[Goldsborough]

It's always been my view that the burden of proof is on the proponent. Atheists have the luxury of not having to prove a negative. Since they don't believe in the supernatural, there is no requirement of them to disprove claimed religious phenomena.

As has been suggested already, true atheist don't care about what religionists claim to believe. Irreligionists are fanatics of disbelief who continually try to burn faith down. They are people who buy bus ads.

[KrisKrinkle]

“It’s always been my view that the burden of proof is on the proponent. Atheists have the luxury of not having to prove a negative.”

You could say one has the luxury of not having to prove a negative until one becomes a proponent of that negative at which time the burden of proof is on the proponent.

[metmom]

It's always been my view that the burden of proof is on the proponent. Atheists have the luxury of not having to prove a negative. Since they don't believe in the supernatural, there is no requirement of them to disprove claimed religious phenomena.

There's a difference between proving a negative and disproving someone else's claim.

Their weakness is that in order to be able to state that there is no God as a fact, they have to know everything, everywhere, for all time, and they don't. So the only basis for their statement is preference.