Quote Originally Posted by leo9 View Post
Your definition is too limited. Faith is belief without proof. That can be faith in a god or gods, or in science (the belief that science can explain everything is a faith, because it's inherently unproveable,) or in a Cause. In his campaigns for atheism Richard Dawkins is as much a faith-driven man as any preacher.
Neither I nor Richard Dawkins ever claimed that science can explain everything. We know that it cannot. Science determines the most likely explanations for the things it studies, based upon observation and data. No faith is necessary. Gravity is a great example. We all know that gravity sucks. Why? Haven't a clue! Observation and experimentation tells us it's so, and Newton tells us how much. But (unless there have been changes in our knowledge) no one has yet been able to explain HOW gravity works.

And absolute faith is a very dangerous thing, but not only religious faith. Some of the worst atrocities have been committed by people with no faith in religion, but absolute faith in a Cause.
Absolutely!

Your loss.
Your opinion.

That "at best" is a lot.
Again, your opinion. For my part, I find it makes me much more comfortable knowing that earthquakes are caused by shifting tectonic plates and not by the whim of some angry god. Doesn't make me any safer, of course. Unless I decide not to live near the edges of those plates. Where does one go to avoid an angry god?

The proof is that people who choose to believe other things have not made that change, and actively prefer the feudal primitive societies that fit their beliefs, and we can't make them change at the point of a gun.
No, we cannot. The only way to get people to change is through education. The Soviet Union proved that. Nominally atheistic, they suppressed all religions, usually violently. Yet when they finally collapsed, the religions popped back out from hiding. The only reason for us to have a gun is to keep the fanatics from trying to force us to change at the points of their guns.


Or in the name of one political system or another. The dangers of fanaticism and the dangers of religion are two different things that only partly overlap.
The difference is that most religions, to one extent or another, proclaim themselves to be the arbiters of goodness and morality. "Thou shalt not kill!" Unless its a filthy heathen who believes in false gods. "Thou shalt not bear false witness!" Except to make those atheist 'evil'-utionists look bad.

Your arguments are usually so reasonable and well thought out that it annoys me when you talk nonsense.
Semantics. So the word 'atheism' may not be absolutely correct in this context. That doesn't negate the idea, though. If you can deny the existence of any gods, how does that make you so much different from someone who denies the existence of ALL gods?

I'm glad you are happy in your faith.
I am happy without faith.