The Great Atheist Misconception

Atheism: a lack of belief in a deity

The biggest reason - outside the bible belt - why atheists are not accepted is due to ignorance of its definition. Atheists do not necessary follow the belief of nihilists, naturalists, or humanists in terms of their worldview. Also, atheism should not be confused with anti-theism which holds strong critical opinions against theism (belief in a god). Rather, atheism is a simple umbrella term which all of these things may fall under; a preceding clause of these belief systems.

Atheism is NOT a belief claiming God does not exist. Atheistic, like the word amoral, simply means the lack of. Therefore being an atheist is having a lack of belief unless you personally take the stance that there is no god and therefore the burden of proof goes to you. Defending this stance would be near impossible since you would now hold the same burden of proof theists hold by claiming there is a God. When answering the question of yes or no to weather one believes in a god the answer must always be a shade of gray since there is no black and white. The key distinction is that one may claim weather or not they believe in a god, but may never claim absolutely that there is or is not a god.

I take a strong agnostic dualist stance. Strong agnosticism states that we can not know whether there is a God. This stance is atheistic in a sense that there is a lack of belief in a deity. This is the point where definitions and symbols start to fall apart, since I believe god is all. With this pantheistic view I challenge the traditional definition of God as a deity. Pantheism states that the word God is used to symbolize everything within and outside the universe.

Spirituality is the illogical. It is separate from the physical objective reality we live in. We can not know a spiritual reality since our brains are physical substance.

Perhaps the word God needs to represent something more than just a supernatural being. If an alternate reality outside our logic exists, there is really no point in trying to logically define God.