This site brings me much amusement.

I am currently in the lower sixth at my school in the UK (which I guess is the equivalent of freshman year at high school in the US), and the common room frequently becomes the scene of a heated religious debate. With a pleasing growth in the number of atheists, this tends to be a rather one sided affair, with dozens of us giving logical, structured arguments on the side of godlessness, and three or four devout Jesusians giving responses that generally go along the lines of "Because the bible says so".

I am quite proud of some of my sacreligious arguments. For example, I was thrilled when, on the spur of the moment, I compared telling people that the universe was created by God to the moment when a young child says "How does Santa Claus get down the chimney?" and the inevitable reply is "Magic, child. Magic. Now get back in the basement." This same kind of 'easy way out' mentality was obviously employed by some poor person years ago and was blown way out of proportion until it became a global phenomenon, causing billions of people to have devoted their entire lives to invisible beings.

I was also pleased with myself when I pointed out to the most devout of the Christians that science had disproved the religions of the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Australian aborigines and so forth. I was met with the response that science could therefore disprove Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Sikhism and Judaism. I was filled with an indescribable rage.

I made the point that religion was a paradox, as most religions encourage forgiveness and kindness, but condemn people to eternal torture for even the most trivial of sins if they don't believe in the deity in question. I have identified passages in the bible that clearly contradict Christian philosophy to biblical literalists. I have asked why humans have appendices and tailbones and eyebrows if evolution is untrue.

But why were my arguments rejected offhand? "Because the bible says so."

*Grumbles*

Good for you for continuing the good fight in a reasoned manner. I have heard that there is a greater rise in atheism in the UK than there is in the United States. I'm guessing that people like you are why.