Alas it cruelly applies to me too (BUT note the alt text aswell).

That's not exactly how it works. Many catholics disregard the pope. Religions are very elastic. Without even mentionning collective schisms, and all the evolutions where the leaders were the ones adapting to the crowds, individuals generally use to negociate with the official words on religions.

"Claims without evidence, may be dismissed without evidence."

Sigh you know this is just so unbelievably typical :( People simply cannot for the life of them stick to their convictions no matter how readily they swear that they always will. I think it is important though, to have your convictions on paper, and to then read it aloud as often as possible. I've learned my lesson though this time: next time I am going to make a infernal shopping list. Why, oh why do I not have a single drop of lemon juice in my flat?? The whole blasted day I said "I am going to buy lemon juice when I go to the shops later today" Now how am I supposed to drink my water without that hint of lemony freshness? They say the tapwater is potable but it sure doesn't taste like it :P

Guess I'll go and make some coffee

I don't see reductionism and emergence as mutually exclusive. They work on different ends of the complexity spectrum and try to understand different sets of phenomena, although there are probably some interesting grey areas.

But the bunnies are so cute! Especially the quantum ones. :)

I want some coffee.

Quite so, they are both powerful tools in the realm of science. I meant more from a philosophical standpoint - I used to view us as meat machines, explainable by our components, but now view us as organic syntheses, greater than just our parts. I do not discount reductionism itself, merely say that now fall upon the opposite pole with regards to the human condition.

And that is why Gnosticism is a thing. What with the demiurge being an imperfect being and creating imperfect base matter and whatnot.

I just made coffee. And it's delicious.

Again, I apologize. There was a great war between theists and atheists a few years ago, and I assumed it was still going on. Hence the white flag.

Well stated, and an excellent point. Another reason why I am glad to include among my friends those of many religious/philosophical stripes. There is so much fertile richness in this field of discourse.

At the risk of sounding trivial, the episode of Aeon Flux titled "The Demiurge" actually touches on this topic, in its own abstruse way.

I don't remember the argumentative rules behind this but try proving something doesn't exist is a much more complicated and unnecessary endeavor than proving something actually exist. Further more, the idea of "you make the claim, you prove it" is basically an analogy that you earn the word that you say, argumentative trusting if you will.

You are right though that it's tricky at least to prove "I don't deny a deity's existance because I don't believe in them, I merely lack faith."

If it helps the idea of lacking faith is a way for atheism to distance themselves from theism, otherwise it just becomes a debate between "I believe in X, someone else in Y" instead of the idea that some don't believe at all. I suppose that is what frightens many religious people because for them religion is such a large part of their life and imagining non-existance of that essentially makes their lives meaningless in a matter of if atheism is true (argument's sake).

I wrote a post earlier but the forum seemed to have ate it. I was going to write this: "I believe human can lack faith." That is my belief. With one comes the other. You can't have life without death so you can't have faith without lack of faith.

Isn't there a better word or expression for lack of faith?

I was an atheist before it was mainstream

It's not main stream. But not believing is hopefully becoming more common.

Well, there are still little crusaders on both sides. Simply don't assume them to be representatives of a general belief. Don't assume that militant atheists are necessarily supported by atheists (and if they imply so, simply remind them that they're not)...