Many atheists say they accept no beliefs without evidence, but theirs is effectively a belief without evidence when they say, without evidence, that no gods or spirits exist, that nothing except the material universe exists. It is not just not believing. It is believing that nothing except the material universe exists. This is called scientific materialism. Many atheists believe in it. It has become a main philosophy of the modern world, underpinning science and much of modern reasoning. There is no evidence for it. For example right now, if you look inside your consciousness, your thoughts, your feelings, your impulses, awareness in your mind, this reasoning will tell you to regard it all as matter and energy and nothing else. It will tell you that material processes can account for all that is going on in your consciousness. This is purely a belief without evidence. There is no evidence that the material universe, the matter and energy and gravity, accounts for everything and is all that exists, that nothing else exists. This is a belief imposed upon us by the modern age, the predominant way of thinking that has arisen in society in recent times, mainly over the last century or so. It is a belief without basis, the very kind of belief that many atheists claim to reject, yet it underpins the atheism of many.
