Apples and oranges. Having spent considerable time on both sides of that fence, it seems to me that the way skeptics look at the world is qualitatively, fundame

Apples and oranges. Having spent considerable time on both sides of that fence, it seems to me that the way skeptics look at the world is qualitatively, fundamentally different from the way believers do. At the risk of oversimplifying: believers subscribe to going notions (shamanism, catholicism, astrology, etc.), which become like parts of their lifestyle and identity; skeptics try to determine how likely various propositions are based on knowledge, logic, and evidence. Now, there are a few religious people who try to apply the searching scrutiny of the skeptic to their faith, and there are those who identify with the atheist camp, but sort of after the style that believers identify with things. So the division will get muddled if you go actively looking for exceptions to it. But the point is that most non-believers simply do not hold their non-beliefs in the same way, or for the same reasons, that believers hold their beliefs.