Quote Originally Posted by Stemis516
see i think that even if you call yourself an athiest, your still using faith

you dont know for certain god doesnt exist...you cant prove he doesnt exist anymore than a theist can prove he does exist...everything that isnt a clear cut fact takes faith to believe.....you dont need to have faith to believe that 2+2 = 4....because its been proven and its a truth....god however, we know nothing about, so any stance you take on him whether its the chirstian god, allah, a flying spaghetti monster or no god at all takes faith

just because we believe something is true does not make it true....i believe there is a god....is there one? in all honesty i really dont know, but i believe that when i die i will find out....keep in mind, i have a very good chance of being completely wrong with my faith

An interesting post stemis, to me it seems you nailed the issue right on the head, but also got it wrong. You're absolutely right that no atheist can know for sure that god doesn't exist, like the flying spagetti monster. But that's why atheism is not a matter of faith, at least not on the level of faith in god. A proper atheist doesn't purporte to know the existence of god, he/she knows that not a single piece of sufficient evidence has been presented. I don't even have faith that the flying spagetti monster doesn't exist, I just don't have a single reason to believe in it. But the important issue here is that even if you can attribute atheism to faith, the extension of such faith to everything non-existent makes the god-hypothesis no more valid than everything imaginary.... unless of course sufficient evidence were to be provided.