Hey Zeke, it'd be helpful if you first acquired a little more knowledge about two things before issuing scathing indictments like the one you scribbled: 1. the dictionary - a book of common access used by people to conduct meaningful discussions without lapsing into their own misguided interpretations - isn't in agreement with your statement: Atheism is a "mindset that does not concern itself with religion or theology at all." Without A, an assertion that God exists, there's no B, God does not exist. It's a specific dialectic negation if you're remotely interested in using logic logically. Atheism may be accurate or inaccurate, that's not my argument, but it is what it is despite the many wild interpretations given to it herein, especially by you.

And, 2. Theology, which is not theism, and not everyone believing in theism had or has a theology, was never discussed in my letter despite your view to the contrary. Theology, which is not cosmology or ontology or a bunch of other ologies, is certainty worth a discussion mostly because that's the form of rationality, or more often the form of irrationality, where decent religious sentiments were often concretized by Churches aiming to justify institutional objectives. Too bad you were too eager assassinating my character - "condescending pose" - and not reflective enough to explore theology, because under this category atheists are blessed with countless examples of misguided beliefs, such as hell and original sin, that have twisted humankind into a rather odd creature. Instead, it seems, the atheists responding to an interview with a person who is very close to being an atheist herself, or at least an agnostic, would rather site Santa Claus and telepathy as evidence religion is bunk and God does not exist. Building an argument on such feeble substantiation and then boldly insisting that all the believers' beliefs can be summarily decoded and debunked is, quintessentially, condescending. You might want to look that up in the dictionary too before hauling it out indiscriminately next time.

Hey deluxe, your rather long, and at times tangential letter, nonetheless, resonates because it does appeal to a sense of fairness and objectivity. First, the question about the bad boy syndrome doesn't state, nor infer, that atheists necessarily are bad boys in any way, morally or figuratively. The curiosity that drives the question is: Why insist that atheism isn't a belief system? It is, granted a skeletal one for many who don't give it much thought - Nah, there's no God - but for those compiling paragraph after paragraph of "proofs" that there is no God, now here you have a belief system.

Indisputably, Dawkins has a belief system. It's been called positivism, which is an alignment with scientific beliefs, most of which are rock solid, but some with implications, such as evolution, that are used as speculative "proofs" to negate the existence of God and believers' beliefs. Dawkins, however, and others should be commended on attempting to demystify and eliminate superstitions. But as brilliant as their efforts are, nobody can prove there's no God and no higher purpose. If there is a higher purpose and the species ends up ignoring it, then we're fools. Religion may not be the way to get there, but neither is Dawkins's sterile positivism.

By the way your exposition on numerology, which has its roots in Egyptian mysticism, was further clarified by Pythagoras, serving as an inspiration for the Catholic trinity. And trying to debunk superstitions within religious beliefs is a worthy cause, and, one day, you may even succeed in undermining the rationality for all religions. That still, however, wouldn't prove there is no God and no higher purpose. And on that day, in the wake of having eradicated religions, what then do people turn to find the higher purpose they so desperately are looking for with their beliefs? Will there be a man with a mustache and a gleaming pagan symbol who will herd them into an ideology that replaces religious meaning with secular meaning?

arty kraft: "That still, however, wouldn't prove there is no God and no higher purpose. And on that day, in the wake of having eradicated religions, what then do people turn to find the higher purpose they so desperately are looking for with their beliefs?"

Why, they could start by looking in the mirror. How's that for an option?

For a long time people in ancient Greece maintained a complex theology that worked its way into daily life, poetry, politics, and so on. These days no one who can be taken seriously worships Zeus. One might say that ancient Greek theology was ultimately an un-sustained failure. Indeed, in the face of the more powerful religions that displaced the Greek gods, one must conclude that their theology was actually man-made, and not supernaturally divine. Yet despite all indications that the ancient Greeks lived under a set of morals and inspirations that was completely self-fabricated, their culture, arts, science, and literature flourished. How could that have possibly happened without genuine divine intervention?

I'll tell you how. The same inspirations and efforts that motivated the Greek works were one and the same that motivated their religion. It was the Greeks themselves! The religion failed, but the works live on. This likewise applies to the ancient Egyptians, Mayans, and other civilizations whose great works are indisputable evidence of their achievements, while their failed religions have long since passed away into irrelevance.

Modern-day atheists don't 'need' god any more than the Greeks needed Zeus. Maybe they benefited at times from the 'notion' of Zeus, but in the end there was no god in a chariot. Even today the human spirit is all we have. No god is going to swoop down from the sky and hand out food to the starving. It never has happened, and it ain't gonna happen. If you want to see an end to suffering, don't waste your time praying for god to intervene. Get off your butt and help out your fellow man.

You want a 'higher purpose'? Put on your thinking cap and get to work. Study philosophy, science, ethics. Even study spirituality, if you can do it honestly. But don't get sidetracked with fabricating and justifying a 'religion'. It really, really serves no one (other than the hierarchy who controls it), and simply distracts us from the problems that we should be solving ourselves.