This repost from Tim McGregor is available for Facebook commenting at its original source on Atheism United here.

TLDR:

Q) No one quibbles when I say "There's no such thing as fairies", so why do people try to force me to admit that I remain open to further evidence if I say "There is no God"?

A) Because Theists.

First some definitions. They are not mine; they were created by other people; I may have paraphrased. I have no interest in debating these.

Belief: A subjective attitude that some proposition is true.

Atheism: The absence of belief in, or denial of the existence of, a deity or deities.

"Weak" or "De-Facto" Atheism: the absence of positive belief in the existence of a deity or deities.

"Strong" Atheism: the belief in the non-existence of deities.

Agnostic: A person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of immaterial things, especially of the existence or nature of God

I'm going to shy away from using the term "gnostic" at all, as it has too much baggage for my liking; in standard usage it isn't the opposite of agnostic.

If you're not already familiar with it, I recommend a quick read of this wikipedia article on the spectrum of theistic probability.

OK, let's go. Try to be honest, and answer the following questions as you would have done before starting to read this article, because it will be immediately obvious that these are leading questions and you may think about changing your responses as a result.

Which of these statements do you feel most comfortable with:

a) I believe there is no such thing as ghosts.

b) I am uncertain as to whether ghosts are real or not.

On the basis that there may be a few atheists in here who still believe in other supernatural entities, try this:

a) Hong-Kong Phooey is not an actual live entity that exists in the real world and is entirely fictional.

b) Hong-Kong Phooey may or may not exist in the real world. I am unable to prove this either way.

If none of those float your boat, try similar statements about Alien-Abductions, Atlantis, Vampires, Werewolves, or the Great Green Arkleseizure. No matter what you believe about the existence or otherwise of a deity, the likelihood is that you are happy to use categorical statements on most of these topics, without any caveats. We're all "strong" a-phooey-ists right? But what about when it comes to god?

a) I believe there is no such thing as god.

b) I cannot be certain whether god exists or not.

Leaving aside the issue of which god we are talking about for the moment, those who ascribe to weak-atheism and agnostics are much more likely to feel comfortable using option b. But why so? So in strict philosophical terms, we know it's not possible to prove a negative; "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" right? Our senses and our reasoning are fallible, it's possible that we just haven't found any evidence yet, but it might still be out there. But what is different about the god question to the Hong-Kong Phooey question? Pretty much any argument one can make for forcing the position of openness to the existence of one of these (non) entities can be made for the other. And hey, I’ve seen Hong Kong Phooey.

Try this:

1. I know that there is no such thing as werewolves.

2. I know that there is no such thing as an interventionist god who loves and cares for us and responds to our prayers.

If werewolves existed (in any significant numbers at least) we might expect there to be some sort of evidence, but there isn’t, and knowing what we know about the way legends evolve, by far the most plausible scenario is that there are no werewolves. Almost no-one would ask anyone to equivocate on the topic. But what about a caring god who listens to and answers prayers? We might also expect some evidence for such no? Some detectable efficacy rate of prayer? And yet all scientifically conducted tests have failed to detect such. We are prepared to accept categorical statements on the absence of werewolves without any such similar scientific tests (as far as I know at least) being performed, so why must we hedge our bets with the language we use on the subject of god but not werewolves?

OK, so specific gods with specific attributes might have testable qualities, but what about those vague, nebulous, non-interventionist, absentee gods like the ones the deists believe in? Well frankly who cares about them? That isn’t what almost anyone is really talking about when this topic comes up, it’s usually just another one of those distraction tactics intended to shift religious Overton window in the direction of theism. “You can’t prove that the universe wasn’t created by some omnipotent being who then just pissed off and is therefore undetectable can you? No! Therefore it’s perfectly acceptable for me to refuse to sell cakes to homosexuals!” Not buying it, sorry. These gods are barely worth the title, and aren’t worthy of consideration.

Before wrapping up, it’s worth going through a few objections to this viewpoint.

First, one I’ve heard from theists on occasion: “Comparing god to the tooth-fairy is deeply offensive to us and/or trivialises our deeply held convictions.” a) This is a non-sequitur, tells us nothing about the veracity of the statements or the validity of the arguments, and is merely an attempt to stop the discussion, and b) tough.

One that I wouldn’t have included at all had it not been used on the thread that prompted this discussion: “What about people who find consolation in the existence of god, perhaps even to the point that it is the only thing keeping them alive?”. Again, the first thing to note is that this is another complete non-sequitur. How comforting a proposition is tells us absolutely nothing about how true that proposition is. It’s also rather difficult to see how the difference between saying “There’s probably no god” and “There’s definitely no god” makes much difference to people having such an existential crisis. Of course, as compassionate people we wouldn’t go shouting about the non-existence of god in face of religious people struggling with finding reasons to live; they need help, truth can come later. But the existence of people who require comforting lies (or in this case presumably a comforting lack of commitment to the truth on a particular topic by a third-party?) is no reason for us to practise intellectual dishonesty in general discourse IMO. I typically associate this particular non-sequitur with theists looking to shut down the conversation, which is why I was surprised to see it crop up in a group at least notionally populated entirely by atheists.

Another objection from the original thread: “This is an important question to get right”. Is it? Is the distinction between a practically non-existent god and a actually non-existent god really that important? What difference does it really make to the way anyone lives their lives? If we were arguing over the actual existence or non-existence of god as a binary issue, I might agree, but this level of discourse is almost splitting hairs, it’s just a bit of an intellectual exercise that is of very little consequence to anyone outside a theology department. I don’t think any atheist (except perhaps one still struggling to throw off the shackles of a religious upbringing, or who has been duped by Pascal’s wager) has ever had a thought like “well I would have a wank, but since I’m forced to remain open to the possibility of god’s existence I won’t, just in case.” In my opinion the perceived importance of this question is one that is thrust upon us by theists seeking to make us give ground, trying to force us into their definition of agnosticism to make it seem like the balance of probabilities and public opinion is further in their favour than it actually is by shifting the window of discourse on the topic, and as such the notion should be resisted.

What about: “It’s a more defensible position in arguments with theists”? This may be so, but I’m generally against intellectual dishonesty in order to score points. I much prefer to say what I actually think and be prepared to defend my point with reasoned argument, than hedge my bets or dissemble because it makes life a little harder to do otherwise.

To sum up, in almost every other question of the existence of mythical or fictional beings, despite knowing that we must remain open to new evidence, and being aware of our own fallibility, we are perfectly happy to make categorical statements. I propose that the only reason we are forced into prevaricating on this particular topic is because we’ve allowed religious thinkers to frame and shape the argument. If you feel the need to hedge your bets, I think your brain has been infected by the theists’ ridiculous memeplex, and you haven’t quite managed to to expunge it all yet.

I am as certain as I can be of the non-existence of any god worthy of the name, to the extent that I am entirely comfortable with saying “I believe that there is no god.” and I think you should be too.