How can anybody believe in religion?

[Atom Smasher]

This is a fine post sir. A fine damn post.

When believers chastise atheists for their "arrogance" in non belief I don't even think they see the irony in what they're doing.

Let's be clear and accurate here.

Arrogance is declaring knowledge of something that cannot be known by man because he was not there and has absolutely no means to know it. He can only speculate.

The arrogance doesn't come from non-belief. Declaring non-belief is intellectually honest. It is an honestly held belief. A man's declaration that he somehow "knows" that which is unknowable is what is arrogant.

There is no irony. I personally would never chastise non-belief. If the person was willing, I would rationally discuss it with him, but I would respect his belief (even if I thought it was a mistaken belief). However, when someone shouts out "I know there is no God" similar to the way a child (or often, a woman) would declare their "facts", I take them to task and expose the fact that they are simply shooting from the hip because they are given to unbridled emotion about the subject. Children (especially teens) "know" everything, because "it must be so". An adult who acts in the same fashion is arrested in that dynamic.

This thread has run its course. Everybody has had their say.