Originally posted by Rajk999
The way I see it any opinion like "God does not exist", is a belief.
The man believes that God does not exist.
I believe that God does exist.
All beliefs.
You can believe that a god or gods do exist,
You can believe that a god or gods don't exist,
OR
You can not hold a belief either way.
If you say 'I believe that god or gods don't exist' then you have a belief.
If you say 'I don't believe that god or gods exist' then you have an absence of belief.
Not believing in something is not a belief, it's an absence of one.
Also, it's perfectly possible to make statements like "god probably doesn't exist" or
similar without 'believing' that god doesn't exist.
The arguments around the use of the word 'exist' in the absence of any evidence at all
is a longer one than I will have in this post.
I don't know if in this particular instance he simply doesn't believe in a god or gods or if
he actively believes in the non-existence of god or gods.
Most people tend towards sloppy use of language and unless the questioner specifically
framed the questions in such a way as to make the subtleties of meaning clear his
answers might not accurately reflect his actual beliefs (or absence of them).
And I suspect that in this instance the difference between the two positions would be
irrelevant to all concerned.
So he may or may not have a belief that gods don't exist, the one thing we can know for
sure from these reports is that he almost certainly doesn't have a belief IN god or gods.