What is Atheism

I want to take a moment to clearly define what it means to be an atheist. Having have had many conversations with people I have encountered one common misconception that many people have on the subject of atheism. For instance, many people like to say, well in the same way that a theist has faith that God exists, an atheist has faith that God does not exist, and is just as irrational and fundamental about his conclusion. This is incorrect, let me explain to you why.

If I were to say to you that fairy's and leprechauns exist somewhere deep in the Amazon, because it is I who am making the claim at hand it is I who must present the evidence to support my case. This is how all court cases are handled in the Judicial system. Pay close attention, here is where the correlation is emphasized. If I were to say to the non-believer, can you prove that fairy's and leprechauns do not exist? No, we cannot prove that fairy's and leprechauns do not exist somewhere in the Amazon. Their are many parts of the Rain Forest that are yet to be and uncovered and practically thousands of undiscovered species.

It is a flaw to defend a "claim" by searching for counter proof on the opposing end, specially when dealing with such an untestable subject. Rather what we do in such a situation is examine the evidence presented for belief in fairy's and leprechauns in the Amazon.

In the same way, that is what atheism does to God. Atheism is not the claim that God does not exist, but rather it attempts to analyse the evidence presented by those who claim that a God does in fact exist. It is irrelevant to ask an atheist for proof that god does not exist. Unfortunately many theist have used this counter argument relentlessly to cloak their lack of evidence and remarkably have gotten away with this flawed logic for centuries in the lay-man debate circle.

Thus it is the responsibility of the man in the position of making a claim to present the evidence to prove his or her claim to be true. In this sense it is as rational to be an atheist as it is to be a a-fairyist or a a-leprechaunist and requires no leap of faith whatsoever or fundamentalist thinking.

As an atheist, one is not required by definition to conclude that God does not exist, although it is not likely. What an atheist does is simply say that their seems to be no evidence to believe in a God and until such evidence is presented belief in such a "hypothesis" is unnecessary.