It seems plain as day to me that whatever side you fall on, it takes exactly the same amount of faith to claim there is no God as it does to believe in one.
Ok....don't take this the wrong way, but...now it's my turn to stop you right here. You said you started this thread to vent as a theist. That's fine, but....now I have to vent as an atheist about the above statement, as it is completely incorrect, but used regularly by believers. For starters, atheism is not a "belief" or "faith", but rather a LACK of belief or faith due to a lack of empirical evidence. Theists only make this statement to try to bring the probability of atheists "being right" down to the same level as a completely faith based belief system, but it is completely nonsensical. Saying not believing in any faith is a faith in itself is the equivalent to saying not participating in sports is a sport in itself.
Secondly, it is not the job of the non-believer to disprove your claims (or those of your faith). The burden of proof is always on the person making the positive claim, as you cannot prove a negative. For example, if I told you I'm Christ reincarnate, and you called BS, would it be acceptable for me to tell you to prove that I'm NOT him? Or would the burden of proof be on me to prove that I AM him? If it was up to the nonbeliever to disprove someone elses claim, it would then be your job to prove that the claims of Mohammad, Krishna, Vishnu, etc are all false. It would be our job as nonbelievers in ANY claim of supernatural phenomenon to disprove those claims. The problem with this? Keep in mind that all of the above would be protected under the same "god/the supernatural is not of this world, therefore you cannot use logic to disprove them" clause as the god of YOUR faith. Does this mean you now have to believe in all of the above by default? If not, why not? Simply because the culture/society/ethnicity you were born from/into subscribes to Christianity? This is the only qualifier required to make your current beliefs the ones you elected to have faith in, or be the Truth? Atheism simply says "not only do I not believe in all those same faiths and claims that YOU don't, but I don't believe in yours, either". That is not a belief or faith, nor does it even profess to claim there is no god, which is another huge misconception. It simply means we just don't believe in any of these past or present claims.
The prefix a- simply means without, so:
theism = belief in a deity
a-theism = WITHOUT belief in a deity
gnosticism = claiming to have esoteric knowledge of a deity
a-gnosticism = WITHOUT claiming to have esoteric knowledge of a deity
BTW, this means most people who claim to be agnostic are also atheist. If you do not have a belief in any particular god as outlined in any scriptures, you are atheist by definition, even if you believe there are other forces or "creators" out there. That just makes you a "weak (not derogatory) atheist", or "agnostic atheist", as opposed to someone who claims to know for a fact that there is no god, which would be a "strong" or "gnostic atheist".
It makes me happy when I meet people like that. It just tells me that no matter how hard we as people try to not believe in a god, the very fact that we have to have groups dedicated to atheism makes it more obvious to me that his mark is over everything. People by advertising their atheism actually ADD to my faith. If there was no god, why would we feel the need to deny his presence in the first place?
....I don't understand the logic to anything you said above at all. The existence of one god or another is automatically accepted by the majority of the members of almost any society. How does someone saying they've decided not to blindly go along with this acceptance somehow back your faith? That is the same as saying those that decided not to blindly accept the FACT (at the time) that the Earth is flat somehow strengthened the fact that the Earth is flat. If the Earth was not flat, why would we feel the need to deny it in the first place?
You see, the problem here is that we as humans have believed in one god or another for so long that we automatically look at the belief in god(s) as the "default" position, when in all reality, it is not. We are not born believers of any particular god, faith or religion. We are TOLD what to believe, and what to believe is usually determined by the culture you are from/born into. Any one who has been a devote Christian their whole lives, had they been born to a predominantly Muslim ethnicity, would be a Muslim today. This is not a matter of opinion, but simple fact. Yet somehow, when someone refuses to automatically subscribe to ANY belief using the same logic and reasons a believer uses to brush off others beliefs, s/he is considered crazy, stupid, on drugs, in need of saving, etc. In other words, something is wrong with them. This is true for people that question ANY readily accepted belief, idea or "truth", regardless of how logically it is done, but it is taken to a whole other level when it comes to theological things because now you're questioning the very foundation of our existence (how we got here, why we're here and what happens to us when we leave here).
Closing thoughts. I've been atheist for a little over a decade now. However, I usually don't discuss it, even while people are talking to me about god this, and pray for that because I know nothing good can come of it. I bite my lip, smile and nod about 95% of the time. I've been at my current job for 15 years come this summer, yet my boss/the owner, who is quite religious, didn't know I was atheist until about 4 or so years ago. Very few of my friends, much less acquaintances are aware of it, either. I just don't feel like getting into a discussion, because it's very hard to explain WHY you don't believe without sounding insulting. When you lay out the logic behind why, it just comes off sounding that way.
SO...imagine my frustration as I have to sit there and listen to my customers babble about how the Muslims are trying to take over, or that they're trying to "take Christ out of Christmas", or handing me a pamphlet and saying "here's a little prayer for you" after I ring them up (for some reason, this has REALLY picked up the last couple months), all while biting my tongue because I know the reaction to "ummm....I don't believe in god" is going to get ugly. The handful of people I've admitted being an atheist to under varying circumstance seem to be fascinated by it, and can't let it go. Not that they're trying to "save" me, but they want to know why. I'll give a few very simple reasons, and end it there, because going into details just isn't going to end well, and I can't go around pissing off customers, even though THEY can preach to ME all they want because....well...they're the customer. And people don't see anything wrong with it because....well....it's GOD, duh! Who doesn't believe in god?