This seems to somewhat miss the point of religion, and confuse to very different things:

There is a sharp distinction between not believing in God, and believing there is no God. The first is fundamentally characterized by doubt, the second by an act of faith. Call it what you will, or disguise it in the logic of not being able to "prove a negative", but the problem arises then that, in not being able to prove a negative, yet still asserting it, you are taking a leap of faith.

The only non-faith based aproach is to simply refrain from asserting the existence or non-existence of God. This is what science does. If given the proposition "There exists a planet made of gold" for which a scientist has no proof one way or another, the scientist will not say about the planet, as the writer of this article does about God, "I believe there is no such planet."

The writer of this misses the point of religion by asserting that people should start with doubt, and proceed from doubt to faith by gaining objective evidence. The problem here is that religion, at its most fudamental level, is not based on what can be perceived by the five senses given to us to view the world. By its very nature, religion asks humans to bypass their physical senses and have faith. To acquire faith through scientific means is oxymoronical, a contradiction in terms, a paradox of the most fundamental sort.

As long as a person realizes they are making as much of a leap of faith by believing there is no God as by believing there is, nothing is wrong there-- that is simply the faith the person chooses to live. That being the case, this person's address to NPR's "This I believe" is just that, their own exclusive faith. By stating that others should adopt this outlook as well, the writer is simply evangelising their faith.

While I do not think this is what the writer intends, confusion over the fundamental essence of what constitutes religious belief and evidence-based/scientific searches causes this essay to convey that meaning, and otherwise be consufed about its own choice of topic.

RE: There Is No God By Penn Jillette