Reading through this threat I am surprised I am still I am amazed at the level of rubbish the religious think up.
Lets sort this out, the base value of religion is persecution. The first step of a religion is to seperate who is a follower of the idolatry and who is not. The fictitious character of Christ according to the Bible himself is a persecuter as he saves only those who engage in occult rituals and witchcraft in his name.

Secondly the myth amonsgt occultists that a person needs a belief in god to be moral is certainly propaganda to villify non-religionists, A person who is moral has no need of guidance. Ironically it is an immoral argument to claim as musch. Firstly here Jesus taught imorality as he taught exclusionism. Secondly the immoral will claim that the Bible or god or what ever other idol they worship gives them moral guidance, this is because they are in a moral panic, not understanding what morals are or do. Certainly the god of the bible was pure evil by civilised standards. The mytholgy that rose because of the self awareness of the homosapien that his existence was at the mercy of casual biological reality created this evil god as an articulation that in raw reality justice is no more than a social construct. In short it is the immoral claim that the bible gives moral guidance, if they were good people in the first place they would have no need of the bible. My experience dealing with churches, the media and christians I meet , certainly being Christian does not make a better person. More often than not it creates a worst person.

This bleating about beliefs through this thread is fantasy and empty conjecture. All experience of god is fantasy. An afterlife is conjecture based on fantasy, there is no evidence for immortality and if immortality did exist it is not by logic god dependent. I would argue Einstein would be able to INVENT a better argument for an afterlife than the bible does, but since Einstein needed evidence he did not attempt it. Salvation (to be godlike and immortal) is a death cult because what Christians are arguing is that death is better than life, that life is secondary to death. All the magic that Christians argue only occurs after death , salvation, judgement (Brand Justice), acknowledgement of greater worth. In private life it makes the fate of condemned criminals easier to swallow , but in public and in politics it is a dangerous thing which is why the belief in salvation has brought upon every evil from war and slavery to serial killing upon the peoples of the earth and Jesus has spread genocide and ethnic cleansing.

The same is for god, there is no factual evidence of god , infact there is evidence suggestive of UFO's where there is no evidence of a god. There is no proof that UFO's exist and the evidence supporting them is weak and they are unlikely to have visited earth. God does not even have that much.

wizofaus,

Nations following the democratic ideal, such as in Western Europe, where education systems are comprehensive, have a high rate of Atheism. In the USA where the quality of education is a hit or miss affair, do not. To demonstrate the importance of education, a recent survey of The Academy of Sciences had only 7% of respondents claiming belief in a god as opposed to the general population of 70% who do.

If the Census question on religion in Australia were to be replaced with a less leading one, we would see that the faithful are less in numbers than is reported.

When we look at the long history of humanity, anyone not recognising that Atheism is in steep ascendency, especially over the last few decades, is kidding her/himself.

“Atheist evangelism” Mmmmm…OK. I’ll add that to the existing list of irrelevancies. I wonder if you label other people and organisations fighting in defence of human rights and a rational approach to life, as evangelisers. Or do you save that term only for those with the audacity to examine religion and its effects on civilization critically?

David

Foxy,

“I'm getting tired with all this arguing and I no longer see the point to continue. I've stated my feelings as best as I could. No amount of argument will change the status quo.”

You stated your thoughts very clearly and obviously, you think about life.

Yes, argument does become tiresome, but as my post to wizofaus explains, someone has to do it. As you yourself understand, Foxy, the written word is a powerful tool. This discussion may not change anyone’s mind instantly, but who knows in the longer term.

Look after yourself.

David

botheration, 'I think a narrow-thinking man would think man was the highest creature. A dog would certainly rate dogs as tops '. Is that why dogs, since prehistoric times, have socialised with humans and allowed themselves to be domesticated in exchange for food scraps and water? Also, 'But why rate them at all, if you're not a Christian?'. Do you think that, as an athiest, I believe all animals (including the human animal) to be equal? The very laws of nature set us apart with a hierarchy that places man at the top. Dogs and monkeys have indeed been in space - but who put them there?

wizofaus, 'the church is the only institution I know of capable of convincing anyone that homosexuality is so abhorrent ' - the Moslems have the same stance. I'm sure that other religions are also against it. The church had no influence on my views on homosexuals. I was an athiest before I had come across (and formed views on) any examples of that. I have to question 'all species alive today are just as evolved as each other'. Surely you don't see yourself as an equal to a fly? Some species have stopped evolving millenia ago. Some, like sharks, didn't need to go any further. And 'we value the things that make us human and grant us our success: intelligence, compassion, manual dexterity etc. To many other species, those attributes are worthless, and were they capable of making such a judgment may well note how physically weak we are, or how slowly we breed our offspring, or how desperately helpless our infants are, or how wasteful we are by constantly killing each other but leaving all that good meat.'
But we can make ourselves strong by our creative technologies. As for leaving all that meat, many predators do the same, otherwise the scavengers would die of starvation.

I just think it's silly to rate animals. (And I don't distinguish between rating us all in order or thinking we're all equal. Either way, you're rating.) If we must do it, then sure, who made it to the moon first is one measure. Another is the ability to succeed as a species and replicate yourself - in this sense bacteria are usually said to win. There's more of them, and they've responded to our war on them by becoming resistant to our weapons.

Personally, I reckon it's silly, but if it's important to you to win this one, go for your life.

David - you're getting a bit precious there. "Steep ascendancy" to me implies that atheism is gathering popularity at the rate that, say, iPods are gathering popularity. Yes, when taking the long view, the rise of atheism has been relatively rapid and recent - but so was the rise of monotheism, beginning perhaps some 4000 years ago, out of at perhaps 200,000 years of human existence. Regarding atheistic evangelism, I never implied that anything was wrong with it, and if I thought I had what it took to do a good job of it, I'd be prepared to partake in it myself.

Jack, I just said "the church". Islam is no less "the church" than Christianity. If you claim that your early exposure to religion had no influence on your views on homosexuality, then fine, that's nothing something I can attempt to disprove.

What's the meaning of determining whether I'm equal to an individual fly? The point is whether flies as a species have been as successful as humans, and by almost any objective measure, they most definitely have. Almost certainly they will outlast us.

"We can make ourselves strong by our creative technologies" is a very human judgement. Most species make themselves strong by having evolved that way, and if capable would probably wonder why humans are so innately helpless that most of the planet would be uninhabitable to us if it weren't for all the time we spent making clothes, building shelters and heating them.

You think that dogs are lesser creatures because they rely on us for "food scraps and water". But, again, if capable, they would think us pretty daft to expend so much effort on them for relatively little in return, and no doubt consider us hopefully backwards and unevolved as far as our pitiful sense of smell goes.