Atheists must defend their “lack of belief”

Some atheist will tell you that they don’t believe there is no god, but instead have a lack of belief that there is a god. They use this semantics to obfuscate the need for them to defend their position. Since they claim they don’t have a belief, they don’t have to defend it, falsely shifting all the  burden on those who believe in god to defend their position. However, this shifting of the burden of proof is not how the real world works.

In reality all of us live in the real world not an imaginary one. And we all observe and experience things in this real world. As we observe and experience these things we gain data about this world that we live in. And from this data we come to assertions about what this world is like. Both the atheist and the theists are evaluating the data and coming to separate positions about that data means. Saying you have a lack of belief that there is a god or even saying you are agnostic is a position, and a conclusion based on one’s evaluation of the data. In academia when one evaluates data and comes to a conclusion, one must defend that position regardless of what that position is. Not only must they defend their position, it expected that they understand their methodology on how and why they have come to those conclusions and the strengths and weaknesses of their approach. You have highly intelligent people looking at the data and coming to starkly different conclusions. Academia cares not only with the conclusions but the epistemology – the “why and how” these conclusions were made. Academia cares about the process that led to the conclusions. It cares about why intelligent people are coming to different conclusions on this issue. This is why in academia atheists don’t get a “get out of jail free card”, they must both defend their position but also their epistemology, methodologies, and approach and demonstrate that they understand both the strengths and weaknesses of their position. This is just basic academia stuff and if atheists want to be taken seriously in the academic world they need to stop avoiding this with slogans like “I don’t have a belief, I have a lack of belief”. And the academic world needs to call them out for this. We must call both sides to rigorously evaluate and defend their conclusions with academic rigor.

If you pay attention to the arguments of atheists, particularly the “new atheists”, it is evident that many of their responses such as the assertion that they “lack belief”, are crafted to provide an escape from not having to defend their stance academically. Instead their arguments are lean more towards rhetoric and propaganda. With the rise of social media, sensationalism and the desire to cater to social media algorithms this has become more prominent. Consequently, arguments that resonate emotionally or consist of catchy slogans tend to overshadow intellectual dialogue. Sadly this approach along with cultural influence, frequently impedes any meaningful dialogue on the subject.