Justifying Belief Versus Non-belief

Something I've been thinking about lately are the justifications believers have for belief. Right off the bat, belief is usually treated as the default assumption. We should believe in their god because we can't prove them wrong. There are unbelievably intricate apologetics, hermeneutics, elaborate philosophical logic chains that try to hide the fallacies and false premises and of course the indefatigable fallback of "faith." We're unreasonable in our skepticism because we're not experts in their specific religious beliefs, their specific interpretations or their specific arguments. We should just leave them alone and let them believe, nevermind that they do little to stop people trying to force their beliefs on us. Nevermind that most believers aren't expert in apologetics, hermeneutics or philosophy either.

Curiously, they don't demand proof of non-existence for anything they don't believe in. Fairies don't need proof of non-existence, nor do vampires or werewolves. That's different, we're told. Fairies didn't create the universe or die for our sins. But how do they know?

There's an endless list of things we don't believe in that don't require challenge because people aren't promoting their belief in them. They're not plastering their belief on billboards and cars and they're not voting based on how they think the unicorn living in their shoes want them to vote. We don't bother debunking such things because there's no need.

I'm often asked what I believe about the beginning of the universe or how life began. My answer is I don't know and that's okay. Not knowing gives us room to find out. We know the universe began because it's here. We know that life began because we're here and it's all around us. What we believe about those things is irrelevant to the fact that they're here. All that remains us for us to figure out the details. But it's hard to do that when our search for answers is hindered by declarations of faith that have no justification and don't fit the available evidence.

The burden rests on non-believers to challenge these justifications. It shouldn't be; we shouldn't carry the burden of proof or have to justify our non-belief. But since we're still in the minority we don't have much choice so all we can do is keep at it and keep refining our arguments. We can't have too many tools available to accomplish this task.