A group of people watches footage of a courtroom trial.
The accused is brought in
and some of the group immediately form beliefs
about her guilt or innocence
based purely on her appearance.
As the trial continues, people form beliefs based on other factors.
When all the evidence has been presented
and closing statements have been made, several of the group
- despite paying careful attention to the proceedings -
still haven't formed a belief
about whether the accused is guilty or not guilty.
It's often demanded of us that for a given Statement X,
we must arrive at a belief
that the statement is either true or false.
But this idea needs to be challenged.
The truth or falsity of a statement may be indeterminate, for example
and we may have no reason or motivation to form a belief either way.
Just because a statement could be true or false
it's not inevitable or even necessarily desirable
that we form a belief one way or the other.
As Yale professor William Graham Sumner observed in 1906,
"Men educated in [the critical habit of thought]... are slow to believe.
They can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees
without certainty and without pain."
Merely having a belief is no indicator
of how carefully you've thought about something.
People form superficial and false beliefs all the time.
Having beliefs grants no one privileged status
nor is there any special reason for the acquisition of beliefs
to be a particular goal.
When scientists construct theories, for example
the aim isn't for people to form beliefs about them being true.
It's to account for available data
with a model that has the greatest explanatory and predictive power.
There's more than one way to lack belief in someone's guilt.
You may believe they're not guilty.
You may not believe one way of the other.
And there's more than one way to lack belief
in the existence of a supreme god.
You might have a belief that no such being exists.
You might have formed no belief either way.
Demanding that people believe such a being either exists, or doesn't exist
is a symptom of flawed black and white thinking.
Non-belief either way is often confused with agnosticism
but agnosticism isn't about belief or non-belief.
It concerns knowledge.
An agnostic is someone who holds the view
that nothing is known or can be known
of the existence or nature of a proposed phenomenon
in this case a god.
It's perfectly possible to hold this view
while believing there is a god,
believing there's none,
or having no belief either way.
Agnosticism isn't some middle ground
between 'believing X' and 'believing Not X'.
It's an independent category, compatible with belief or non-belief.
Some people - and even certain otherwise respectable dictionaries -
define atheism as the belief that there's no 'God with a capital G'.
But this definition cannot be adequate,
as it would also apply to certain polytheists
who believe there's no supreme 'God with a capital G'.
The dominance of monotheistic religions
has left many people with a tendency to forget
that 'one god or none' are not the only two options.
But even with a monotheistic approach there are complications,
because the word 'God' can mean billions of different things.
This is why I don't identify as a particular kind of atheist,
because no subcategory of atheism reflects my attitude
towards every god concept put to me.
If you made the claim "God exists,"
and by the word 'God' you meant
'a single supernatural being that created our universe',
I'd reject your claim as irresolvable
because no procedure available to us
could reliably establish the existence
or non-existence of such an unscientific entity.
If, on the other hand, you meant the biblical 'God',
I'd reject your claim not just as irresolvable
but demonstrably false.
Taking just two of the many problematic qualities
we're asked to accept about the biblical 'God',
no being can be regarded as perfect if it needs to be worshipped.
A perfect being would, by definition, have no deficiency.
It would need nothing, and certainly have no use for worship.
These qualities are incompatible.
If there is a god, it's not the multi-self-refuting biblical god.
Because my response to theistic claims differs according to the claim
- and I can never know how it will differ
until the particular claim is made -
the category that describes me in the simplest terms
is the basic atheist category of 'lack of belief'.
I lack belief in gods.
And all that means is that gods don't feature
among the things I believe exist.
There's the most extraordinary resistance among some people
to recognising this definition of atheism.
Many insist it should instead be defined
as "the belief that no gods exist"
because they want to make it seem like a position of faith.
Clearly, if you feel at a disadvantage
because your beliefs are faith-based
and insupportable by logic or evidence,
then pretending that those who lack your belief
also have a faith-based position,
is a much easier option
than facing up to the burden of proof you give yourself
when you insist others believe as you do.
But one doesn't have to believe no gods exist
to recognise and expose theistic claims as indefensible.
Say we have 2 people,
both of whom debunk every theistic claim put to them.
One believes there are no gods.
The other's simply unconvinced.
Either way, the claims are debunked.
Even if atheism was redefined as the belief that no gods exist,
there'd still be the same non-believers outside that category
dismantling theistic claims.
Defenders of theism who fixate on strong atheists
are either misidentifying
or trying to distract attention from their real problem,
that their claims have no valid foundation
and consistently collapse under critical scrutiny.
Some have complained, "Atheism can't be a lack of belief in gods,
or we'd have to class rocks and dogs as atheists".
Rocks and dogs? Really?
It's a measure of the loss of perspective
that happens around the subject of atheism
that statements as puerile as these are made.
If you had a big family celebration and I said,
"Look around and tell me which ones aren't married,"
would you need me to specify that I was talking about people
in order to stop you listing items of furniture and family pets?
Those who can't approach discussion
with a basic level of intelligence and maturity,
shouldn't expect to be taken seriously.
Besides, the suffix '-ist' is used and understood
to denote a personal noun.
That said, while there's no point applying the term 'atheist'
to things that lack the cognitive capacity
to grasp the ideas involved,
it can be useful to remember
that none of us start life with a belief in any gods.
A lack of belief in gods is the default position.
That's not to say the default position is always preferable
- after all, the default position
is a complete lack of coherent understanding of our universe -
but it is a reminder that in the marketplace of ideas,
when you want to move people away
from their default lack of belief towards your belief,
it's you, not they, who has to provide justification.
If you want people to believe that any gods exist,
the burden of proof is on you,
not on those who are simply sceptical of your claim.
Some have tried to claim, "One cannot lack belief in gods
because one needs to believe something about gods
in order to reject them".
Of all the convoluted attempts
to resist recognising atheism as a lack of belief,
this is one of the most deeply confused.
Replacing the term 'gods' with other terms
shows up the absurdity of the claim.
If this form of argument were valid,
we'd have to believe in everything whose existence we reject.
I reject theistic claims.
I worked out as a child that if there were any gods,
none of them were bothered about using their supposedly awesome powers
to provide direct, dramatic evidence of their existence.
Without evidence from gods themselves,
it's only the claims of human beings
that insist I take the existence of gods seriously,
and I can reject those on the basis of defective reasoning,
defective definitions or lack of evidence.
I don't have to believe anything about gods.
Some have complained that, "Defining atheism as a lack of belief
says next to nothing about atheists' attitudes".
But then, someone saying they're a theist says next to nothing.
Given the potentially infinite variety of things
people might mean by 'gods',
a statement of lack of belief or belief in them
will be fairly basic in the first instance.
People have enormously diverse reasons for not believing in gods.
It's unrealistic to expect those reasons
to be distilled in the definition of a single word.
If hearing someone's an atheist doesn't tell you
all you want to know, why not ask them more questions?
Of course, not every atheist
will find another conversation about gods
a worthwhile use of their time,
especially if you're not the first to bring up the subject that day.
Some theists, who are determined for atheism
to mean more than a lack of belief,
note how fervent some atheists are in discussion,
and point out that, "Fervency doesn't just come from a lack of belief".
No, it doesn't.
A great deal of fervency is a response
to the hostility directed at us
simply for not believing in gods,
to being condemned, criticised, marginalised and dehumanised
by people who are unwilling to allow us to live our lives;
who impugn our morality;
who tell us we don't belong
in the country in which we were born;
who distort our education,
attempt to monopolise government,
and ostracise us for not participating in their rituals.
Treat any group of people with such profound disrespect
and it would be surprising not to see fervency from some of them.
Fervency is not a result of simply being an atheist.
But nor is it solely a response
to the disgusting manner in which atheists are treated.
It also comes from a wider sense of injustice
at the way human beings are being treated around the world;
how church leaders are invoking baseless religious privileges
to keep the details of child sexual abuse cases secret;
how children are dying from torture and neglect
after being branded as 'witches' and 'demon-possessed';
how adulterers are being stoned to death,
gay people are being hanged
and other barbaric acts are being committed,
all in the name of an entity
whose basic existence can't be demonstrated.
If we were all to witness an ancient scene of human sacrifices
being carried out to appease a sun god,
which of us would not see
the dangerous ignorance in that bloody reasoning?
It is grimly surreal to me as an atheist
to find myself on a planet where so much wisdom is available,
but on which people are still killing people in the name of gods.
As an atheist, I'm free to see
that when human beings behave abusively,
they cannot justify their abuse
by claiming it's what any god wants.
They are accountable for their choices.
Now that we've learned how to destroy all life on our planet,
we can no longer afford to indulge
in the comforts and rationalisations of magical thinking.
With power comes responsibility,
but, equally, with responsibility comes power.
When we lack belief in gods,
we are free to recognise that we alone fill our world
with love and compassion or fear and violence,
and that the solutions to our problems
lie in no hands but yours and mine.