Fair enough. And for the record, the common understanding among Christians is that we don’t directly convert anyone, only the Holy Spirit does this. My interest here is in offering what I understand to be true.
But let’s be honest. The traditional, standard atheist position against faith defines it as belief without evidence, and this definition is in fact the one you’re protesting here.
In other words, it seems this is an attempt to add something completely new to atheist ideology. As far as I know. If this is in fact the case, it does have the appearance of moving the bar, and raises the question as to whether atheism is losing ground.
Faith in chemistry and faith in the inerrancy of Bronze Age religious texts share nothing in common, and we need new words to describe both cases.
I don’t know what you mean by “adding something completely new to atheist ideology”. I don’t even recognize such a thing as atheist ideology. Atheism is a position on a single question. I’m protesting the false equivocation of belief based on evidence and belief without evidence. I should probably say belief without sufficient evidence. That is more accurate. I applaud the author for pointing out this false equivocation which is so often used by religious believers to convince non believers. When someone says to me that I have “faith” in science so why not have faith in the bible they have given me good grounds not to consider anything else they have to say. That’s all I was saying. So if someone were trying to convince me then to start off with such a false equivocation would cause me to end the discussion.
Don’t you agree that equating faith with belief drops the crucial context of whether a belief is justified or not? If faith simply means belief why use the word faith at all? I think it is obvious that there is a great difference between a belief in the validity of science and belief in the supernatural.