.
Sorry, let me try this again in this post. Sometime I get tired and make less sense then my usual senselessness. Let me simplify it also.
Let's assume that your values are correct. Fine tuning would give us an unlikely low probability of life existing. Let's mark this down as 10^gazillion. The alternative to this incredibly high number is god, which is infinite in at least one way, in that god is timeless, or atemporal or whatever you want to call him... he's outside the dimension of time. let's call this value 10^infinity. My argument is that regardless of how high a value the unlikely-hood of life is, god is infinitely less likely.
I hope this made more sense.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
I was hoping you'd reply to this also, looks like the previous thread died of old age
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
I would not agree that God is infinitely less likely. There's no basis for assigning a virtually zero probability to God.
You write:
"The "I" is simply a part of the whole. I believe you are committing a fallacy of division where you are extending a property of the element of the set to the set itself. For example, this piece of led is ugly, therefore a statue made of led is ugly. I can imagine my left toe existing without my body also... but I can't imagine my right toe existing without my right toe.... I fail to see the coherency or relevance to dualism validity. "
I will repeat the argument and address your response, but first I will explain the principle it relies on. The principle is called Leibniz's Law of Indiscernibles. Simply put, it points out that if A and B are the same thing, whatever is true of A is true of B. For example, if John and Mr. Smith are the same person, and John can fly, then Mr. Smith can fly.
1) I can conceive of myself existing while my body does not exist. (To be able to conceive of something loosely means it can be imagined, and so is not logically impossible in the way that a square circle is impossible. For example, Kafka imagines the protagonist of his story The Metamorphosis wakes up in the body of a beetle).
2) I cannot conceive of my body existing while my body does not exist. (That would be logically impossible and inconceivable).
3) So call me A, and call my body B. The above assigns a modal property to A which it does not assign to B: "possibly existing without the possibility of B".
4) Because A has a property that B does not have, A is not equal to B: I am not my body.
This is Alvin Plantinga's Modal Argument for Dualism, or Immaterialism. There is a video of him giving a talk on it on YouTube (search: For Immaterialism).
Your toe example will actually serve to illustrate the Identity of Indiscernibles:
1) You can imagine your toe existing without your body. 2) You cannot imagine your body existing without your body. 3) Therefore, your toe is not your body, and this is true. Your body has a nose, your toe does not, etc.—this is rather uncontroversial. You state that "I" is simply part of the whole. Perhaps, but a toe is simply part of the whole, as well. And as we have just seen the toe is not the same as the body. If you replace "toe" with "mind" you get the argument above.
Pragmatically, I would agree with you that minds and brains are normally tightly linked. This does not, however, mean that this is universally the case. In fact, that's what we're arguing, so to say "mind's must be embodied" is only to beg the question.
With regard to the cosmological argument you bring up some alternative theories out there in science today. As far as the cosmological argument goes, however, that only pushes the First Cause back a step. In the case of Swinburne's version, it makes no difference at all whether a universe is eternal or finite, whether there's one universe, or a multiverse.
OK, you are the idiot JA who can't figure how to use the quote function. Put the smart on back on.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Actually it's this, if you're going to argue that the universe is fine tuned for life wouldn't that then imply that we should be finding a lot more life out there? That the universe should be more open to life rather than apparently hostile? I mean if the universe is being made by a divine creator with an eye towards containing life that would seem to by the net result, save if the creator was incompetent, apathetic or malevolent. The puddle point is simply this, we are life that managed to exist, adapt and grow under a particular set of circumstances. We evolved within an environment that ended up supporting us. Or perhaps to put it another way, the naturalistic explanation says that the cart was made to carry objects that a draft animal can pull, the fine tuning argument and the more general creation argument seems to say that the horse was made to pull the cart. Does that clear things up?
hmmm, there is no basis for assigning ANY probability to an unknown and undefinable quantity. How can you possibly attempt to asses mathematically something that you can't even begin to define. You first have to define god in order to asses that he/she/it is more likely then any fine tuning value.
I'm not sure why you are having difficulty with this, let me try again, here is the argument in very very simple terms.
You " HA, what you're saying is so unlikely it has the chance of 10^10000000001!"
Me " Ok, what's your alternative?"
You "lskdjfsfkajsf is FARRRR more likely!"
Me " Why do you say that? wtf is lskdjfsfkajsf?"
You " I don't know but I don't agree that it infinitely less likely, therefore I have a very rational argument and you can't consider me irrational because I don't like that and I'll cry!"
Me " oh, ok, ya... let's go to church together on Sunday and praise the lord"
You " Another atheist PWNED!, let's praise the lord"
(based on real arguments, fictional context added for dramatic purposes)
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
I think you are begging the question with the two entities as "I" and "my body" as having the same property . If you begin your argument like that, it does indeed carry through to it's intended conclusion. but the "I" has no meaning outside of your body, and the "my body" cannot be functional without the "I". The toe example is there to show you that "mind" "toe" "left nut" are all parts of the same system.
"I will repeat the argument and address your response, but first I will explain the principle it relies on. The principle is called Leibniz's Law of Indiscernibles. Simply put, it points out that if A and B are the same thing, whatever is true of A is true of B. For example, if John and Mr. Smith are the same person, and John can fly, then Mr. Smith can fly."
Your A is not the same as your B and your argument fails. Do you see where I'm going with this?
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
Ok, first of all, you misunderstood part of the last part of my post. I did not say "shit some people believe". I said, "what some people believe".
What I was saying is that theists come on here to preach and condemn atheists without understanding anything about them. They come on here and scream about different incoherent arguments and then "shit on everything and leave" (which is what I said, I think you read it wrong).
I'm not referring to ALL religion when I say "inane drivel" but the arguments SOME THEISTS use CONSTANTLY that makes no sense, and is stuff they are usually repeating from somewhere else.
As far as "already made up your mind"? How? As I have clarified, my paragraph wasn't even directed at all of the arguments against atheism, just certain types of people who come on this forum.
It's hardly a circle jerk when the opposing side can most of the time can't argue logically their own points, as evidenced by Jean Chauvin, and many others. Look at some of my other posts and you'll see that I have hardly "made up my mind". In fact, I have barely debated the issue at all. I was merely pointing out an issue with the way theists handle themselves on this site.
I am not even an atheist by the way, I would classify myself as a slightly theistic agnostic. But the more stupid arguments I see from the theist side, the more atheistic I feel I am becoming. I hardly agree with everything atheists say on this site, but most of the tolerance and logic is see is from them.
When I came to this site, It was with pronounced theistic leanings, but I lurked and read and tried to understand both sides. What I came to find is that half the theists that came on this site were not here to debate, but to preach and spew their philosophy. Talk about "making up your mind". Most theists on this site quote scripture like it proves anything and avoid backing up their statements when confronted. How can you claim to be sick in seeing what you perceived to be me "making up my mind" and "ranting" when that is practically ALL theists who come on this site do?
Secularist, Atheist, Skeptic, Freethinker
I will, however, apologize for making you out to be the bad guy. Most of the time you do seem to be trying to debate logically, with some exceptions I have pointed out.
As far as the "dumb half which can't use the quote feature" about a quarter of your posts are without the quote feature and confusing so i'm not sure about that.
Secularist, Atheist, Skeptic, Freethinker
I think we're on the same page then. Sorry about the misunderstanding.
I had the opposite experience, actually. I've only been on here a week, but before I would've leaned, if only a little, toward the atheist side.
But you haven't defeated the argument with these points, whatsoever. My A ("I"
is not the same as B (body), which is exactly the point. The materialist view would have us say that the mind is nothing more than the brain (which I called body, in case you want to include the whole nervous, etc, it makes no difference).
As you saw for yourself, the argument works for "toe", and it works as well for "mind" or "I".
There is no question begging in the argument. The argument simply asks whether the body and "I" are one and the same. It finds that there is a modal property that "I" have that my body does not have. If "I" have a property B does not have, I am not B.
Here is a link to Plantinga briefly discussing this argument (on what I think was a PBS show?): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOTn_wRwDE0
And as I said, if you search "For Immaterialism" you can find a more in-depth lecture.
I'm not trying to PWN any atheists. I'm trying to suggest that belief in God is not more irrational than atheism; that perhaps they're both perfectly valid views. To that end, I bring up several points, only one of which is the teleological argument.
If you watch a friend picking marbles out of a bag (and he had told you there are 99 red and 1 green marble) and you observe him pick out the green one try after try for thousands of tries, you would be justified in thinking either it's a trick or something very peculiar is going on.
So as part of a case for God the teleological argument serves it's limited purpose. As an atheist you must affirm that the universe either began by springing up from nothing, or has existed eternally as a brute fact, that it's perfectly mathematically ordered by accident, and that despite chances of incomprehensible minuteness, it's constants just happen to be set to permit matter to become conscious, have thoughts, comprehend abstract realities, and be able to understand the order of the universe.
So you're backing off the position that you opened with?
As an atheist I don't have to affirm anything about the origin of the universe as it has nothing to do with being an atheist.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Ok, firstly, that was an attempt at levity on my part. I'm sorry I missed the mark, I realize what you're attempting to do. Without using labels and what have you, I will personally look for the option that makes the most sense, and will only look for "magic" when such a thing is defined. Forget about atheists and theists and other whatever you want to call them. Let's discus rational versus irrational.
I'm telling you that unless you define god, it is irrational for you to claim it as an option. The rational thing to do is to use intellectual honesty and admit that you don't know. If you make stuff up, and refuse to define it, and then go on to consider undefined stuff as an option versus empirical evidence, you are being irrational. I hope that addresses your main point.
Fine tuning fails not only because the values are over-inflated to drive home the point, but because it (like the creationist movement) doesn't offer an option, it simply says, "You're wrong, therefore god". But if the current leading scientific theories are wrong, god is not automatically the answer. I'm not sure how many times and in how many ways I can say this.... This will be my last attempt to explain that you DO NOT HAVE A POINT with fine tuning, because you're not offering a solution, you're pointing out the UNLIKELYHOOD of it happening.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
I think that you misunderstood me. Let's clarify our positions here. You are arguing for dualism. The position that mind is non material (again without defining such a concept), and that the body is material. Correct me if I'm wrong so far.
I'm arguing that it is all made of matter and part of the same system. The system is YOU (or I depending on the perspective). Where i was mentioning that you're begging the question is that you are assuming that I was assuming A (the mind) and B (the body) are the same entity. Which they are not, I've never claimed that they were. Then you go on to prove that they are not the same entity... They are separate parts of the same system.
What you consider "I" or "mind" is the pattern of electrons that operate on your brain. Think of your mind like RAM, if you turn off the computer (die) then he electrons dissipate, you're saying that they will magically remain in the same arrangement. I guess by the same reasoning every time you turn off the computer you send some code to software heaven. You're creating a strawman for monism and then going on to use Platinga's argument to defeat it.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
You are the one who can't figure out the quote function.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
That's not what you seem to project though. Between this thread and the other one stating that theism is not irrational, you seem to fly a certain flag.
This is true. Now if you can demonstrate where this green marble keeps on getting picked time and time again, then maybe you have a point. I assume your analogy is that the green marble being picked is synonymous with us existing. It's happened once.
As I believe I mentioned earlier, the physics of the origin of our Universe are beyond my scope (and likely yours as well, however if you do hold some knowledge here, please correct me). I have to say something about terminology here. A few hundred years ago, "the world" more or less meant the Earth (whether or not people who uttered the word knew the shape of our planet, and what revolves around what). The Universe is understood to mean everything that is the result of the Big Bang. The Cosmos is a step further. There may be more Universes. We don't know, and are currently unable to study them directly. For your argument to be valid, you would have to suggest that the event that set off our Universe was the only one. These are things we simply don't know though, and it would be as naive to suggest today that it's the only Universe, as it was in the old days to suggest that the Earth is the only planet. Atheists don't have to affirm any such things as you describe. You even said in an earlier post in response to me that nothing wasn't in fact "nothing". As far as it all existing eternally, I don't see much reason to think that every particle, down to the most minute, didn't exist eternally in some form, even if it's a form we don't quite understand yet.
To believe what you said there, would be to believe that god did the following:
1. Set off the initial Big Bang (and actually conjured up the material to do it if it sprang up from nothing)
2. Made sure that the constants worked to allow for life, both simple and complex, and
3. Did all this for the future intelligent species to observe, with the assumption (or prior psychic knowledge) that it will indeed evolve into this intelligent species.
If there were a god that created this, he would have created it as our ancestors thought. All in 6 days under 10 000 years ago. He would have created a flat world, where the sun and moon travel around it. Such a world would be possible for an omnipotent being of course, but that's not what we got. We got a giant spherical cooling rock with volatile tectonic plates, and a volatile atmosphere. We got a planet that punishes those who can only afford mobile homes with the strongest winds. THIS is the best planet we know for certain as far as life supporting conditions go. This is the best an omnipotent god could do? I don't think so! If there were a god, he would do a better job than this.
Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.
I admit I did not read all the comments, and perhaps what I am about to say has been said, but regardless, here are my two cents of what I gathered,
First of all, Jeffrey, you started this as whole thing under your perspective of interpreting "God does not exist" as false without proof. Based on that, I think you need to look more into Atheology. But starting this whole thing, you did not even define what God was. If you did, it would much easier demonstrating why said god cannot exist. If you are defending a anthropomorphic man-god with a human psyche, then it will be very easy to disprove and show it does not exist accept in your imagination. In order to make an argument, you must clarify what you are addressing, and then present your burden of proof. Ex. If you are arguing that the Trinity exists, then plenty of people here can philosophically disprove it on the spot.
Next, you dismissed out of hand the proper definition of Atheism - the lack of belief in God. If you, Jeffrey, are aiming to define all atheists who "believe there is no God" with a capital G, then you must also put polytheists under that same definition as well, because they do not believe in a supreme God either. So the proper way to distinct the two groups is to define them properly. The "A" before theist means "without" - similarly a apolitical person is someone who is without a political view or involvement. You said since you no not believe there is a creature on your desk is therefore a belief is nonsensical. Some have tried to claim that one cannot "lack a belief in god" because one needs to believe something about gods to reject them. This is among the most deeply confused arguments against atheism about atheism. replacing the term god with other terms like "English-speaking planets" show the absurdity of this claim. If this form of argument were valid, then we would have to believe in everything whose existence we reject. An atheist rejects theistic claims. Without evidence from gods themselves its only claims of human beings that insist atheists take the existence of gods seriously, and an atheist can reject those on the basis of defective reasoning, defective definitions or lack of evidence (without believing anything about gods). I repeat that atheists reject theistic claims. Everybody is born an atheist, and its only when they have developed language and communication are they introduced with theistic claims, which we can reject.
If all it takes is a concept (such as a creature or unicorn) implanted in your mind to therefore make it a belief, but I do not share your beleif because I do not know what the hell you are talking about. The dominance of monotheistic religions has left people with the tendency to forget that one God or no God is not the only two options, but even with the monotheistic approach there are complications because the word "God" can mean billions of different things. This is why some people do not label themselves as atheists because atheism does not reflect a persons attitude towards every given version of God presented to them. If a person made the claim "God exists" and by God they mean 'a single supernatural being that created our universe' an atheist would reject said claim as "irresolvable" because no procedure available to us could reliably establish the existence or non-existence of such an unscientific entity. If on the other hand the person meant the Biblical God, an atheist could respond by saying that the statement was not only irresolvable but also demonstrably false. Given certain properties of God, like claiming God is perfect and requires our worship is contradictory. A perfect being would by definition have no deficiency and need nothing and would certainly have no use for worship. These two qualities are incompatible, if there is a God it is not the multi-self-refuting biblical god.
Because an atheist's responses differ according to each theistic claims, which cannot be known how they differentiate until they are presented, the term that fits most atheists is the general definition for atheism as the "lack of belief in gods" and all that means is that "gods don't feature among the things that I do believe that exist."
You slightly examined the "burden of proof" - but rather sloppy I think. The ones who make the positive claims have to provide the evidence. Atheists on the other hand examine and reveal why the evidence for god is lacking.
"Anything that can be presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." - Christopher Hitchens
Just because atheists are the ones showing why the theistic arguments for god fails does not mean the burden of proof falls on them. If a person told you there was a magical tiny werewalrus who lived on Pluto that sent them a telepathic message very night at midnight, it is up to them to present the evidence. When they cannot, we have no reason to believe that said walrus exists.
Imagine a debate where a Claim-maker A gives several theistic arguments that god exists. Skeptic B, A's opponent, gives no argument for divine nonexistence, but all she does is show all of A's arguments for God are wrong or invalid. What is the outcome of this debate? B has shown that A has NO CASE. The significant result is that we are left with no reason that A's god exists. Crucially, at the end of the debate, B has no reason to change her position, but A (lacking valid justification) does. The skeptic does not owe the Claim-maker any explanation for non-existence, the burden lies with the claim-maker to present an adequate case. If they fail to do so, their claim fails.
As everyone on this site will tell you, theism is entirely a faith-based position. I myself and all atheists here reject faith. Faith is a complete conviction without evidence and without reason. Independent of faith, there is no evidence for god for the theist to present. So what you Jeffrey seem to be arguing in summary is that those who reject faith are just as irrational as those who boost magical entities exist (without evidence or reason) that do not want you to eat shell-fish. Really?? Any reasonable person can tell that the ones who reject said fantasy of a evidence-free divine-kosher deity are not being irrational. Clearly if you feel you are at a disadvantage because your beliefs are faith-based and insupportable by logical evidence, then pretending that those who lack your belief also have a faith-based position demands much less intellectual discipline than facing up to the burden of proof '''you give yourself''' when you insist that other believes as you do. Even if you Jeffrey would like to dream that atheism is a belief system, it still ignore the elephant in the room: that theistic and theological claims have no valid foundation and consistently collapse under critical scrutiny.
Sorry I was so long in responding. I went on a trip and I needed the break, actually. I got way too overexcited with this forum.
Given that the current consensus suggests a start to the universe, and that multiverse theories (in fact, originally suggested to account for the seeming fine-tuning of this universe) are entirely speculative, I hold that the premise to the cosmological argument which states that the universe began to exist is sound—that is, it's reasonable to hold it to be true.
Even if there were, for example, ten universes or a billion, etc., the question would remain, and this is not a question open to science, What caused any universe/s to exist at all?
Regarding your last paragraph, I see no reason that God should rather have created a flat world, etc. Of course, a sun and moon could not travel around a flat world, they would merely hover about over it!
I can, however, see why a God might create a universe such as ours—by which I mean a universe we can understand with the intellect and with reason—and a world such as ours, which is not set up so that everyone is equal and so that everything is perfect and pleasant always.
Regardless of what I can or can't imagine, as I've said before, I don't hold that a believer is required to answer questions such as "Why didn't God do it like ____, instead?"
You bring up a point regarding the definition, and possible self-contradiction, of "God". I'm speaking of a Creator God. Among It's attributes would be omnipotence, agency, and omniscience. In other words, no, I'm not talking about the biblical God.
I think you may be right to say that such a claim is irresolvable by scientific methods available to us. The question of God isn't a scientific question.
After all you've said I'm not even sure what 'atheism' means to you.
I can say, however, that you have no evidence to hold that (and here I am making a positive claim) "The World is wholly natural" or "Naturalism is true", contra-supernaturalism.
I've previously addressed why examples such as Russel's teapot or "tiny werewalruses" are misleading and miss the point. I don't appreciate that you would misrepresent me as saying that it's reasonable to believe in a "magical entity" that hates shrimp-eaters, without any reason.
Finally, the real point of your post seems to be that atheists have successfully torn all arguments for God right down. You want to say that there are no good reasons to suspect that a God exists. With this I plainly disagree.