In the meantime, some Christians demonstrate their peaceful minds

Dawkins seems to have an honest approach then.
Nobody can be 100% sure 'for sure'.
Those who claim all truth for atheism are doing much the same thing as those who claim all truth for a particular religious path conflating faith with knowledge.
I'm a 'Pascal's Wager agnostic' not 100% sure if God exists or not but happy to take a chance that s/he does exist and that s/he cares.

@Mishap - then who can call themselves atheist? Professor Dawkins, for one, only claims to be less than 100% atheist, allowing for the fact that he can not be scientifically certain of the non-existence of a god or gods - nevertheless he is pretty darned sure he's right - as am I! But then, science is never 100% certain, as it has to allow for modification to allow for new data...

@POGS - Do you really think you can cast Christianity as a victim?

@Soontobe : Too much has happened etc etc for many of us to be able to accept the tiny chance that a deity might exist. And it is tiny - so tiny as to be insignificant. We all experience life and its heights and its depths, not just the Theists among us.

I know that God exists.
No I havent seen Him or something like that.

But too much has happened, including feeling things, and things happening or not happening, etc etc, for me to say that there is a chance that He doesnt exist.

This is a bit emotional for me to write, but I couldnt really not say it.

mishap, by your definition I'm agnostic, but since at present, because of a lack of satisfactory evidence, I don't believe any gods exist, then I am without gods therefore an a-theist. The two terms agnostic and atheist overlap in that respect.

Indeed POGS - we all believe or not as we see fit. The problem arises when others seek to inhibit that freedom via state religions, terrorism or aggressive evangelism.

I would like to point out from the start this is the first time I have posted on this thread, I rarely do on this particular forum as I believe Dave Allen made the best reasoned statement with his famous 'May your God go with you' line, (or not).

I appreciate the OP is all about the aggression by 'presumed' Christians to Dawkins but as happens it has moved onto a personal level and posters declaring their faith/non faith and the existence of God.

My question is this. Having read this thread from the start and watching it's progression I am not clear as to why only the christian faith is being spoken of . I note posters who 'defend' the rights of Muslims, Jewish, faiths time and again seem to be attacking the Christian faith. Who is to say Dawkins has not received some the 'hate tweets' from believers of other faiths who also believe in God. I mean absolutely no conflict in my question I genuinely don't understand why only the christian faith is being challenged as rubbish. Is it simply because one or two posters defending their belief in God are christian and if there were posters declaring their Muslim, Jewish faith they would equally be challenged to tell them there is no God and they are wasting their time having a faith.

I will declare I am probably an agnostic . However I do know one thing if I was falling from the sky in a plane, going down on a ship on the ocean or indeed as I have done many a time in my life seen a loved one suffering I will prey to God.. Hypocrite, maybe! What makes me do it?

I don't know why I have preyed to be honest but I believe that a person has a right to believe or not believe without having to justify their reasons. In fact I don't think it is reasonable to make someone justify their thoughts because I see a belief to be something a person either feels or not and who is to say either is right or wrong, you are both right !

Nothing wrong with wishy-washy if it describes how it is. No-one knows whether god exists or not and agnostics simply state that. Theists believe that god does exist, and atheists that he/she/it does not. Neither know. The operative word is "believe."

According to the SOD, T.H. Huxley invented the word agnostic in the second half of the 19th century to define someone who maintains that the existence of anything beyond material phenomena cannot be known. This seems to me a far more "wishy-washy" (to quote a nun of my acquaintance) position than that of the atheist (a C16 term) who firmly believes that god does not exist.

Petallus - I defined the terms for feetle - I am virtually with you on this. I am agnostic, but appreciate the good aspects of church and of religions. I am not a million miles away from many who say that they are believers. There are many doubters within the church.

The clarification of terms is helpful. I have sometimes wondered if I am an atheist or agnostic but am now quite happy to be an atheist in the sense that I have no belief in God. What I do not have is utter certainty that God (or any other unprovable dimension to life) does not exist.

Mishap I understand why you think I cannot have my cake and eat it, but I think I can.

The concept of God permeates our society. Art, architecture, literature, ideas or morality, are all affected by this concept.

These days I like churches and I like ritual. I light candles sometimes for people I love who have died or who are going through a difficult time. I believed in God until I was a teenager. I might suddenly believe in God again (though I doubt it but anyway it's not up to me).

On this basis I think God belongs to me as much as to anybody else. in fact, I insist on it

That's a very pretty picture.

Feetle - don't agree. By definition atheists don't believe in god - from the Greek "without god". If you believe in an even vanishingly small possibility of god then you are an agnostic. Agnostics believe that nothing can be known about the existence of god, which means that they cannot rule it out.

Thank you for translating that Ariadne.

For soontobe. Please note that this is designed to be helpful and not elitist.

"Tolerance has never provoked civil war; intolerance has covered the world in carnage."

@Mishap - Atheists don't know that no gods exist - we admit the possibility, but agree that the probability is vanishingly small...

I see it as a binary situation: either you believe - in which case you are a Theist (or a Deist) or you are not sure - in which case you don't believe... which leaves no space for agnosticism!

The link is in french. My french is not good enough to translate that. And I dont know how to use twitter.

This is good: Tolerance never...

Do we know that these ranters are 'christians'? I seem to have missed that.

They could be just raving trolls - or even friends of RD doing it for a publicity stunt.

Of course, if they are christians, or purport to be, they are not 'peaceloving christians' as stated in the OP. There is often a lunatic fringe to all large organisations.

Yes.

Or lack of belief.

Exactly - it's all down to belief. Which is why I was questioning Soutra's earlier post.

A theist believes that God exists.
An atheist does not believe that God exists.
Agnostic means "don't know".

It is not about proof but about faith (which by definition does not require proof). Agnostics recognise that we can never know about the existence of a deity and focus on getting on with living life as honestly and kindly as they can. Atheists are certain that no deity exists.

On the whole agnostics thankfully don't go in for the sort of histrionics that RD received from some fundamentalist believers.

No. No one can say without doubt that no god/s exist. There's no proof either way.