LATELY, I'VE BEEN FOLLOWING some of the infighting between atheism and religion on the web.

I've been impressed with a sort of agreement underlying the arguments. In particular, it seems to me that atheists tend to give a lot of ground to those on the fundamentalist end of the spectrum.

For one thing, there's a definite tendency to assume that the most anti-intellectual, most intolerant, and, I might as well say it, most ignorant Christians are the best representatives of Christianity.

In one sense that is certainly true. There are, quite probably, more numerous and more vocal Christians from that end of the continuum then there are from the other.

But there's another sense in which the equation is problematic. There are a great many atheists in the world—more every day—and many of them are also both vocal and ignorant. Would it make sense to consider them representative of atheism?

My own view is that the battle lines have been badly drawn. I don't think that the question of God is anywhere near the real center of the debate. This may be, in part, due to how I became an atheist in the first place, but it's also grounded in the debate itself.

What is that debate, really?

Let me suggest a mental experiment by way of answering that question. Consider what the real differences are between atheism and religion, outside of the God thing. I'll let Christianity stand in for religion in general here, since it's the theology I know. I'll also use a sort of generalized atheist with a scientific world-view, though I am aware that there are other kinds:

Atheists believe that the truth is best discovered through research and reason rather than authority: whether that authority is vested in a priest or a book. Atheists believe that the best place to look for the answers to questions about the nature of the physical world is the hard sciences rather than a religious tradition. Atheists believe that religions ought not to be allowed to force their beliefs on others, or use government to turn those beliefs into law. Atheists believe that matters of morality and ethics should not be decided by a religious elite. Atheists are more likely to turn to the social sciences for answers about human nature and behavior than to an ancient text. Atheists don't tend to believe that things we can't see and touch, like ghosts and gods, actually exist.

You probably expect me to now produce a list about Christians which indicates the opposite position on every point above.

The problem is, I know too many Christians.

In fact, once you get out of the most conservative religious circles you find many Christians on the same page for at least numbers one through five, and the further you get from those circles, the more such Christians you find.

To be continued...