In the previous posting, I showed that atheist activist leaders subscribe to the belief that “there are no gods.” That is, their atheism is not a lack of god belief. Their atheism is a belief that God does not exist. But just how common is this?

There is actually quite a bit of evidence to support the contention that atheism as a belief – a belief there is no God – is actually very common. And I base this is on my own experience interacting with many, many atheists over the years. If you yourself have similar experience, consider how well this evidence resonates.

1.Notice that when activists like the FFRF publicly promote the “there are no gods” view, and such promotion is widely advertised on atheist media, there is no significant pushback. There are no complaints about the wrong definition of atheism being promoted. This tells us that the “atheism is simply a lack of god belief” view is not held very seriously by atheists or not held by very many atheists. What’s more, when someone like a Louise Antony comes along and informs an interviewer that she knows there is no God, there is much cheerleading and back-slapping among the atheist community.

2.The “atheism is simply a lack of god belief” position is not strong enough to merit the “God belief is a delusion” belief that is so common among the atheists. Simply lacking a belief in X does not mean that belief in X is a delusion. The only way to justify the notion that a belief in X is a delusion is to know that X does not exist.

Let’s illustrate with a concrete example. There is no evidence for the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence (ETI). None. In fact, there isn’t anything that could reasonably qualify as a mere clue that ETI exists. And all of this remains true when scientists working at SETI have been searching for decades. Yet even with all this, I can only conclude there is no evidence for ETI and thus lack ETI belief. I cannot reasonably declare that I have knowledge that ETI does not exist (for lack of evidence is not evidence of lack). Thus, I don’t proclaim “there is no ETI!”

Now, there are lots of people who believe ETI exists. Do I think they are delusional? No. Because I lack ETI belief because of lack of evidence, I simply think they are mistaken. But I also recognize they could, in the end, be right. We could one day discover evidence for ETI. So I can’t really say there are delusional. That would be irrational on my end.

When atheists insist religious people are delusional, they must be doing so from a “there are no gods” position. And since it is common for atheists to declare religious people are delusional and that “religion is but myth and superstition that burdens our hearts and enslaves our minds,’’ it stands to reason the “there are no gods” position is likewise very common.

3.Dawkins has a 7 point scale on theistic belief . Here are points 5-7:

Leaning towards atheism. Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. “I do not know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be skeptical.” De facto atheist. Very low probability, but short of zero. “I don’t know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.” Strong atheist. “I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung knows there is one.”

Throughout the years, anytime I have encountered atheists discussing this scale among themselves, the most common score people give themselves is a 7 (or 6.9).

A recent example involves activist Hemant Mehta. This example is especially ironic because Mehta, being the savvy activist, tries to steer his fellow atheists away from the score of 7:

Also, saying you’re a 7 basically means no amount of evidence could ever convince you that you’re wrong. That sort of dogmatism seems to go against everything atheists claim to stand for.

LOL. In other words, a score of 7 damages the narrative Mehta and his fellow activists are trying to sell.

Yet despite this, if you read through the comments section of his youtube page, you’ll find once again that a score of 7 or 6.9 is the most common score atheists give themselves [BTW, a 6.9 is the score someone gives themselves when they are a 7, but don’t want to admit it]

If it was common for atheists to be people who merely lacked God belief because of lack of evidence, you would think scores between 5 and 6 would be most common. Instead, what seems to attract most of these internet atheists is the score of 7 – I know there is no God.

4.And the final piece of evidence comes from the responses we get when atheists are asked what type of data they would count as evidence for God. That is, when the atheist insists there is no evidence for God, and is asked to clarify what they think such evidence would look like, they typically ignore the request or have great difficulty answering the question. This makes no sense if they are people who merely lack God belief because of lack of evidence. Such people would have thought about this, sifted through the data, and discovered that none of the data represent the evidence they were looking for. They could easily answer the question by telling us what they did not find.

For example, I have already mentioned that I lack belief in ETI because of lack of evidence. If a believer in ETI asked me what I would count as evidence for ETI, it would be very easy to reply.

So why do so many atheists have so much trouble telling us what would count as evidence for God? Because their atheism is not rooted in an investigation that discovered no evidence. It is rooted in the belief “there are no gods.” Their atheism is indeed a belief system.

Add it all up. Atheist activists proudly proclaim “there are no gods” and give each other awards for doing this. Their atheist followers cheer all of this. Those who follow the atheist activists likewise preach that religion is delusion, score themselves as a 6.9-7 on Dawkins scale, and have trouble articulating what evidence for God would even look like. The evidence clearly indicates the atheist activist community is a community of believers – people who believe “there is no God.”

It’s time for this community to be honest with itself and with others.