No, I said that atheism is the LACK of belief in any gods. Please get this right because it's very important you do. Some atheist of course believe with absolute certainty but that does not categorise the majority which lack belief due to evidence.
There is a subtle but significant difference as you mentioned, where positive atheism is the belief that God doesn’t exist and negative atheism simply reflects the lack of belief in God. I won’t deny that your position, as much as it blurs the lines between atheism and agnosticism, makes more sense from a rational perspective than traditional atheism, in spite of that it still offers a fair share of logical inconsistencies.
The problem for positive atheists has always lied in logically defending their absolute doctrine which asserts the non-existence of God. When you look at it, on one hand they would claim empiricism and evidence as superior sources of knowledge (some would even say the only sources) bashing theists for believing in “an unprovable God, while on the other hand “religiously” holding on to a doctrine of non-existence without ever subjecting their own positive assertion (of a Godless universe) to the same level of scrutiny (empirical and objective evidence). To put it simply, theists (muslims, jews, christians etc ) are making positive claims of the existence of “God” and atheists are making positive claims of the non-existence of “a God”, so why is it only the theists that have to prove their claims and not both groups? Rationally and scientifically speaking, nothing comes into existence by itself without an external cause so why should we accept that the entire universe spontaneously popped into existence, shouldn’t we at least have a discussion about it. Why is it, the belief that the universe came into existence by itself without an external cause, is the rational view and therefor shouldn’t be proven? It’s obvious that the atheist approach to this question has been extremely hypocritical, subjective and irrational and not even the least bit justified by the counter-assertion of non-existence being the default position, since this assertion in itself is irrational and unprovable.
So essentially what is evident is that atheism has no positive arguments for its position, the only attempts it has made to justify its position have been through a shifting of the burden of proof to theists, attempts which have all revealed the logical fallacy which positive atheism has tried to build its case on.
This is where negative atheism comes into play!
No, I said that atheism is the LACK of belief in any gods. Please get this right because it's very important you do.
No, what you should’ve written is that the form of atheism which you personally subscribe to is the lack of belief in any gods, which makes you a negative atheist as opposed to a positive one. I hope we got that right.
Where I see the difference between the two positions is that you choose to say, “I don’t have any evidence of God’s existence so therefor I don’t believe in him”, which is a different stance to the outright assertion that God doesn’t exist. So in making a negative argument – you’re not ASSERTING that God doesn’t exist and the universe cannot have an originator – unlike the positive atheist. It could seem as though the negative atheists are making a sneaky attempt of avoiding the problem and run away from the burden of proof.
Atheism is more rational because it takes the position of non-existence until proven otherwise. Think of it as 'innocent until proven guilty' but instead we're focusing on God and his existence.
The problem with this position is best captured by an aphorism, beloved of forensic scientists, that "Absence of evidence, is not evidence of absence.” This means that even if we went along with your presumption that there is no objective evidence to support belief in an originator of the universe, your argument would be logically flawed.
Atheism is more rational because it takes the position of non-existence until proven otherwise. Think of it as 'innocent until proven guilty' but instead we're focusing on God and his existence. When a man is accused of murder, the one who accuses him will have to prove that he is guilty otherwise he's going to be assumed innocent. I'm doing the exact same thing. Also, the burden of proof is on the one making the claim just like the accuser must prove their case.
Well of course it makes sense in the presumption of innocence, that’s because we’re dealing with a totally different entity. When a man is accused of murder he is presumed innocent, because if he truly did commit the crime he would have left tangible evidence, fingerprints, blood stains, eyewitness accounts etc. But can we really apply the same criteria for evidence universally, No! Isn’t evidence and search method contingent on the entity/object which we are investigating and why should we demand that God reveals Himself in a physically/empirically provable fashion before we can accept His existence. It’s foolish and arrogant to presume that God only exists if He is scientifically provable, a big claim with a burden of proof too heavy to carry for even the most fanatic of atheists.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe we have many good arguments which support a belief in God. The point I am raising here, however, is that it’s absurd to demand empirical evidence for His existence.
