Atheism is not a 'worldview'

[Skip]

It makes no difference to my case, only to my expectations. If a person says s/he is an atheist, then I expect him/her to be able to explain why, in his/her opinion, God does not exist. If that same person says s/he is an agnostic, then I don't have any such expectation. Some people seem to want to have it both ways: to both maintain that God does not exist, and to not be expected to justify that belief.

But nobody is obliged to justify their belief or lack of. I do not feel responsible for your expectations. However, I have explained, several times on this very forum and a nauseating number of times over all, and if my criteria do not meet with your approval, too bad.

Yowsers. I thought I had an agile enough mind, but the number of double negatives in that sentence leaves me wondering just quite what you're trying to say.

Me? Nothing. Interpreting William Craig, who also said nothing, as far as I can see. Just shifting sand.

Well, to repeat my point from above, the only reason I would impose a burden of proof on you is if you defined yourself in such a way that (in my view) entails such a thing - namely, "I am an atheist". That, to me, is a positive position: that there is no God.

And I wouldn't dream of trying to change that assumption, however incorrect. But if it makes you happy, here is my position, yet again:
I do not believe any of the stories told by any of the ancients or moderns about any supernatural entities, including the pumped-up Jehovah of current Christian denominations. I believe that no such person exists, or ever has existed, outside the imagination of his purveyors and consumers. The reasons I hold this conviction are many and complex, going back to my pre-teen bible reading. I'm willing to share a few isolated details, but not to roll out the entire 45-year process, nor to cite the extensive literature which has informed my ultimate conclusion.

If you merely "lack belief in God" (whilst at the same time "lack belief in the non-existence of God", as surely such a thing implies,

I mean that I'm not buying, for my own reasons, and that I am prepared to stand publicly with everyone else who resists religious coercion, for whatever reasons. Privately, I do not label myself. Politically, I am willing to identify with non-believers of any stripe and degree. The quibbles are yours, not mine.

A situational rejection of a specific narrative might be "anti-Christian", or "anti-Muslim", or whatever, but it needn't entail atheism.

Well, in my case, it does.

I think I have a fair idea based on your eloquent prose piece in another thread that, indeed, your atheism *does* inform your worldview to the extent of your positing of a "mechanical" universe.

You mean to take a satirical dig at annoying Gustav as my whole world view? Okay; I don't mind, though it's a bit limited. Sure, I have told you things and you have told me things, so we have a glimpse of each other's world views and may draw inference from such fragments, if we wish to.
But in fact, I really have no idea what made the universe. I accept the Big Bang theory as a theory, without placing any deep credence in it, (pretty far-fetched - but at least it doesn't condemn me to eternal sulphur-burns for having sex before marriage) because, after all - what frickin difference does it make?

[Harry Baird]

But nobody is obliged to justify their belief or lack of.

Unless, of course, they are advocating it publicly and assertively, particularly when doing so in the face of those who hold an opposing belief and who *are* justifying that opposing belief. Or, if they are advocating that some public action or action affecting others be taken as a consequence of their belief.

Otherwise, sure, I don't expect or oblige anybody to justify their atheistic belief to me, I just expect that they do *have* a justification.

Harry: Well, to repeat my point from above, the only reason I would impose a burden of proof on you is if you defined yourself in such a way that (in my view) entails such a thing - namely, "I am an atheist". That, to me, is a positive position: that there is no God.

Skip: And I wouldn't dream of trying to change that assumption, however incorrect.

I wonder why you think it's incorrect. You seem to tacitly accept it at least with respect to the Christian God ("I believe that no such person exists, or ever has existed [and t]he reasons I hold this conviction are many and complex"); you just leave open the possibility that there is *some* God of *some* truthful description whom you haven't yet encountered. We might label you "Jehovah-atheist" and "Allah-atheist" or in general "atheist with respect to extant descriptions of God", even if not atheist with respect to all *possible* descriptions of God. And I think you might accept that you would need (and have) your own justifications for that brand of atheism.

You mean to take a satirical dig at annoying Gustav as my whole world view?

No, not as the *whole* thing, just as a representative slice of it.

[Skip]

Asked and answered; challenged and reiterated; nit-picked and exfoliated; argumentated and badgered; done, done and done.