Eternity, Theism, Atheism

In an earlier post, I noted how troubled theorists, bothered by the evidence for a universe that has an origin point, have come up with interesting theories that take creation out of the equation. This hypothesis is often called the "Colliding brane" theory.

I read today a letter to the editor (in the Globe and Mail) in which the author spouts out the usual rhetorical nonsense that seems to come from those opposed to the idea of there being a God: the inevitable comparison of God to the Tooth Fairy. I'm surprised the tooth fairy's rhetorical cohorts, Santa and the Easter Bunny, weren't tossed in, too, but the Globe likes to limit letters to 200 words.

I wrote a letter to the editor, and here is part of my response to this letter.

However one might wish to reduce the religious question to such frivolity, it is difficult to do so. Both those who lack belief in God and those who do not share one thing in common - the idea that something is eternal. With atheists, that usually means some descendant of the steady state universe theory, be that colliding branes or some other garden variety multiverse. For those of us of the theist bent, the eternal is that property we associate with that deity we believe to be responsible for our decidedly non-eternal universe.

Is the difference that great? Or should I associate steady state theories with the tooth fairy, and just be done with it?