One is humble & intellectually honest enough to admit he may be wrong. The other defied logic by stating that a negative can be proven as fact.
This first answer pretty well covered it. In the follow-up, Richard Dawkins is held up as an example of just enough intellectual honesty to realize atheism is only a belief. I once heard a man with four earned doctoral degrees (history, philosophy, theology, and education) say "The agnostic says 'I don't know if there's a God.' The atheist says, 'I don't believe there is a God and you can't either.'" The distinction is one of humility.
I am sometimes envious. It would be nice, at times, to believe there was someone out there who could solve all of my, or even the world's problems.
But alas, I can not, without evidence. And we all know evidence is completely contrary to faith.
What if someone is out there (and here as well) who can solve all of the world's problems. He has both the desire and the means to do it, but he will do it on his terms and his timing? To insist he do it on my terms of wisdom, justice, righteousness and love is to make him in my image. Just asking.
With regard to the sentence I made bold above, I guess I would say I'm one who does not know that evidence is completely contrary to faith. There are plenty of cases where evidence wrongly convicted people in court -- proof that we do not necessarily interpret evidence correctly.
However, I am not saying faith needs evidence. Faith itself is, in a sense, evidence. But if all we do is depend on evidence, we are abandoning faith.
Steve.
