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In January of 2008, I first began to finally recognize myself as an atheist. Since then, I have to say that I've learned a great deal about religion and philosophy, as well as the term "atheism" itself and its many variations. It's been a long road for me; starting out as a Christian, then slowly over the years becoming a deist, then "agnostic", and finally accepting the atheist label. But even now, I still feel as if my beliefs are constantly evolving, and it can often be frustrating trying to sort out what I really do and don't believe. Now as my second full year since becoming an atheist approaches, I've been gradually shifting from soft atheism toward hard atheism.

For those who are not familiar with the terms, soft atheism is typically described as a simple lack of belief in god, while hard atheism is a more active position of belief in no god.

Now, at first I used to never even consider becoming a hard atheist. I felt as though the position was untenable in that it seemed to be irrationally taking on a belief without sufficient justification. However, lately it has been irritating me how much soft atheism seems to give leverage to absolutely absurd ideas as if they are actually seriously considerable positions.

For example, the fact of the matter is, everything we have ever observed about physics and the world around us tells us that there are no such beings that possess the capability to create and destroy matter itself. Buoyancy does not allow for any organisms with a mammalian biological makeup to walk across water at the heels of their feet. Yet, soft atheism seems to treat these claims far too leniently--almost with excessive neutrality. These claims blatantly contradict what we have observed about our universe, so why should we treat them with such indifference as if they are even remotely reasonable possibilities to consider? I'm not trying to say that if empirical evidence is presented for such claims that we should still reject them, but rather, until that evidence is actually presented, the evidence currently stacks much more greatly in the favor of nonexistence for the Judeo-Christian God, and thus we should treat it with a much greater degree of skepticism instead of going, "Well, I don't know, it could be possible, but I'm just going to disbelieve these claims for now," as if to say it's really like a 50-50 possibility.

It just seems to me that this opens the door to a slew of absurd rationalizations we would have to start making just to help those with religious beliefs feel more secure about themselves. IE, consider the boogyman. No one disputes the clear nonexistence of the boogyman despite that it is true that we haven't actually checked under every bed and in every closet of the United States to find him. Yet, under the soft atheist approach to such a claim, it seems as if you couldn't just say, "There is no boogyman." Instead you have to say, "Well, I don't know. I haven't seen any evidence for the boogyman, so I'm just going to lack belief for now," just so some boogymanist doesn't get offended. It's far too neutral a response to what should be an obviously bogus belief.

The fact is, every claim a child has ever made about the boogyman hiding in his closet has unanimously been attributed to nightmares and poor critical thinking skills due to an underdeveloped brain time and time again. Therefore, the evidence is clearly stacked against the claim, so I just don't find it unreasonable that given the consistent trend with claims of boogymen hiding in closets over many centuries, we should just be able to conclude that there is indeed no such thing as the boogyman.

Are there such things as fairies? I dunno; I'll just lack belief for now. Are there such things as leprechauns? I dunno; I'll just lack belief for now. Are there such things as flying spaghetti monsters? I dunno, I'll just lack belief for now. Do you see how absurd this is getting? This is all obviously bullshit. There are no leprechauns, there are no fairies, there certainly aren't any flying spaghetti monsters, and we shouldn't have to pussyfoot around pointing this out.

Nonetheless, even with hard atheism it is important to note that you are not sacrificing all ability to be reasoned with regarding claims toward deities. It does not mean closing the doors to open-mindedness. You can still be willing to admit that you could be wrong, and if sufficient evidence can be presented, you will gladly leave your atheism behind in favor of theism. The way I'm beginning to see it, hard atheism isn't so much about stubbornly insisting complete opposition to theism anymore; it's simply about having a more practical consideration of extraordinary claims until evidence comes along to point out otherwise.

But enough of my ranting; I want to know what you guys think. Do you consider yourself a soft atheist or hard atheist? Why? Feel free to comment on my thoughts as well.

I would classify myself as a soft atheist
EDIT: well because I'm not really sure.

First of all, there are no such thing as Flying Spaghetti Monsters.
Only THE Flying Spaghetti Monster Himself.
His noodliness be praised. RAmen.

But I guess if I had to fit myself into one of those two categories, I would say that I am a hard atheist.
I am very sure in my mind that no gods exits, and very, very sure that YHWH can not exist as He is described in the bible.

But I think most atheists do not fit in either category, but somewhere in between.
There's a lot of logic and reasoning that goes in to deciding what God is, and everyone goes through it differently.
I think you should not worry so much about categorizing yourself with one group or the other and simply focus on your own beliefs.

I am a Hard Atheist, as it is impossible for our human minds to perceive God, and I will not be wasting time trying to think it's possible or even keep the concept that it could be.

When you say "unlikely" instead of "impossible", that immediately disqualifies you as a strong atheist.

I agree with him. I don't think God should be any harder to perceive than anything else, which is why I think his existence is highly unlikely.

But as long as I allow that possibility, I am a weak atheist. Which I honestly think is the more skeptical and intellectually honest of the two.

But you see, going by this approach isn't really following science and skepticism, because if you aren't allowed to have any beliefs or make any conclusions whatsoever, then science couldn't operate. I recognize that every belief, excluding those that deal with conceptual knowledge, requires some level of faith. However, it isn't really practical to try and assess the world through the eye of absolute certainty and 100% probabilities when you lack omniscience, because you will never be able to obtain absolute knowledge in order to claim 100% probability that something is true. If you require 100% certainty in order to operate, then you would never be able to make any decisions during your life because you're just not going to get it. That said, it also isn't practical to dismiss empirical observations altogether in order to assess the approximate likeliness of events, as religion seems to often do. We know this because simply believing that a rock won't fall when you drop it isn't going to stop it from actually dropping. Empirical observation has demonstrated this time and time again, so you need to take it into consideration if you want to make any attempt to reasonably determine the likeliness of an event.

So basically, we find ourselves in the unenviable position of trying to constantly assess probabilities of outcomes based on very limited knowledge and observations. There is no such thing as "proofs" or "absolute certainty" in science, but that doesn't mean that it can't make reasonable conclusions about the universe altogether. There is a difference between "beyond all doubt" and "beyond all reasonable doubt". Personally, I choose the latter approach in assessing claims. wink


But you see that's just it; I'm not so much concerned about the labels but rather whether or not it is a reasonable position to have a belief in no gods. That is the part I am struggling with, because I don't want to end up in a conversation with a theist that gets away with the argument, "See, you're just as irrational as me because you believe there is no god just the same as I believe that there is a god!" even though I don't think the two stances are comparable that way considering that the current evidence favors one stance much more than the other.