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http://www.atheist-community.org/library/articles/read.php?id=700

being in austin, i should probably go and say hi & thanks to http://www.atheist-community.org/ :)
that's like a sanity island in texas, i guess

Atheism is not a religion, except when it is, but even then it really isn't...

Lawyers...

Actually atheism [merriam-webster.com] means that you disbelieve there is a god.

Look at definition 2a. And should I take them seriously when they still list (even as archaic) "wickedness" as a synonym?

Agnosticism [merriam-webster.com] means that you can find no justification for either belief or disbelief in a god.

Look at definition 1 there -- that's the "unknowable" definition I was talking about. Do you actually believe the only rational approach is to say that the question of a god's existence is unknowable? I certainly wouldn't be bold enough to commit to that without at least having a working definition of whichever god we're talking about.

My turn: Check Wikipedia, especially the first four sentences. Or better yet, look at the people who actually define themselves as atheists are saying about it.

By contrast, I know very few who positively assert that there is no God, or there are no gods, and they don't seem to have a problem with the word "atheist" describing those who just don't believe, rather than actively disbelieving. The only people who seem to have a problem are religious people who want to strawman us, or atheists who don't like the negative connotation and want some sort of a middle ground, so they self-identify as agnostics.

"The thing is, the act of faith means accepting the book as literal truth. If you have that level of faith, then nothing is going to shake you from it."

Actually when presented with facts that they go searching for on their own for holy reasons, they can and will change their minds...sometimes.

Give a listen to this lecture on the origins of the biblical canon, the speaker was a conservative fundie christian with aspirations of joining the priesthood, who went in search of reasons to support his belief in the bible/Jesus. The guy wanted to do his christian duty under 1st Peter 3:15, and look where it took him.

http://www.atheist-community.org/lectures/speakers.php?id=18

Just why is it that Christians think they have good reason for their faith? And why do they think they should be teaching it to others in a public school?

C.

Wait a few hundred years, and Alistair MacLean's "Goodbye California" might be an eyewitness account that someone almost blew half of California into the Pacific.

Won't be more true, though.

With the Judeo-Christian God, it's not easy to see, because he's pretty much been around since the dawn of writing (8000 years?).

No. The Christian god is apparently an adaptation of Zoroastrian dualism, he's Ahura Mazda, Jesus is Mithra and the Devil is Ahriman. The Jewish religion, on the other hand, grew out of an apparent polytheistic culture (there are mentions of many other gods in the OT), with Yahwe as Israel's tribal god who gets a "monopoly" as thanks for saving them from Egypt, with Satan ("accuser/opponent") more of a balancing force than a Lord of Evil-thingy.

Maybe.

However: Monotheistic religions generally appear to be instruments of political control, and thus should be dismissed as such. Frequently, religious leaders also appear not to follow their teachings, which also indicates a certain lack of substance behind it.

So to actively say that there is absolutely no God presupposes evidence that you don't have,

No. It may simply mean: "I think those guys are lying, in order to gain some advantage over other people." I don't have to assume anything someone says has truth behind it just because the "proof" is too old to be validated or refuted.

Think about it: L. Ron Hubbard won his bet that he could create a new religion out of nothing, and there are people actually believing in Dianetics and the rest of that sci-fi universe. Why can't people realize that something like it could have happened some two thousand years ago as the Roman empire dwindled?