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I am not responding to anyone who disagrees anymore- this Isn't out of ignorance, it is just that I am tired of all of this. Really am. Here are my final notes on this subject.
Facts- Lots of religious references
I talked to a lot of lawyers on this, not just from AU. They all said it was wrong when shown the script.
This was done in a class.
The alternate assignment was to listen to over 2 hours of music and write about each piece for each week of no opera, and had to be requested after multiple discussions.
He said if you have a question or criticism not to do so.
He said to stop spreading dissent in the choir after I mentioned it to a lawyer at a mock trial meeting and a student overheard
He said he wanted us to be emotionally invested in the story.
He mentioned his religion in context with the opera.
He turned a blind eye to students picking on me. Including singing one of his songs as a death threat toward me. Also, "I want to punch you in the throat" and"If I wouldn't get suspended I would hurt you so bad"
This was for school credit.

My thoughts
This was a religiously motivated piece. It made me feel like an outsider, and made other student bully me because of its message. Everyone was fine with me being an apatheist until this. Then when the dialog was rehearsed I suddenly became the hedonistic sinner. This thing made me have a depressive relapse. I used to enjoy going to school- it was an academic safe haven for me, a place where my religious views didn't matter. Now it is like someone burned a pentagram onto my forehead.

Why did you take the class? Serious question, I'm not trying to be snarky. Did you not know what the play was going to be beforehand? And were you not allowed to drop the class or switch to a different class when you found out?

 Hordini wrote:
Why did you take the class? Serious question, I'm not trying to be snarky. Did you not know what the play was going to be beforehand? And were you not allowed to drop the class or switch to a different class when you found out?

Why should the student have the obligation to drop the class? Avoiding that kind of situation is one of the reasons for enforcing separation of church and state!

 Peregrine wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
Why did you take the class? Serious question, I'm not trying to be snarky. Did you not know what the play was going to be beforehand? And were you not allowed to drop the class or switch to a different class when you found out?

Why should the student have the obligation to drop the class? Avoiding that kind of situation is one of the reasons for enforcing separation of church and state!

Avoiding what kind of situation? A student being uncomfortable with certain subject matter?

I never said the student has the obligation to drop the class. I was asking whether or not it was an option.

If all of that actually happened, you have legitimate lawsuit for good old fashion harassment which would actually be a slam dunk... Why didn't you pursue that? I mean, all you would have to do is be telling the truth right? Most of your items could be corroborated by student and lawyers it seems if true.

You had a much stronger complaint with harassment, and hitting it head on would have given you credibility, now it will come off as possibly manufactured retaliation for a personal grudge after a failed legal attempt.

If you have actual evidence of such harassment at the hands of a faculty member, you should be pursuing legal action right now... That is the real issue here.


News reports said it was a "non graded class" and past establishment cases showed as long as students had access to an alternative lesson, the school was covered, especially in school plays with religious themes like Faust and god spell.

It wasn't a failed legal attempt. It is no longer sponsored by the school. The situation was rectified. And I didn't file a harassment suit because I would prefer to be the victim instead of my attackers facing an overly harsh reprisal. I don't like hurting people.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
It wasn't a failed legal attempt. It is no longer sponsored by the school. The situation was rectified. And I didn't file a harassment suit because I would prefer to be the victim instead of my attackers facing an overly harsh reprisal. I don't like hurting people.

Yeah... THAT's why... When a loosely unconfirmed Jesus wearing glasses and a big nose appears in a play under an alias, you need legal action to protect you and do it in such a way which could probably get faculty fired and hurt hundreds of kids, but when the victim of direct, verifiable, and criminal harassment, you say "I am a martyr and don't want to cause harm to people or get people in trouble."

Sorry, I don't buy it Don Quixote.

nkelsch wrote:

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
It wasn't a failed legal attempt. It is no longer sponsored by the school. The situation was rectified. And I didn't file a harassment suit because I would prefer to be the victim instead of my attackers facing an overly harsh reprisal. I don't like hurting people.

Yeah... THAT's why... When a loosely unconfirmed Jesus wearing glasses and a big nose appears in a play under an alias, you need legal action to protect you and do it in such a way which could probably get faculty fired and hurt hundreds of kids, but when the victim of direct, verifiable, and criminal harassment, you say "I am a martyr and don't want to cause harm to people or get people in trouble."

Sorry, I don't buy it Don Quixote.

If he hadn't done it through legal means, how do you suggest he should've gone about protesting the issue? You'll have to forgive me if there's a lack of sympathy for the possibility of people losing their job due to breaking the law.

Looks like there is a crapton of religion being forced down peoples throats in that school: Atheism.
Atheist zampolits calling out unbelievers for having content that might espouse another faith.

Here is the rub, the formal separation of church and state is a festering ground for militant atheism to flourish unchallenged, because formal separation is often extended to mean formal cleansing and anything even remotely religious can be complained about with legal documents waved about.
We are talking about a Latin Choir. Most of those do have strong religious tones, the music might be very old, but if the singing is in Latin rather than English is doesn't matter really, instead it's classical art or modern art with a classical bent.
Would you deny schools using Handel's Messiah or Bach's Kantanewerks in music or arts class? Both have very clear religious tones of reference but are seen as works of classical music in their own right, and are listened to by people with no formal interest in the Christian faith. Most of the baroque era classical music is religious as is most Latin choral. In fact you would have to eliminate most western music prior to the late 18th century if you were to remeove all regious references. You would keep most of Mozarts work, and a lot of volksopera stuff from the time, but that would be about it.

Does the pursuit of 'reason' and 'separation of church and state' warrant airbrushing out half of the era of classical music from schools? Your society needs to decide that, but if they do then the 'reasoned' athieism movement must shed its enlightenment label and be seen as the closed minded doctrinarians they are.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

nkelsch wrote:

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
It wasn't a failed legal attempt. It is no longer sponsored by the school. The situation was rectified. And I didn't file a harassment suit because I would prefer to be the victim instead of my attackers facing an overly harsh reprisal. I don't like hurting people.

Yeah... THAT's why... When a loosely unconfirmed Jesus wearing glasses and a big nose appears in a play under an alias, you need legal action to protect you and do it in such a way which could probably get faculty fired and hurt hundreds of kids, but when the victim of direct, verifiable, and criminal harassment, you say "I am a martyr and don't want to cause harm to people or get people in trouble."

Sorry, I don't buy it Don Quixote.

If he hadn't done it through legal means, how do you suggest he should've gone about protesting the issue? You'll have to forgive me if there's a lack of sympathy for the possibility of people losing their job due to breaking the law.

But when he has an actual case for criminal harassment, he avoids the law because he doesn't want to cause trouble and he wants to be a victim but does the exact opposite with a vague religious play? I think a teacher who is committing criminal harassment is way more dangerous than a failure of an establishment case which takes intellectual dishonesty to shoehorn Jesus into it. If the teacher is doing what he said, the teacher needs to be fired, he just needs to stand up and be honest like he claims he was with the religious content.

It looks really bad for the OP. He has been found to have lied or extensively mislead everyone with his claims of forced Christianity when impartial groups investigated and the content was laid bare.

And then when exposed, now we get fantastical stories of clear cut harassment the same way we supposedly had clear cut examples of establishing and practicing religion.... But when told to see legal recourse, he declines and claims to like to play the victim.

Sounds like the boy who cried wolf.

Either he is telling the truth and needs to seek legal protection from clear cut criminal harassment... Or he is not fully truthful and might want to seek some medical counseling and find out what is at the root of his Munchausen syndrome.

 Orlanth wrote:
Looks like there is a crapton of religion being forced down peoples throats in that school: Atheism.
Atheist zampolits calling out unbelievers for having content that might espouse another faith.

Here is the rub, the formal separation of church and state is a festering ground for militant atheism to flourish unchallenged, because formal separation is often extended to mean formal cleansing and anything even remotely religious can be complained about with legal documents waved about.
We are talking about a Latin Choir. Most of those do have strong religious tones, the music might be very old, but if the singing is in Latin rather than English is doesn't matter really, instead it's classical art or modern art with a classical bent.
Would you deny schools using Handel's Messiah or Bach's Kantanewerks in music or arts class? Both have very clear religious tones of reference but are seen as works of classical music in their own right, and are listened to by people with no formal interest in the Christian faith. Most of the baroque era classical music is religious as is most Latin choral. In fact you would have to eliminate most western music prior to the late 18th century if you were to remeove all regious references. You would keep most of Mozarts work, and a lot of volksopera stuff from the time, but that would be about it.

Does the pursuit of 'reason' and 'separation of church and state' warrant airbrushing out half of the era of classical music from schools? Your society needs to decide that, but if they do then the 'reasoned' athieism movement must shed its enlightenment label and be seen as the closed minded doctrinarians they are.

Militant atheism ?

I wasn't aware we had an army. Go us ! Lock and load mother fethers, here we come. Hide ya bibles, hide ya tabernacles!



The rest of these points have been addressed in the thread so i won't bother rehashing, but they'd been discussed before. You can read (or ignore) the point and counter point as you choose.


That said, much like the line between art and obscenity is thoroughly blurred a la Potter Stewart, the same can be said for situations like this. There's a very fine line between putting on a piece of art with religious tenor, and promoting religion. Context is huge. If the state is paying a teacher to make a work of art that is religious, using money to provide a venue for that, the dial turns much closer to promotion than art. There's many other contextual indicators too, you can do some research if you like, there's all sorts of info out there.

You can dislike that, but context is a gigantic part of things like this, and like obscenity where there isn't a cut and dry fine line or playbook to go by.


As i mentioned before, both sides had good points adn i think it would have made quite a good case to go to court. As the school moved the venue, the issue is now moot.

Those that get to see the play get to. Those that don't want to see it in school being promoted on them don't have to. Win win, i think, right ? No one is 100% happy which is typically the sign of a good compromise. Or maybe a school that didn't feel like having a constitutional law battle on its hand over this.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nkelsch wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

nkelsch wrote:

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
It wasn't a failed legal attempt. It is no longer sponsored by the school. The situation was rectified. And I didn't file a harassment suit because I would prefer to be the victim instead of my attackers facing an overly harsh reprisal. I don't like hurting people.

Yeah... THAT's why... When a loosely unconfirmed Jesus wearing glasses and a big nose appears in a play under an alias, you need legal action to protect you and do it in such a way which could probably get faculty fired and hurt hundreds of kids, but when the victim of direct, verifiable, and criminal harassment, you say "I am a martyr and don't want to cause harm to people or get people in trouble."

Sorry, I don't buy it Don Quixote.

Either he is telling the truth and needs to seek legal protection from clear cut criminal harassment... Or he is not fully truthful and might want to seek some medical counseling and find out what is at the root of his Munchausen syndrome.

Or, ya know, maybe he's a high school kid who was pretty brave standing up for something he believed in, but has had enough bs for now, and doesn't feel it worth his time or energy to pursue a harassment suit. Maybe he doesn't have the means to pay counsel for that. Maybe he figures the pendulum over I am Martol has had enough of a backswing that he'd like to just, ya know, go back to being a kid.

There's many possible reasons why he would not pursue harassment claims. It may not be as binary as you are attempting to portray the scenario.

People don't report crimes / take cases to civil court all the time because of risk vs. reward reasons. By the looks of it he's had some societal backlash over the I am Martol issue, and maybe being a 16-17 year old kid, he's had enough of that, figures he's sacrificed enough on the altar of standing up for what you believe in.

Guess all schools should stop The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in school because it's a well known fact it has serious religious tones. Or The Lord of the Rings for that matter. Did you have a teacher ask you to read either of those in the past? Maybe you should take them to court too.

It really sounds like you were going out of your way to make sure you saw the Christian tones. Other people are saying they read it and can draw many other non-religious parallels. Translation: it's a thought provoking piece that enables the viewers/listeners to experience what they want to. Which should have been a good thing. Until you made it ugly.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Guess all schools should stop The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in school because it's a well known fact it has serious religious tones. Or The Lord of the Rings for that matter. Did you have a teacher ask you to read either of those in the past? Maybe you should take them to court too.

If Tolkien or Lewis had just written them while being paid for doing so by the state, absolutely. However, those two examples are also important parts of literary history. The play in question isn't.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Guess all schools should stop The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in school because it's a well known fact it has serious religious tones. Or The Lord of the Rings for that matter. Did you have a teacher ask you to read either of those in the past? Maybe you should take them to court too.

If Tolkien or Lewis had just written them while being paid for doing so by the state, absolutely. However, those two examples are also important parts of literary history. The play in question isn't.

That's probably a bad example, since Tolkien and Lewis were both professors at universities that are at least partially publicly funded.

 Hordini wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Guess all schools should stop The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in school because it's a well known fact it has serious religious tones. Or The Lord of the Rings for that matter. Did you have a teacher ask you to read either of those in the past? Maybe you should take them to court too.

If Tolkien or Lewis had just written them while being paid for doing so by the state, absolutely. However, those two examples are also important parts of literary history. The play in question isn't.

That's probably a bad example, since Tolkien and Lewis were both professors at universities that are at least partially publicly funded.

They didn't use their writing in class though, did they?

 Hordini wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Guess all schools should stop The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in school because it's a well known fact it has serious religious tones. Or The Lord of the Rings for that matter. Did you have a teacher ask you to read either of those in the past? Maybe you should take them to court too.

If Tolkien or Lewis had just written them while being paid for doing so by the state, absolutely. However, those two examples are also important parts of literary history. The play in question isn't.

That's probably a bad example, since Tolkien and Lewis were both professors at universities that are at least partially publicly funded.

At British universities where there is no American constitution to worry about, and generally writing in their own time.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Guess all schools should stop The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in school because it's a well known fact it has serious religious tones. Or The Lord of the Rings for that matter. Did you have a teacher ask you to read either of those in the past? Maybe you should take them to court too.

If Tolkien or Lewis had just written them while being paid for doing so by the state, absolutely. However, those two examples are also important parts of literary history. The play in question isn't.

That's probably a bad example, since Tolkien and Lewis were both professors at universities that are at least partially publicly funded.

They didn't use their writing in class though, did they?

Being a professor entails a lot of work beyond teaching classes - including writing and research. I don't know for a fact if they did use their writing in class or not, but it would not surprise me in the least if they did. It's a pretty common practice.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
At British universities where there is no American constitution to worry about, and generally writing in their own time.

Professors are paid to write and do research, and both of them wrote prolifically. And the American constitution is not something you need to worry about. It's a comfort, really.

 Orlanth wrote:
Looks like there is a crapton of religion being forced down peoples throats in that school: Atheism.

First, atheism is a religion in the same way that "bald" is a hair color.

Second, there's a huge difference between "we're not going to talk about god" and "let's talk about how god doesn't exist". Actual "militant atheism" (the second case) is just as unconstitutional as "militant Christianity" and would be treated exactly the same way. However, not getting to have your Christian beliefs/symbols/etc in public schools does not mean that anyone is saying "these are wrong" and promoting atheism.

Would you deny schools using Handel's Messiah or Bach's Kantanewerks in music or arts class?

No, because those are works of significant academic value and it's very clearly possible to cover them without endorsing their religious content. The key difference here, as we've explained multiple times already, is that the play is the teacher's own work. That changes the situation from "here's something in the textbook, and I'm not going to tell you my personal beliefs about its religious content" to "here's something I've written based on my religious beliefs, now I'm going to tell you all about it". Nobody could plausibly argue that they feel compelled to go along with Handel's religious beliefs just because they learn about his music, but that's much less true when the creator of the work is the person deciding your grade.

I think that's a spurious argument, especially considering that many academics use portions of their own books and articles in classes they teach, or have books and articles that are readily available, so that it is very straightforward to figure out where their opinion lies, even if they don't directly tell you.

Plenty of universities have courses taught by writers in residence or artists in residence, where the entire course is literally centered on works created by the person deciding your grade.

 Hordini wrote:
I think that's a spurious argument, especially considering that many academics use portions of their own books and articles in classes they teach, or have books and articles that are readily available, so that it is very straightforward to figure out where their opinion lies, even if they don't directly tell you.

That's not at all the same kind of situation for two reasons:

1) If the only way I know what a teacher's religious beliefs are is to go outside the class and look up something they've written elsewhere then separation of church and state is still maintained. In fact, because they've kept their beliefs out of the classroom so effectively, I have good reason to believe that they're doing so deliberately because they understand that their personal life is supposed to be separate from their teaching. So I have no reason to be worried about getting fair treatment from them.

2) The vast majority of the time a teacher's books/articles/etc have no controversial material. For example, my professor using their own textbook on Verilog programming didn't create any potential for unfairness because it was strictly factual material and nothing in it could conflict with my personal beliefs. But that's not the case with the play, which contained elements that people would have strong feelings about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hordini wrote:
Plenty of universities have courses taught by writers in residence or artists in residence, where the entire course is literally centered on works created by the person deciding your grade.

But do they include religious elements?

Also, "other people do something inappropriate" isn't justification for doing something inappropriate yourself.

 Peregrine wrote:

Spoiler:

 Hordini wrote:
I think that's a spurious argument, especially considering that many academics use portions of their own books and articles in classes they teach, or have books and articles that are readily available, so that it is very straightforward to figure out where their opinion lies, even if they don't directly tell you.

That's not at all the same kind of situation for two reasons:

1) If the only way I know what a teacher's religious beliefs are is to go outside the class and look up something they've written elsewhere then separation of church and state is still maintained. In fact, because they've kept their beliefs out of the classroom so effectively, I have good reason to believe that they're doing so deliberately because they understand that their personal life is supposed to be separate from their teaching. So I have no reason to be worried about getting fair treatment from them.

2) The vast majority of the time a teacher's books/articles/etc have no controversial material. For example, my professor using their own textbook on Verilog programming didn't create any potential for unfairness because it was strictly factual material and nothing in it could conflict with my personal beliefs. But that's not the case with the play, which contained elements that people would have strong feelings about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hordini wrote:
Plenty of universities have courses taught by writers in residence or artists in residence, where the entire course is literally centered on works created by the person deciding your grade.

But do they include religious elements?

Also, "other people do something inappropriate" isn't justification for doing something inappropriate yourself.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Looks like there is a crapton of religion being forced down peoples throats in that school: Atheism.

First, atheism is a religion in the same way that "bald" is a hair style.

Hair colour is a skewed way of looking at it, because absent isn't a colour, but it is a style.
Bald and haircut occupy the same place, if you assigned a number to evenry haircut and a 0 for bald, bald would still be a number.
Consequently if you applies a hair colour to a number then agai you get a number rating of zero for atheist, still a number.

Atheists often use the myth that their belief system is not a belief system in order to foster preferential treatment with regard to issues where religion is seperate.

Atherism is very much a religion in terms of its beleif system and usage.
- It relies on the faith based idea that there is no God.
- It has components of all the facets of a major religion, including fanaticism, doctrinarianism, martyrdom and saintdom.

 Peregrine wrote:

Second, there's a huge difference between "we're not going to talk about god" and "let's talk about how god doesn't exist".

There is not so much difference.
"We're not going to talk about God", uses the collective we and makes demands of everyone else, that is militant atheism.
Proporting religion and talking about God are two different things. God is a point of reference in much poetry and art, thee can be experienced without trying to actively convert anyone.

What atheists extremists want to do is to remove all reference to God from schools, which is a totally different thing from preventing the proliferation of religion.

 Peregrine wrote:

Actual "militant atheism" (the second case) is just as unconstitutional as "militant Christianity" and would be treated exactly the same way. However, not getting to have your Christian beliefs/symbols/etc in public schools does not mean that anyone is saying "these are wrong" and promoting atheism.

The specific withdrawal is notable and noticable. By removing religious art from schools raises the question as to why. Educational subject material is most often redacted due to error so it places an error label on religious works.

 Peregrine wrote:

Would you deny schools using Handel's Messiah or Bach's Kantanewerks in music or arts class?

No, because those are works of significant academic value and it's very clearly possible to cover them without endorsing their religious content.

Again how

 Peregrine wrote:

Nobody could plausibly argue that they feel compelled to go along with Handel's religious beliefs just because they learn about his music, but that's much less true when the creator of the work is the person deciding your grade.

Here you are not criticisng the work presented, you are criticising the belief system of the teacher assuming, without evidence, that because they are religious they cannot assess students work impartially.
That is just blatant unwarranted discrimination.

There is nothing to suggest that a Latin choral, and therefore a work based on the usual religious themes of the artistic type cannot be assessed for its musical qualities.
It is ignorant revisionism to remove Latin choral from the canon of human art.
The teacher should be commended for keeping the religious elements entirely in Latin.


Besides in the UK and many other countries we had religious assembly, no Latin choral but stuff very similar sung in our own language. Those had no bearing on when I became a Christian, and were attended by people of other faiths. This was the 70's when things were a lot less prissy than today.
Having a school chastised because a teacher included unwanted religious references, in another language, in an arts class is the sort of gak you expect from countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran.
If you take the reaction tom this school performance and replace atheism with Islam and no-God with Mohammed and the reactions we are seeing would be plain as day for everyone.

Well done America, your atheist movement has going from infancy to religious police state without going through a period of enlightenment.

You're going to have to spin a lot harder than that to turn atheism into a religion.

What's the creed or central tenant(s) of atheism?
What are the moral rules of atheism?

Further, atheism isn't founded in faith, but in its absence.

I've met atheists who had an absolute faith there is no God.

Without that they would be agnostics.

 CptJake wrote:
I've met atheists who had an absolute faith there is no God.

Without that they would be agnostics.

Maybe unshakeable belief, but not absolute faith. Faith is sort of a loaded term and not one correctly applied to atheists beliefs.

Faith in the religious usage of the word: strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.
(https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=definition+of+faith) in case anyone thinks i'm using a pejorative form of the word.

Atheism is the diametric opposite of that ; there is no spiritual apprehension in atheism. It is not the belief that "there is no god". It is the complete lack of belief in anthropomorphic beings (vis-a-vis, "gods").
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=atheism

Agnosticism is something completely different. Agnostics believe that the spiritual is unknowable, but there in some form.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=agnosticism


Subtle but sure difference. Not trying to be an asshat, but as an atheist (and one that tries not to be super douchey about it), there's a distinct difference between "not believing in a god" and "lacking any belief in god(s)". And the gulf between Agnosticism and Atheism is pretty big too. One is completely open to the idea of gods but finds the notion almost alien and uncomprehensible, the other lacks the belief in god(s) in any form.

I only bring it up because just like there's differences between Catholics, Southern Baptists, Judaism, Orthodox Judaism, etc., there's distinctions on this side of the fence as well.

I have no doubt you've met some super douchey atheists out there who love nothing more than to shout their beliefs from the rooftops and get into theological arguments with religious adherents, but like all people and all people of different belief structures, there's dickheads within any belief structure, whether it is hyper organized, or disjointed. Saying they have "faith" though is sort of an oxymoron. It is exactly the lack of faith (from the religious useage of the word, not the one meaning synonymous with "trust") that is the defining characteristic of an Atheist, and one of the main separators from Agnosticism. But for that lack of faith, I would almost dare say that Atheism would not be a thing, and you'd be correct, they would be Agnostic.
that complete lack of faith (vis-a-vis, "belief") in a god is the defining characteristic of an Atheists "belief" structure though. So it's an important distinction.

I typically can't stand super vocal atheists as much as faith believers, fwiw. It seems to me atheists that bang the drum and have to take every opportunity to caustically engage faith believers are doing more to try to reaffirm to themselves what they've chosen to believe rather than being something they really do believe. It's fine to discuss, but when atheists use "I'm an atheist..." as the proverbial loading of the canon, then that's just crossing into jerk territory.


Anywho... sorry to veer a bit off topic. I though the clarification worthwhile to the tangential discussion though.

Faith: Complete trust or confidence in someone or something

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/faith

Pretty sure that definition fits exactly what I meant.

Yes, your definition, specific to religion, is different, BUT that definition is secondary/based on the first, with the subject of the 'complete trust or confidence' being in 'God exists'.

At least some of the atheists I have met have absolute faith (complete trust or confidence) God does not exist.

Absolute faith despite the evidence that He does exist?

I have absolute faith that the inland revenue exists. Does that make paying taxes a religion?

Not sure who you are asking that of. I never claimed atheism was a religion, and I never claimed there was evidence God exists.

I pointed out:

"At least some of the atheists I have met have absolute faith (complete trust or confidence) God does not exist. "

and provided the definition of faith I used. Go play with your straw man some other place.

Others did though and your remarks about the nature of faith and religion cannot be read in a vacuum. This thread is a conversation, after all.

The default state of being is that there is nothing. it is only through experiencing things that we can challange that state.

I have not experienced anything that leads me to think that any supernatural forces or beings exist, therefore I do not need to believe there are no such things any more than I need to not believe in unicorns, teapots orbiting pluto or honest politicians.

Lack of belief is not belief in lack.