The default position is indeed with the side who has a lack of belief, and their support for that position is the absence of evidence to the contrary.
But your position is more than a lack of belief. As I have expressed elsewhere, a simple lack of belief in God characterizes atheists, agnostics, dogs, cats and rocks alike. As such, it alone can not be used a definition of an atheist.
Rather, as an atheist you don't simply "lack a belief in god" you believe that "God does not exist". This is a positive claim to knowledge about the way the world is. If you are a hard line atheist, then you are just as owing in your share of the burden of proof as far as I can tell.
If you want to say instead that you are a
weak atheist and simply have a "lack of belief", then I relieve you of your share of the burden of proof. If you do take this route, please know that I regard you as an agnostic in disguise and not as an atheist
Trying to pin the atheistic side with a "positive claim of knowledge" is not only deceptive but purposely ignores the fundamental principle of inquiry. In your example, yes, you can claim the world-believer's claim as false, but they would be able to provide strong evidence that the world as we usually consider it does in fact exist, so it's not a problem. If the burden of proof was on the non-believer's side, we would be obliged to believe in all manner of unfalsifiable propositions like leprechauns and fairies.
Certainly the evidence for the existence of the world (assuming properly basic beliefs for the moment)
is strong, but would we be as inclined to believe that evidence if the split between believers and non-believers was 50/50 as is the case with the poll?
I can understand "lack of belief" as a default position, but surely the claim that "God does not exist" entails that one must first know what God is, and must have some reasons for why He does not not exist?
With this, we are not compelled to believe in all unfalsifiable propositions since I'm not claiming that the affirmative is the default position. Instead we should start as agnostics and then provide reasons for why we find the existence of an entity probable/improbable. As I originally claimed, with poll results as they are, the burden of proof should be equally shouldered between theists and atheists alike. Only the standard agnostic/weak atheist has the comfortable (and enviable
) position of being free of any burden of proof.