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Originally Posted by afc wimbledon
Professing a belief due to faith despite a lack of evidance is different philosophically from not believing in something due to lack of evidence.
An atheist by their own standard of proof cannot be certain where as a christian can, ask an atheist, even Dawkins, if they can be certain there is no god and they will tell you no they can't, it is inherent in the reason they are an athiest.
Ask a christian if they can be certain there is a god and they will tell you they can be, certainty in spite of lack of proof is absoloutly inherent in a religeous belief.
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You are assuming that the processes for arriving at either belief are the same for every Christian and every atheist. This is a gross oversimplification.
One of the points emerging in this discussion is how epistemologically unsophisticated many people of every stripe are, especially when approaching these sorts of issues. Just because many atheists arrive at their belief through rigorous tests of the evidence, this does not require that every atheist has thought so carefully about her or his position. After all, Kirk Cameron considers himself to at one time have been a "devout atheist". I am fairly certain that there are many people who are simply convinced like he was that god does not exist, and that they have not put much more thought into the quality of that knowledge.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gargamel
I suspect that an atheist who is 99% sure that there's no god is likely to say he's agnostic, whereas a theist who is 99% sure that there is a god is likely to say that he's gnostic...
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I find this sort of stereotypical characterization of all atheists as rational, critical thinkers in contrast to all theists as mindless zealots to be pompous, and a little offensive. The results of this poll completely refute your supposition: more than 20% of all respondants who consider themselves to be atheists also claim to be certain about it.