Not being able to answer 'How did the universe start' has nothing to do with atheism. Atheism is the belief that there is no God. A lack of belief in God doesn't mean you have answers for every question.
It does to me. If one doesn't know then they are agnostic. IMO
This would seem to fit well in the "thing few people agree with you on" thread.
I don't go around telling people who say they are atheists, christians, buddhists, or anything else that they really aren't what they say they are. Think how exhausting it'd be to have to keep track of all the various creeds in the world and come up with my own criteria for who does and doesn't qualify as a member of each instead of letting the people who identify with that creed decide for themselves.
That said, if I were going to have my own criteria for other people's religious affiliations, an atheist being any person who can honestly say they don't believe in the existence of a god or gods seems like one of the most obvious ones.
I mean it's right there in the name.
I don't go around telling people what they are. I was just explaining my logic for grouping the two together.
Both atheists and agnostics don't believe in a god.
Agnostics admit they don't know.
But if you don't know how the universe started. How something came from nothing. Why we are here.
Then you don't know that it wasn't God.
And if you don't know it wasn't God then you don't know he doesn't exist.
I don't see how anyone can call themselves an atheist without proposing an alternative to the God theory.
As I already pointed out though, you could replace God with The Flying Spaghetti Monster and the question remains the same.
Also, why is how the universe started the question. Couldn't any unanswerable question work in your scenario? Why does my cat compulsively meow at the wall at 5am? I have no way to prove it's not because of God, or The Flying Spaghetti Monster, or that it's aliens trying to transmit a signal to humans through my deranged cat.
I get your logic, but it's so expansive because you're basically saying that if you can't prove a negative, you also can't say that you don't believe in the unproven positive. That's such a ridiculous logical argument.
Yes, technically it's correct, we can't know anything doesn't exist because we can't prove negatives. But that's not specific to God and the creation of the universe, that extends to literally everything ever.
So by your logic, no one can ever say that they don't believe in bigfoot, ghosts, the tooth fairy, that 5G can control minds, that aliens are among us, or literally any negative that can't be proven.
So your concept sounds kind of clever on the surface, but under scrutiny is really just you saying "you can't prove a negative, so then by definition, you have to be unsure about any and all negatives".
Poppycock.