"It Takes a Lot of Faith to be an Athiest"

I've seen this quote elsewhere. While the religious statement often implies that it takes more faith not to believe in God than it does to believe in him, the typical atheist response I've seen seems to not understand the meaning of the word faith.

Now, I'm not saying atheists are religious, although some do follow their lack of religion devoutly. Saying that it does not take faith to be an atheist or insisting that definitions are being redefined to make that statement is a falsehood. While Creationists often make huge scientific errors in describing the problems of evolution, it seems that the athiest writers of today rely on their own redefinition of terms to make their cases.

It takes no more faith to believe in God than it does not to believe him, but either position is a matter of faith. Both are taking a definite position on a religious viewpoint and declaring a position about something that is at the current time unknowable. Agnosticism is the position that takes no faith. (I'm not saying that this is a good thing, but not being sure that God exists is not making a definitive statement about him.)

Atheists need to not be so afraid of terms normally associated with religion being used to describe their viewpoint, nor get up in arms about it. Having faith that God does not exist is not necessarily a bad thing.