Talk:Why are you trying to tear down other people's faith?

"...motives an atheist may have for arguing against gods and religion."

This seems inappropriate. An atheist need not be anti-religious, and this assumes that the atheist in question is.

"an atheist does not consider religious faith a benefit. In fact, it is the cornerstone of dogmatism"

Similar problem. Religious atheists obviously do consider faith a benefit. Religious faith, likewise, does not need to lead to dogmatism. To be fair, the use of faith to advocate dogmatism is nearly synonymous with religious practice, but is is erroneous to apply this to all religions.

"...people losing their faith in superstition is seen as a Good Thing. "

It is likewise problematic to use 'faith in superstition' as a synonym for religious faith. Superstition asserts both the unprovable and the dis-proven. The religion of many people can be described this way, but religious views which assert unprovable views only are not inherently antagonistic to reason and generally not antagonistic to atheism. Believing "humans has moral value", for example, would be an unprovable assertion, but is not antagonistic in either fashion mentioned above.

With respect to the "A possible rebuttal" section; The tone of this section should be taken down to something less negative. The likely person to need to hear it will already be disinclined to hear it, so a more diplomatic wording is called for. This aside, we should attempt to remain as free from vitriol as possible in rebuttal, in that it undermines our integrity to sound like we have a chip on our collective shoulder. When attempting to champion Logos, one must not result to Pathos any more than one should resort to Ethos.

Moving this reply to the "a possible rebuttal" section to the discussion page, as it seems more appropriate here:
 * ===A Rebuttal to This Rebuttal===

This argument, however, is flawed. If faith can be so easily broken through "rational argument and evidence" as you have argued, that implies that faith in and of itself is faulty because it can be disassembled with rational thought. Does this not put into question faith all together because expounding this argument one can conclude that all faith can be broken through rational argument.
 * I would argue that you are exactly correct. Faith is belief without proof. As such, rational thought is always superior to faith. There may be some claims we are prepared to take on faith because they are not worth the effort of requiring proof (for example, "I have a quarter in my pocket"). I don't see how this is an effective rebuttal to the rebuttal. Jdog 17:12, 27 June 2011 (CDT)