I agree with your position, George.
I don’t even believe in the designations, “atheist”, “believer” or “nonbeliever,” as vested uniquely in individual worldviews—as if each one of us interrogates reality from some impartial perspective!
I’ve been trying to make the point that to be a materialist/atheist is logically to deny the centricity of individual being and subscribe to the individual psyche as “decentred” : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antihumanism
Unfortunately most atheists I encounter haven’t thought this through, and so their (often rabid) convictions and naïve assertions of intellectual-independence are akin to a belief system, and even narcissism—although hopefully not the malignant kind—wherein everything is related to the ego. Such an egocentric worldview properly demands the concept of immortal soul (and God to temper it), though what seems to suffice for, let’s call them the “militant atheists” (as opposed to agnostics), is our dominant free-market logic. Much as its minions congratulate themselves on their unmanacled minds, they’re as manacled as ever, merely a shrill expression of their materialist culture, wherein the bogus chant of “freedom” spreads like Dawkins’s memes and adherents crow their ideology with all the autonomy of caged Cocks.

I hope, mac, this also addresses your last to me:
< I understand your position, for me, there's no proof or even evidence of any supernatural reality, of course I can't disprove its existence either, however the onus is on the believer. My point was that some people, probably a minority, are born materialists>
How can we be “born” materialists—or believers for that matters?

Dear david f,

Speaking of playing with words, you just replaced the verb “believe” with “think” in Dawkins’ description of what HE believes (I agree that one cannot make sweeping statements about what is an atheist’s belief system), which in my understanding means the same thing, unless… Unless one speaks in a strictly religious context, where belief is often confused with faith, since many languages do not have different words for the two, hence “I believe in one God, etc.” says more than just “I believe (or think) that a God exists, etc.” As you know, e.g. in German (more than in English), “I believe” is synonymous with “I think”.

I certainly would not mind if you quoted one of my worldview presuppositions as “I think there is a Reality (in particular what the Abrahamic religions call God) that is not reducible (I prefer this to “beyond”) to the natural, physical world”.

>>He (Dawkins) thinks that way because there is no credible evidence for such concepts. Belief is not evidence.”<<
As pointed out above, these things depend on the meaning of the term “evidence”; and “credible” is rather subjective. Usually one says that one knows, rather than believes, things for which there is credible evidence. Of course, I agree that “belief is not evidence”: after all e.g. Russell called his book “What I believe” and not “What I find evidence for”.

If all the difference between Dawkins and e.g. myself is that in these matters we think/believe differently, there wouldn't be a problem. The problem is with zealots on both sides of the divide who think their worldview entitles them to denigrate - as irrational, immoral, superstitious, etc - those who think/believe differently believing/thinking that this may convert those others, i.e. make them change the presuppositions (about what they believe/think about reality).
(ctd)

(ctd)
Thus the difference between the two metaphors - not speaking English, and not collecting stamps - is that most everybody speaks some language whereas not everybody is a collector. I indeed believe/think that everybody has a worldview built around a system of a priori presuppositions. For instance, the belief in the “natural order” of science or the knowability (to some extent) of the physical world are presupposition that most of us share. Also, there are different philosophies (of science) that are built on different beliefs about the nature of (physical) reality, etc. However, I think we have been into this before.

mac,
I don’t think you understood what I wrote. Apparently my fault, sorry for that. If you are still interested, please read what david f - an atheist from whom I have learned a lot about how to formulate my own worldview, the same Squeers - wrote and my response.

Squeers,

I should state that I've no interest whatsoever in philosophical discussions in regard to the existence of a deity, or on human nature, in my opinion it's a waste of time, my approach to the questions is based on what I understand of the relevant science. So the references are scientific.

"How can we be “born” materialists—or believers for that matters?"

If you are interested in the explanation read-

'Why we believe in god/s" by J.Anderson Thomson explains the evolutionary reasons why most humans are programmed to believe. It's a rather slim volume, but it's a useful summary of the recent research. Part of the reason is that people see agency behind natural phenomena and contrive "explanations", so in a pre-scientific age the result is religion.

There are also some articles in the "New Scientist" magazine archives which also describe research on the subject of the origins of religion and belief in the supernatural. There is a minority of people (like me) that doesn't appear to have a sense of the numinous, we're "born materialists" in other words.

George,

The main problem is that you insist that atheism is a belief system, it is not

Dear George,

You are right. We have been over this before, and it seems pointless to me to go over it again.

Enjoy your life, and be well.

mac,

>>The main problem is that you insist that atheism is a belief system<<
Could you, please, quote me where I said such a nonsense?