"atheism makes no claims, it is simply lack of belief"

A friend of mine will use this statement quite often.  If you challenge his worldview he can always retreat to the safety of a worldview that makes no claims.  So, the definition of atheism for many years was that they believed there was no god and to lack belief in god was agnosticism.  Now because of the "new atheism" this definition has changed.  If you were to talk about atheists like Fredrich Nietzsche and Bertrand Russell they would ascribe to the definition that "God does not exist" it is a philosophical stance, and is a stance to be defended.  But today since most of the new atheists are not philosophers they have retreated to this neutral stance.

Many atheists will claim that atheism is just simply a default position.  But is this really true?  If they were neutral then why do you always see them taking sides on issues? A neutral person would stay to the sidelines and pose questions if anything.  You will hear atheists make truth claims all the time.  "there is no such thing as absolute truth"  "we don't need God" "the bible is hopelessly flawed as a document"   "belief in God is silly"  "religion is responsible for the evil in the world"  so when anyone makes a claim they have the responsibility to back it up.  The same goes for Christians, we cannot say God exists without being able to provide some kind of argument, whether that comes from personal experience to evidence from history or science.

Also if atheism really is the default position then new born babies would be atheists.  That would shock the people in my kids church this Sunday morning.  and at the local maternity hospital            

So my main point in this blog is that when you speak with atheists understand that if they are going to engage in conversations about theism/atheism they do have a point of view, and make truth claims.  In the same way that you would make someone back up their political and ethical statements you have to get atheists to do the same thing as well.