Faith in an idea is a different meaning. You could say that you have faith in the idea of atheism in the way some people might say they have faith in the idea of progress. And the “faith” part of that might mean that it is resistant to something that seems contrary, e.g. someone might say that he has faith in progress despite wars and wickedness that seem regressive, and someone might say he has faith in the idea of atheism despite the communist atheists who did very evil things.
But that is very different from religious faith, and anyway it is not opposite to being supported by reason—someone who has faith in progress, or in atheism in that way, could still say that they have reasons for their belief.
I don’t think many people think faith means something that is unsupported by evidence. Rather, they mean they have a commitment to it. And maybe the commitment goes beyond the evidence, but it doesn’t mean there is no evidence at all.
I agree with you that when you see people calling atheism a religion or saying that atheists have faith, they usually mean to admit that religion or faith has something bad about it. The idea is that “sure, these things have something bad about them, but no one avoids that bad thing anyway, so it is better to be honest about it.” And that has some truth and some falsity: it is probably true that no one completely avoids the bad things that are found in religion, but that doesn’t make everything equal, because you can avoid those things to some extent.
Faith in an idea is a different meaning. You could say that you have faith in the idea of atheism in the way some people might say they have faith in the idea of progress. And the “faith” part of that might mean that it is resistant to something that seems contrary, e.g. someone might say that he has faith in progress despite wars and wickedness that seem regressive, and someone might say he has faith in the idea of atheism despite the communist atheists who did very evil things.
But that is very different from religious faith, and anyway it is not opposite to being supported by reason—someone who has faith in progress, or in atheism in that way, could still say that they have reasons for their belief.
I don’t think many people think faith means something that is unsupported by evidence. Rather, they mean they have a commitment to it. And maybe the commitment goes beyond the evidence, but it doesn’t mean there is no evidence at all.
I agree with you that when you see people calling atheism a religion or saying that atheists have faith, they usually mean to admit that religion or faith has something bad about it. The idea is that “sure, these things have something bad about them, but no one avoids that bad thing anyway, so it is better to be honest about it.” And that has some truth and some falsity: it is probably true that no one completely avoids the bad things that are found in religion, but that doesn’t make everything equal, because you can avoid those things to some extent.