Take it on Faith

The argument that atheism requires as much faith as religion to espouse & accept is a worn one; it is a perversion of the logical abilities of the human mind and a statement of pure, unadulterated ignorance. The atheist position, for many (no one can suppose to speak on behalf of that many atheists, as such a presumption would require some sort of central dogma, asserting... Well... Anything) is one of skepticism, not faith.

Blame Francis Bacon.

The scientific method is not only applicable to questions of physics and chemistry and biology. Sociologists & historians have applied it to society & culture. The belief, at least in my case & that of many I've spoken to, is that it's time we applied it to philosophy, theology and, in short, to human life.

We believe in evidence, not in a blind, unquestioning way - do not misunderstand my use of the word belief - but rather with an infinity of questions; every piece of evidence must be scrutinized, it's contribution to the argument judged against the rest of the evidence and all anecdotal evidence must be dismissed as irrelevant and biased as it always is.

The scientific method, applied to the problem of theology, tells us that it is immensely unlikely that there is any deity at the controls of this universe. Do not misunderstand, by saying it is unlikely I'm not covering my ass, I'm being honest; science can never completely prove a negative statement, all it can do is state probabilities based on evidence. No one has crunched all the numbers as yet, because much of the data is either qualitative, or simply difficult to quantify, but the probabilities we're dealing with here are in the billions & trillions to one.

Essentially, the God hypothesis is impossible, not because we have faith that it is, but because we have been forced, by logic & reasoning & analysis of the available evidence to conclude that it happens to be that way.