[kahljorn]

I think in terms of social impact and other influences, not just faith, atheism is alot easier and has less of an effect mostly due to their interaction with the pop culture world. The decision to not believe in god isn't really an intellectual decision in their case, if it was they would be agnostic, but rather a decision to acclimate themselves to some social atmosphere. It's really the same either way, though, however the circumstance is generally much different.

Another thing to consider is that being a christian or any other 'faith' also incorporates alot of lifestyle changes. There's at least one or two things you'll change in your life when you become a christian(waking up at six in the morning on sundays), with atheists the ramifications would be nill or too variated to really correlate as there isn't really a unified Atheist lifestyle manual.

Making the decision to believe in something, in my opinion, is pointless unless it is accompanied by some kind of change in you or your perception of surroundings. Neutrality in this instance doesn't really require belief.
One thing I find particularly funny about this breed of Atheists is that in many cases it's accompanied by that frustration with christianity. I think somebody who makes a decision to escape something, especially an idealogy, while still under it's frustration is being ridiculous and is obviously still influenced by it. The ramifications of such a psychosis are obvious.

You are right that we could probably never prove there's no god, but that really depends on how you look at it. Within the perceptions of these people, I'd say you could never prove there's no god, but that's only because they have the wrong understanding of god and gods, I think. Unless you count dying and not going to heaven, but that's not so much a proving thing.

I love the new tool album ;( vicarious really isn't much next to the rest of it.