There is an enormous confusion around what atheists are claiming. It is my belief that theists do not understand the proposition coming from the atheist side, “I don’t believe in any gods.” They literally don’t know what this means. Furthermore, most atheists do not understand the claim of the theist: “I believe in God.” So there is an almost perfect confusion between the two parties.
The root of the problem, in my opinion, lies in the peculiarities of usage of the word ‘belief’ (and of course its cognates ‘believe’, ‘believer’, and so on).
When the theist says to his atheist friend, “I believe in God; you believe that there is no God,” he sounds as if he is saying that there is a certain thing he does, that his friend the atheist does not do; and that this is the practical difference between their philosophies. But this is a misconstrual. What he has in fact done is to use the word ‘believe’ in two different ways in the same sentence.
Let me repeat the example from the atheist point of view, to show that the problem is exactly the same.
When the atheist says to his theist friend, “You believe in God; I don’t,” he has (implicitly) used the word ‘believe’ in two different ways in the same sentence. He seems to be saying that there is a certain thing his friend the theist does, that he does not do; and that this is the practical difference between their philosophies. But this is a mistake.
It is not true that there is a thing that people can do, called “believing in God,” with the difference between theists and atheists being that the first do it and the second do not. The “believing in God” that characterizes theism is a different activity from the “believing in God” that atheists do not do. If this sounds ridiculous, please bear with me a moment.
The problem is that the word ‘believe’ can be used with two, completely different senses.
When I, as an atheist, say I “do not believe” that any gods exist, I am talking about a (possibly tentative) conclusion I have come to about the world based on my experience. I’ve studied the issue, thought about it carefully, consulted with friends; most importantly, I have looked for evidence of these gods, and found none. When I say “I don’t believe,” I mean that as far as I can tell, I don’t see any good evidence.
The theist’s use of this word has a different sense—in fact, the opposite sense. When the theist says that he “believes in God,” he is referring to an opinion that depends not a whit on observational evidence. In religious parlance, my “belief” is something I hold onto no matter what. Nothing I observe in the world, ever, can obligate me to alter my “belief in God.”
So, you see, a theist and an atheist can be standing side by side, and the first can say, “I believe in God,” and the second, “I don’t believe in God,” and they are talking about completely different things. The theist means, “There’s a warm feeling in my heart that I will never give up.” The atheist means, “I’ve looked into it and the case is not strong.” These are not opposite opinions, they are opinions on distinct topics. The two witnesses are not on opposite sides. They don’t even really disagree.
YASHWATA 
Oh i get it i guess o.o soo.. When a theist says they beleive in god they are saying that have beleif in there god and when an athiest says it they are saying they dont think (they dont believe) god excists?
???
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“I cannot view the Israelites as the beneficiaries of God’s providence, because I don’t even know what that means. And neither do you.”
You can debate my use of the word ‘providence’ but this example is very different than that of the virgin birth. Your objections to that example revolve around our not knowing how it happened. In this instance, the unusually long life expectancy of the Israelites is directly connected to a series of laws that protected them, laws that are attributed to God. Again, you can dismiss this, but I choose to view it as more than coincidence.
As for my “no historian would discount” statement, I have done some reading on it, though I appreciate your pointing me in the right direction. Christ only fails as a historical figure when he is held to a far higher standard than other historical figures of the time. Alexander the Great conquered cities leaving destruction that can be examined by archeologists, but we’re talking about a carpenter turned Rabbi in an occupied Roman territory. You can choose to dismiss every account of Christ where the author wasn’t certainly an eyewitness, but Christianity materialized and spread incredibly fast in the first century world for it to have simply been a philosophy. Again, it was a ‘philosophy’ that first century converts often paid with their lives for due to persecution from the Roman government, which is historical fact.
And faith is not by definition contrary to logic. My dictionary defines it as “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” And since there is evidence for God’s existence, it is not illogical to place faith in Him.
I cannot view the Israelites as the beneficiaries of God’s providence, because I don’t even know what that means. And neither do you.
It appears that you have not done much reading in this field. Here is an Amazon search to get you started.
That’s not nearly specific enough. Thousands of people had their hands and feet pierced. In what way does this passage refer to Jesus?
If it’s a leap of faith, it’s contrary to logic. That’s what “leap of faith” means.
In the end belief in God does require faith because he’s never going to walk up and shake your hand, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t evidence that supports his existence. You can’t see the wind, but you see the effects of the wind and therefore believe in it.
For example, for thousands of years the Israelites were the longest lived people in the world. This was due to their observance of the health and dietary laws (The Art of Health by Peter Rothschild M.D., Ph.D.). These laws required basic things like washing themselves and their clothing thoroughly after handling the dead, not puncturing the skin, avoidance of blood, etc. All of these sound perfectly obvious in light of our modern understanding of germs and how they spread, but the Israelites were thousands of years ahead of the curve. You can choose to look at this as coincidence, or you can view it as God’s providence for his followers through his law. The health difference was so dramatic that when the Bubonic Plague was sweeping Europe the Jews were persecuted because the disease seemed to be passing them over (because of their good hygiene) and other groups at the time accused them of being behind the disease.
For another example I would point to Christ’s life and his effect on those around him. That Jesus Christ lived and died is a historical fact that no historian would discount. The part where lots of people get understandably hung up is his rising from the dead, and non-believers dismiss it as a hoax pulled off by his disciples. But almost all of the disciples died incredibly unpleasant deaths for their faith including flaying to death, crucifixion, and stoning. This is a pretty clear indication, at least to me, that they believed absolutely in the teachings of Christ and his saving power as evidenced by his resurrection. After all, why would you put your faith in someone who was dead.
Those are a few of the more straight forward examples, but you can also look to the prophecies of Christ from the old testament. There are hundreds of them, and while you can try to discount them by saying they are just coincidences and verses taken out of context, many of them are incredibly specific, for example Psalm 22:16 “…A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet” or Psalm 22:17-18 “I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.”
Mathematicians calculated the odds of one person fulfilling just eight of those prophecies and they conservatively estimated the likelihood as 10^17.
Again, these are just a few things that support the existence of God and the authenticity of Christ. Yes, belief in God takes a final leap of faith, but that faith isn’t contrary to all logic as many people like to make it out to be.
It is true that I have not proved that discussions between theists and atheists always break down for the reasons given. My point is that it is very common. As soon as you have an atheist speaking in terms of evidence, and a theist speaking in terms of feelings, you have two people who are addressing different topics rather than disagreeing.
I like your mention of “the practical side.” If you ask a believer why he goes to church, you will usually get a theological response. Almost never will he say, “Peer pressure.” Yet we know from psychological studies that humans are much more responsive to the latter than to the former.
Hmmm, so your claim is that theists are not talking about belief in god as people belief “g=9.81”, but rather that they mean they follow a certain religion. In a certain way I see your point, but I do not agree.
The main problem with theists is that they try to complicate the issue. Atheists like to talk merely about evidence for god, while theists feel the need to make it a far larger problem. I like to sidestep all of this and just look at the practical side: facing daily decisions, what does a person do? When faced with a problem, is praying the first solution? Does someone go to church every Sunday to avoid hell, or merely because it is a social obligation? From this it can be extrapolated whether they really believe or just think they do.
And doing this, you will always find people who do believe a god exists in the sense that atheists mean it. They have looked at the evidence and are convinced that the Bible and some experience is enough to prove god. Likewise, there will be atheists who do look at it with the theists’ point of view. I remember for instance when I was young and my sister and I felt so bad about not able to have ‘faith’, this beautiful thing that lets you trust in the lord. Instead, we were doubters, and therefore not believers.
So, I think you put up a nice hypothesis, but I do not agree with the conclusion. What you mean with ‘belief’ is a cultural thing, and a personal one as well. For the moment I see no reason to assume Christians and Atheists prefer to use one on the definitions above the other.