Atheism: Weak or Strong, Negative or Positive

There's nothing weak or strong, neither negative nor positive about atheism. It's not a religion either (you can say it is if it amuses you, I'll say "so what?"), because there's no set of beliefs or any particular code, it's more of a position than anything else, and that's where weak, strong, negative or positive take their meaning.

So how do you know if you're an atheist, the single thing that unites all of them? Well, do you believe in a God? If you're not able to immediately say yes, you're either an atheist or really slow. If you claim you're an agnostic, just wait a minute.

So now, let's talk about the different types of atheists. I already said they don't share a set of beliefs (we have to think for ourselves), so it's nothing like comparing a catholic to a protestant or a mormon who share some common grounds, but have different practices. Now read the next bit carefully, because the difference is both subtle and important. A weak atheist does not believe in god, in any god that is, all the claims he's heard so far didn't do it for him or something like that. A strong atheist goes one step beyond and has a belief if you will, but not in some force, it's actually a negative belief (though it's called positive atheism and the other one is called negative atheism). The belief is that no god exists.

I am one of those atheists and I got to admit that often, the other type of atheists don't like people like me. They say we're just the same as fundamentalists, because we claim to know something that is unknowable, which is whether or not a god does exist. Now I'm going to explain the validity of my position and also, let me say that the form of atheism I'm going to defend most of the time is weak atheism, because that's the only necessary step I want all people to take eventually (got to reach it on your own, I wouldn't make a law to force it upon you).

So, why is strong atheism valid? Very simple, I'm rejecting claims of absolute certainty; I'm speaking in everyday talk. For instance, I know that the sun will come up tomorrow morning. I don't know for sure, with 100% certainty, but the probability is so high that we feel comfortable to say it. I believe that the various god claims are pure utter bullshit. And just think about that, I wouldn't have doubts about Zeus' existence, same thing about unicorns and goblins. Furthermore, when people start making various claims about their own god, things that have been proven false by science, I'd say it's safe to say it was an invention made by men who didn't know any better or wanted some power.

Let's take care of agnostics to end this post. People who say they're agnostics, to my experience, are often moderate believers or people who just believe in an undefined force. I've never seen a strong atheist wrongfully claim he was an agnostic, but I've seen lots of weak atheists claim they're agnostics, thinking they're in an elite position by taking the most rational point of not claiming to know the unknowable. I was an agnostic like that for a short period, but I realized: "Hey, I do not currently believe in any god. Basically, I'm just saying I'm agnostic to save myself from criticism. Really, I don't know, but as for believing, I don't. I'm not a theist, I'm an atheist." Later, just recently, I became a strong atheist. Also a militant atheist. I could be qualified right now as an antitheist who doesn't want to impose any laws on you, but who wants to give you information to make you realize that you hold unfounded beliefs.

Last minute note, more or less weak atheism=negative atheism=agnostic atheism=implicit atheism. Strong atheism=positive atheism=gnostic atheism=explicit atheism. There are even more terms than that and explicit atheism, for instance, does not necessarily equals what I said, but we would be entering far too many technicalities. Search on your own if you want to know more about that, it really doesn't matter; just label yourself anything you want, as long as you explain what you believe carefully. I don't find any of these terms perfect for various reasons of my own, so I'll just say atheism from now on. After all, these are just labels we decide to put on ourselves. I'm going to restate my position. I actively believe no god exists while rejecting claims of absolute certainty. If a god was proven to exist scientifically or if he undeniably showed himself to me (after all, he's supposed to know what it takes to convince me) I would believe in him. Now, that's separate from whether or not I respect or worship him... Take the god of the bible, I wouldn't respect him if he's even close to what's written, even if he had created everything.