I'm with Jos on this. You don't ever state that you don't know if God exists or not due to lack of evidence, you specifically state that you believe God does not exist. That is a belief as well with no scientific proof of non-existence.

And yet you yourself have stated (correctly) in the past that it's not logical to expect someone to attempt to prove a negative.

This is Assertion Logic 101. Person A makes an assertion, without any proof (or with evidence that is subsequently invalidated). Person B rejects the assertion. Person B rejecting the assertion does not constitute a belief system. There's a big difference between knowledge systems and belief systems.

It's like saying "there is no tooth fairy" is a belief because I lack proof of non-existence...it's a perversion of cognitive science. It's the worst form of egalitarianism....it's like saying, "one person believes in spirit XYZ and the other doesn't...who is to say?" To paraphrase Francis Bacon for the 2nd time today, nature and reality are to say.

The honus (as I've said for about 5 times now) is on religion to pony up with evidence. Otherwise, belief in God (or Gods) is nothing but fairy tales. Religion has a batting average of 0% when it comes to demonstrating that God exists. And that is why religion is a belief system and rejection of religion is not (or at least not necessarily) - religion has zero reality check.

Of course, demonstrating proof of God would wreck religion, but it would made God definable, delimited, understandable, subject to laws of nature - and would likely made it much harder for certain people to brainwash others. And that's what scares some people the most.

And finally, I got an email from someone who accused me of being a monster who is trying to control what people think. I'm actually amused. I've said about a million times that people should be free to think and communicate as they please.