Good Friday’s big question: Is doubt good?

[Speck Tater]

30. Most atheists I know are quite certain that there is no god.

And even when they VERBALLY claim otherwise, their behavior betrays their true beliefs. They find in necessary to insult and denigrate everyone who entertains the possibility of things they don't believe in.

Quite frankly, their certainty rests on their conviction that what they believe is self-evident to any intelligent person. Therefore, they conclude, any person who does not agree with them is defective in some way. To accept that an intelligent, well educated person might disagree with their position is to admit that their position is not so self-evident as they would like to believe, so they MUST, in order to protect their delusion of certainty, attack the messenger and assure themselves that anyone who doubts them is defective.

You see this in the language used in this forum by atheists. Their first line of defense is to belittle those who disagree, and to set up ridiculous straw-man arguments (Oh, you believe in MAGIC, and angels dancing on the head of a pin, do you?) They cannot simply accept that an intelligent, well educated person might disagree with them. That would create to high a level of discomfort with their feigned certainty.

And it is the same feeling of being threatened by opposing opinions that drives the fundamentalist to attack the messenger as well.

"A danger sign of the lapse from true skepticism in to dogmatism is an inability to respect those who disagree" --Dr. Leonard George