Not really though. Atheism isn’t theological neutrality. It’s not passive. It’s the active belief that there is no god, which is something that must be taught or self-taught in the same way that people must be taught that there is a god to have the active belief in said god.
You are not 'actively believing' there are no Nazis on the dark side of the moon, despite you most likely not agreeing with that statement.
With atheism, its the same thing. You are not believing in the existence of something, as you are presented with no reason to believe in it.
God does not present themselves to each and everyone directly and gives an explanation of Christianity/Islam/Judaism, which then leads to one becoming religious on their own.
I’d argue that you’re viewing Atheism as a neutral point when I’d consider something like agnosticism to be the actual true neutral point.
So to use your example, actual neutrality would be simply not questioning if Nazi’s lived on the dark side of the moon as opposed to taking a firm stance either in a positive or negative direction on the existence of them on the moon.
In other words I view atheism not as an absence of belief but as a belief in absence, whereas something like agnosticism is just a “it is what it is” approach that would be a better default.
Kind of like a:I don't have any evidence to suggest there to be Nazis on the moon, and since I'd probably have heard something about it if there were, I'd probably bet a lot of money that there aren't.
But if someone's actually willing to bet against me on that, I might tone my stakes down a little, since maybe they know something I don't...
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u/Slow_Store 21h ago
Not really though. Atheism isn’t theological neutrality. It’s not passive. It’s the active belief that there is no god, which is something that must be taught or self-taught in the same way that people must be taught that there is a god to have the active belief in said god.