Atheists are Intellectually Dishonest

I'm paraphrasing from memory, but recently in a discussion it was argued that Atheists are "intellectually dishonest," and the theory here is that this is because someone would have to essentially be God in order to simultaneously search everywhere in the universe, which would be necessary in order to know that there is no God. For this reason they argued that atheism is intellectually dishonest, adding that agnosticism is the better, more honest choice, if one is going to dare to be a non-believer(as if non-belief is a choice?)

Anyway, I contend that this line of thinking is not entirely correct. While I do agree with the part that a person would need to be omnipotent to be able simultaneously search everywhere in the universe, that dilemma could also be solved with either omnipresence or omniscience, both of which many believers also attribute to God. If, say, you're omnipresent, then by definition you're already everywhere at once. If you're omniscient, then you know everything, including if gods exist, or not.

But what I'm also contending here is that one needn't have any of those three attributes to conclude, in a practical sense, that there is no God/are no gods. More on this in a minute.

For now, let's look at two types of atheists: (1) those who believe that there is no God, and (2) those who simply lack a belief that there is a God(there's a meaningful distinction there, BTW).

But before I get too far into this, I should point out that it is possible and reasonable for someone to be both agnostic and atheist at the same time. Yes, contrary to what many people believe, the two positions are not mutually exclusive, because one deals with belief; the other deals with knowledge. In other words, it's two totally different subjects. I know I've covered this a half a dozen times on this blog, but it seems it can't hurt to repeat it as long as people are going to repeat misinformation or out'n out falsities.

To attempt to illustrate how I or anyone can be both atheist and agnostic, consider that I do not know for sure, and thus, I cannot say for certain that leprechauns do not exist(for all intents and purposes, I'm agnostic when it comes to leprechauns).

Notwithstanding, I still do not believe that leprechauns exist(for all intents and purposes, I'm an atheist when it comes to leprechauns). Note that this is slightly different than me saying, "I believe leprechauns are non-existent!", and it's much different than me saying, "Leprechauns don't exist!".

So, on the one hand I could simply be suspending belief in something until there's conclusive evidence for that something's existence, all the while admitting that I don't know for certain. On the other hand, I could be saying that X doesn't exist and it be implicit that I mean it in a practical sense, not an absolute sense.

Neither of these is being intellectually dishonest or unreasonable, whether agnosticism is overt like in the former, or whether agnosticism is implied, like in the latter.

If we encounter a person who believes that God does not exist, or if someone proclaims, "There is no God!", the same thing applies; this person need not know with absolute certainty that no God exists to be intellectually honest with one's self and others.

Case in point, in the same practical sense that we can say that leprechauns don't exist, we can also say that invisible, supernatural, creator beings don't exist. If someone says that they don't believe in leprechauns, no one tells them that they're being foolish and/or intellectually dishonest. I mean, imagine how that would sound. Well, I contend that it sounds just as absurd to say that non-believers are "intellectually dishonest", including when they profess Atheism instead of Agnosticism. Sorry, I don't have to choose between the two.

Now, with all of that being said, could I, an agnostic atheist, be missing a greater truth? Yes! Of course I could! How about a more awesome truth? Ditto! But here's the rub: I'd only be doing myself a disservice to accept such a greater, more awesome truth on "faith". Once I start accepting things on "faith" and/or because something sounds more awesome than something else, at that point I have chosen a constructed truth over a truth built on facts and evidence. If someone finds fault in truth that's built on facts and evidence, then I don't know, maybe it just could be that I'm not the one who's being intellectually dishonest?