Bow down before the mighty Sky God lest he smite you with lightning.

Get real. Nothing will sway the minds of the Christians as to the accuracy of their holy book.

They claim creationism over evolution. They ignore the contradictions within their own texts. They refuse to acknowledge the impact of accepted natural phenomena on ancient tribal people's concept of the world.

Science will not win a single battle against fundamentalism.

Huger than the Geffen story? Wow, it will reverberate for centuries! Along with the many discoveries of Noah's many arks.

With so many wars, the concept of Christ lives on more than ever-- and peace is the immaculate conception that comes out of "war culture," so peace is the true salvation.

The idea that Jesus was married is definitely not new, wasn't that the whole plot behind the best-selling Da Vinci Code? And of course The Celestine Prophecy was interesting too-- it claimed that we can have "heaven on earth."

I suppose that even if it was proved that Jesus was a real person, certainly the stories about him are likely composites, etc...

Hillary has already asked Jesus to return his Obama campaign contributions. 

Dissent Protects Democracy.

"Clearly I'm in the minority with this opinion."

But NOT alone, I assure you. Though I guess it's not one of the worst novels I ever read-- it's 60 of the worst pages I ever read. Really subliterate stuff, every chapter ending with an exclamation point like The Amityville Horror. When I was on a beach in Mexico two years ago I swear every single book anyone was reading was by Dan Brown.

I could have sworn there was a song about this...

If I were a carpenter...
And you were a lady...
Would you marry me any way...
Would you have my baby?

Always try to keep what's real near.
If what's real makes you feel secure.
Or reality might disappear.
Now walk on down the road.
And notice as you near.
Thing's don't get proportionately large yet.
You get smaller with them.
Until you disappear.
How small are you when you disappear?
Always isn't forever.
It's for as long as it is.
Half again nothing 's all it is....
Always.

J. McCutchen

The Discovery Channel's discovery is tabloid crap. In fact, it isn't even a discovery. Been around about 30 years. With all due respect to my Jewish elder brother, if it were a discovery it would not strike conservative Christianity - the fundies would survive - they're like cockroaches ..take well to nukes

The Resurrection is the irreducible essence of the Faith...and the Passion Plot..why since the very beginning..recorded in the Gospel (Mathew??) and which controversy Paul also speaks to

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
1 Corinthians 15:17-19

Nature bats last.

MJ, let me guess. You are intermingling serious commentary with an anti-multicultural mocking of a world religion, so that if someone considers it disrespectful to belittle one of the sacred tenets of this group, you can say, "Hey, didn't you get the joke, don't be so sensitive!".

Jews vindicated? misogyny? millions and millions killed in Jesus name?

Just as in the war on terror it is hard to measure lives saved compared to lives lost. Do you have any statistics to back up the millions and millions you mentioned. 2000 years is a lengthy history to defend as perfect, but to paint an entire faith and their spiritual leader no less as responsible for so much bad, and implying no good, is anti-multicultural and unfair.

Since you favor Zionism(which is your prerogitive), lets remember that 18th century Christians were among the strongest advocates of a homeland for the Jews.

At a time when Jews and Christians are on the "receiving end" of a holy war, I think some of the flippant Jesus bashing of the 60s is less funny.

I know, your remarks were intermingled with a tongue in cheek snicker. If you think I am rubbing a glow in the dark statue of the lamb of god right now, you'd be wrong. I just find it fascinating how people find a safe place to bash certain groups, and just let the loose remarks fly.

Tabloid crap exactly, and I can't think why MJR fell for it. Forget its impact on believers. It's sheer annoyance for scholars of religion and archeology, just one more thing for academic religion departments to deal with, like the "true" gospel of Judas last year. 

Think of the holes that are being poked in this or could be, and I mean by legitimate researchers. Some have deemed the reading of the inscription as Jesus alone unlikely. The interpretation of the Magdalene inscription is even more controversial. The statistics used as the cornerstone of the argument are garbage, especially with one in four women of the time named Mary. Two of the handful of burials there are connected as family (the brothers) only by the most tenuous and unreliable of Biblical evidence, unless of course you're a fundamentalist. The burials could have been brought together at a later time owing to the myths surrounding the family. The DNA evidence hasn't even been attempted beyond comparing the supposed Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

Then there's the problem of interpretation. Why does burying them together mean she was the wife of Jesus rather than of one of the two "brothers"? A believer could even argue that it doesn't disprove the Resurrection. Maybe the family so loved Jesus (or, a believer would say, so loved the Lord) that they insisted on being buried where he lay before rising. And so on.

I'm not a believer and certainly not a Christian. I wish fundamentalism would vanish from planet Earth, although I don't have any hope for that and don't see why evidence, by the very nature of fundamentalism, would change matters. But hey, hooey is still hooey. Maybe MJR thinks "Titanic" is a great historical epic, too. I hear there's a special circle in Hell for those who think Leonard di Capprio can act. 

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

I suggest you watch and wait.

I think the tipoff that I was having fun was my reference to the David Geffen story.
That is because I don't really think the Geffen story is the story of the milennia.

Great passage in Ragtime which I cant quote verbatim. A character was referring to the Stanford White murder by Harry Thaw as the "crime of the century." But another pointed out "Can't be. It's only 1906."

OJ, now that was the crime of the century.

Oh I had lots of people tell me it was a great book. I'm a writer and I've even published a bit of Templar fiction (Paradox #2), so people are always telling me what books I need to read. I picked it up because the writers group that I was attending at the time was dying to discuss it. The group broke up before that happened, but I read it anyway. I had to know why.

Granted, my opinion was colored by the fact that I had already read most of the books Dan Brown read before writing this. None of the "revelations" were a surprise to me. Jesus married? Yeah, I read about that years ago. Priory of Scion - ditto. Hidden symbols in art, connections to freemasonry (Jacques deMolay, thou art avenged!) - ya.

But it wasn't just that I was familiar with the material. It was the short-attention-span-theater writing. The three page chapters, each one ending on, as Max said, an exclamation point, a cliff-hanger. The willful ignorance of the characters - for no other reason than to push the "revelations" deeper and deeper into the novel. It didn't even seem to be written by an actual human - it was like a novel written via a template designed by marketing executives.

Jesus, the spiritual leader, will survive all this.

If it's true I don't see how you can say this. It's an instant-kill on Christianity. From what I've read we currently lack compelling evidence to prove or disprove this, so investigate it. Just like the James Ossuary (sorry I have no idea how to spell that word).

I dunno.I read the NY Times story and the case seems pretty thin. As other peple have pointed out, those names were common back then, and it's questionable if the markings on the "Jesus" ossuary is even readable. Amos Kloner, who studied the tomb and its contents back in 1980, says they're not.
It also strikes me as questionable that the family tomb would be in Jerusalem. I'm not a Biblical scholar, but I don't recall anything in regular New Testament or any of the other writings that Jesus, Mary or other family members, or even Mary Magdalene ever lived in Jerusalem for any length of time, much less the long period of time that would make it worthwhile to buy and maintain a tomb there. If the tomb had been found in Nazareth or Bethelhem, for example, I might find more plausible.
My biggest problem, though, is that the whole thing is too neat and tidy. The biggest mystery of the Christianity, the key players in the story, all wrapped up in a neat little package, after 2,000 years.
Frankly, THAT would be a Miracle.

And to the people who feel the Bible (New Testament specifically) is accurate and all encompassing...the Gnostic texts were what?  I think that Rome has called them heretical in most if not all cases.  Why and how did they come to those conclusions?

I have a big problem with the New Testament in terms of the Church's attempts to control Christ's message so they have control over the people.  If true these revelations (pun intended, lol) undermines much that organized Christian religions stand for by calling into question the accuracy of the texts that they have based their religion on.  Look for the counter attacks.

And imo I think Jesus is looking down and saying "good" in terms of undermining the authority of organized relgion since it usurps God's authority...but again that is just an imo. ;) 

Isn't the fact that James Cameron is engineering this slightly suspicious? Methinks there is a movie in the works.

I think that the James Ossuary story has been debunked. It turned out to have been a modern carving of the name onto an actual 1st century ossuary, done by a forger, if I recall. I suspect this story will turn out to be the same sort of thing, but not before it's made somebody oodles of money. 

The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning. ~~Adlai E. Stevenson

I think Ari Gold is working a deal for a sequel.  

Dissent Protects Democracy.

All religions are based entirely on faith, not facts. That's what makes them religions. So, any discovery of any facts, new or otherwise, won't have any effect on religions.

Hoppy in Sacramento

BINGO

The whole "Christianity causes war" thing really grates on me. Stalin killed millions in the name of the rights of the farmer and the worker, but I still support unionization. For that matter, George Bush started a bad war in the name of protecting America, but that doesn't mean I don't think American security is a valid political concern.

People have found millions of reasons over the ages to kill each other. I don't see why faith should be singled out any more than the others.

Because over the eons, in it's name, it's leaders have been the worst offenders?

Muslims were, inarguably, more civilized during most of 'Christendom.' In fact, it was the borrowed Muslim versions of classical texts that actually allowed Europe to have a Renaisance in the first place.

I'm starting to get a "Churh of Bob" view of religions. None of them last forever, they, quite paradoxically, ALL share a 'morality invented here' chauvinism.

Zora Astrians were pretty big on, literally "Manichean" black and white morality and that was when Persia was "the worlds' only superpower."

Spain tortured jews and muslims in the name of Jesus. We torture muslims today and the same people who most strongly advocate it also love saying the US is a "Christian Nation."

By what measure? Were Kahn's hordes driven by faith? Was King Leopold's rape of the Congo faith-based? And I'm trying to avoid Godwin's Law here, but it's getting pretty hard...

The Rwandan genocide was not based on religion, nor were Milosovich's horrors. Neither Rome's imperial conquest of Europe, nor the sacking of Rome that followed, were couched in faith. The Japanese imperial domination of Korea and Indonesia had only the slightest trimmings of religion.

Religion often serves as the fig leaf to cover economic and political aims, and yes, occasionally, becomes the prime motivator. (although even in the purest cases, such as the Inquisition and bin Laden, there are secondary factors that contribute.) The Conquistadors may have justified their bloodletting with the cross, but it was for a God that also told them they were about to be rich.

Twain used it in "Innocents Abroad" with a museum guide explaining the issue of two skulls of Christopher Columbus.

J. McCutchen

Simcha Jacobovici, an Israeli-born Canadian

There they go again Mr. Rosenberg! :=P

LOL...I am sure God told them no such thing.

But it is a cumulative thing Michael.  Inquisitions, purges, crusades, genocides, etc., etc., etc...

I guess if you compare any one single leader whose justification to kill thousands of other people was his/her God with people who didn't claim religion as justification, you can try to make your case.  But when looked at cumulatively hands down christianity is the worst offender.  Not only towards "non-believers" but among the christian sects.  Heck the Protestants and Catholics are still going at it in Ireland...violence in the name christianity is so pervasive it is part of the religion's M.O., and never lurks too far from the surface.

Muslims were, inarguably, more civilized during most of 'Christendom.' In fact, it was the borrowed Muslim versions of classical texts that actually allowed Europe to have a Renaisance in the first place.

Did you see this piece on math and 13th Century Islamic art? 

What's one difference between Jesus Christ on the one hand and (the No. 1)Buddha and Mohammed on the other?

There are irrefutable historical traces of the existence of (the No. 1)Buddha and Mohammed.

A lot of intelligent people are yet unaware that the historical existence, or not, of Jesus Christ is still up in the air. Naturally, the Church is fine with that because all their BS is at risk if a historical Jesus is found with any context.

Now if DNA surfaces proving that any of the three people found in the so-called tomb have descendants in Southern France, look out.

The Vatican would wish for WWIII before they would take what these guys are saying lying down.

Paraphrase, by someone who's name I forget: We're all atheists to the gods of the past; Zeus, Odin, Poseidon, Ra, etc., some of us have just carried the myth one god further.

That would be Sam Harris. It may be in more than one of his books, but it is also in "Letter to a Christian Nation."

Jan Knaus

JohnW1141,

...We're all atheists to the gods of the past; Zeus, Odin, Poseidon, Ra, etc., some of us have just carried the myth one god further.

Downsizing, more like.

Hoppy,

All religions are based entirely on faith, not facts.

Atheism is a faith too.  Perhaps it's not so much the faith that's corrosive, as much as the certainty.

...and that means...?

Jan Knaus

Gnostic = Gospel of Thomas = "Dead Sea Scrolls" as I understand it anyway.

They were 'gnostic' as in gnosis or knowlege because - I guess you could say they were more highbrow and acknowledged that there were different levels of Christian enlightenment which implied different standards for different people. In a sense it's self evident - you don't expect 12 year olds to have the same understanding of Christ's truth as a Jesuit.

I think they also talked more about Mary Magdelane as discussed by Da Vinci Code. You can see exactly why it was considered heretical or apocryphal by the Nicean council - it goes totally off script.

Fair points Jan.  All the gospels recount what he allegedly said through the words of his apostles, which would make it 3rd hand.

But there were enough people writing about what he said in the century or so after when he was supposedly lived to indicate there was probably a real person who is refered to as Jesus.  I think to often christians get hung up on the literal meaning of what is was supposed to have been said and miss the main message which is recurrent in the gospels.  And that is the message that love and tolerence.  So I tend not to look at what he did actually say and try to listen to the message.  I think it is a good message... 

The Dead Sea Scrolls are usually identified with a Jewish sect called the Essenes.

I don't think Thomas was part of the Dead Sea Scrolls KingElvis.  I believe the Dead Sea Scrolls were OT texts.

Thomas and the other Gnostic texts were unearthed in Northern Egypt...

But the Gnostic texts definitely goes off script from the Nicean Council...in fact most of the Gnostic texts were destroyed early on by The Church.

I agree with you that the DNA argument has been overstated, for the very reason that you mentioned.

"the statistics ... are garbage."

My understanding is that the statistical reasoning is sound, and it even contains some very conservative adjustments.

It is true, however, that statistical reasoning does not demonstrate causality.

To have documentary proof of the sort that would be accepted by, say, a genealogist, the inscription on Jesus's ossuary would have to read something like this: "Jesus, son of Joseph, crucified by Pontius Pilate," or it would have to contain some other positive identification. For conservative Christians I suppose that having the rest of the Nicene Creed inscribed on the box would help, too.

It is interesting that there is another school of thought that argues that Jesus was a mythical creation of the Gnostics. So there are opponents to orthodox Christianity who will be as displeased with the theory of the Jesus ossuary as the orthodox Christians themselves.

I have enjoyed James Tabor's book, The Jesus Dynasty, which argues that there are two religions in the New Testament, one Jewish and the other Gentile, and that Jesus was probably a completely traditional Jew.

Strange that you should mention the Dead Sea Scrolls. Last Saturday I visited the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit currently touring the US. It is my understanding that the Scrolls were written between around 250 BCE and 68 CE slightly predating all Christian writings including the Gospel of Thomas.

If memory serves the existing fragments of the Thomas Gospel were found in Egypt.

Ron Byers

If the bones are really that of Jesus perhaps we can extract enough DNA to clone our very own Jesus....god, think of all we could make him do for us; eternal youth, eternal life, new cars, cute chicks, richess, fame, and of course get rid of all the right wingnuts.

I wanna look like George Clooney.

The Buddha is even more shadowy to history than Jesus. India at that stage of its history did not write factual chronicles and our accounts of the Buddha's life and teachings date from long after his death and are full of mythical and magical detail.
Mohammed is more historical of course as he is referrenced in writings within afew years of his death. Still even he is vague enough for determined debunkers to theorize that he and his religion were a creation of the early Caliphs to justify their imperialism.
We more or less have the same problem with most figures from antiquity, except a few like Caesar who left us their own writings and who are well-attested in archaelogy from their own time. Even Alexander the Great is very poorly documented by his own contempories: a joke in Menander's plays, a sarcasm in a speech by Demosthenes, and a stele with the text of a decree by him is all we have (his coin portraits all date from, after his death and deification).

Personally, I thought Cat Stevens (now Yusef) looked pretty presentable when he was sent back across the Atlantic after arriving in Boston.

According to the story, Jesus' well-connectedness didn't do him any good when push came to shove. Still, it's funny to speculate, isn't it?

I just don't think the message that the bible says he was handing out would go over very well with the Bushies. I think that Cheney would pronounce him an "AlQaida type." (I can even picture his mouth curling upward on the left as he talks to Tim Russert, or Fox News/ whatever/ no difference.)

I can hear Hannity and Limbaugh ridiculing this left-wing bizarro who is a danger to all Americans hold dear. To Gitmo with him! For the sake of our children! Surely we must fight "his kind" over there so that we don't have to deal with those "Jesus types" over here.

Jan Knaus

Well said.

CSPAN junkies visit http://spannerbackup.ipbhost.com

"Gnostic = Gospel of Thomas = "Dead Sea Scrolls" as I understand it anyway." No.  The Dead Sea Scrolls represent a Jewish community, the Essenes, who went into the desert seeking a greater purity. In a sense, they anticipate Christian monasticism, but they're one of any number of Jewish groups in a region under pressure and thus necessarily riven by internal divisions. The Gnostics were an early Christian group that were excluded from the canon.  It's a long story, and I'll try not to compress a text in New Testament studies into a comment. 

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

Actually, normal Roman crucifixion practice would have been to be nailed up outside of town, and left to rot, as the British did to pirates. That his followers could collect the body, as well as place it in a private tomb, speaks of greased palms, likely Pilate, who is (what I read) known to historians to have been utterly corrupt.

The revisionist scenario is the Empire made Pilate do something about the threat to authority posed by an heir to David's throne, and he delivered, thus the particularly Roman execution by crucifixion. But he also took a bribe and let Jesus be collected. Even the description of the site for crucifixion is unusual, according to the authors of Holy Grail, Holy Blood.

It isn't necessary to do the mind exercise about the beginning. You can experience the same disorientation by thinking about a black hole. That is a point in space containing as much as a billion times the mass of our sun. Not a small place, or a tiny moon sized place, or a dust mote, but a dimensionless point. Just think about that.

My actual opinion about all of this is that these "points" are simply a breakdown in the physics theories that describe them. That's why they are called "singularities". The universe continues to be largely a mystery.

Hoppy in Sacramento

I rarely encounter one who doesn't try to convert me to his position.

I don't understand why any of my bretheren would try to convert you. I mean, from our perspective, you have a false belief - golly, imagine that. If atheism is true, in some sense, your belief in god isn't really any different than the multitude of false beliefs that all of us hold on to, so what's the big deal? I guess my fellow believers haven't really figured out that being an atheist means that you don't have to do as much stuff.

I don't know about the Discovery Channel.

Here are some of my thoughts and experiences that I want to share with you: Jesus of my Gospel readings (and I do qualify that) was buried in a known tomb of Joseph of Arimethea. I think of propinquity:

If the tomb wasn't empty, as was preached by the apostles within 15 minutes' distance from the site of the crucifixtion and the private tomb, (sealed by Roman guards), all the authorities had to do was go to the tomb and produce the body. History's silence on this point is telling. There are several other explanations which explain away the resurrection, but, for me, they are unconvincing. Another time, I can tell those. There's something else now.

In Foxe's Book of Martyrs and other historical church documents, we are told that 10 of the 12 disciples were persecuted unto death (in separate places), rather than recant being eyewitnesses to the resurrection. #11, John, died in exile for his testimony on the Isle of Patmos.  #12, Judas,  was the betrayer who sold information about Jesus's whereabouts for 30 piece of silver. His betrayal was known to Jesus and pointed out by Jesus during the Last Supper. 

At the Last Supper, Jesus instituted the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, (in my belief, as a Catholic). Since I was a girl, I have received communion at church on Sundays and I always experience Jesus coming present to me when I take the elements of bread and wine, in remembrance of him, as he asked us to do.  I have experienced this from the time I was 7 years old until now, my adulthood.  I have shared this with people throughout my life who also feel Jesus during Communion (all denominations and even no denomination) and all I can say is that when I hear things about Jesus that are "outside" of experiencing him, it is sort of like reading a map, (some better than others) but not being in the territory. I would never expect someone to accept my experience as definitive, of course, but just to report it is sufficient.

From Luke: "With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.  Then Jesus took the cup and gave thanks and said, "Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes."  And Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them saying, "This is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me." Likewise he also took the cup after supper saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you. But behold the hand of my betayer is with me on the table.  And truly the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!"

Because I was taught those words by (for me) holy people in my life, I try to be careful when I speak about Jesus. Awesome, precious, lovely, how can I express it? Only art and music can do that, but perhaps you can hear me in some small way within your spirit. That would be amazing.

Best wishes,

 Ticia

Re: The Gnostics were an early Christian group that were excluded from the canon.

The Gnostics actually antedate Christianity. They were a sort of fusion of Judaism with various popular mystical notions derived from Platonic philosophy. They later appropriated Jesus as one of their own. And they weren't really suppressed by the Church since the Church in that era had no power: it was being persecuted by Rome itself. Gnosticism was simply too small a cult, and way too elitist since it posited that only a tiny minority of people could gain enlightenment and salavtion. Since christianity was (originally) a universalist and egalitarian cult (it was open to everyone: slaves women, children, foreigners...) it's easy to see why Gnosticism vanished and Christianity succeeded. As for the Gnostic Gospels, with the possible exception of Thomas they all date from much later than the canonical New Testament works.

Devon,

Nothing much at all flows from my atheism, and in any case it doesn't give rise to the practices that characterize religion (I don't hold out hope that there is any higher power that can intercede in the world on my behalf, e.g.).

Atheism could still affect a sense of community.  I like to think that dismissing a system of supernatural rewards and punishments could even lead to a stronger civil ethic. 

Let's not oversell how liberal and humane the Muslim world of 800 years ago was. Like ancient Rome or Greece, we can admire its achievements and find resonance with certain of its philsophical underpinnings, but we wouldn't want to live there. More to the point, there were inherent flaws in that society that led to its being unable to capitalize on its level of civilization scientifically (at the battle of Lepanto, the only good cannons the Ottoman Empire had were ones they had earlier captured from the West; plus ça change) and politically (a few hundred years of decadent decline followed). Where the West has, not without certain major upheavals, developed a system which allows for advancement and self-correction (a rather blithe way to refer to the enormous carnage of, say, the wars of the 20th century; but if the transformation of Germany from Bismarck's time to the present isn't an example of a society figuring out how to fix its worst sicknesses, what is?)

Anyway, it would take a far better read historian than me to make this case in full detail but I cannot help but think that much of what's been healthy and progressive in western culture has some roots in Christianity specifically, even when the Church (or assorted churches) have been regressive and even brutal forces. Islam has had moments of glory but there is very little sign that it has a similar method for learning and improving upon its failures, and all in all, it is surely not a good thing to have had your renaissance first and your dark ages after.

What you say works for you but it subverts the official teaching of the church - that is, that every word in the Bible is divinely inspired. If it isn't divinely inspired, then anyone can take anything from what they read and that robs the church of its power of interpretation and revelation, without which it cannot exist, except perhaps as a social club.

An atheist believes there is no god. 

No. An atheist does not believe that there is a god. Not getting the difference is why believers in god just can't wrap their heads around the way an atheist thinks. It doesn't require faith at all. It is, in fact the absence of faith.

Jan Knaus

Call me a cynic, but I always had trouble with the old testament; where they instruct you how to treat your slaves, and they're always telling you to go "smite" somebody. Just always left a bad taste in my mouth, you know?

Jan Knaus

Re: Frankly, I would really wonder why no one wrote anything at the time, wouldn't you?

If 2000 years had passed, with a chaotic dark age and civilizational collapse during that era, I would not wonder about the lack of contemporary records at all. There are any number of historical figures from the ancient world for whom we have little or no written evidence dating from their own lifetime. When dealing with the distant past, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You're implying the same error that the Creationists make when they complain about the gaps in the fossil record.

Some claim the potter's wheel is the seat of higher learning (mostly potters, of course).  But it's true that if one spends enough time playing with the clay on a spinning disk the mystery of the diameter of that point that the clay spins around hits you.  Hell, even when you arrive at the atomic level of the clay, there's still a point there.

Neoboho

All religions are based entirely on faith, not facts.

I said it below, but I think this distinction is often overstated.  Religious thought is frequently permeable by facts.  Think of the 'Deism' movement among Enlightenment-era philosophes - this was influenced, in part, by the realization that the universe was a closed system, in a sense, operating under certain laws and not, say, by magic.  If it turns out there is a corpse of Christ somewhere, and it's beyond dispute, don't you think that most Christians will incorporate this into their belief system, and develop a less vague doctrine about what the resurrection meant (i.e. that it wasn't bodily in the literal sense)?  Isn't that a form of responsiveness to facts?

I know and enjoy people of many religions, and none have made any effort at all towards converting me to their beliefs, nor have they shown any interest in even discussing the differences in our beliefs. And, in my entire lifetime I have not met a single atheist who said a single word directed towards converting me to "atheism". So, if atheists are evangelistic, they certainly practice a very laid back evangelism.

And, you know as well as I do that not believing something is not a belief. It is the absence of a belief.

Hoppy in Sacramento

And, you know as well as I do that not believing something is not a belief. It is the absence of a belief.

I think this characterization of atheism is wrong, both semantically and psychologically.  At the level of language, you say it's the state of not having a belief, but I would say that atheism is something I believe - in the sense, for instance, that I hold it to reflect a true statement.

Psychologically, most atheists presumably accept that the mind is just the brain.  So every belief is a brain state.  Isn't atheism a psychological state of mine?  If so, isn't it a brain state?  And isn't it probably a very similar one to the brain state that would correspond to believing in God?  So what's the difference?