"Here and there we get a religious nut at Mudcat who wants to condemn people for their unbelief, that that's rarely the case here.

Which the above post proves wrong, Joe.

One post can't disprove that something is rare. It can disprove a claim that it doesn't exist, but not that it's rare.

repeatable, corroboratable evidence

That's one type of evidence. There is no repeatable, corroboratable evidence for anything that happened in the past because the past is not repeatable. Much of archaeology, evolution, history are that way. As is some of astronomy. There is evidence, just not repeatable evidence. But really you're treating the question of the existence of God as if it were a scientific hypothesis, and accepting only scientific evidence (and of a particular kind as used in many but not all sciences) for it.

Most of what Science tells us, the vast majority of us accept on faith -- faith in the scientists doing the experiments, or making the observations, or whatever. I have no way of knowing whether or not most propositions in science are true, and don't have the time or inclination (or funds or time off work) to do the sort of research/experimentation it would require to settle the matter before my own eyes. But mostly I just accept what those people say. It's all about trust.

If I really trusted you as an ornithologist, then I would trust you when you said you had found the Large Blue (that is a bird, right?). There was a story on NPR a few years back about a person that had a recording of some woodpecker thought to be extinct (ivory bill? does that sound right?), and went into the wild and played the recording. At one point he said he heard a sound in the bush like the same call being repeated back. Maybe, he suggested, there are some of this kind of woodpecker still left. Unfortunately he didn't have recording equipment running, so all we have is his word to go on. Also there was no sighting. Did he really hear it? It all depends on what you think about him as a person: primarily his honesty and his aural acuity (and the reliability of his memory of course).

Thank goodness atheists don't deal in such certainties, not even Dawkins.

Any atheist who says "delusion" of belief in God is dealing in certainty. Delusion implies that you know it is wrong. It is an insult word, and it is used by someone wanting to insult somebody because they believe something the insulter knows to be false. Despite what he may protest at some times, Dawkins acts at other times as if he is certain there is no God. At which point the evidence trail leads from quacking and walking to duckosity.

There is a pre-bible statement that stems from earlier religions that says (and I paraphrase) "Don't do anything bad to someone that you wouldn't like to have done to you." (It's the Golden Rule in reverse and it predates Christianity.

It predates Christianity but not the Bible. It is the saying of a 1st Century Rabbi (I want to say Gamaliel but I'm not sure of that).

The GOP is hopping on the religious bandwagon as well as some Democrats.

Is hopping? The GOP hopped on the religious bandwagon in 1979 and hasn't hopped off yet. Some evangelical Christians are hopping off the GOP bandwagon, which can only be a good thing, IMHO. I want religion and the US government to be watertight separate compartments. Theocracy/caesaropapism never ends well -- especially for people with minority beliefs, which includes mine (a little enlightened self-interest going on here!).

The problem that is being presented is that churches, mosques, synagogues and cathedrals do infringe on these rights sometimes. They need to stop doing that.

I agree they need to stop doing that. I disagree that presenting that problem is all that the non-theists are doing on this thread. I'm with Joe: I have no need to try to convert people here, and am perfectly willing to listen to and learn from atheist, agnostic, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, or Pastafarian, and would expect them to respectfully listen to me (whether they learn from me, I can't require, and it's probably unlikely even so). But also I will not ridicule somebody for being an atheist or Jew or whatever. I will tell them their belief (or lack thereof) is stupid or a fantasy or a delusion. If you catch me doing so, give me a boot to the head. (Saying somebody's logic/argument is stupid, by the way, is not saying their belief is stupid. Maybe you can stomp on my foot if I do that, but not boot my head.)

When have people ever been tortured or killed in the name of atheism?

Stalinist Russia. Not all of the people killed under Lenin and Stalin were killed because of their religion, but many were. Churches were looted and burned, nuns were raped and killed, priests and bishops and monks and laypeople were killed because they were Christians by people whose motivation for doing so was their atheism. Others were thrown into the Gulag system to rot and die. Note that I don't say that all of the people killed under Lenin or Stalin were killed because of religion. That's clearly not the case. But some were, especially in the early days of the October Revolution/Civil War in Russia.

[tangent] (People always want to give Lenin a break and make out that all the bad stuff was Stalin -- but it was under Lenin that the NKVD (precursor to the KGB) was formed, and it was Lenin who said that the country must be ruled via a state of constant and continual terror.) [/tangent]

Also whoever said that Religion has killed more people than Hitler and Stalin and Mao put together was deluded. There weren't enough people alive before the 19th/20th centuries to make that even possible. And Stalin's policies/rulings alone are responsible for the deaths of between 25 and 50 million non-combatants.

I question whether or not Hitler was an atheist; but I don't have enough evidence to say. He certainly used people's belief in God to further his own aims (remember "Ein Reich, Ein Gott, Ein Führer") but that doesn't mean he believed in God himself, so it leaves the question open (to me -- I will always look at evidence one way or the other, if time allows (I'm not going to read some big tome -- I have too much other reading to do!)).