Not all fervor is religious. "This is what the atheist fails to comprehend, generally...[s/]he is following a religion based on various material considerations. I have seen blind faith demonstrated by atheists that is positively mind-boggling...at least as rabid as the faith displayed by the common religious fundamentalist, and resting on equally shaky ground, IMO" - I agree with the statements, mostly. However, I don't think that I take it "on faith" that there is no god, although I do have a fundementalist atheist friend who claims to "believe in" the Big Bang, the way a theist might believe in The Creation. He says, however, that it is the ONLY thing he takes on faith, and I don't believe that it is religious to believe in the Big Bang. I do agree that blind faith is mind-boggling, whether it's faith in the supernatural or not. However, I would not agree that atheists are necessarily following a religion based on various material considerations. For instance, I believe in kindness. That is, I believe that it exists, and I believe it is a good thing which ought to be propagated. However, I don't consider it "against my religion" to be unkind, I consider it reprehensible.

There was another thread on this, where I was trying to explain that my kind of atheism is a belief system, and I was being told that No, it's not, it's the absence of belief. Now I'm being told it's a belief system like any other and I don't like that either. Hmm. Am going to have to think long and hard on this!