The Logical Atheist

By faith , some people do not mean belief without evidence . See more about this matter here  and here . But some do. Here's Thomas Browne in is 1642 book, Religio medici : This I think is no vulgar part of faith, to believe a thing not only above, but contrary to reason, and against the arguments of our proper senses.

Here's another lecture from the historian and theologian Alec Ryrie. Ryrie apparently is not an atheist, but his lectures have much to teach.

It's often held that skepticism leads to atheism. But it can easily lead to religious faith. After all, if you reject reason and logic--which is what hardcore skepticism is all about--faith may appear as the only alternative if one wants to get through life. (Nihilism is an alternative, but many people have no stomach for it.) So radical doubt is by no means the path to follow. Doubt is a poor principle to live by. Doubt, properly conceived, is contextual; one should have a good reason to doubt. In fact, to reasonably doubt one proposition, you necessarily express confidence in other propositions. As has been said, you have to stand somewhere. You may try to reject reason, but you can't escape it, no matter how hard you try. Skepticism and religious faith (at least by one of its several definitions) both constitute the rejection of reason, so they have much in common. In fact, there is no atheist cause (in the sense of struggle), but there is a rationalist cause. Atheism, far ...

Historian of Christianity Alec Ryrie of Durham University, UK, presents a series of lectures on unbelief before the philosophers and scientists debunked theology. This lecture is titled "How to Be a Medieval Atheist." He begins noting that action often precedes theory, a principle that applies to many areas of life. In other words, people behave like atheists before they think like atheists. Ryrie quotes John Gray: "Someone with no use for the idea of God ... [is] in truth an atheist." For those who prefer text, see this . Ryrie is the author of Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt . 

If a thousand Gods existed, or if nature existed independent of any, the moral relation between man and man would remain exactly the same in either case. Moral principle is the result of this relation, it is founded in the properties of our nature, and it is as indestructible as the basis on which it rests. --Elihu Palmer (1764-1806), Principles of Nature; or, A Development of the Moral Causes of Happiness and Misery Among the Human Species

Since it has already been shown that the Christian religion has been destructive to science and to morals, it seems almost unnecessary to make any observations on its relation to general happiness; for since the happiness of man depends essentially on the possession of knowledge and the practice of virtue, whatever injures these must be detrimental to his true felicity. The descriptions given in this religion of the character and conduct of the Almighty, are shocking to the reflections of the benevolent mind; they represent the Creator of the world, not as the friend, but as the enemy of man; as a being agitated by passions, and acting capriciously for the gratification of his own resentment; sometimes he is said to be merciful, at other times cruel and vindictive; sometimes just, at other times malevolent and revengeful; sometimes permanent and immutable in his actions and designs, at other times changeable, and to have repented of what he had previously determined to perform; at one ...

Man is a being possessed of certain powers and faculties, and it is only through the justifiable exercise of these that he can be happy. But when he is taught to believe that his highest moral efforts can avail nothing; that he is completely under condemnation, in consequence of the imputed sin of him who lived six thousand years ago; that he can be relieved from the effects of this primary apostacy, only by the murder of an innocent person; that he can lay claim to this relief only through the channel of supernatural grace and divine aid; in fact, that of himself, he can do nothing; when he is taught to believe all this, what inducement can remain to the practice of virtue? There is none, and the mind is left to the gloomy anticipation of eternal fire.... It may be pronounced with certainty, that morality or real virtue can never be promoted by a scheme of religion containing such contradictions and absurdities, and that human enjoyment has been essentially diminished by the promulgat...