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first off i don't think anyone denies the existence of faith. atheist or otherwise. it isn't something that you can throw out. alongside thought, as one of our defining characteristics as a seperate and identifiably greater species, sits the capability for faith. to believe without logic, the ability to know the infinite exists is the purpose of faith. because thought, by itself can't grasp that sort of thing. atheists don't deny that the concept of infiniti exists, that there are things that are infinite and greater than we are. the question is where that knowledge comes from. ask anyone to picture infiniti and, if they're being honest, they'll tell you they can't do that. the fact that they know it exists though, to me, stems from their possession of some sort of faith, in spite of logistical and real constraints of their mind, they continue to believe it exists.
that being said, during my atheist phases, and the current stance of all my atheist friends, I can't say that the reason i didn't believe in god was because i just had faith in his nonexistence. the reason i didn't believe was because it was a direct contradiction to all sorts of logical sense. it just doesn't make sense. it can't be proved. for an atheist, that's enough to stop believing. or not believe in the first place. and who can blame them?
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