First, I apologize for the delay of my response.
As an atheist (aka ‘nontheist’), do you believe that our consciousness (along with our universe) came from mindlessness? Do you believe that our consciousness sprung out of a universe void of purpose, value, morality, and intellect?
When I say that the atheist believes the part is greater than the whole, I am basically saying that the atheist should believe himself or herself greater than where they believe they came from… Now back to point, it is incumbent on the atheist to prove that all came from mindlessness just as it is for a theist to prove ID. For the record, I am for letting science advance but my problem is the motive science currently has… aka prove mindlessness only.
The ‘Brights’ in this article are highly influential in academia and anti-theistic. To compare the possible creator of our universe and consciousness with the tooth fairy (as Dawkins did) might be cute and humorous to atheists… But I believe the tooth fairy to be mindlessness. Dawkins should be aware that no one believes the universe was created by the tooth fairy but ‘he’ believes in a; mindlessness, purposeless, moral less, valueless, and unintelligent creator.
If you or any one chooses to leave money under his pillow for the garbage that comes out of his mouth… Well, he might not believe in the tooth fairy but it appears he counts on them.
Our consciousness, yes. Our universe "coming from mindlessness"? Well, I have no evidence that the universe as a whole is anything but mindless anyway. If you mean it in the sense that there was no "mind" behind the existence of either the universe or our conscious selves, then no: I have no reason to think there was any.
When I say that the atheist believes the part is greater than the whole, I am basically saying that the atheist should believe himself or herself greater than where they believe they came from… Now back to point, it is incumbent on the atheist to prove that all came from mindlessness just as it is for a theist to prove ID. For the record, I am for letting science advance but my problem is the motive science currently has… aka prove mindlessness only.
But the claim that there is some unseen, undetectable person behind it all is the extraordinary positive claim. The mundane, default claim is that there is no such thing, because we don't detect any such overarching supernatural person in the course of our normal existence. So I have no burden to prove my negative, mundane claim. The burden's on you to support your non-obvious, positive claim.