I'm not at all sure that having Faith as defined by religion could possibly be construed as less demanding a standard than having faith in observable factual evidence or that the two are even remotely equal but. . . you are welcome to your beliefs.

Honestly, I don't. I was just observing the logic that you can't prove a negative (God doesn't exist), whereas you can prove a positive (God does exist). According to the rigors of logic you can find proof that God exists, whereas you can't find proof he doesn't exist. Thus, it would seemingly be easier to believe in God. Like I said, I don't really believe that. I think practically they're probably equivalent. You could examine it from a psychological perspective, but I have neither the time nor the desire to do that.

If the term "monkey " refers to "a group of families of the primate order" how is that not a broad general classification ?

And then by that standard is it not then correct to say that we evolved from
a " group of the primate order" ?

If you are using typical laymen terminology and referring to modern day chimpanzees when you say Monkey, clearly thats incorrect. But I don't know anyone who has even the most remedial understanding of evolution that mixes that up. Usually that is a deliberately fallacious assault by creationists to attempt to bolster their own beliefs.

I would agree with your rigors of logic argument in a broad sense. And the widely divergent beliefs of how god is defined lend to the difficulty in applying a strict test.
Though I'm sure you've heard the adage about square circles. If you define god with a jumble of quite contradictory attributes it's not a stretch to say that it is provable that does not exist.

in the long run, they very much are equivalent, because both types of believers completely discard rational thought. the fact that someone's closely-held dogmatic belief happens to line up with currently-accepted scientific principles doesn't change the fact that they are the type of person who believes dogmatically. they'll vote for a liberal candidate simply because the candidate is liberal, no matter what else that candidate stands for or what his track record is. they'll reject and ridicule a person of faith simply because that person has faith, no matter how intelligent or well-spoke that person of faith might be. they're just as much of a drain on and a cancer in society as the fundamentalist who dogmatically votes Republican and supports intelligent design in schools.

just pointing out that the specificity was there from the get-go.

the term monkey refers to a specific group of families of the primate order, which does not include hominidae, the apes.

No it is not correct to say that we evolved from 'a group of the primate order', it is correct to say that we share a common ancestor with other hominidae which are a group of the primate order. And much further back, hominidae share an ancestor with other groups of primates such as monkeys, but that common ancestor was not a member of the monkey group of families (monkeys, as a group of families had not yet evolved).

But this is nitpicking really.

In the extreme case of people discarding rational thought, then i guess you have a point. But this is really stating that you get irrational people who queue up behind both religion and science. Fine, I'll agree that irrational and dogmatic believers are unhelpful, and are distributed across all belief systems. But, it does not follow that all people who believe scientific explanations without fully understanding them are dogmatic in their beliefs.

A common situation is that someone just takes a "scientist's word for it", which is not the same as discarding rationality, and it is not the same as taking a religious leader's word for it. For example, I have not personally verified the temperature of the cosmic microwave background, I have taken someone else's word for it. I follow the logic that both the value and uniformity of this temperature supports inflationary big bang theory. I have not discarded rationality.
Similarly, I believe the explanation of why my CD player works. I have not verified it personally, but I know that in principle it can be verified. This is not equivalent to someone who believes that god makes the CD player work, because that cannot in principle be verified. One kind of trust is testable, whereas the other is not.

+1,000,000

Fundamentalists, be they Southern Baptist, Mormon, Hindu, Voodoo, Fruedian, Communists, Libertarians or Atheist (and yes, they do exist), and so forth, are equal threats in my mind. All are close minded to anything which falls outside of their intellectual vision and contribute nothing to the conversation which needs to exist in this world.
Although I would never go so far as to say that extremism is inherently wrong, I think its safe to say that Fanaticism is.

there's certainly more to being a dogmatic atheist than not knowing how your cd player works, i agree, just as there's more to being a dangerous fundamentalist than simply believing in god. it's ultimately a matter of how a person actually interacts with society in general--which is why i contend (one could even say i believe!) that what a person believes is not nearly as important as how they believe it.

except for scientologists. those guys need jesus.

That example, sadly, doesn't hold much water, and you know it. Name me one person who would argue that the sole motivating factor behind a CD player working, is God?
I can't think of a single one. And that includes me on a bad day when my CD player isn't working! In such cases, I'm more willing to attest the lack of functionality upon the little devils who are constantly breaking my electronics in order to make my life a living hell. Bastards took out my brand new microwave a few weeks ago
Now, one COULD make the argument that God is the initial factor behind the CD player working. Namely, that if a God exists and created the universe as we see it, then such God also put into place the physical laws which allow your CD player to work (when the Devils don't get to it, that is!). In such an argument, God would not be the direct motivator of the CD player working, but would be responsible for it.

My problem with those who try to argue against the existence of of a God (besides the fact that so many of them seem to be hell-bound in continually attacking other's faith or, just as bad, staring down their nose at someone for possessing said faith) is that they continually direct their attacks against some pop-culture image of 'God' as a sage, bearded man in the sky who shoots lightening out of his finger-tips, and expresses conscious agency in every disaster or turn of good luck.
That is, as one of my gad professors would say, setting up a 'straw man'; a target which, on the face of it, looks reasonable, but which is easy to knock over. A straw man argument really adds nothing to the dialog and is inherently worthless.
Furthermore, this painfully light target that people like to go after, belongs almost exclusively to Western thought and does not take into considering Eastern or aboriginal notions of god and divinity.

My own personal experience with the military is that atheism/agnostocism is treated with mild indifference. I never experienced any kind of flak for my own lack of belief in One True God (I'm pretty much Agnostic with Unitarian leanings....)

There certainly are evangelical types in the military (just like in American society as a whole) and people of faith tend to have it intensified when in a combat zone, but I've never seen anyone who was Christian create an negative or dangerous environment for a non-Christian. I imagine that if you are derisive or dismissive of their faith then you are likely to be ill recieved and may get something bak from that.

It just seems really far fetched that fundie Army members are gunning it out for this guy. It's far more likely that he'd be in danger for jumping the chain of command and taking his grievances....in essence...all the way to the top the way he did.

If he was being pressured or attacked for being atheist, then he absolutely should do something about it.

But my tendency is to believe that the truth is somewhere in the middle. Probably he felt disrespected or persecuted and rather than address it in the time-consuming, proper form...he went straight to the sure fire way to make a lot of people look bad...and consequently earn himself no sympathy from within the Army.

Spc. Hall's own accusations are pretty vague. He'd almost have been better off if Maj. Welborne had written him up for holding a meeting of atheists...because otherwise...there's really no proof that he's been harrassed. I'd also like to know what the "harrasment" entailed.

That's unbelievable o_O

I hope that guy ends up with lots of money.

My example of the CD player was merely a simple example, I did not mean to suggest that religious people think their CD player is controlled by god. It was an attempt to make the point that one does not need to have personally verified a scientific explanation for it to reasonable to accept it. Real world examples are global climate change, or evolution. I do not need to personally verify the evidence in each case, either in climatology or the fossil record, to reasonably accept the conclusions that are drawn from it. All I ask is that it is in principle possible to verify it, and that the verification process be described on demand. For the conclusions to be valid I simply require that no other model can explain/predict the evidence, and that said model should be in principle falsifiable.

I'm interested by your invocation of the straw man though. You see, you have accused someone of characterising god in a specific way and then argued against it, calling that characterisation a 'straw man'. Which you then knock down. No-one here has characterised god in any way, so who has made the straw man argument in this case? I think it may be you.

I'm not fussed what kind of god anyone believes in, it makes no difference to me, as long as they don't suggest that their inherently unfalsifiable explanation of the way the world is carries the same weight as one which can be falsified, but hasn't been. I see no explanatory benefit of including a divine entity of any sort in a description/understanding of the world.