[djacobs]

"Not believing" is not the same as "believing against". The first involves no claim, positive or negative, about religion except in response to a question or prompt. The second is an active disbelief or truth claim.

Most atheists do not go around saying "I know there is no god" but, if asked "do you believe in a god/something supernatural/things you can't see", they would answer "no".

Not many atheists are strong atheists (those who "believe against god", who believe the existence of god is objectively disproven). Rather, they are not convinced by anything they experience that there is a god and so do not believe in one, just as they do not believe in unicorns or pots o' gold at the end of the rainbow. (Surely you wouldn't say they are making a faith claim about unicorns just because they don't happen to acknowledge their existence.)

However, they often actively push back against encroaching beliefs that they have not, themselves, claimed as their own.

This distinction between "nonbelief" versus "disbelief" is subtle but important.

EDIT: The only faith claim I could possibly agree atheists have is a general statement about the nature of faith as it relates to them. Namely, most say "I will not have faith. I will only accept as true that which can be demonstrated."

[klodolph]

Addition: Atheists can sound pedantic when it comes to word order, but this pedantry has a point. Compare the following two sentences:

"I'm asking you to not join the Navy."

"I'm not asking you to join the Navy."

The difference in word order is the same as the different phrasings between different atheists:

"I do not believe god exists." (I call this atheism)

"I believe god does not exist." (I call this strong atheism)

[lars512]

I prefer not to use "god" as a pronoun, since it makes assumptions which aren't warranted. Let's remove the assumptions by using "a god" instead, and look at your sentences again.

"I do not believe a god exists."

"I believe a god does not exist."

They look the same to me.

[babblefrog]

Maybe it's a problem with English. I can say that I don't believe in the existence of life on a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri, but that I don't believe in the non-existence either. In other words I have no data, so how could I believe either one?

[gmlk]

The words "I believe X" used to mean "Based on all available evidence I have seen, I'm convinced that X is true". Lately however people have started to use the word to mean any strongly held opinion regardless of any evidence or reason.

To believe something is "to be convinced of the truthfulness of it", to have faith is to have hope in the future based on a belief.

Believe and faith can be misplaced: To be convinced that something is true does not make it true. A conviction which is specific enough maybe testable, a conviction can sometimes be proven or disproven. It is rational to hold convictions which are consistent with available evidence and experiences.

A theology is a (philosophical) theory about gods. A theology may be specific enough to be testable, most however are not. Someone who is convinced that a particular theology is true has a religious conviction or religious believe, which often becomes part of the persons identity or self-identification.

People who share similar theological convictions often join together to form religious groups and religious organizations. One can be convinced either by personally examining the evidence available or by the believing the word of someone who one considers an authority (often as part of the religious organization one is a member of).

The word "god" has also taken on a whole different meaning. The word god used to mean someone with authority and power. For example: In the bible Jezus applies the word "gods" to human judges? By this definition it's obvious that there are gods, many even. [We could then reserve the word "God" (with a capital letter) for the hypothetical entity which has no authority above him. Which leads to the weird conclusion that (this hypothetical) God would be the only true atheist: a-theist, without-god.]

The word "natural" is also confusing. Regardless of what we personally may think: Assume for a moment that the universe was created by someone who was not created. Now we have the situation that the universe is not "natural", but rather "artificial". The only thing natural would be this creator who what no created.

This makes it currently impossible to reason from within science about intelligent design. Intelligent design is not inherently unscientific, but it does challenge some of the most basis assumptions at the basis of modern day science: The unproven (and perhaps unprovable) conviction that Life, the universe and the rest are all purely natural (and not artificial).

The word "supernatural" is also meaningless. Just try to define any observable phenomenon which is neither natural nor artificial? By implicit definition no observable phenomenon could ever be labeled supernatural. Just the fact that we are able to observe it either makes it natural or artificial. Logic leaves no room for anything else.

[djacobs]

Your word games aside, atheists do not believe anything. They only accept as true what they see or can be demonstrated.

[gmlk]

Interesting use of generalization with a universal qualifier.

One has to be a wee bit naive to "accept as true" everything that one can see: The truth is often hidden behind very convincing illusions and stories, most of which are not really false. These stories often represent other, more limited, truths, pieces of the reality underneath.