To David f. What I said was not dismissing evil done. But is a warning. I've been seeing it first hand not with religion but with politics. People increasing their rhetoric against other people doesn't end with those speaking out to eventually making peace with the other side. I'm sad to say that the protests around politics in the US are becoming more divided and more eager for violence. This has been a slow progression but has the mentality that if the other side won't listen you force them to listen.

That isn't everyone, but it is enough people to take notice of the population of growing aggression. Your words in this conversation are increasing in their tone against Christianity. The face of evil comment is a step and a half to standing up against that evil. From words to action. Take note and be cautious. Or else you might hear your words (or words like them) as the mantra while burning a church, or in modern times, leaving a bomb in a religious meeting. That said I'm glad you acknowledge that doing so is wrong. That's the closest I've seen you to admitting that there is evil done against Christians, and that you don't support it.

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Now to excusing evil done by Christians. I've not excused any of it so please do not put words in my mouth. I am tired of having to correct you on what I mean, or what I stand for. Do two things for me and my hope is that this will not continue to be an issue. 1) do not put words in another person's mouth. And 2) hold yourself to the same standard you hold others to.

Often people within disagreements will add embellishments to their arguments without knowing what they are doing. "So and so is saying ________" when that person did not say that. Or that the other person stands for _______, when again nothing of the sort has been said. If you can avoid this you will be closer to being honest with yourself about the other person.

Put the same effort to hold yourself at the same standard you hold the person you disagree with at. No double standard to pin evil on a person that they did not do, as a means to oppose missionaries, but then when pointed out that you do the same, change your stance to say that you are a missionary and it's ok. No, when you find yourself giving a double standard correct yourself so that you do not do it again. Don't stand by it and say it's ok for you but not for someone else.

I am making an effort to tell you this because I assume you aren't aware you are doing it.

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"Protesting that a delusion is not a delusion is what NNS keeps doing. The reason people believe in religion and other nonsense has been investigatedy. It is not an investigation when the conclusion is made before the investigation as you have done. You have already stated what you expect people to find. Serious investigations of religious belief have been made. Two books on the subject are:

Wilson, David Sloan, Darwin’s Cathedral, Chicago: U of Chicago, 2003

Boyer, Pascal, Religion Explained, NY: Perseus (Basic Books), 2001"
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Dear David f.

Google search has both of these books up to a certain page available online. From both of them it seems that their serious investigation is more about philosophical conclusions applied to religion instead of investigation of any specific religion. Explaining religion instead of investigating if there is any merit to religion. The fault in this approach is to group all religions as a woke to being the same thing. Since all the religions don't agree with each other a serious investigation of religion grouped together will come to terms that religion is false without any investigation in each religion to see if any hold merit for what they claim.

I don't want religion to be explained, I want it tested. See if there is truth behind it. A serious investigation can come about from investigating any of the claims made by a religion. Regardless of how ridicules the claim seems to you. But to make it worthwhile, I recommend testing the claims that are from the founders of a religion or from the prophets of a religion, not from the theologians and philosophers of a religion. The same issue of theologians coming to the wrong conclusions comes to play in scientific philosophy, where one field such as biology is used to come to conclusions about religion as a whole. Since you can't biologically test religion this is philosophy not science. And the conclusions based on it need to be able to be verified before they are accepted as being accurate in both biology and social sciences.

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The claim I hold to be true is that within the bible. Seek and you will find. I don't want an excuse to explain God, and be able to dismiss Him without real investigation. But with real investigation see if your observations hold the merit. Often this is a life long process. Events in your life can be used to confirm or correct a claim. To steady a resolve or to break down it's foundations.

So when I say I've investigated if God is real, I do mean that I've investigated the claim and found it with a lot of evidence. Moving forward as a Christian I am part of a second investigation. Striving to follow the teaching in the bible and seeing what happens when I succeed to do so, verses what occurs when I fail to follow them. This tests their merit, and hopefully as an older man my future self will be stronger in his faith then my present self who has his own struggle to apply all of the teachings. Hopefully I can look back as I've already done so far and say when I follow this advise it is reliable or it isn't. When I follow this teaching it is worthwhile or it isn't.

Dear NNS,

I did not put words in your mouth. When you saw no difference between the burning of people at the stake and the burning of people in a church I was bothered by the comparison. Both are wrong. Both are evil. You don't examine your religion. Why did Christians do the evil of burning people at the stake? Why did you not ask why they did that? Why did those who were against Christians burn Christians in a church. As far as I can religion is a divisive force. It sets humans against other humans. Evil is done against Christians, and Christians do evil against others. All of the evildoers think they have the truth.

You want people to look in the Bible. Most religions have sacred books. The Jews have the Bible without the New Testament. The Muslims have the Koran. The Hindus have the Bhagavand Gita. Buddhists have the Tripitaka. Other religions have their own works, and the idea that they have the truth. You want people to look at the Bible rather than the other sacred books. You know little or nothing about the contents of the Koran, the Bhagavand Gita and the Tripitaka, but you have the arrogance based on ignorance to assume the Bible is superior. I think the idea of ahimsa is a better idea than anything found in the Bible.

I see all religions that rely on supernatural beliefs as delusionary. Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims and others all have their delusions. I want explanations. What need does religion fill for people? Why are most people religious? How did religion start?

You wrote:

"I don't want religion to be explained, I want it tested."

I don't think you want religion tested. If you really wanted religion tested you would compare the different kinds of religion with one another and see the different effects. From your postings it is obvious that you want people to try your kind of delusion rather than other kinds of delusion.

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I feel no need for any religious belief and can see no point in it, but I am interested in explaining why the need persists.. From statistics the poorest and most ignorant countries are those which have the greatest proportion of religious believers. In the US the poorest and most ignorant part of the population are the most fervently Christian. They elected Trump. In my opinion that doesn't say much for Christianity.