The thiests believe in God without any proof whatsoever.

The athiests don't.

Here is how the OED defines "atheism":

atheism Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a god.

Boaz's comment "The atheist is usually just an agnostic. For an atheist's position to be viable..they would indeed have to have checked all that is in the Universe to establish 'There is no God'.

Is equivalent to saying "The Christian is usually just an agnostic. For an christian's position to be viable..they would indeed have to have checked all that is in the Universe to establish 'There is a God'.

I don't believe in the tooth fairy in the absence of proof to the contrary.

Does belief in God require the suspension of logic? It would appear so.

Sells, I'm not sure I am following your reasoning. When you say
"Of course, those on the side of God’s existence pointed to the marvellous complexity of the universe, of nature and the human body which produced the argument from design much loved of creationists. But that only made matters worse because this made God necessary for the existence and order of the world and again God became trapped in mechanism."

How does God being necessary for the existence of the world make God trapped in mechanism?? Honestly, I just can't see the flow of logical argument here....

Impersonator, you've suggested that Sellick is a "moron" for "dismissing" the new atheists.

Firstly, he didn't "dismiss" anyone, he merely mentioned them in passing, presumably due to the massive amounts of attention they've received recently.

Secondly, I take issue with your implication that Sellick shouldn't make the comment that they "say nothing new" in relation to his viewpoint without reading the work himself.

So, Mr.Academic, if you enjoying "reasoning" so much why don't you answer the following: Which claims do the new atheists make, which have not been made elsewhere already, which are in contradiction with anything from Sellick's article?

Trav:

as for referring to me as Mr.Academic- well its actually Ms.Academic. Exactly what sort of gender assumptions underpin your worldview?>

More to the point, the onus of responsibility does not rest on me to provide evidence regarding your claim- if the author decides to write on a particular issue, then the onus is on him to do the leg work- not me.

It's up to YOU to prove that he needs to do the legwork in the first place. That's your contention, yet you haven't proven it.

Grey.
At last an intelligent question, thank you. But it is also a difficult one. The medieval nominalists, Duns Scotus and William of Ockham protested that if God were free then he could do anything he wanted. This lead to the doubtful conclusion that he could make good bad and bad good if he had a mind to. The objection to this is that if God is love this make him act against his nature. The OT is very careful to preserve God's freedom, especially from human expectations. The key text is of course the name he gives to Moses from the burning bush, "I am who I am", or "I will be who I will be" which is the translation of YHWH. God is the one who will do mercy to whom he will do mercy, he is outside of the expectations of human beings.

Thus if God becomes the first cause or the designer of the universe he loses his sovereignty and becomes part of the mechanism. This essentially closes the gap between God and his creature and leads to Spinozism in which God and the creation become indisinguishable.
It also leads to the idea of providence, the idea that God holds all things in his hands. This does not take into account how we experience the world, the great Lisbon earthquake shook the faith of many. Nature is not under the control of God it has its own reasons.
You will notice that I am using objectifying language about God, as I mentioned in the article there is no other way. But we do so knowing that we are not talking about a conscious being but an historical event.