No, it doesn’t. It’s a lack of faith, because the existence of material things and their behaviour doesn’t require any special pleading. It’s readily demonstrable and so far manages to explain pretty much every question anyone has ever asked.

Putting forth ‘human experience’ as though its a meaningful argument is just silly. ‘Human experience’ tells us that Elvis is still alive (and apparently frequenting a coffee shop not far from where I live), that little grey men routinely make crop circles (for whatever reason), and that world leaders are all actually a cabal of secret lizard people (or something). It’s a well known fact that human memory is fallible and that people consistently post-hoc rationalise experiences to fit into their over-simplified world-view. The scientific method avoids human experience precisely because it is unreliable and unfalsifiable.

The fact of the matter is that if the supernatural exists, then it is unknowable (by definition). However, if it exists but interferes in the natural world, then is ought to be detectable on some level, because changes in the natural world require adherence to natural laws (so therefore not really supernatural in the first place). Since no-one has ever been able to demonstrate that it does actually exist, it is not a position of faith to simply accept the null (there’s another use for NULL, Tim ) hypothesis and assume it’s all a crock until demonstrated otherwise. A position of faith would be to claim that any of the myriad (and often contradictory) arguments for the supernatural hold any water whatsoever without a shred of evidence for them, whilst a veritable mountain of evidence suggests the opposite.

I wonder how much Richard Dawkins is a cause and how much he’s a symptom. Was he just in the right place at the right time to place himself as the self-appointed leader of the backlash against the rise of Christian and Islamic fundamentalism?

@hpcaban

Talking about unicorns and leprechauns is a bit of a straw man. There’s a big difference between religious traditions with a coherent intellectual framework behind them and folk superstitions.

In recent years we’ve seen enough examples of secular cultures displaying the same failure modes as organised religion to suggest that belief in God(s) isn’t the problem. I could point to the silliness of Roko’s Basilisk, or the way Tumblr-style social justice has devolved into something that resembles the worst bits of Calvinism,

I don’t believe in any particular god, but I do understand the need some people have for one. I don’t count myself in their number, but I also understand full well why the need exists. As long as they don’t get in my way, I won’t get in theirs — but the militant-atheist mindset seems to think that any presence of religion anywhere, even when it poses no direct existential threat, is a net negative.