Who cares what the atheists and theists say! Their positions are both non-falsifiable bunk. Let them gang up and debate an agnostic. The agnostic won't even have to speak to put up his defense he can just raise a placard saying PROVE IT!

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Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. - H.L. Mencken

One of the reasons that I became a therapist is because I can't stand "crazy" rather than some who love or pity craziness. I want it stamped out.

Nothing causes more unhappiness, for no reason at all, than irrational thoughts and behaviors. Religion is the most astounding example of mental illness ever. A religious person can display all of the major mental disorders at one time, and still be considered normal.

Amazing.

I get angry about that.

However, I tend to be more flabbergasted than angry. I wasn't raised around religion, and have read much better science fiction. I'm stunned by how moronic most people are when it comes to this stuff.

'god Save Me From Your Followers'

My favorite is a bumpersticker I saw in the movie Saved.

Jesus Loves You - Everyone Else Thinks You're an A*shole.

Personally I hate Christianity because of how Galileo was treated. I see him as the personification of Church vs Science.

Took 100's of years to get science back on track. We could be colonizing space by now if not for Bible thumpers.

Was standing in the shower thinking about my last post... That the Church needed Galileo (Copernicus) to be wrong about the Earth revolving around the Sun since it went against the writings in the Bible. If the Word of God is wrong about this it means that God, the Creator of the Universe, doesn't know the first thing about Astronomy.

Now... Humber... father, husband, math geek and all around Jesus freak who believes with unshakable faith that the Word is True must therefore still believe that the Earth is "firmly established" and "can not be moved". If Humber admits that the Earth moves around the Sun, he admits that the Bible and it's Author is wrong.

So this Evolution debate is nothing more than the heliocentrism debate redone. It's boring because anyone with a mind of his own can see the inevitable outcome. The Church will reconcile this bit of science with faith just has it did with the moving of the unmovable Earth.

Great article by D'Souza...I agree with most of it.

I've also been puzzled by the inherent anger so many militant atheists seem to have. And like D'Souza said, there are things I don't believe in, but I don't go on a warpath against them.

I think a clue can be found, ironically, in observaing those who convert to other religions. Often (but not always), they go on a campaign against their former religion, as if they feel a need to "prove" they made the right choice in converting to a new religion.

Yet I have known converts to other religions who did not feel this kind of obsession or need, and who were just happy in their new religion.

Perhaps, as with some religionists who switch religions, many atheists have an insecurity in which they feel a need to "prove" (to themselves) that they made the right choice in disbelieving.

Incidentally, someone brought up the terror that some religions have wrought in their history.

This is not a phenomenon unique to religions: as memory serves, Chairman Mao, the Khmer Rouge, Joseph Stalin and many other Communist leaders and organizations were committed atheists, yet were responsible for the deaths of many innocent people (and they ruthlessly suppressed religion as well.)

And so we see that religion has no monopoly on totalitarian behavior. Indeed, sometimes a belief In a higher being is often the one thing that can prevent a movement from going too far.

You DO know, don't you, that the Galileo story was false in many details? Have you ever really researched it, from a nonbiased POV?

So many people have accepted the prevailing distortion of the actual facts of the event, that no one thinks to question it.

Your examples were certainly bad dudes, but persecution, war, and bigotry are far more prevalent throughout history as a product of religious zealots. The current crisis in the Middle East is a continuation of thousands of years of crap in the names of gods.

What is your example of belief in a higher power being the one thing which can prevent a movement from going too far?

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http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/be30300653

Obviously I DON'T know. I didn't know that the prevailing story was up for questioning. I read it in a book and believed it... go figure.

Please educate me as to the unbiased facts.

What's a militant atheist?

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[I][FONT=Helvetica][SIZE=-1][COLOR=#000000]"Some people, well, if they don't like Scientology, well, then, f**k you. Really. F**k you. Period."

-Tom Cruise
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