As I grew up and expanded my knowledge, I learned that Santa Claus and fairy tales aren't true...and quite often they can be dangerous and cause harm to others. That is the case with worshiping "god" and following the insane writings of an ancient text that was culled together to explain things that man didn't understand thousands of years ago, and something that was used as a vehicle by a few to control the masses. The good news is, "atheists" have already won. Younger generations don't care about the decisive bullshit in your bible (not just your bible, but all "religious" teachings) - they don't subscribe to the hate that only serves to separate us as opposed to bringing us together. Sure, it may take another 20-40 years, but the BS will have less and less of an impact. In closing, I think this sums up why I don't believe in your god or any of the others. http://i.imgur.com/dFaJE.png
I do not hate Christianity, I can't since many of my family are believers. I don't like militant hateful atheists anymore than I like militant muslims. However the world became a much better place when Christians stopped persecuting non-Christians. Its what we call the enlightenment. I would not demand you Christians change, only that you consider that, and please don't try and create a theocracy. Not that I agree with you on everything but if you construct reasoned arguments politically and not religious-emotive, then we can much better get along. Example: Abortion- As soon as you say they are god's children you lose a lot of people. I however you point out that leftists demand we spend millions saving crack preemies while at the same time push for aborting a healthy 7 month old fetus you can hang them by their own petard. When a woman claims it is her body, then ask about that other body in there, who does that belong to? Ask why it is that we imprison young girls who throw their newborn into a trash can while some push for partial birth abortion. Why does parental responsibiity only begin once the feet leave the birth canal, to the baby the difference is negligible. I'm in favor of first trimester abortions, only trying to show you that you cannot simply paint nonbelievers with a one size fits all cartoon and we might partially agree on some problems. Tom Paine was one of the prime architects of freedom, never forget.
Good post. There are so many reasons to censure religious fanatics like peil. One of the most compelling is the fact that they want to ram their faith based superstitions down our throats in the form of legislation based on their belief in fairly tales and ghosts. For example, peilthetraveler recently stated that he felt you could become infected with HIV if someone who is HIV positive sneezed in your vicinity. Now, it goes without saying that anyone who believes in such rubbish is a fucking moron who should be probably be sterilized for the good of humanity. However, we have to let idiots live too. Problem is, there are idiots like this in public office, pushing for laws that are based on similarly absurd beliefs. That's one of the big problems with religious fanaticism. Christians have no monopoly on this type of thing, as we have seen in the past 10 years.
You want enlightenment? Please show me one example of a Christian persecuting a non-Christian. In the world, Christians are killed, jailed, or exiled all the time for their beliefs. Are atheists ever persecuted like that? No because they are part of the people doing the persecutions.
For starters, see history of Catholic Church. There's been plenty since then. Off the top of my head, Bosnia Christian Serbs committed genocide against Bosnian Muslims. You can google the rest yourself if you care to. There's mountains of incidents.
Here is what you just said. "Dont believe what he says...believe what I say. We are all basically advanced monkeys and I am going to ram that down your throats until you believe it!" "If I could get away with it, I would kill him! Or at the very least strap him down and give him a forced vasectomy" And you say I am the fanatic?!? If you want a life like that where you can freely crucify people that dont agree with you, maybe you should think about moving to another country where freedom is not tolerated. P.S. Please stop telling lies about me. If your case is so strong against me & other Christians, there is no need to lie like this. I never said you can get Hiv though sneezing. I said there is Hiv in saliva and was talking about Oral sex in that context. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2798386&highlight=Hiv#post2798386 Amazing how desperate you atheists get to try to find evidence against me. I guess if you cant find it just make it up, right?
Wow...quite a stretch there blaming it on Christians. But hey...I got one better for you. Atheistic north korea...3 million dead in the same time period that the genocide of what....30-40k people killed in bosnia? If you want to look at genocides, we can do this all day. I promise you that Atheists are responsible for more deaths in the last 100 years than catholics, muslims, or Jews put together in the last 5000 years.
A life without fear of death. Death is the one that I know that scares the hell out of atheists whether they admit it or not.
I'm interested in why people believe the things they do, especially when it seems to clash with the evidence (or lack thereof) from reality. Why are there still marxists or even socialists in this world. Why are there anarchists, or astrologers, or believers in ghosts. Why do the public consistently prefer both higher government spending and lower taxes, or rack up large amounts of credit card debt to purchase useless consumer goods. Why do the vast majority of people follow the religion of their parents, when this clearly has nothing to do with its veracity (if you are born in Mexico you are likely to be a catholic; if in Saudi then a muslim. Yet clearly both cannot be true at once, and clearly one is not more or less likely to be true just because you were born there. Yet the vast majority act and think as if that were so.) Why did people in the past believe in slavery, or think the world was flat, or that alchemy could turn lead into gold. Why do people sell stocks when they get cheaper and safer, and buy when they get more expensive and risky. Why does Jim Cramer have an audience etc. I have a strong interest in finding out the nature of reality, and religion is one of the biggest areas where people appear to believe things not based on facts, evidence, and logic, but various other illegitimate reasons, such as the beliefs of their parents or host culture. So it is naturally something which stimulates my curiosity. I realise that most people don't change their views, even if you proven them wrong, but I find it interesting to examine the reasons they give for believing the way they do. It teaches you a profound scepticism towards the beliefs and reasoning capabilities of most of humanity, which is a trait that comes in useful in the markets, and life in general.