There is a certain diary on the rec list concerning religion and faith. This isn't the place to air my thoughts on that particular subject, but I found a trend in the comments that is indicative of a wider problem.
For instance, I read this:
I have said this many times, atheism (and for that matter, agnosticism, deism, and so forth) are faiths. They are faiths in that the faithful adherant believes in their concept of the Divine, even if that belief is the absence of said deity.
Then this:
It is just as unverifiable that God does NOT exist or that there is no conscious existence after death. That's why I'm an agnostic with strong atheistic tendencies -- believing that God does NOT exist is just as much of a leap of faith as believing that he does.
Then this:
one of my favourite quotes by C. S. Lewis, who, when asked about his conversion from Atheism to Christianity, responded thusly,
Well, I've tried to be an atheist. I found it required too much faith
So, if you'd follow me below the scandalously entwined golden calligraphic P's, I'd like to say a few things about (A) what precisely 'faith' is by definition, (B) a little about the concept of 'burden of proof' in the science based community, and (C) why atheism and agnosticism, in their most common form,
are not matters of faith.
So, let's get on with this, shall we? The most applicable definition of faith for our purposes, according to Webster, is "firm belief in something for which there is no proof." There are a few other definitions that are worth noting. For instance, "belief in the traditional doctrines of religion," and "something that is believed with strong conviction, especially a system of religious beliefs.
A leap of faith (in its most common meaning) is the act of believing in or accepting something intangible or unprovable, or without empirical evidence.
To take something on faith is to accept or believe something on the basis of little or no evidence.
If anyone has ever made a comment involving atheism requiring faith where they did not mean one of the above definitions, kindly let me know. However, for now, I believe these are sufficient.
Now, about the concept of a burden of proof. Please bear with me if you are wholly familiar with the idea and understand it perfectly. This part is not for you.
The idea of a burden of proof is one that finds its way into many areas of public discourse, including the courtroom, philosophy, and science. To summarize, the idea of a burden of proof states that it lies on the party making a remarkable claim to provide evidence to support it. Bertrand Russell illustrated this most elegantly when he created his Cosmic Teapot analogy;
Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense.
Now, finally, let's talk about what exactly atheism is. However, for my purposes, I'm not going to use dictionary definitions, for the simple reason that (marvelously) the majority of definitions on this subject are simply incorrect. Indeed, if you google "atheism definition," you will find the following in big block quotes:
THE THEORY OR BELIEF THAT GOD DOES NOT EXIST.
This is, of course, utter nonsense. Atheism is not a theory of a lack of a god or gods. It is a lack of belief in deities of any nature. Theism, interestingly, is defined by the same search engine as BELIEF IN THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD OR GODS.
Now, the best way to truly understand atheism is simply by understanding the English language. The prefix a- has the following meaning: "Not. Without."
Literally, atheism means "without theism," or "Lack of belief in the existence of a god or gods." A six month old child is an atheist. A hither-to undiscovered tribes of natives in the South American rain forests that (remarkably) have no religion of their own are atheists. Hell, many Buddhists are in fact atheists. The vast majority of people that call themselves agnostics are atheists. Atheism is not a religion. It has no moral tenets or codes to follow. It is simply a lack of belief.
Atheism does not require faith in any sense of the word, any more than it requires faith to not believe in Bertrand's cosmic tea pot, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster (all praise his noodly appendage), or magic elves, or invisible unicorns, or Odin the all-father, or Quetzalcoatl. Believe it or not, not a single one of these mentioned beings have ever been conclusively disproved. That does not mean that believing in their existence is an equally valid and reality based position as not doing so, or that it takes just as much faith to not believe in them than to do so.
Thank you.