'Atheism is not totally irrational.'

then why do they come up with such idiotic unscientific dogmas such as the big bang and evolution. One certainly needs to stick head in the sand, close your eyes and repeat stupid slogans to embrace such nonsense.

Jesus did champion the poor the downtrodden and had plenty to say about the unethical accumulation of wealth. Starting by whipping the money changers out of his father's house and condemning the acquisition of wealth this way. "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven!" If he was a conservative? Then he was a progressive conservative. And we see very few of those these days. In fact, one can argue that Christianity and conservative ideology are mutually incompatible belief systems. I'm also a lapsed Catholic but can never ever return to the fold given what the church has become and the facts behind its reinvention as a political movement rather than the church Crist is said to have established and set his seal upon it with the good Samaritan parable and code for living. Strangely, most rich folk erroneously believe that in order for there to be wealth and the wealthy there must be a cohort of poor folk and pockets of poverty? Nothing could be further from the truth and Christian evocation. Nothing wrong with Christian philosophy, just some of the organisations, evils and myths it's spawned! Alan B.

Dear A J Phillips,

Yes it is rather excruciating isn't it. I actually went to the trouble of looking the author up to see how old he was because if he was in his early 20s say, I would have been prepared to cut him some slack.

But no, old enough to know better unfortunately. However he originally hails from the US so perhaps a little lee way there. Probably would have been a good fit for ex senator Roberts for whom he apparently worked.

But while we are here I'm wondering what you thought of this observation from Stephen Fry about countries with monarchies.

http://youtu.be/eJQHakkViPo?t=3m54s

Dear runner,

You wrote;

"unscientific dogmas such as the big bang and evolution."

If they are so unscientific this should be easy for you. What scientific evidence do you have to disprove either of them?

Aidan,

The position of most atheists is that there is no evidence for the existence of a deity, deities or the supernatural. It's not a belief system, the onus of proof is on the believer. Atheists don't have to prove that the Easter Bunny doesn't exist, or that a million other superstitions are not supported by any evidence. Refer to Betrand Russell's "Orbiting teapot" What evidence is there for a deity, benign or malevolent or the supernatural?

There's no evidence for Thor either, although Germanic myths are much more interesting than Christianity. The major error that people raised in religious traditions make is that atheism is a belief system, presumably because they have no other frame of reference.

Neither consertive nor liberal political perspectives fit the teaching of of the bible well enough. Therefore in my opinion as a Christian, I think we should let our bible based beliefs effect our politics. Instead of the other way around having our political stances dictate and change our beliefs.