West

Healthy values and habits are acquired through personal satisfaction, practice and personal experience.
Moral values are acquired through encouragement, instruction and interpersonal experience.
Ethical values are acquired through rewards, education and impersonal experience.
Historical values are acquired through inspiration, cognition and creative experience.

Islamic Values
Those who do good
Those who have sense of moral responsibility
Those who are firm and steadfast/patient
Those who judge in equity
Those who keep themselves clean
Those who put their trust in God
Those who turn to God constantly
Those who fight in God’s cause in battle
Those who believe in God

Christian Values
I'm sure your aware of the Ten Commandments, since they are the foundation of your civil and criminal laws.

That you find people who express these values as base and anti-ethical flies in the face of common sense and reason. I find your exaggerated moral outrage at those who practice or adhere to religious belief and that your lack of intellectual integrity allows you to mass blame religion for all the worlds problems. As if in the absents of religion other systems of belief or practice could not or would not have seen the equal in human history. Like fascism, communism and democracy.

I honestly feel for you. Your anger and obvious hatred of God, religion, and those whom believe in God is palatable. You obviously have little experience and a parochial understanding of the nature of man and the human condition relative to the totality of human history.

To separate out religion and hold it the predominate reasoning behind the many aspects of mans more sinister character is not a higher moral or ethical position. It's an excuse to attack and belittle. It's a selfish and cruel attempt at appearing clever. It's a rouse. You need to find some tolerance for other peoples way of thinking and dealing with their personal life experience.

As one of the non-religious I find your behavior rather embarrassing and shutter that it will be perceived as typical.

Philo,

"The spirits of 'Satan' (Satan a Hebrew term identifying opponents of pure and right living; opposed to the God of all truth and proper function of all reality) are evident in the attitudes and motivations of those here."

This definition represents just one thread of demonology.

That description would net plenty of Christians too.

Aqvarivs... well, I don't say this often, but I totally agree with your last post.

I'm not a religious sort by any stretch, and if I didn't define myself as agnostic I'd probably be closest to atheist.

But West, in your blind attacks against religion, you fail to see how eerily similar your dogma is to that of the religious.

If god, by nature can't be proven... how can you be so zealous in your certainty that it can't exist, if not by resorting to similar tactics to those employed by the religious you so fervently attack?

Plus, in order to rule out god, you have to settle on a concept of what it really is - in order for you to then deconstruct why it can't exist, you must streamline a concept of god until it fits what you can deny exists... somehow this feels like picking and choosing. Again, this is something you share in common with the religious.

"Healthy values and habits are acquired through personal satisfaction, practice and personal experience. Moral values are acquired through encouragement, instruction and interpersonal experience. Ethical values are acquired through rewards, education and impersonal experience." -- Avarivs

Humanism serves the above, as well as any relious code. One does not need a God to be moral. Moreover, if there is a god, it might not be an entity or construct claimed by any of the religions.

Philo,

Where do you stand on the Deeds versus Faith debate? Can a humanist perform good deeds withou the Holy Spirit? Can one act under the influence of [your] Holy Spirit and not belive in God?

Sells,

1. Where does the RC Church sit in your thoughts? Vicar of Christ? Transubstantiation? Intercession?

2. Do you see the Churches stand as "agents" for [your] Christian god?

3. Does [your] God "need" the Churches?

Oliver,

"Humanism serves the above, as well as any relious code. One does not need a God to be moral. Moreover, if there is a god, it might not be an entity or construct claimed by any of the religions."

So. Whats that got to do with my post. You write as if I suggest that moral and ethical values are the purview of religion. And that God or Gods must be as perceived. Your way off base.

Though I don't believe humanism, or any other ism is a suitable replacement for the believing in and/or having faith in a higher power. Religion in my mind is nothing more than another form of government. A competitor in the power game. Seeking spiritual understanding in a world of unanswered questions is not unreasonable. And I don't understand why there would ever be a movement to put and end to something that is universally natural to mankind since prehistoric times.
Rationalism and universal morality leave too many holes in the subject to be sufficient unto themselves. I don't believe man has a common moral code. We share some common sense of morality but, it is by no means singular and complete. For one thing there are differences and exceptions in emphasis and by degree of adherence to moral and ethical values among cultures and societies. I also don't believe that reason is the only way to acquire knowledge. Too much of human history and ingenuity comes from being stumbled upon. This does not lessen the contribution of hard thinkers and intellectual plodders who spend their lives on a single subject. I'm in awe of their dedication and take nothing from their determination to "find the answer".

If one group asserts that God does exist. And another group asserts that there is no God. Can any application of reason definitively prove the existence or non-existence of God? And as humans(ist) is it moral or even ethical to want to persuade one to disbelieve?

aqvarivs certianly I am not embarrassed because I am correct. I am neither a comminist nor religious so anything I say or do does not represent anybody else. Atheism has no institutions, no scripture , no dogma , nothing any atheist says or does represents another. Besides I am not Atheist, I speak of what religion is not what religion believes. The Atheist debate is well and truley over , there is no god.

I know what you are trying to say in your attacks.
I dont recall the name of German Journalist in 1934? 35? who said (losely paraphrased here) 'It is a fool who speaks up to them (nazis) if I wish to survive them (nazis) it is better for me to lay down and recieve the beatings'. You want me to lay down. Fair enough religion has a task keeping people superstitious but religion is fair game once out in public.

Fascism is the direct control of social life and economy of a population from a singular fetishised governing agent demanding complete loyalty to that agent. Fascism is what religion aspires to not withstanding Mussolini installed the vatican and the Vaticans role in the Spanish civil war and WW2. Patriachal overlordship and the rule of sharia law or the ten commandments, dictates to all social facets and an arbitrary moralistic and socially machiavellian control of economy as a tool of reward and punishment to those who are not loyal to the superstitious belief of god and loyalty to those who decide what superstitious beliefs hold moral supremecy over all. Name a major religion which is not a fascist movement? There is no longer any.