Right, I was about to go to bed, but let's see how far I get on this before I do.
That's a bit presumptuous. To the best of my knowledge we've never even met.
I have been actively involved in the education of Jews of all stripes (especially those with a built-in apathy or antipathy to theology) for the last 11 years.
That's nice.
I have had a lot of time to reflect on your position [...]
You've never spoken to me. You have no idea what my position is.
[...]I'd like to offer a few general observations that I've culled from my experience over the years - not to convince you to change your mind (which, I've discovered, is close to impossible)[...]
Indeed. This is because there is no evidence for the existence of God. If there were, my mind would be incredibly easy to change.
[...]and not to judge your choices[...]
I honestly wouldn't care if you did.
[...]but rather so that we can understand each other better and possibly "walk back" some of the clamorous dialogue.
"Clamorous dialogue"? Are you sure you're not thinking of someone else?
Certainly we can open by agreeing that all human beings should be respected and, assuming no egregious misdeeds, treated with civility.
Define "respected". Do you mean that we should respect everybody else's beliefs? Then, no, I don't agree. We should respect their right to hold those beliefs, but not necessarily the beliefs themselves. And, of course, if those beliefs are of the nature that they believe they should harm others, then we shouldn't grant them the right to act on those beliefs.
The first point I'd like to explore is that there really are no true atheists.
Yes there are.
It seems to me that in order to claim with certainty that there is no God[...]
You don't need to claim with certainty that there is no God in order to be an atheist. You just need have no belief in God.
[...]you would have to have knowledge of the totality of the universe - seen and unseen - and I don't think any of you guys are ready to make that claim.
Correct. This is also why we don't claim 100% certainty that we know that the sun will rise tomorrow. We can simply say that it is so incredibly unlikely that it won't that we might as well say that it will, unless we're needing to be scrupulously precise for some reason, or are playing semantic games.
You have not observed an overarching creative force, a God ... yet.
Nor will I ever. However, it is presumptuous of you to assume that I have never had an experience which I interpreted as such.
Being a rationalist, of course, you know that failing to make such an observation is different from proving that there isn't one, which, by its very nature, is an impossible task.
Indeed. We can, though, use logic, reason and empiricism to determine that such an observation is so incredibly unlikely that we might as well call it impossible.
(You will counter that definitively proving the existence of God on purely rational grounds is similarly impossible, which, for the sake of argument, I will concede.)
No I wouldn't because that's a stupid argument. Proving the existence of God on purely rational grounds would be possible if God existed.
Given this, your assumption of the title, "atheist" isn't so much a statement of fact as it is a statement of principle, or intent -- a nom de guerre.
No, it's because I know what the word means and it accurately describes my beliefs.
To define oneself as simply agnostic (which I believe you truly are)[...]
I am agnostic. I'm an agnostic atheist. I am without belief in Gods, but I must recognise the infinitesimal possibility that I'm wrong, just as I must admit the infinitesimal possibility that I'm actually in the Matrix. Or a butterfly dreaming it's a man. Or whatever.
Try looking the words you're using up.
[...]sounds unsatisfingly wishy-washy and degrades your ability to take a firm stand against deism, in its various forms.
I have no firm stand against deism. I just don't believe the observable facts support it.
While this is certainly understandable, I suspect that you have traded accuracy for titular intensity.
I suspect you don't know what the words "atheist" or "agnostic" really mean.
You may want to counter that you have many well-regarded and brilliant personalities who have provided more than sufficient evidence to knock theism back to the Bronze Age where it belongs.
No, I don't have anyone. I am not part of a collective, I am an individual. I was an atheist long before I heard of the names you mention, of those I've only read Dawkins, and I find his writing style to be unsatisfying and not as convincing as he evidently thinks it is - this applies to his books on biology as well as theology.
Hitchens, Dawkins, Weinberg, et al are big time, unapologetic, capital "A" atheists.
This is entirely irrelevant to my beliefs.
I've read many of their books and found much of them to be polemics against Christianity and ill-conceived take downs of classical philosophical and scientific arguments that make the idea of a Creator seem more than plausible.
This sentence is rather garbled and it makes it sound like Dawkins is arguing for the existence of God.
See here for a great rebuttal of Dawkin's "The Ultimate 747 Argument."
No thanks. I can't specifically remember that argument of Dawkins but, seeing as my lack of belief isn't based on what Dawkins has to say and that I found some of his arguments unconvincing, that someone has rebutted Dawkins (whether they have done so well or incompetently) has no bearing on my lack of belief.
But even if the arguments were more persuasive and comprehensive, surely you are aware that believers are ready to parry with many philosophers and scientists of our own, people like Anthony Flew, the Oxford philosopher and sparring partner of C.S. Lewis (who was a pillar of academic atheism until he reversed his position late in his life), theoretical physicist Dr. Andrew Goldfinger, and the mathematical physicist and cosmologist Frank Tipler.
I'm not appealing to authority, so I don't think that you doing so makes for a convincing case.
You will quote your expert and I will quote mine.
Actually, I won't quote anyone, expert or not. And nobody is mine.
Strangely, they disagree ... utterly.
They're defined by their opposition to each other. Why is it surprising they disagree?
At the end of the day, it's always going to be a draw, each of us convinced that our own arguments are superior and that the other is (perhaps willfully) missing the point.
If we are quoting so-called "experts", then we are not presenting our own arguments at all.
Having spent a sizable portion of my life as an atheist, I understand your perspective.
There's no reason to assume that your experience as an atheist was the same as mine. My life is my life and yours is yours.
What I have found hard to understand from my new vantage point, however, is why so many of you spend so much time trolling around the comments section of religiously-themed blogs or spend good money to buy billboards on the Jersey Turnpike asserting a negative.
Don't look at me. That's not my thing.
Wouldn't it make much more sense to just chuckle knowingly to yourselves and shake your heads at our folly in the way you might with children who believe they have magic powers?
You are not a child, are you? The same standards should not apply.
Incidentally, if I did have children, I would try to teach them critical thinking, and to be an empiricist. There's no need to invent magic when the world around us is so full of amazing things.
Yet, many of you seem to have a big axe to grind, and I only recently realized why.
Do tell.
You believe that we are ruining the world and stunting its progress.
Actually, that is a good point. Yes. Not the majority of you, but it's certainly true that religion is doing that in the world today, and has done so in the past.
You will point out all of the violence carried out in religion's name.
Yup, that seems fair enough.
We will point out that equally severe evils have been perpetrated by secularists such as Hitler, Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot.
Of those, only Mao and Stalin actually claimed non-religion as a reason/excuse for what they were perpetrating.
You deride us as anti-science, to which we respond that we're really not, but, rather, see scientific proof and inquiry as subject to certain inherent limits.
I wouldn't deride every religious person as anti-science, no. But there is certainly a large anti-science movement within various religions. Creationism is probably the most topical example at the moment, but there are more.
You do not find our responses any more compelling than we find your criticisms to be insightful.
This is true.
To me, however, the crux of the matter is incontrovertible. It is not the product of rational argument, nor expression of faith, but simple historical fact. The faith to which I ascribe has brought substantial light and unique meaning to the world.
If by "substantial light" you mean that it has been positive for some people, then yes. "Unique meaning" seems like a nonsense phrase, but I would argue that the important thing about finding "meaning" in the world would be that that "meaning" is true.
Some great thinkers readily embrace this idea. Have a look at this quote from British historian Paul Johnson:
The Paul Johnson who described trade unionists as "fascists"? The Paul Johnson who bemoans the modern world for its lack of morality, yet who carried on an 11 year extra-marital affair? The Paul Johnson who is a lifelong Catholic and who was educated in a Jesuit school?
I'm not sure he's really impartial in the matter. I have no idea why I should trust what he has to say.
"To them (the Jews) we owe the idea of equality before the law, both divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of human person; of the individual conscience and so of personal redemption; of collective conscience and so of social responsibility; of peace as an abstract ideal and love as the foundation of justice, and many other items which constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind. Without Jews it might have been a much emptier place."
I'd love to see the evidence supporting these assertions and the context in which it was written. As it is, it seems doubtful to me.
But let's assume it's not - so what?
Given this historical reality, since you're a rationalist who bases your world view on empiric evidence, could you be open to the possibility that religion isn't inherently bad?
I've never claimed it was inherently bad. That doesn't mean it's true.
As an empiricist, you are only prepared to believe in that which can be seen or measured.
Yes.
You don't enjoy my conviction that there are aspects of existence that are, by their nature, beyond the reach of science.
I'm not sure I could be said to "enjoy" anyone's conviction of anything. But I don't believe your conviction to be true.
Good.
So when we Theists look carefully at the astounding complexity and improbable fine-tuning of our universe and conclude that there's no way that this happened randomly, you then turn around and ask us to accept that it is the result of undetectable organizational forces or of an un-testable (and thus non-scientific) multiverse.
No I don't. I say that there's no evidence to support the God hypothesis, but that there are hypotheses which go some way to explaining these things without God.
Isn't your argument every bit an assertion of faith, rather than knowledge?
It would be if I were making an assertion.
Maybe we can at least agree that forces unseen, however we conceive of them, seem to be playing a major role in our lives?
Only if by "forces unseen" you mean "events before the Big Bang", and add the caveat that because time started in the Big Bang itself that there may indeed never have been a "before" so perhaps these "forces unseen" didn't actually play any role in our lives because they didn't exist at all.
Charles Darwin added three interesting quotes to later editions of the Origin of Species. Of these, the third, from Francis Bacon's Advancement of Learning, is especially revealing:
"To conclude, therefore, let no man out of a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain that a man can search too far or be too well-studied in the book of God's word, or in the book of God's works; divinity and philosophy; but rather let men endeavor an endless progress or proficiency in both."
Charles Darwin did not believe in God. The smallest amount of research from an unbiased source would have shown you that.
If Darwin himself could find room for belief in a God and stay faithful to his discoveries[...]
He couldn't. His observations of nature were amongst the chief reasons he lost his faith.
[...]maybe the common ground is much bigger than we currently imagine.
Tell that to the Creationists.
We still have a lot to discuss.
Do we?
Let's do it with a caring heart, and open mind and a spirit of appreciation for our shared humanity.
An "open mind" means being prepared to be swayed by evidence, no matter if that evidence points towards a conclusion you don't believe in, or don't want to believe in. I already have one of those. Present me with some evidence.
Compare that to politicians flat-out stating "If you're not a theist you shouldn't be considered a citizen" (paraphrasing, but not by much). The real issue is, as sadhatter said, that we're starting to treat theism as we treat any other idea, and theists don't like it. 
