Compelling arguments from Steve Shaw here. Obviously he has the not insignificant advantage that logic is on his side but, even so, his comments are extremely well expressed; not least his quarrel with Little Hawk's misappropriation of vocabulary.

Several times I felt moved to chip in with thoughts of my own, only to find that Steve has already expressed them. So it remains only for me to take issue with McGrath, whose characterisation of me as a person of faith is offensive. (The fact that I believe in no god makes me - if words mean anything - an atheist. Atheism, according to McG, is a faith.)

Wrong, McGrath. I interpret the evidence before us all as establishing that our universe evolved from a big bang. Many religious people accept the same. But that's sod-all to do with faith. If I am asked what came before the big bang or what caused it, I can say only that no supernatural force was necessary but that a supernatural force could nevertheless have been involved.

I do not go as far as Stephen Hawking, who has argued that no god could have brought about the big bang because before the big bang, time did not exist and therefore there was no time for any god to do his work. I don't go that far if only because I know the answer: God can do anything.

On what basis does McG presume to say that my thoughts about all this, or Hawking's for that matter, are a faith?

Incidentally I did read the linked article and considered it thoughtless. It doesn't need rocket science to understand why some atheists fight their corner more forcefully than the article's author apparently does.