Quote Originally Posted by JamesXR View Post
I won't state it as a broad generalization, but I sometimes get the feeling that atheism goes from non-belief to the active belief that there is no god. This is the top listing on dictionary.com: "the doctrine or belief that there is no God"

So basically atheism involves taking a leap of faith. If you're strictly scientific about it, you can't prove something doesn't exist if you have no evidence one way or another. Anyone who points to the problems with the world as the reason for their disbelief in god, is most likely an "angry at god" theist. I just feel that atheism takes extra energy and conviction over agnosticism, and that there has to be some reason to invest that kind of conviction.
I feel that agnosticism is kind of a cop-out. "I don't believe in god but I'll keep the door open just in case I'm wrong."

Maybe I lack some part of my brain that most humans have. I simply don't believe in anything supernatural. The real world is fascinating enough without believing in ghosts, afterlife, magic, god, etc.

I was raised in a vaguely christian/catholic family. When I was a small child, we went to church most Sundays. But religion was NEVER discussed at home. We had no religious icons on display. We did have a single bible that sat on an end table in an unused corner of the living room. Either my parents just didn't have strong beliefs or they wanted us children to make up our own minds... I've never asked. To this day, none of us 5 children have strong religious beliefs. I can honestly say that I've never had a discussion about god/religion with any family member... except for one sister that was born-again for about 3 months many years back. She finally came to her senses and I've never heard her mention Jesus ever again. Lol.

You know, I'm VERY lucky that my parents weren't super religious. Greg Riedle was a good friend of mine in elementary school. We went to the same catholic church. He was an altar boy and was molested by our priest and then went on to molest a little girl years later... a sad story.