I can assure you that atheists also often react emotionally when their faith is challenged. — Jake

If their faith is challenged, they have faith without any rational or reason behind it, therefor they aren't acting as atheists anymore. If you have faith in something you are acting out of a religious point of view. I am very strict on this definition, since it seems to be the key reason for theists to be confused about atheism. I can understand why theists act out aggressively against atheism when atheists start behaving with the same kind of behaviour of faith, it should not be there to represent atheism, since faith isn't what atheism is about.

Most of the time, it's probably just because many atheists, like most people, aren't capable of proper dialectic and argumentation, so they start using emotions instead, and there's wild emotions on both sides to say the least.

The answer to this question is central and fundamental to understanding whether your atheists (i.e. the ones you describe) occupy a faith position or not. — Pattern-chaser

If a person of any position thinks that the rules of human reason are binding on all of reality, without any proof that this is so, they are a person of faith. Belief without proof = faith. This equation applies equally to everyone on all sides of the issue. — Jake

Yes, I can't disagree with what you say. But I don't think it invalidates - or even opposes - what I said. If an atheist actively asserts the non-existence of God, they occupy a faith position, according to what you say, and to what you and I seem to believe. But if an atheist simply believes that God does not exist, without trying to make their beliefs seem authoritative or binding on others, I don't see a problem. A belief, offered as a belief, and nothing more, is not misleading. That's the point. If there is no attempt to give beliefs artificial authority, we're most of the way there. But belief without proof remains a faith position, as you say. :up:

Faith is understanding something spiritually, when one cannot explain, and precisely delineate how they know it. Reason is the process by which we make sense of things, or attempt delineation. It could be said that nearly everything is known in a faith way, and we are always attempting to picture, or capture it with reason. This is what philosophy has always been about, in my view, but this got complicated with the rise of "reason", and distrust. Things needed to be public, physical, repeatable, or don't bother me with it. Things taken on faith are things we have no clear definitions of, or explanations for, but still accept as true, and worthy of attempting to do that. Like consciousness, health, justice, beauty.

Reason is the process of framing faith. Or making explicit the implicit... but if I just adopt and repeat popular framings, so that you cannot even tell the difference between me, and a million others, because we just present the precise same model, explanation, reason, as everyone else, then I don't think that one is demonstrating faith or reason, just memory, and allegiance. Ideology.

If you can't prove that human reason is binding upon all of reality (and thus any gods within), there's no reason to think reason is so qualified. — Jake

Now we are going into the epistemological territory of what we can know and what we cannot know. An important part of this is defining objective and subjective truths and this is a vast philosophical topic that I don't think there's enough space in here to write about. But in another thread I presented the idea of defining objective truth in two different divisions. Practical objectivity and absolute objectivity. Practical objectivity is based around defining what is objective through the limits of our perception of the world and universe, i.e the limits of our understanding and to this day, the best way has been the way of the scientific method, falsifiable methods etc. Take a group of ten people, each person goes individually into a white room with only a white table and a red apple. Then they go out and they describe all the details of what they saw. The individual accounts aren't contaminated by each others observations and all accounts gets summarized down to a conclusion about what is in the room: there's white room, with a white table, with a red apple on it. The more people who observe and describe the rooms content, the less probable of errors it gets to define the truth of what's in that room. This is practical objectivity and if you add mathematical logic to it, you start defining the closest humans get to objective truth we can get through our reasoning. Absolute objectivity is questioning everything to such a degree that it gets impossible to define anything. If questioning if there even is a room, an apple, if the people exist etc. we cannot conclude anything and everything gets impractical even on a cosmic scale.

My point is that we can only answer through our human perception, but we have no other reality. The scientific method also doesn't conclude something and then change it's mind. Newtons discoveries didn't get erased because of Einstein. Every conclusion in science works like Hegel's dialectical synthesis, it builds upon, melds together.

The key here is that our reason, methods of knowledge etc. has been tools to form the world around us. If we didn't have reasoning correct we would never be able to form the world as we do. Therefor, practical objective truths about the world works within the reality that is known to us, the things we prove in science works in symbios with the results of this reality we get. In absolute objectivity we could say that there might be god, but without proof it cannot be a practical objectivity and therefor it does not relate to us as a concept of reality we live under.

What we prove has relation to the consequences of that conclusion. To say that we can't prove something because of absolute objectivity ignores the concepts of practical objectivity's result outside of direct human perception and that what we prove has direct consequences within this reality we exist under.

Absolute objectivity is irrelevant in this regard and the inability to prove a god through this concept is irrelevant for us. The non-proof of infinite lack of knowledge is not proof of any existence. As we are proving things within the reality we exist in and practical objective truths we prove and disprove as a process in science, it concludes that there is no proof of a god and therefor the existence of god is not something worth believing in when we have no evidence for it. Any absolute objectivity claims about it is irrelevant for human beings, especially since it doesn't apply to us.

In terms of atheism, the divide between speculation and fact is strict and facts are based on objective truth in the form of the practical definition and based on what can be proved within the reality of existence we exist in. An atheist can speculate that there might be an apple in the white room, but do not claim there to be, not until they have been in there and seen it, but even then they do not accept it to be true since they question their subjective experience; they wait for the result of all the people who went into that room and then conclude it to be a fact. To say that it isn't a fact based on absolute objectivity claiming we cannot be sure of anything is ignoring the probability math of the probability that if I go in there and eat the apple, it will indeed be the apple proven to be in there by the conclusion of people's observations. If our reality is governed by probability of truth and we measure the world by this probability, then practical objectivity is what has the most probable truth to it. We can only exist within this practical objective reality and within this, the probability of a god has never been proved to be high, therefor there is no reason to say that any god exist and therefor believing in a god is not a reasonable way of approaching the reality and practical objective truths that we are governed by.

Faith is understanding something spiritually, when one cannot explain, and precisely delineate how they know it. Reason is the process by which we make sense of things, or attempt delineation. It could be said that nearly everything is known in a faith way, and we are always attempting to picture, or capture it with reason. This is what philosophy has always been about, in my view, but this got complicated with the rise of reason, and distrust. Things needed to be public, physical, repeatable, or don't bother me with it. Things taken on faith are things we have no clear definitions of, or explanations for, but still accept as true, and worthy of attempting to do that. Like consciousness, health, justice, beauty.

Reason is the process of framing faith. Or making explicit the implicit... but if I just adopt and repeat popular framings, so that you cannot even tell the difference between me, and a million others, because we just present the precise same model, explanation, reason, as everyone else, then I don't think that one is demonstrating faith or reason, just memory, and allegiance. — All sight

Like how our evolution of images representing reality has been evolving. Starting out as cave paintings, we have evolved our ability to capture truth right down to capturing the light of the world onto frames of photography. But even then we've continued evolving it. 3D virtual reality captures of the world starts to chop of the framed nature of images and soon we will be standing within the captured world as if we were perfectly there, only difference is the perception forming the experience. Reasoning is much like that, faith is the abstract concept of something that we can never claim to be true, like an abstract image in our mind of something we saw. The more we reason, the more clear it becomes, the more tools, like deductive reasoning, facts, mathematical logic, physical experiments in the world and so on, the easier it becomes to frame those abstractions into truths, like all the tools we started using to capture images; paintings, sculptures, photochemistry, light field technology, VR technology and so on. The more we work on it, the less abstract it gets, the less faith it becomes and more true it becomes. At some point, we will not see the difference between the abstraction and the truth because we have then found the tools to explain the abstraction as objective truth without contamination of the abstraction.

It's intuition, nous, that we're attempting to frame and make explicit. It's sense, sensitivity, life, feeling. None of that is improved in the ways you describe. Making more and more clear images of something that presents itself to you fuzzily doesn't make it clearer, just the image is clearer. The way to improve the intuition is with health, experience, travel, community, love... and is a personal journey.

Point is that atheism is purely the process of thinking about the world, life and universe in the way of facts, in the way of not giving up a pursuit for truth and knowledge and never give in to irrational faith whenever something is unexplained. — Christoffer

Why do you have faith in the ability of reason to meaningfully analyze the largest of questions (scope of god claims), when there is no proof of such an ability?

All I'm asking you to do is apply the very same challenge procedure you reasonably apply to theism to atheism as well. Although your posts are very intelligent and articulate, to me they seem to boil down to an attempt to fancy talk your way out of intellectual honesty.

Is the infinite ability of holy books proven? No, theism declined.

Is the infinite ability of reason proven? No, atheism declined.

By "infinite ability" I mean a methodology proven qualified to deliver credible answers about the largest of questions regarding the most fundamental nature of all reality, ie. the scope of most god claims.

A person who walks away from theism is not automatically an atheist, for they may reject the chosen authority of the atheist as well.

Now we are going into the epistemological territory of what we can know and what we cannot know. — Christoffer

Imho, you're working way too hard here. You don't make it this complicated when analyzing theism. You just ask for proof, and when none is provided you walk away.

If an atheist actively asserts the non-existence of God, they occupy a faith position, according to what you say, and to what you and I seem to believe. — Pattern-chaser

Yes, agreed.

But if an atheist simply believes that God does not exist, without trying to make their beliefs seem authoritative or binding on others, I don't see a problem. — Pattern-chaser

I don't see a problem either, but their belief is still based on faith, faith in the ability of human reason to meaningfully analyze the very largest of questions.

A complication often is that their faith is unexamined, taken to be an obvious given, a strong blind faith, so they don't experience it as faith. And so they come on a forum and with all sincerity claim that atheism is not based on faith, because they don't see the faith it is based on.

But belief without proof remains a faith position, as you say. — Pattern Chaser

Ok, we're on basically the same page. Which is refreshing, as it's often me vs. the entire forum. :smile:

Faith is about claiming something without proof, atheism doesn't claim anything without proof, — Christoffer

Please prove the qualifications of human reason to credibly analyze the very largest of questions about all of reality, a realm we can't define in even the most basic manner (size, shape etc).

If we apply atheist principles to atheism itself, atheism collapses. Reason is of course still proven useful in countless cases on human scale.

Sometimes I think just a definition of faith from the Atheist position would be helpful. Often it seems there is some inherent belief that "faith" in these chats automatically implies faith in a God.

If it is not a fact, and if reasonable cases can be made both for and against the same position, than any belief in that position, either for or against, is by definition believed by faith.

This is the fundamental misinterpretation of atheism. Theists view it as an ideology, as a statement, as something solid as a statue, when it's instead a concept of thought — Christoffer

The statement, the claim, is that the concept of thought you're referencing is relevant to issues the scale of gods. Prove that please.

Theism vs. atheism is just a contest between two competing authorities, neither of which has been proven qualified to usefully address the questions of vast scale being considered.

Merged from 'Challenging Comfort', OP from @gnat:

We subconsciously uphold a particular belief as a means of comfort, to provide structure in the face uncertainty. In our attempt to maintain comfort, we welcome confirmation bias into our reasoning. I argue that idolizing comfort restricts our capacity to reason. Therefore, we must consider the concepts we find comfort in with a skeptical attitude in order to think more rationally. To symbolize the potential toxicity of comfort, I propose this analogy:

Let’s say Tracy has been in a dating relationship with Jordan for twenty years. The history she has accumulated with her partner over this time period has fostered a deep familiarity and comfort between the two of them. However, Jordan emotionally and physically abuses Tracy. Tracy doesn’t break up with Jordan because of the comfort she feels in their shared history and because she’s afraid of the unknown. The most beneficial decision for Tracy is to end the relationship with Jordan because she stops the abuse, but instead her desire for comfort traps her in abuse. Tracy repeatedly enforces an irrational belief to protect her comfort.

Religion is a common belief system used for comfort because it provides structure to existence and explains purpose in existing. The validity of those beliefs must be assessed because prioritizing comfort poses a threat to rationality. In Tracy’s case, she abandoned reason for the sake of comfort. Without reason, potential for growth is limited. Therefore, we must be wary regarding beliefs that bring us comfort because philosophical complacency and ignorance may follow.

Why do you have faith in the ability of reason to meaningfully analyze the largest of questions (scope of god claims), when there is no proof of such an ability? — Jake

I don't, I am looking at the process of reasoning and with facts proving hypotheses into theories and using facts to deduct into logical conclusions as a process that has been going on and there is nothing that says it will not continue going forward. If you frame progress within the framework that we have reached the final conclusions, you are missing the point that this isn't about faith, it's a prediction of probability about the process. Faith is believing something without any rational thing pointing to it, the process points in a certain direction, the end is unclear and not something I have any faith about, but claiming to know the end point is what religion does, therefor religion is about faith, atheism and science is not.

All I'm asking you to do is apply the very same challenge procedure you reasonably apply to theism to atheism as well. — Jake

That demands a claim to be said in order for me to question as I question claims by theists. Atheism does not have a claim, it's a process of reasoning, not a claim that can be analyzed, since the process is what it is, i.e facts determine what we know, it's not much more strange than that. Any scientific method that do not adhere to facts cannot determine anything, i.e the process is true. I claim the process to be true in pursuit of knowledge and truth within the framework we exist in, the process so far has determined this to be a true claim. Does the process of facts proving claims into truth not exist you mean? In absolute objectivity, sure, but we cannot exist in that state and the fact that humans have conquered forming the world as we have done is based on the process being true within our concept of reality, within practical objectivity. Does the process atheism is based on, not exist? Is that what you mean?

Is the infinite ability of reason proven? No, atheism declined. — Jake

You are turning the burden of proof into nonsense here. You are ignoring the basics of the process, i.e facts defining truth. Is the red apple in the white room? The process predicts probability, the process does not equal infinite ability of reason, it predicts that the process will answer more complex questions. Atheism does not say it knows the truth, atheism points out that you can only know what can be proven, god isn't proven. It's the same process that we used to understand the world as we know it, the process itself is proof that it's true in understanding the universe within itself. The process does predict things outside of human perception. Is the red apple in the white room? Yes, probability demands it, low probability denies it. A cosmic scale entity cannot exist under low probability, because low probability is random and random isn't proof of existence.

Do not simplify things into nonsense. The quote above is a straw man of what I've been saying.

A person who walks away from theism is not automatically an atheist, for they may reject the chosen authority of the atheist as well. — Jake

Atheism is not authority, the process of thinking about life, the world and universe is not a claim, is not authority or solid, it's a malleable process of truth-seeking, do not mix atheism with dogma, that is a theist invention about atheism. A person who walks away from theism is an atheist if he/she is using the process to form knowledge. If that person use unproven claims or any kind of faith, they are not, it's simple as that. There are no claims in atheism, atheism is a process of thinking about knowledge that forms knowledge, ever evolving. Theism is static, atheism is even changing, that is the key difference and the process itself cannot be analyzed and "disproven", since it's a process of truth seeking by questioning what is. It doesn't make sense to question atheism as if it were acting out of the same principles as theism, since it doesn't.

Please prove the qualifications of human reason to credibly analyze the very largest of questions about all of reality, a realm we can't define in even the most basic manner (size, shape etc).

If we apply atheist principles to atheism itself, atheism collapses. Reason is of course still proven useful in countless cases on human scale — Jake

This is nonsense. You are trying to disprove a method that has been giving results by it's reasoning and logic since it was first ever used. Theists claim something without proof, atheist doesn't claim anything without proof. You cannot ask for proof about how our reasoning is valid without first claiming that proof we have right now about the world is false and that all the things we have proven isn't existing. The process and the results of that process has already given results that prove the process works. And without claiming anything without proof you can't apply anything against atheism the way you propose, it makes no sense. What you are doing is an argument that propose a premise that theism works under the same principles as atheism when they are nothing alike.

Merged from 'Why would a god want people to argue for his existence?' Op from @Purple Pond:

There are many attempts throughout history of people trying to argue for the existence of God through reasoned discussion. What are these apologists trying to achieve? Suppose for argument sake that the arguments for the existence of God were sound. What type of people are going to be convinced by logical sound arguments? Those who's intelligence are capable of understanding theistic arguments and are rational enough to except them, of course. So you have intelligent and rational people accepting the existence of God by the mere fact they possess the qualities of being intelligent and rational. But what about those people who don't possess those qualities and are not smart enough to understand and accept theistic arguments. Is it their fault that they cannot grasp them? Isn't God being unfair? I mean it's not my fault if I can't grasp theistic arguments for the existence of God.

It's only fair that everyone get's the chance to discover God, and not those who are lucky to posses certain qualities. Is God unfair?

The problem with many of this arguments is a complete absence of understanding of the historical dimension of them.

FIrst and foremost, what is 'transcendent' is also by definition, beyond the scope of empirical science. So you will reply, 'how then can anyone claim to know anything of it?' To which the revealed religions will say 'Because he/she/it choose to reveal himself in the person of Jesus, or the sayings of Muhammed, and so on. And that is also given in the context of an historical record of testimony, recorded events, mythological accounts, and so on, which frame the purported revelations and provide a context within which it can be made meaningful.

So, of course if you reject all of those sources, and demand 'evidence', then the kind of evidence you're demanding will typically be of a completely different order. This is because empiricism works by first of all only dealing with phenomena about which measurable predictions can be made. And also because it's dealing with very specific subjects - what causes the colour of light to change as iron is heated, what causes epidemics, and so on.

However there are some exceptions to this general principle, specifically in respect of the so-called 'medical miracles' which are required for the canonization of saints. In these cases, meticulous records have been kept of such cures and intercessions, which are also empirical to the extent that medical science has not been able to provide an account of why the cure happened.

But from a philosophical perspective, the real argument is about understanding why religious principles can't ever be a matter of empirical science at all, and that to demand empirical evidence is to misunderstand the whole issue. And one can say this without any kind of agenda either for or against belief in God,

Can a law e.g., of cause and effect, apply to the whole of the universe without applying to each relative circumstance? Why not a deity/deities, if such exist?

My point is, not knowing cannot be used to validate any possibility and, no matter how scientific the approach, it still remains unknown. — BrianW

Perspective is relative, so is our understanding of simplicity. Hence, the many varied choices we make. It all depends on our abilities/capacities.

But then any regular everyday event can be explained in a million different ways if complexity is not a limiting factor and all metaphysical unverifiable possibilities are up for consideration. Is that reasonable?

Faith, Belief, Intuition, etc., are applicable to human experience because they are based on more than reason, perhaps will. We face the unknown, not because we understand it, but because we are determined to rise to the challenge. Religion is specifically directed towards instigating certain reactions in humans and among aspects like emotion, thought, intuition, will, etc., reason is not the greater cause, as proven by past human experience. Infact, the success of religion to achieve its aims may be proof of its reasonable-ness, though this is just personal opinion regardless of the probability we may assign to its practical utility. — BrianW

Yes, i'm not saying we should allways use reason or that reason is more important then the rest of our abilities, but the question was, "is it reasonable"... so I answered with that in mind.

And sure religion has been effective in achieving certain aims, the more salient question maybe is what aims, and are these also my or your aims?

Theism vs. atheism is just a contest between two competing authorities, neither of which has been proven qualified to usefully address the questions of vast scale being considered. — Jake

This is just untrue and you are totally ignoring history here. Religion has never explained anything that comes close to anything true about the universe. Atheism has not done that either since it has never claimed anything at all, it's just a process. You are thinking about science vs religion and within that, science has a pretty solid track record of providing answers to questions earlier defined as "too vast to be explained". The very reason you are able to write on your computer or phone and talk about these things is a result of scientific discovery and theories proven. Name one thing that religion has ever done in this regard? Both science and atheism also works under the principle of them being a process and line of thinking, they themselves does not claim a single thing. Theists on the other hand claim things that are then asked to be proved, which they don't... because "faith reasons".

Your entire line of criticism against atheism relies on the premiss that it claims specific things, same goes for science. They do not do this, they act under a process of thinking and testing the world around us and ourselves in order to find truths that we can build upon. If none of those things that this process produced were true you would for instance not be able to use GPS since Einsteins theories was crucial in order to even have satellites working with it. Atheism and science has no authority behind them and therefor your argument falls flat as a comparison to theism, which all it does is making claims that doesn't need to be proved because of "faith". I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what atheism is and what science does and that misunderstanding is the foundation of the argument. The premisses of your argument cannot be based on an misunderstanding. You cannot demand that atheism is governed by authority or that it makes claims, it simply doesn't, so the argument falls flat.

says:

Sometimes I think just a definition of faith from the Atheist position would be helpful.

I agree. The question doesn't apply just to atheists, but to anyone who uses the word 'faith'.

I can't speak for all atheists and I expect that many of them use 'faith' in different ways than I use it.

But my definition would be something like:

1. Willingness to commit one's self to the truth of a belief whose justification is perceived as weak. It's similar in meaning to 'trust'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith

The word 'faith' seems to me to be ambiguous.

2. The usage that I favor has to be distinguished from another usage that imagines 'faith' as a kind of extrasensory spiritual sense, an additional channel for acquiring information. The hugely influential KJV translation of Hebrews 11:1 suggests this: "now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

The second use encounters all kinds of epistemological problems that the first doesn't. The first seems to me to be very much in accord with some current ideas in formal epistemology, in which different beliefs can have different plausibility weights and be better or worse justified. (That's what all that "Bayesian" stuff that we see everywhere in philosophy these days is all about.) 'Faith' (as I conceive of it) is just willingness to commit to the truth of propositions what have less plausibility weight than we might otherwise like.

Another idea that I want to distinguish my view from is

3. 'fideism', the idea that faith and reason are antithetical and opposed. This one is summed up by Tertullian's "...the son of God died; it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd." Luther seems to have said similar things and it seems to be a recurring theme in Protestantism (and in philosophy influenced by Protestantism).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fideism

Often it seems there is some inherent belief that "faith" in these chats automatically implies faith in a God.

I think that's because religion, particularly Protestant Christian religion with its ideas of "justification by faith alone", is where the word 'faith' is most typically used these days. It's out of style in most of the rest of contemporary life, and one generates angry responses when one uses it in the context of things like science.

If it is not a fact, and if reasonable cases can be made both for and against the same position, than any belief in that position, either for or against, is by definition believed by faith.

Yes, I'd agree with that.

I think that I'd rather say that the facts are typically going to be whatever they are regardless of what we happen to think about them.

And while I suspect that many/most of our beliefs are poorly justified if we poke deeply enough into their foundations (poking into the foundations is what I perceive philosophy's job to be), that doesn't mean that some beliefs can't be better justified than others. I think that's even going to be true regarding religious beliefs.

An appeal to reason.

if both the theist, or the atheist can make valid claims that their beliefs are reasonable, than neither can claim a superior position unless, they are willing to make an argument that the other position is unreasonable.

I would be interested if you think such an argument from either side is possible.

that doesn't mean that some beliefs can't be better justified than others. I think that's even going to be true regarding religious beliefs. — yazata

Thanks yours - I struggle a little with the concept of competing ideas - one being "more reasonable" than another as a basis of any truth claim. I am aware, in real life, that we are often but in a position of having to weigh reasonable alternatives and decide which we feel is better. In a philosophic sense, on the issue of a/theism I have no idea what basis one could use to weigh the options and decide on a winner without the outcome being actually decided by a personal prejudice - and as such is just begging the question.

if both the theist, or the atheist can make valid claims that their beliefs are reasonable — Rank Amateur

Atheism isn't about belief or faith, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of atheism that needs to be abandoned before any argument is done about atheism. Atheism doesn't believe in anything, it is a process of thinking and reasoning about the world, it is not a claim.

I do not think there is a teapot between us and the sun until someone has proven there to be. Theists say that atheists need to disprove that there isn't a teapot. Atheists does not claim or assert anything without evidence, it is therefor and cannot be anything other than the process of reaching truth, not a claim or belief in anything. Until theists understand this simple concept, the arguments against atheism will continue to be founded on a flawed foundational premiss.

The word 'faith' seems to me to be ambiguous. — yazata

Yes, there's a huge difference between faith in god and faith in the truth. Faith in the truth only means faith in what is a coming conclusion, whatever it might be, faith in god is faith in a claim that has no direct correlation with any facts or logic, only the claim itself. Therefor, because faith is so connected to the ideas of religion I am careful to use the term as "faith in the truth". It confuses the argument. Faith in this dialectic is for me meant to represent faith in god, faith int he supernatural, the unexplained without the need for reason or valid evidence. I have faith in the truth, but I do not know the truth of something I do not have the evidence for. The difference is night and day.

P1 - God is, is not a fact
P2 - God is not - is not a fact
P3 - God is - is supported by reason
P4 - God is not - is supported by reason

Conclusion - neither God is, or God is not, is a superior position.

God does not exist is not a claim since it demands that God exist.
God exist, is a claim, which demands proof to be valid.
Atheists does not claim god does not exist since they cannot claim something that isn't a valid claim.
Atheists does not claim anything, they demand proof of the claim.

Conclusion, atheists does not claim anything and any argument that criticise atheists making claims is based on a false premiss.

thanks - not sure any of that addresses my argument. To be clear - I am not making any point against Atheism as a reasonable belief. I am making an argument above that its claim is not superior to the theist claim. If you disagree - tell me which proposition is false, and why. or why my conclusion does not follow.

The proposition that atheism makes a claim is false, that is what the problem is. If atheists makes a claim, then theism and atheism is in opposition, but a claim needs to be supported. Theists claim the existence of god, provides proof. Proof is accepted and the general truth is that god exist, atheists claim that god doesn't exist, cannot provide proof, then atheists are wrong in their claim. Problem is that theists claims aren't proved, so the argument haven't even gotten to the point of arguments for or against, so atheism cannot be blamed for making any claim since theists claims demand the burden of proof before a counter-claim can be made.

Atheists however, do not make such claims. If theists prove the existence of god with the same level of truth as Einsteins theories, then no atheist would claim otherwise, since atheism is built upon following the truth where it is. If theists prove the existence of god, all atheists would say, "ok" then this is the truth then.

So there is no claims made from atheists, this is the truth that theists ignore in their arguments.

The proposition that atheism makes a claim is false, that is what the problem is — Christoffer

I made no such proposition -

And it seems you think my argument is saying something about the truth claim of atheism - it is not. It is simply saying neither claim is superior. I gave an easily reasoned argument in support. Yet again - if you disagree and believe the atheist claim is superior tell me which proposition is false and why, or why my conclusion does not follow.

I made no such proposition - — Rank Amateur

Then

if you disagree and believe the atheist claim is superior — Rank Amateur

This is why it's confusing. You say "atheist's claim" then saying that your proposition about atheists making claims isn't something you do.

If atheists doesn't make a claim, then there is no claim to be superior. You are balancing theists making claims to atheists making claims. Making a claim demands a statement. Atheist do not claim anything since there is nothing to claim against. The teapot flying around the sun is an example of this. Anyone could claim anything and then demand proof that it isn't, but that is not how burden of proof works. Atheists claims are always based on facts, meaning if an atheist claims anything that isn't supporting by facts, then they aren't really atheists anymore. This is key to understanding the position atheists are in. And even if an atheist makes a claim with supported proof and new proof prove that claim to be wrong, the atheist won't argue against, they would accept the newly proven claim to be the truth. Atheism never makes claims against facts this way and do not stand by a certain dogma or viewpoint outside of facts. Therefor you cannot pit theist claims against atheist claims since there are no claims from atheists. Atheists only demand to prove the claims given, that is not a claim, that is a demand for truth, which theists does not provide yet. When they do, then atheists either have counter-proofs with counter arguments or if the evidence is clearly pointing to the existence of god, atheists will accept it.

Difference here is that theists do not work under facts and proof, only belief. If atheists, or rather scientists provide a claim with proof, many theists still deny it. Proof does not matter for theists when presented. The difference between the two are fundamentally so different that you can't really put them in an argument against each other. Atheists haven't made any claims, at. all.

If atheists doesn't make a claim, then there is no claim to be superior. — Christoffer

Ok I will amend the argument:

P1 - God is, is not a fact
P2 - God is not - is not a fact
P3 - Theism - a claim that God is - is supported by reason
P4 - Chrisoffer is not making any claim about anything

Conclusion - neither God is or whatever Chrisoffer believes is a superior position

Tell me which proposition is false and why , or how the conclusion does not follow.