Reply #22: You're right, I'm not certain about anything.

[LAGC]

But there's enough evidence to lead me to dis-believe. And that's all it takes to be an atheist, just mere dis-belief.

My knowledge of cosmology is largely limited to the interesting documentaries I've seen on the Science Channel. There was a recent series hosted by Stephen Hawking, another by Morgan Freeman. Do you ever watch any of them? It's just amazing how random the universe is. You'd think if there was a conscious hand of a Creator interfering with things, it would be more orderly and less chaotic. It just leads me to believe that if there was a Higher Power behind the formation of the universe, it did its "magic" at the beginning but has been hands-off ever since. A "god" who isn't there anymore. There are still forces we don't understand, such as dark energy -- a mysterious force that repels instead of attracts matter. But I do believe we WILL someday be able to understand some of these mysteries, I don't think that we will always be ignorant of them forever.

And I disagree with you that all (or even most) "New Atheists" are necessarily "strong" atheists. As I pointed out in my post up-thread, Richard Dawkins himself rates himself short of being a strong atheist. He still leaves room for doubt. Its just that the probability that God (a personal god, one that interferes with nature) exists is diminished with each and every new scientific advance that sheds light on some previous mystery. People once thought that volcanic eruptions were the work of a god, same with the sun's movements across the sky, or natural disasters (hell, some people STILL today think that natural disasters are the conscious work of God!) -- but the more we learn about science, the more we understand the natural causes of these phenomena, and our ignorance is replaced with knowledge of how nature works, and our place in it.

I am curious though, what "number of historical events" strike you (and many others) as outside the realms of chance?