I didn't think it was serious. People don't operate on fact. This is basic in psych and neuroscience, and is the basis of any science.

Here's a general outline of it. This should be common knowledge was outlined 2300 years ago as the most basic premise of Western thought, including and especially the natural sciences.

Not knowing this, or being able to know it, is a misunderstanding of the self. Western atheism, in its retroactive self-identification, allows the adherent to define who they are completely (a radially Stoic and supernatural take on [being]%29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being%29), and so atheists will actually go so far as to define atheism to prove to you that they [as atheists] don't have, or even cannot have belief structures at all. In this case the belief being that if they identify atheist and think there's no gods, they somehow become the definition or begin to operate completely "without beliefs" in general; which, since they're still operating, implies an operation on truths and that holding a particular posture affects the entire being (which is rooted in the salvation structure of Christianity). Unsurprisingly these folks are mostly ex-Christians boasting Christian indoctrination, which they feel atheism can cure them of in a sort of quasi-repentance. They carry on a Christian view of "repenting" and being "saved", and taking on a different "spirit" which they describe as enlightenment. Knowledge of course doesn't work that way, as one doesn't become informed by renouncing a falsehood. For example, Albert Einstein didn't repent of Newton and have a revelation of General Relativity.

Their supernatural (largely Christian) epistemology and being "saved" from ignorance by a confession is central to atheist belief and their magical epistemology.

This is a magical view of the self in society and assumes that if you punch the atheist card and put on the atheist hat, you embody the full pureness of "lacking belief" somehow transcending culture. This is held to the extent that atheists believe they can quote the dictionary to prove you're without belief.

So atheists will make Platonic statements, Stoic sentiments and tactics, existentialism, sometimes nihilism, humanism and the like, apply a Western, evolved Judaic and Christian ethos' and such, and all these belief structures and claim that there is no belief structure, solely because they don't believe there are anthropomorphic powers. Since there is no formal supernatural reference, atheists believe that what they know is a sort of natural truth ("everybody is born atheist"). Thus you get to the crux of their satan: The insidious lie! The polluter of the great atheist esoteric freedom! The untruth! RELIGION.

They have produced their own, non-academic profile of what religion is to humanity and history, very despite facts, historicity, or any academic work. They take these from atheist speakers who, even without formal education in religious history or culture, are atheist and so authorized to speak "in the Spirit" per se.

Which is the atheist conduit to sectarianism, another belief structure as opposed to universalism and other options in the continuum that is human thought, taken for granted as another absolute. It's not just for the categories of "atheist" and "theist", but the demonstrably wrong belief that knowledge is a strictly knowable dichotomy with obvious right and wrong. This is learned, but the atheist thinks it's just how one is without belief; the natural man.

Atheists believe that natural, worldly facts that can be arrived at a priori and claim religion has only subverted this natural wisdom, which is another belief. Ask how they can prove it's true and they'll say, "Because it works." essentially; which is how all belief works, by applying the structure to reality (like Islam) and pointing to survival or accomplishments of culture as proofs to its feasibility. This is where atheism goes off the rails, because atheism didn't produce a single successful culture or society. Therefore, like Christians needing to explain why Jesus is necessary and coming up with weird narratives and ultimatums, atheists begin to produce a mythological or legendary history.

The solution to atheist underachievement and the pious heathen (success in a religious world) is atheist exceptionalism. The atheist achieves this by claiming credit for any accomplishment that wasn't directly connected to a religious reference. Therefore any successful "secular" endeavor is stamped "atheist", when in reality secularism is pluralistic in nature and a response to cooperating belief structures, not a lack of belief structures.

So here's an example: what rational argument is there for any rights for homosexuals, women, and so forth? A rational argument can be made either way, and belief structures guide them. Atheists deny belief structures exist for themselves (magic) and defer to emotionalism and moral high ground, all based on preexisting social structures, assuming their presuppositions "real". The atheist likes to believe their cultural mores are just more natural and that the other cultures would feel their way without gods, because religions is their satan.

Now they can by no means support that a world without religion is more successful, in fact from a Darwinian perspective it's anthropomorphic and supernatural belief structures that accompanied every surviving culture. The atheist humans and cultures were always selected out, which is actually a complaint of theirs, the logical conclusion being that atheism is untenable.

To which they will, again by belief and no fact, equate underdoggery to righteousness and truth, when reality tells us that the race is to the swift. This is another belief. This view of underdoggery throws back to the stoics and martyrs who believed appealing to higher righteousness would win favor from sympathetic gods and a supernatural moral superstructure. To the atheist, they often ascribe malevolence to dominance and strength, framing the 3.8 billion Abrahamics as the bad guys, not the fittest.

It just goes on and on, but atheist exceptionalism exempts their views from normal judgments within the belief structure itself, and reality as somehow "set apart", which is the literal definition of "holy". Informal atheist "holiness" being another belief.

Most things are belief because human knowledge isn't factual in nature or anywhere near conclusive, so you can literally go on and on about this forever.

Mostly atheism is just piss poor epistemology coupled with Christian indoctrination, tactics, and hatred caused by grievances, mistaken for truths by the saving counter-confession.

I wont see a single defense against any of this, as atheists tend to use denial and mockery heavy-handedly in covering their insecurity, not unlike how Islam uses violence or their parent Christians also use weird logic and righteous indignation.

What you should ask is how the atheist can support that he lives without a belief structure, since belief structures are known to exist and be the only way humans can operate on this low a tier of information. Atheists use modern hubris and know-it-allism to frame that, because they're the newest belief structure, they're not actually a belief structure, but a pearl of ultimate truth beyond scrutiny. The Christians enjoyed that status for awhile, also, taking amazingly similar liberties with "the truth".