I’ve had countless arguments about atheism where someone confidently claims that “atheism is the default position.” It’s a familiar line in debates about religion and belief, but the problem is that people often use the word atheism in very different ways without realizing it.
Whether atheism is actually “default” depends entirely on which definition you’re using, and most people switch meanings mid-conversation without noticing. So it helps to clear up the language before jumping into the debate.
To start, atheism isn’t one single idea. People use the word in two distinct ways. The first is atheism as simply “not believing in any gods.” This is just the absence of belief. There’s no stance being taken, no rejection of arguments, no claim about reality. It’s sometimes called weak or negative atheism. The second meaning is atheism as “believing that gods do not exist.” This is a much stronger claim. It says something about the world and asserts that there are no gods. This version is often called strong or positive atheism.
Most disagreements about the “default position” arise because one person is talking about the first definition and the other is talking about the second.
When people say atheism is the default position, they generally don’t mean that babies come into the world with a fully formed worldview or a philosophical commitment to naturalism. They mean something much simpler: babies are born without belief in gods, so they begin life in a state of non-belief. That’s it. No arguments. No conclusions. Just a blank mental slate.
My objection comes in when atheism is defined as a stance on the existence of gods. If atheism requires understanding the concept of a deity and rejecting it, then babies cannot be atheists. They don’t understand anything about gods, so they can’t reject the idea. Under the “belief that no gods exist” definition, atheism cannot be the default position.
But if atheism is defined as a simple lack of belief, the situation looks different. Babies don’t believe in gods because they don’t have beliefs at all yet. They’re not believers in science, evolution, quantum physics, relativity, or anything else. They haven’t made a decision one way or another; they simply haven’t formed beliefs. Under that definition, atheism can be considered a default state in the same way that babies are non-drivers or non-voters. Not because they’ve thought about cars or politics, but because they simply aren’t doing those things.
So is atheism the default? The simplest answer is yes, if atheism means a lack of belief in gods. That doesn’t require understanding anything. It’s just the absence of belief. But no, if atheism means believing there are no gods. That requires comprehension and a deliberate stance, which babies don’t have. Both statements can be true depending on the definition you’re using.
This matters because many debates about atheism and religion go nowhere simply because people aren’t using the same definitions. One person is defending atheism as a reasoned, intentional worldview, while the other is talking about atheism as an empty category that applies to newborns. If we can’t agree on what the word means, we’re not debating ideas at all, we’re arguing over vocabulary.
As we grow, though, the situation changes. That blank-slate state disappears as soon as we start learning about the world. Exposure to science, philosophy, culture, and different belief systems forces us out of default mode and into reflection. At some point, we encounter questions that demand real thought. Two of the most significant come from science and the philosophy of science: mathematical realism and infinite regress, the basis of the cosmological argument.
Mathematical realism raises the question of whether mathematics is discovered or invented. Many people eventually wonder why the universe is so cleanly described by math. If mathematical truths exist independently of us and are woven into the structure of the universe, we’re pushed to consider why the universe is structured so precisely to begin with. Some see this as pointing toward a mind or designer. Others see it as simply the nature of reality. Either way, it forces us to think about what kind of universe we inhabit and whether it implies anything beyond itself.
The problem of infinite regress leads to another defining question: how did everything begin? If every effect has a cause and every cause is the result of a previous cause, we find ourselves in an endless chain. Can there be an infinite regress of causes, or must there be a first cause? The cosmological argument proposes that there must be an uncaused cause that starts the chain. Some see this as evidence for God, while others see it as misinterpreting physics or logic. But either way, you eventually form a view, because these are questions you can’t ignore forever.
These aren’t default-position questions. They’re defining questions. Once you’ve engaged with ideas like the nature of mathematics or the origin of the universe, you’ve moved far beyond the passive state of infancy. You’re in the territory where you must decide what you think is true. You might end up believing in God, believing no gods exist, suspending judgment, or remaining uncertain. But whatever you decide, it’s no longer default. It’s the result of wrestling with the biggest questions humans can ask.
This brings us to one last point. Some people claim that if all scientific knowledge were wiped out and humanity had to start from scratch, we would eventually rediscover all of it again. The idea is that the scientific method would still work, and the laws of nature would still be the same. Given enough time, we’d rebuild physics, chemistry, biology, and every other field.
That may very well be true, but it misses something important. We wouldn’t just rediscover scientific facts. We would rediscover the same questions. We would still look at the night sky and wonder why the universe behaves mathematically. We would still ask how something can exist instead of nothing. We would still debate whether the cosmos requires a first cause. We would still encounter consciousness and wonder what we are.
Questions like these don’t lead only to science. They lead to philosophy, metaphysics, and religion. These natural questions about cause and effect, the reality of our existence, the natural order of the universe would lead to natural questions about intelligence in the universe would look for the explanations that science could not provide(and still doesn’t). If there is a true religion, if the universe is genuinely shaped by a divine source, then hints of that truth would reappear as well. It would cause people to try and interact with the intelligence that they see in the universe. That is not an irrational conjecture but a reality of our human existence. We seek out intelligence and order.
Even in a world rebuilding itself from the ground up, the drive to answer the deepest “why” questions would return. We would rediscover scientific knowledge, but we would also discover the metaphysical questions attached to those scientific discoveries. Philosophy and an earnest desire to interact and discover our existence would continue.
Wiping the slate clean wouldn’t eliminate the debate. It would simply restart it. Humans would rediscover not just facts, but along with those facts would come the questions that have ALWAYS arisen from those scientific discovery.
Where we start may be a blank slate, but where we end up depends on the questions we dare to ask about math, about the universe, about existence itself. Whether we arrive at atheism, theism, agnosticism, or something else entirely, what matters isn’t the ‘default position,’ but the path of inquiry.
