Richard Dawkins' Enemies of Reason, Monday, Channel 4, 8pm.

It's plainly a belief. You can't assert that P is true without believing P.

You say that Dawkins sometimes steers off the rails. Why can't he, a champion of science and reason, just think clearly all the time?

Dawkins believes "there is almost certainly no God". This IS A BELIEF. Try reading Dawkins.

Fair enough, but there is a difference between faith and belief. Almost everything Dawkin's argues is not based on faith, where as religion is based on faith.

So when does he steer of the rails? And what's this leap of faith you talk of?

Someone wrote that Dawkins is trying to get people to believe in something. I replied that he wasn't. I didn't say he didn't have a belief, though I'd like to uphold that anyway. Technically, yes I do 'believe' that there is no invisible elephant, but, in practice, I wouldn't call that a 'belief'.

I'd certainly class strong/militant atheism as a belief-system/religion. It's a belief in no God, and has just as much evidence to support it as theism. Agnosticism or mild atheism are, whilst still beliefs, where the person admits that they really don't know whether a God exists. They don't passionately believe that a God exists or that a God doesn't exist because they don't find the evidence compelling for either side. Therefore I wouldn't classify it as a religion.

Though you can get atheists which rely on faith that a God doesn't exist.

This is just squirming to try and get out of giving an argument for your position.

If you are an atheist, you believe that God doesn't exist. What makes you justified in believing that? If you simply don't believe in God, I, and Bertrand Russell, consider you an agnostic.

Russell wrote in 'Am I an atheist or an agnostic? A plea for tolerance in the face of new dogmas' (1947):

I never know whether I should say "Agnostic" or whether I should say "Atheist". It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God.

He steers of the rails when he talks in very simplistic terms, like when he imagines a world without. While I am vehemently against religion, I think nationalism can and has been very dangerous for society.

I really think this is nonsense. Strong atheism isn't a religion. Just because strong atheists are equal in passion with strong theists do not make them the same.

You think imagining a world without religion is 'steering off the rails'?

It does actually. You'll get atheists that say "I'll bet my house that a God doesn't exist". They rely on a faith that God doesn't exist. The same can be said for strong theists. They're both undesirable positions really, though theism does often require the theist to act as if they are sure about their beliefs through faith [it is possible to strongly believe something].

Buddism is an atheist religion, no? The man who passionately believes that there is no God is in the same boat as the theist. It is a faith-position - it is a belief-system or religion, and there is little evidence to support it.

The agnostic or mild atheism does not claim that there is no God nor that a God exists.

It's simplistic.

I like how you dodged my question. Care to answer it? Because it's just as a valid a response for this post.

Oh, don't be so cynical.

I have no evidence that fairies nor that Zeus doesn't exist and I would not bet my house on them not existing, it's simple. The fact that strong atheist shuts his mind to all religion and has faith that none of the scriptures [read: historical evidence] is true is as much a belief system as any other belief-system involving a God.

Imagining a world without religion would be near-impossible. Practically most ancient tribes had religious beliefs and formed a society from it. The foundations of our culture is built upon people with primitive beliefs. We wouldn't know where to start when imagining a world without religion.

A world without murder? Slightly implausible I think. You'd have no holocaust and no wars and people would be like robots without the freewill to murder.

You also do not have any evidence that god isn't an invisible evil break-dancing elephant called Nancy, so you wouldn't bet your house that, that doesn't exist?

I didn't say that it was realistic, did I?
I just said that the act of imagining isn't steering off the rails. Dawkins has never said that he thinks religion will completely fade away. He imagined it in his book for a paragraph.

Someone wrote that Dawkins is trying to get people to believe in something. I replied that he wasn't. I didn't say he didn't have a belief, though I'd like to uphold that anyway. Technically, yes I do 'believe' that there is no invisible elephant, but, in practice, I wouldn't call that a 'belief'.