Comment by Steven Dorst on January 22, 2013 at 4:36pm

Any idea who has the rights to this? I'd like to turn it into a bumper sticker, but want to respect copyright!

Comment by Kairan Nierde on January 23, 2013 at 12:45pm

Steven, good idea. I'd buy that! Get a graphic designer to work with the placement of the text for you though. This could read better.

Comment by Unseen on January 23, 2013 at 10:44pm

I'm not sure why so many atheists are insistent on this. The logic escapes me. Not believing God exists is a belief. Can one reach a conclusion and not believe it? The one seems to follow the other.

Comment by Strega on January 23, 2013 at 11:07pm

Is not believing in the FSM also a belief?

Comment by Unseen on January 23, 2013 at 11:30pm

@Strega

Person #1: Do you believe God exists?

Person #2: No, I believe God does not exist.

I think any reformulation for Person #1 that answers Person #1's question in the negative will be congruent with believing there is no God.

As for the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I don't think any sane adult actually considers its existence seriously enough to be said to have reached a conclusion on its existence. For purposes of examining beliefs, you need a subject people take seriously.

Comment by SteveInCO on January 23, 2013 at 11:47pm

The problem, Unseen is that too many atheists equate the word "belief" with "taken on faith."  Whereas "belief" in fact is what you hold to be true, regardless of how you came to the conclusion.

Comment by Tom Sarbeck on January 24, 2013 at 12:46am

Memo to Unseen:

Can one reach a conclusion and not believe it?

I can reach a conclusion and keep it tentative, subject to further investigation. I was doing this before I heard of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.

As for the Flying Spaghetti Monster, my conclusion as to its existence differs from my conclusion as to its use.

Comment by Gallup's Mirror on January 24, 2013 at 1:04am

I'm not sure why so many atheists are insistent on this. The logic escapes me. Not believing God exists is a belief.

It's the difference between hard atheism and soft atheism.

Hard atheism is a positive statement that God does not exist. Physicist Victor Stenger presents a supporting scientific case in his book God: The Failed Hypothesis based on what he describes as 'evidence of absence'.

Soft atheism is disbelief in or unawareness of the concept of Theism. Disbelief is not belief. This is the most common type of atheism since most atheists are former theists and few are aware of the 'evidence of absence' concept.

You don't allow logic to escape you. You smother it with a pillow until it quits squirming.

Comment by Freek on January 24, 2013 at 2:18am

@Unseen

There is a world of difference between the following sentences:

- I believe God does not exist

- I do not believe God exists

The first one is a belief, but the second one is a conclusion, derived from likelihoods and lack of certainty. 

Comment by Nate Lundgren on January 24, 2013 at 6:08am

Unseen, the word "belief" has baggage attached to it and that is why atheists tend to dislike using it generally. Occam's razor. The original statement is perfectly valid from a logical perspective. There is no need to play semantic games that tend to just confuse everyone involved. 

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