ATHEISM IN PRACTICE IS ATHEISM

"They sweep past like the wind and are gone. But they are deeply guilty, for their own strength is their god", Habakkuk 1:1.

Some atheists directly deny that there is a God. Others say they don't deny him that way but they just do not believe. They say they are atheists for they do deny him as in denying his importance simply by not believing and treating him as a fiction. This is the difference between direct belief and indirect belief in atheism.

The essential thing is that to say you do not accept a God is to say you own yourself and it is not up to God or anybody else to give you ownership.  You define what ownership means for you and then you decide what you own.  It is about your authority.  No God can give you the authority to own unless you already have it.  Ownership has power as an ingredient.  No matter how much evidence there is for God, somebody speaking for God has to tell you you own and what you own and that God says it.  This is just offering you counterfeit ownership.  You own and it is that simple.

"Do I own me for God says so?"  or, "Do I own me anyway and God just complies?"  In justice, if there is nobody to own x then you give it to the person at the end of a process of elimination.  So God giving me ownership of me is out.  It is none of his business.

Lacking belief in God is a declaration of self-ownership and that makes it atheism.  It is not agnosticism for the agnostic is not sure if she owns herself irrespective of God or not.

If you need a starting point or default in these matters should it be belief in God or something else? Should it be atheism as in direct or indirect? Indirect atheism is the honest approach rather than agnosticism which won't admit that its ignoring God is in some indirect way atheistic.

Denying God indirectly would be the default for you need evidence to say any being exists. You are saying you will believe if you get enough evidence.

Atheism in practice is living without caring about God's alleged rules. It denies God in your life not necessarily directly in your head.

Some ask if the default position is that there should be a lack of belief in God? Perhaps outright rejection of belief in God is not the default position but rejection of his authority is the default? Some would say rejection of divine authority is enough for it is far more important not to bend the knee to a God than to deny that God exists. One may say, "But we don't need to reject the authority. We can just neither accept or reject. Rather than rejecting God's authority, we simply do not care if he has it or not." But in practice ignoring authority is rejecting it. The two go together. Also, rejecting God and rejecting God's authority and saying there is a difference is splitting hairs. God is authority so to reject one is to reject the other.

If you take the denial of the existence of God as the default, then rejection of the authority of God is implied in this stance. If we tease out the implications of a lack of belief in God, one is that we will live without regard to God's alleged concerns and commands. It is none of his business how we conduct ourselves.

ARGUMENT: Denial of the existence of God by how you live is irrelevant to answering the question, "Is atheism the default position or not?" That is an evidence question not a question about how you live your life.

REPLY: That would be true if God were not seen as somehow being equated with morality. God is the notion that morality is a person. It is not an elf we are talking about or a pagan god.  God is seen as a person and that person is morality.

Atheism in practice is the default way to live your life if and only if in fact the default as in evidence is unbelief or disbelief in God.

God might want us to have the presumption of atheism. If God does not want to force us to believe he will want us to start from a neutral point or choose the best available default. We know what that default is even if God wishes it were a different one. It is what it is.

Unbelief in God or a religion is the starting point and should be the starting point.