I'm just saying that I find it pretty irreconcilable to say that someone who doesn't believe in gods would believe in an afterlife, or in other supernatural, unproven things, which are like gods, in that they are not evidenced. In almost all cases disbelief in one requires the kind of logic that would create disbelief in all. After all, what is Atheism if not a willful choice to disavow beliefs that are unproven, or unprovable? How could that apply to one & then be lost on other things just like it? At that point, you might as well believe in God. What would be the difference?
Because it takes one hell of a leap to go from "there might be something after this life" to "there must be a God." Then again, maybe it's just human sentiment? Atheists aren't cold, emotionless beings, you know. We can still dream. Picard could have been speaking metaphorically, philosophically, or even if he meant what he said, it still does not change whether or not he is an atheist.
So far, the only real belief he's espoused is in the goodness of humanity. He may not be an atheist, but the evidence you cite is not only circumstantial, but much of it is merely assumptive and quite incorrect.
But it's also a leap to go from a belief that "life continues after death" to "this person is therefore a atheist."
No one is trying to make that leap.
Of course, but to dream & believe are two different conditions. They are the difference between hoping & having faith. Picard uses the word believe when describing what it is he expects we are, & that belief goes beyond "Practical measuring systems" (His words)
Right. You're talking about what the base definition of the word means, & I'm talking about the logical basis for how someone might be labeled as such. How their philosophies brought them to it. Saying someone believes in an afterlife, but doesn't believe in god is to my ears like hearing someone say they believe unicorns or sasquatches exist, but those zombie believers make no sense at all.
Does anyone in the Trek world not believe in an afterlife(besides Neelix)? Every series seems to show humans having souls.
"Terrans don't have souls. We don't believe in them." - Mirror Sisko.
Not being able to imagine that something could be true is not the same as not being able to prove it's true. If A is as unprovable as B, then B is no more or less potentially true than A.
Both of which do seem to indicate he has a predilection for accepting creation as an act of a constructor
The base definition is the definition. If Picard does not believe in a god or gods, he is an atheist. Even if he believes in unicorns and magic fairies, he's still an atheist.
Dr. Barron, your report describes how rational these people are. Millennia ago, they abandoned their belief in the supernatural. Now you are asking me to sabotage that achievement, to send them back into the dark ages of superstition and ignorance and fear?
I don't think you're making the argument here that you think you are.
& what I'm saying (hopefully not too disrespectfully) is that in application, beyond just semantics, I find suspicious the rationality (& thereby legitimacy) of any claim of atheism, when other equally unproven things, similar to deities, are not treated to the same rational scrutiny that would be predicated in order to be an atheist. The nature of man is to fill in the blanks. It's why we see shapes in the clouds, patterns where there are none. It's how our brain works. It's why illusionists can make a living. It takes rational, objective & systematic logic to avoid falling prey to human fallibility, like that.