Originally posted by rwingett
Fine. Continue...
If you're retracting your claim that "God does not exist" can only be meaningful after somebody says "God does exist," then we have reached the end of this path. So, let us backtrack to here:
If I made the claim "God does not exist" without providing any evidence, would you withhold belief in my claim being true, or would you accept the claim?
If I made the claim "God does exist" without providing any evidence, would you withhold belief in my claim being true, or would you accept the claim?
If the atheist answers these two questions differently, it must be because he believes that they should be answered differently based on that idea. Thus, the atheist does have affirmative beliefs regarding God - namely, he believes that claims of his existence should not be believed in the absence of evidence. while denials of his existence may be believed in the absence of evidence. This is an atheist belief because the atheist must assert that it is true.