Don’t Replace Religion; End It

Well yes, it's a bad idea for governments to ban religion. Being a libertarian, Penn Jillette would agree with that.

no, Atheism is the belief in the lack of a higher power. Agnosticism is the lack of belief (or belief in lack of capacity to choose....).

"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. [...] I ought to call myself an agnostic; but, for all practical purposes, I am an atheist. I do not think the existence of the Christian God any more probable than the existence of the Gods of Olympus or Valhalla. To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely." - Bertrand Russel

Ahhh, this old chestnut. It does not take "faith" to believe that something does not exist. There are literally an infinite number of things that you believe do not exist, simply because there is no evidence that they do. For example, if I told you that there is an invisible elephant in the boot of your car right now, would you consider yourself on the fence as to whether I was telling the truth? Or would you simply reject the idea as absurd, until shown evidence to the contrary?

Agnosticism is fine, but for people who place the burden of proof on those who make extraordinary claims, atheism is not a faith-based decision.

If we must have religion then, let it be untainted by theism.

Truth be told, on submission I expected to get the past submission and was looking forward to reading hacker comments.