I would like to apologize in advance for potential ambiguity in my statements as I am not a native English speaker. And my intention is not to attack or promote any religious or philosophical view.

I was raised in an atheist family in a predominantly Muslim country. My father has always tried to find some truth in religious scripts, but failed to overcome his rationality. He still does his best to believe in a creator, probably out of his fear of death or out of his need to attach a grand meaning to life. My mother is less inquisitve; she doesn't know anything about the holy books (that's how we call the Bible, Qoran and Torah in my country) and doesn't care to find out more about them. If her parents had been religious, she would have probably been as dismissal as she is now, but on the opposite side of the debate. Likewise, most of my friends and distant relatives have been atheists or believed or tried to believe in a greater being without practicing any religion. Having such an environment encouraged me to freely belabor in my mind concepts such as creation, reality and existence since I was a little child. This post's purpose is to summarize the ideas I have accumulated throughout the years in a succinct and methodological fashion.

I claim all the belief systems observed in our world can be classified into three main categories: theism, atheism, and aterraism (a term I coined since I couldn't find a suitable word for it in any literature). Furthermore, I contend that in terms of truth, they are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive, which has three implications:

1. The sum of the probabilities of each of these belief systems being true is 100%.
2. None of these belief systems intersect with each other in any way.
3. Each and every belief and religion that had been observed in the past, that are being observed in the present and that will be observed in the future fall under one of the three major categories listed; these categories are sufficient to cover all the past, present and future beliefs and religions.

I will start by briefly explaining what I understand by these terms since they are abstact and subject to multiple interpretations.

1. Theism: Belief in a single god or multiple gods, doesn't necessarily have to be masculine and omnipotent as portrayed by Abrahamic religions. The theory of evolution and Big Bang theory do not contradict with theistic belief as the creator or creators can create existence and life in many different ways.
2. Atheism: Belief in the absence of a god. The religions are man-made and no holy being partook in creation. The cosmos doesn't have to be a product of Big Bang and life on Earth didn't necessarily flourish as a result of evolution.
3. Aterraism: Belief in non-existence. The existence or absence of God is not real. Nothing is real. Reality and existence cannot be proven just as how different people see and interpret the colors in the same way cannot be proven. Even this post is not real.

A. Theism

All religions and beliefs that involve a supernatural being which had a small or a large role in creation fall under this category. Even the belief of our cosmos being the project of an alien student falls under this category; our alien creator might not be as supernatural and omnipotent as the God of Abrahamic religions, but that alien creator itself is a creation of another being. There can be infinite amount of iterations of creators. In the case of Abrahamic religions, there is only one iteration: the God was not born or created and He has always existed; the creation and life on earth are his work.

Theism doesn't necessarily have to oppose the findings of modern science. It doesn't imply the rejection of Big Bang theory and the theory of evolution. It is not farfetched to think that a person who believes in an omnipotent God can say "the God created the singularity defined in Big Bang theory in six days and rested on the seventh, and then He created protein molecules on earth and evolution carried out the rest." I do not want to be misunderstood here. I am not mocking theistic beliefs in any way. What I intend to point out is that as long as someone believes in the existence of such a grand being, he doesn't have a hard time to reconcile developments in science with his long-held beliefs.

To sum up, attributing at least some part of creation to a grand, supernatural being is enough to be regarded as theism. Holding such a belief and considering Big Bang and evolution to be true is neither hypocrisy nor contradictory.

B. Atheism

In atheistic beliefs, the concept of iteration of creation introduced under the subtitle theism is 0. There is no creation and no creator; and following from this, there is no message from the creator to its creations. And just as theistic beliefs don't necessarily have to oppose modern science's findings, atheistic beliefs don't have to adopt most commonly held theories. An atheist might place theories of evolution and Big Bang in the center of his belief, or he might elect to disregard them completely and come up with his own hypothesis or defer to other theories that are not as commonly acknowledged as the ones mentioned. An atheist might dismiss concepts such as singularity, expansion of space, etc., and instead hold the view that the space has always existed, in a static or a dynamic way, and that time has no beginning or an end.

In short, all beliefs with an iteration of creation of 0 is atheistic, regardless of how well they embrace modern scientific theories.

C. Aterraism

Unlike the previous two categories, aterraism is homogeneous. Nothing exists. This world and cosmos do not exist. Even the concept of aterraism doesn't exist. I, writing this post, do not exist, and you, reading this post and thinking of me as original, or banal, or clever, or idiot, do not exist. Therefore, this is a term that denies its own existence. Not much can be said about this since this being true would create some sort of paradox, which itself would not be real.

Summary
Every single belief system in the past, present and future belongs to one of these three distinct categories: theism, atheism, and aterraism; there is no need to introduce another category. The sum of probabilities for each of these categories being true is 100%. The question is: Is there any category that would not give you goosebumps if it is proven to be true without any doubts?

There is no other possibility.

I refer to ‘C’ as existential nihilism. It’s the extreme skepticism associated with disconnection from both the world and reality. Nobody can be fully in category C all the time, however, since it’s impossible to avoid the truths that suffering and death reveal. The same is true for the other two categories.

Pain smuggles in all three categories. Then, people simply cast it out and act like it never happened in order to maintain the image of coherence.

Also, the goosebumps are from awe and wonder. Follow that rather than any of the three categories.

Your three categories are similar to what I was taught by one of my Philosophy professors many decades ago.

To illustrate my prof's categories, let's consider the question, Does God exist?

A. The Realist: God does exist.

B. The Anti-Realist: God does not exist.

C. The Eliminativist: The question "Does God exist?" can be eliminated as a topic of meaningful discussion because the question itself is incoherent.

You missed the possibility that everything was created by a natural being. Category A only included supernatural beings. Must not be a big batman fan, huh?

That still falls under atheism or theism. If the that natural being is believed to be the creation of another being, then the iteration of creation becomes 2, which means it is theistic.

If that being is not believed to be the creation of another being (maybe singularity might be considered as such a being), then it is atheistic.

If by natural being it is meant a living being (a tortoise, a human, etc), then the statement itself becomes meaningless because a being who was not created cannot be deemed natural.

I dunno. There's some pretty amazing natural animals out there.

Your english is perfect. I think anyone of those three categories being proved would give me goosebumps. The implications of anyone of those three categories being proven are enormous and would be the biggest event of anyone's lifetime who was alive when the proof was discovered.

I think the most underwhelming possibility is that there is an omnipresent supernatural god but he's just too hard for anyone to really understand or appreciate. Like for example we solved heads up limit holdem but the solution is terabytes of data.
We could potentially prove its existence and exactly how it(god) works but the finer points are just simply not intelligible for even the smartest humans; like reading a billion billion billion page book. In fact a dumbed down summary book of what we know about the proven god made for the average high school student might not look that different from our best religious and philosophical texts today.

I agree 100%.

I don't see the need for the third category, given your own definitions of theism and atheism.

Theism: "There is at least one god (or God)."

Atheism: "There are exactly zero god(s)."

How are those two categories alone not exhaustive? Thanks.

Nope. Atheism says more like, "Let's see the case for each of these legion of gods, and based on the case we'll decided if we believe." When all the cases are beyond lame, a pattern develops of disbelief in god claims.

1. My claim that Theism and Atheism are collectively exhaustive was based on Numen's own definitions of those categories. I agree there are other definitions possible, as you correctly noted.

2. Until relatively recently, Numen's definition of Atheism was almost always the way the term was used. The so-called New Atheists, among others, "re-branded" the term Atheism so as to avoid any burden-of-proof for their position.

3. Your definition of Atheism above was until relatively recently identified by the term Agnosticsm. A kind of "wait and see" position. Or, in some cases, that the existence of God is at the very least presently unknown, and perhaps even unknowable.

addendum: I understand that nuance ain't exactly your thing, so I will certainly understand if your only recourse in addressing my points above is with one of your typical rants.

Even so: Eternity is way too long to be wrong!

In this religious game you play you really don't relate anything like Jesus, do you? That's because sincerity is lacking, and in its place is blind, dogmatic zealotry ... and whatever it take to support it.

Just like I predicted! Utter and complete failure to actually directly engage anything in my post!

Your "response" is yet another pathetic rant that I personally feel is disrespectful for those in this forum interested in a serious dialogue.

You have virtually nothing to offer this forum other than being a real-life example of what happens to someone when their very soul is dripping with hatred for Christianity.

I'm sure the irony is lost on you that you are literally the most unhinged, irrational person in this whole forum! You are the "poster child" for the "blind, dogmatic zealotry" that you decry in my posts.

May God have mercy on your soul!

I can certainly agree with you on the whole atheism + theism being exhaustive. X or not-X; law of excluded middle and all that—Aristotle figured that one out long ago. Where I disagree is on where the burden of proof should lie.

Suppose I wake up one morning and convince myself that there is a vast untapped reserve of petroleum in my back yard. I call up Exxon Mobil and offer to sell my property to them for $100 million. Surprisingly , they refuse and hang up on me! I take my case to court figuring there must be some discrimination at play here — they have not proven that my yard does not have any oil!

Hopefully you can see that my story is totally flawed. When I claim the existence of oil in my yard, the burden of proof is not on the oil company to prove that my claimed reserve does not exist. The burden of proof is on me to show that it does. The principle is that if you assert existence of an entity, the burden of proof lies on you, not on those who believe it does not exist.

Obviously then the burden of proof is on the theists. They have help if they are right — an omnipotent deity ought to be able to convince even the most skeptical atheist if it wants to. Cue up the “you have to have faith” apologetics now if you want. I find it unconvincing. I would be much more convinced if I look up at the moon and see “God was here” written in blood red hundred mile high letters. If He really wants me to believe, He knows how to do so. Until I see real evidence, I will not believe, a stance no different from my lack of belief in Zeus, Krishna, Odin, or even the pool of oil in my yard.

I think a third option is necessary because it questions the concept of reality. Both atheism and theism start from the premise that what we experience is real; our world and space is real, the things we see and hear are real. Obviously, most theistic beliefs claim that there is more than what we see and experience, whereas most atheistic beliefs can be summarized by the motto: "What we see is all there is."

So my logic is as follows: If the third option is true, then all this debate is actually a paradox since our discussion of existence being unreal is itself nonexistent. If the third option is false, then one of the first two options must definitely be true, and there can be no middle ground between these two.

I completely agree with you that the burden of proof lies on the one who proposes a theory, whether it may be the existence of god, or a scientific theory like the theory of evolution or gravity. But it is much easier to disprove anything than it is to prove it. For instance, I don't think anyone really doubts the existence of gravity and gravitational forces, even those who haven't been introduced such theories and concepts, because none of us have seen a real life example that defies gravity. Millions of repetitions surely increase the strength of a theory, but only a single occurrence is enough to invalidate it. Similar things can be said about the theory of evolution. So far we haven't encountered any fossils or extant living organisms that do not fit in the evolutionary process or that have a completely different DNA structure, but a single such observation is more than enough to debunk the theory of evolution.

What I am trying to say is, even though the burden of proof lies on the theists, it is as impossible for them to systematically prove the existence of a god (or God or gods) as it is hard for atheists to prove its (His or their) absence. It is obviously a lot easier to disprove the teachings of a religion by comparing them with the discoveries of modern science. I believe a being as omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent as the God described by Abrahamic religions is neither provable nor disprovable, so is my claim that there is an invisible and undetectable group of broccollis orbiting Jupiter.

I agree that we agree.

Agreed.

While I agree with that principle, there is a corollary principle that I also agree with:

If you assert the NON-existence of an entity, the burden of proof lies on you.

If I am chatting with a friend and he claims that there is almost certainly no intelligent life on another planet in our galaxy, then my friend would have the burden-of-proof.

Right. And obviously the burden of proof is on the Atheist when s/he asserts that God does not exist.

Quite so. Many an ardent atheist has become an ardent follower of Jesus Christ.

Fair enough. There are a mulititude of threads on various evidences and arguments for God in this Forum.

I mentioned earlier that I'm basically a Fideist: For the believer, no argument is necessary; for the unbeliever no argument is sufficient.