Atheism is a non-stance.

My opponent starts out by clarifying what he is arguing for. He states atheism is a non-stance, "because the evidence is the same for both sides; no new evidence can or would be sufficient to establish the case in favour of one or the other"However there are several problems with this claim.1) Pro mentions the new atheists. If anyone of them actually believed this to be an in principle unanswerable question then any big opposition they express towards religious agendas would ultimately be unjustified.One cannot on one hand argue the question is open and noone really knows what's up, but one the other hand complain about religious atrocities. If the issue about God's existence can't be settled, so can't the issue of the divine commands of a malicious God. Perhaps the crusades are justified after all, who knows?2) To justify this claim my opponent not only has to show every single argument for the existence of God to be unsound, he also has to show every single argument against the existence of God to be unsound.The problem of evil seems to be a good example of the latter category and I would like my opponent to demonstrate why this argument fails.3) In my opening statement I have argued for why atheism is a stance. I can grant the question to be unanswerable, as Pro suggests, however this does not affirm the resolution at all. If anything it would mean that every atheist (and theist) is wrong. My opponent did not properly address my arguments and it seems to me that the undecidability does not prove his claim, but begs for redefining 'atheism'.I have not pointed out that new atheists are committed to metaphysical naturalism. New atheism is not even a real philosophical position, atheism is. Moreover I highly doubt most new atheists are interested enough in the philosophy behind atheism to know what metaphysical naturalism is. Anyone who read Dawkins' chapter on natural theology in The God Delusion probably recognizes the general philosophical ignorance, common among new atheists.What I have said or at least intended to say is that metaphysical naturalism is the idea that philosophy should be based on our best empirical theories.The fact that he hates metaphysical naturalism is neither a philosophical rigorous argument nor relevant to this debate.A proper metaphysical naturalist is most likely not a new atheist or at least argues in a completely different fashion then one and equating new atheism with metaphysical naturalism is a mistake. An easy to check out example of this is the youtuber Gary Edwards (1). He not only is a naturalist, he also is an atheist in the sense I advocate.The God hypothesis is scientifically inadequate regardless of one's sympathy for metaphysical naturalism. "Methodological naturalists see philosophy and science as engaged in essentially the same enterprise, pursuing similar ends and using similar methods."(2)The opposing view would then be that philosophy and science are disjoint in their methods, which does not make the God hypothesis any less scientifically inadequate.One can accept this discontinuity of methodology and still accept this in addition to purely philosophical arguments against the existence of God.I am not sure what direction my opponent is talking about.(1) https://www.youtube.com...(2) http://plato.stanford.edu...