Quote Originally Posted by Thorne View Post
Like many other believers, you can't, or won't, accept the possibility that anyone can exist without some form of belief system.
Not at all, I know plenty of people who get along just fine with no belief system, but they wouldn't be having this discussion: they'd just go "Yeah, OK, whatever."
You seem to be able to accept as facts that there are no leprechauns, there are no unicorns, there are no magical fairies drifting along in the garden, there is no Easter bunny. But let someone declare that there are no gods and that goes from a statement of fact to a statement of belief? Seems just a touch hypocritical to me.
Not at all, all of the above are statements of belief. I believe there is no Easter Bunny, but I can't see any way I could be justified in calling that belief a fact: what would I evidence as proof? The fact that most known rabbits don't distribute chocolate eggs makes my belief well founded, but it doesn't prove that there never was and never could be such a creature: it just makes it unlikely enough that I feel justified in disbelieving it.

But since you feel that this is just a quibble over the meaning of words, while I feel it's an important point, we'd better let it go.