I reject your claim. Most atheist are, indeed, reacting emotionally to the real and perceived damages caused them by their religionist environment. What you perceive is a stage in the healing process. Atheists don't react to a non-existent entity (god/s), but to the effects left by actual believers in this imaginary thing.

"How can one be emotional about a non-existent entity?", you ask?

In the same way that children are afraid of the monster under the bed or adults of their government monitoring their brainwaves.

But doesn't positive atheism involve a leap of faith? Faith is emotional by its very nature. The statement, "God exists" is rationally meaningless, but so is the statement, "God does not exist". It is like two people who have never traveled beyond a certain point speculating as to what is beyond their vision. Neither can assert nor deny anything with rational certainty. Isn't agnosticism therefore the purely rational viewpoint? I am a fideist- admittedly as an emotional decision, but isn't positive atheism also driven solely by emotion?

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"I am a Tory Anarchist. I should like every one to go about doing just as he pleased- short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed." (Max Beerbohm)

That depends, Force. My position is this: I see no evidence to support the existence of God. Do I KNOW God does not exist? No. Because one can't. Same with purple unicorns or green snorklewackers. All I can say is that I've seen no evidence to support the existence of any of those things. There is no emotion involved.

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I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.

I claim that you read my post wrong: When I said they were not emotional about the subject of "God" you read it as me claiming that they were not emotional about the subject of "religion". No one doubts that religion exists and has a profound effect on humanity. Will you please re-read my post?

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All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. -H. Goering

Force, apply your thesis to the following propositions:

1. The interior of Pluto is believed by many to be filled with current jelly.
2. The interior of Pluto is not believed to be filled with current jelly by non-believers.

Occam's Razor to the Rescue!

oh yes even bush dreams of god where god told him to kill muslims

but not all texans are bad-i know of an american sister in texas her name is walma and she is a muslim convert sister and she came in national geographic channel in a programme called inside mecca-where she goes to pilgrimage from texas to mecca and medina-very nice-i think sh must be the neighbour of sister jp5

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http://www.nkusa.org/index.cfm
anti orthodox jews hate israel
www.ahmed-deedat.co.za/

You are a negative atheist, not a positive atheist. I think that negative atheists are actually agnostics. You have not made a "leap of faith" towards religion but you also haven't made a leap of faith towards denying the possibility of God's existence. You remain a rational skeptic, so you aren't a positive atheist (one who denies the possibility of God's existence).

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"I am a Tory Anarchist. I should like every one to go about doing just as he pleased- short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed." (Max Beerbohm)

Well, I highly doubt His existence. But I cannot deny the possibility. Same with flying pork chops.

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I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.

The problem with rejecting all ideas for which no evidence can currently be presented is that it assumes that no evidence in favor of those ideas will be presented in the future. In other words, a European in the year 800 should positively have rejected the existence of the New World based on the above formula. Any assertion must be accepted as possibly true unless something mutually exclusive is proven to be true. For example, if I assert that an object is reflecting only green light waves but it is shown to reflect red light waves, then my assertion has been proven false. I agree with the idea that the only way in which something can be proven false is by showing that it violates the principle (who came up with this one, apotropoxy?) that a and "not a" cannot co-exist.

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"I am a Tory Anarchist. I should like every one to go about doing just as he pleased- short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed." (Max Beerbohm)

Atheists believe that there is no god(s). We have no proof nor do we wish to attempt to prove a negative, especially when the question seems, on its face, to be absurd.
Those who make extraordinary claims (invisible, all-powerful, omnipotent entities) have the responsibility of providing an equally extraordinary proof.
Many great thinkers in our Western tradition dedicated much of their intellectual lives to this end and none succeeded.

Agnostics have no knowledge of the existence of a deity. Both atheists and deity-believers can fall into this camp. Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. The difference is in the verb: believe v. think.

If a god's existence were provable then there would be no need for faith.