What theme are you using? The loop can start without that IF, but it is often added to avoid errors. Are you able to locate the start of your loop? If so paste a snippet of that code and we'll help you adding the codes.

Edit: A proper loop should be like this:

Code: 
 <?php if (have_posts()) : ?>

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
    
    <div id="post"> 
       <div id="post-title">
    <h1><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h1><br />
   <span class="sub"><?php the_time('j F, Y'); ?> <span class="grey">| Posted By: </span><?php the_author_posts_link(); ?></span>
       </div>
       <div id="entry">
          <?php the_content('<span class="readmore">.:Read More:.</span>'); ?>
       </div><!--close entry-->
       <p class="postmetadata">
Posted in <?php the_category(', ') ?> 
<strong>|</strong>
<?php edit_post_link('Edit','','<strong>|</strong>'); ?>  
<?php comments_popup_link('No Comments', '1 Comment', '% Comments'); ?><br/><br/><?php the_tags('Tags:', ', '); ?></p>
     </div><!--close post-->

       <?php endwhile; else: ?>
    
    <h2>Woops...</h2>
    
    <p>Sorry, no posts were found.</p>
    
    <?php endif; ?>