What Is Positive Atheism?
"You can't tell the players without a scorecard." That's what vendors used to shout at major league baseball games to sell programs. The same could be said about the broad atheist community. The terms have multiplied, so you need a guide to keep them straight. On side side we have what have been variously called negative atheists, soft atheists, and weak atheists. These are atheists who do not believe in God or gods, mostly because they have yet to see convincing evidence. (When I write God I'm including any sort of supernatural thing.) But they won't say they believe no God exists. Some on this side call themselves skeptical atheists. I would call them evidentialist atheists. On the other side we have, correspondingly, positive atheists, hard atheists, or strong atheists. They not only do not believe in God, they believe no such thing exists. They go beyond a-theism, mere nonbelief. (See Wikipedia's scorecard .) Things get a little confusing because on...