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We're not talking about a court of law. And no, circumstantial is not enough to criminally convict anyone, it either takes some hard evidence or a bad jury. The thing about circumstantial evidence, is that it doesn't satisfy reasonable doubts. While it is true that there doesn't need to be direct evidence, the evidence does need to directly point to something. For instance, the light bending around something that we can't see, is not direct evidence of the black hole, but since it would take something extremely massive to bend the light in such a way, the evidence points directly to something with a large mass that is bending the light which directly points to a black hole.
You’re mistaken, folks have been sent to jail on many occasions on circumstantial evidence alone. In some cases people have been sent to jail for murder even though no body was found. The difference between circumstantial evidence and direct evidence is that an inference is made from circumstantial evidence as you point out with a black hole.
I don't speak for all atheists, I just know what the term means. You are attaching meaning onto a term where it doesn't belong. It doesn't matter if some atheists believed in star shitting penguins, the term still means simply, the lack of belief in a god or gods.
The term atheism has in many circles has come to be known as a lack of belief in God or gods. The letter a in the word atheism means not or without, in this case without God or gods, just as the word asexual means reproduction not or without sex. The problem with the word atheism being redefined as meaning lack of belief in God or gods is the following:
First you might as well drop the a in atheism since it no longer means what it means. You might as well categorize yourself not as a ‘weak’ atheist but a weak theist.
Ironically it means you share more in common with theists than you think. Theists don’t believe God doesn’t exist and as a weak atheist you don’t deny God exists either. You evidently not only lack belief in Gods existence… you also lack belief in Gods non-existence. Apparently there isn’t enough evidence to convince you God does exist and lack of evidence to convince you God doesn’t exist. In essence you have no opinion in regards to this matter.
It’s pointless to debate the existence of God since my opponent in this case doesn’t deny the existence of God either so what is there to debate?
Lastly, I think I think the lack of belief gambit is just that…a debating technique to avoid making any claims and having to defend atheism as you say theists should defend theism.
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