Mayomick when you say "I'm not sure if I could have the same debates today as I did thirty years ago." I think this may be true. You can see the insults and brickbats that have flown on this discussion already.

Musket, excellent point. "but the fascination with seeing lack of belief as a belief says more about the instability of faith than it does about rational thought."

It is absolutely delusional which is a by-product of a shaky "faith". It's because those accusations reflect a need to verify that "faith" by the folks who make them. Shakespeare said, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." which has been changed to "Methinks thou dost protest too much" to refer to those on a soap box whose actions belie their intended claims and try too hard to convince others that they are right. It backfires in most cases.