| HappySqurriel said: It is impossible to prove the non-existence of something, and therefore there is a leap-of-faith associated with atheism that is required to arrive at the belief that god does not exist. Agnosticism on the other hand is a perfectly rational position. Basically, atheism is just as much of a religion as Evangelical Christianity with the primary difference being that the Christians are dramatically more organized. |
Strictly speaking, atheism does not imply the belief that god does not exist. It can be as little as stating that the atheist refuses the (unsupported) belief that a deity exists.
Refusing to accept an untested hypothesis as true over the default ones (see the null hypothesis in scientific method) is as rational a position as that of the agnostic ( that on top of that may state that the whole issue is unknowable in principle). Actually, atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive at all.
It is true that some atheists bring it to the level of making an all-out statement that god does not exist either via rational means (again, occam's razor and null hypothesis) in which case it's a temporary working theory, as all scientific ones. Or in some cases it becomes in turn a statement of (non rationally supported) belief, just like the theist believer's position. But the latter category by no means encompasses all atheists.
