In thinking of “atheism,” the fundamental category error is to imagine that “atheism” has anything to do with “belief in God.”

“You don’t believe in God!” The theist might as well say, “You don’t think the way I think!” for all the value in that statement.

This logical error — this colossal, intentional, rhetorical framing malpractice; this epically evolved religious survival trait — is like the water in which a fish swims: omnipresent, unnoticed, and (when attention is drawn to it) assumed to be unquestionable.

Does God exist? Does God not exist?  We hear, “Atheists believe God does not exist,” or any of a dozen other formulations, all of which make the question circle around “belief,” and it does not and should not. When we accept the frame of “belief,” we are ceding “home-field” advantage.

Let’s try on a simple definition of theism and atheism that avoids the “belief” trap:

Theism: approaching and explaining life by elevating, and arrogating “god” hypotheses  — ASSERTIONS, not “beliefs” — to the status of immutable fact.

Atheism: approaching and explaining life without appealing to, or accepting, “theism” as a valid explanatory frame.

Note that, as I formulate this, neither the definition of “theism” or atheism is about “belief” in God. Each is about how one approaches explaining; what one asserts as valid explanatory frameworks/approaches to life.

Theists smuggle the “belief in god” aspect into definition of atheism, because they smuggle it into their basic approach to life: theism. As I always say, “It was a theist who put the “A” in atheism.” (They should have called us “A-Dios”, if they wanted to identify people who don’t believe in God. Adios! I digress.)

If they can project the flaw in their unsupportable assertion of a God hypothesis onto the atheist, they can assert the atheist is equally flawed in making an unsupportable assertion.

No. Sidestep that bull, like the matador you are! Let’s not continue making this OUR starting point in the debate.

A-theism is an approach. to life, death, its myriad mysteries, paradoxes, coincidences, and conundrums, which does not elevate any “god” hypothesis to privileged, unquestioned explanatory status.

A-theists don’t unjustifiably assert the existence of anything, let alone “God.”

That’s it.

© R.A. Schneider, 2023