This refusal to believe without evidence, and the declaration that
anything "behind phenomena" is unknowable to man as at present
constituted--these are the two chief planks of the Atheistic platform,
as Atheism was held by Charles Bradlaugh and myself. In 1876 this
position was clearly reaffirmed. "It is necessary to put briefly the
Atheistic position, for no position is more continuously and more
persistently misrepresented. Atheism is _without_ God. It does not
assert _no_ God. 'The Atheist does not say "There is no God," but he
says, "I know not what you mean by God; I am without idea of God; the
word God is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation.
I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no
conception, and the conception of which, by its affirmer, is so
imperfect that he is unable to define it to me."' (Charles Bradlaugh,
"Freethinker's Text-book," p. 118.) The Atheist neither affirms nor
denies the possibility of phenomena differing from those recognised by
human experience.... As his knowledge of the universe is extremely
limited and very imperfect, the Atheist declines either to deny or to
affirm anything with regard to modes of existence of which he knows
nothing. Further, he refuses to believe anything concerning that of
which he knows nothing, and affirms that that which can never be the
subject of knowledge ought never to be the object of belief. While the
Atheist, then, neither affirms nor denies the unknown, he _does_ deny
all which conflicts with the knowledge to which he has already
attained. For example, he _knows_ that one is one, and that three
times one are three; he _denies_ that three times one are, or can be,
one. The position of the Atheist is a clear and a reasonable one: I
know nothing about 'God,' and therefore I do not believe in Him or in
it; what you tell me about your God is self-contradictory, and is
therefore incredible. I do not deny 'God,' which is an unknown tongue