To be honest, I think I was always an atheist deep down, but I deluded myself about it for years.

I was raised in that hazy quasi-christian way that most Americans seem to be, in that we celebrated the Christian holidays but were more or less secular. My father made us observe Lent, but he was agnostic. He just thought it was a healthy thing to do. My mother was an "atheist who hated god" (paraphrasing her own words- I'm aware of the contradiction.) She told her kids that we should believe, but not tell her to believe. As you can imagine, this lack of coherent discourse on religion left me searching, even from a very young age. I distinctly remember thinking about things like the origin of time when I was four years old, in my sesame street pajamas. I asked questions about god all the time.

Most of my religious education up until adolescence came from my grandmother, a fairly liberal Catholic. She was and still is more spiritual than dogmatic, although she was raised during the Depression by strict parents and went to Catholic school, which left its mark in some of her habits. Anyway, she basically taught me 1) God loves you (and so does Mary) 2) good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell 3) you should pray and go to church because it's good for you and "the spirit world" will help you and 4) someday we'll all be together in heaven.

As I got older, though, Grammy's answers to my questions were no longer satisfactory. In looking for better answers, I went to several different churches with several different people over the course of ten years or so- junior high through college.

I believe that by my junior/senior year of college, I'd decided I was firmly Christian. I had gotten into countless passionate discussions about the origin of evil, heated debates about literal vs figurative interpretation of the bible, and structured arguments about suffering, especially nonbelievers going to hell. In the end, though, I felt genuine comfort, and told people that I was spiritual. I prayed nightly, I read the bible (although admittedly, not very astutely- I browsed it- I felt my faith and prayer were strong). I went to a church that I liked; it made me feel good. Somehow, looking back, I feel I tricked myself into believing.

It took a catastrophic event to strip all my illusions away. This event was four years ago almost to the day- September 6th, 2002. Let me go back a few days before that, though. My mother, deeply wounded by her concepts of god and faith, had always - ALWAYS - told me to keep my religious beliefs to myself. She hated hearing about them. She hated the church. But, my belief was that I had to "save" my mother from hell. I wasn't quite convinced she'd go to hell just for not believing, but looking at the "facts" as presented to me by Christian doctrine, I feared for the possibility. It took a lot of slow, careful prodding, but I finally found an opportunity when she said she'd been wearing a Catholic saint charm necklace and had had good luck ever since. And it's true, our lives were getting better. I had just days ago passed my nursing exams (praying about them, listening to uplifting Christian music etc in the meantime) and she had just sold our house. My middle brother had just started college. After a lifetime of poverty, our lives were looking up.

I gently, carefully suggested that maybe we could go to church that weekend, to say thanks to god for how well things were going. I reasoned that maybe all our bad luck was finally behind us.

My mother, much to my surprise, was quiet for a minute and said "maybe I will. But no promises."

Please understand, this was the most open she'd ever been to anything having to do with religion in my entire life. Aside from occasional superstitous behavior, I mean.

Well, on September 6th, she and my brother Jesse- the one who'd just started college- died in a car accident. This was before we ever got to church or anything. Jesse had never even been to church in his life as far as I'm aware.

Naturally, I prayed (a lot) when this first happened. But the very first words out of my mouth when I heard the news were "you can't do this to me" - directed, inexplicably, at god.

Despite that, for the first couple of days I felt that god "carried" me through it. But my brother, who was a professed agnostic who leaned towards belief in a lot of different gods, was lying brain dead while literally thousands of people prayed for him. We performed, at Grammy's request, the sacrament of the sick. I watched, knowing with absolute clinical certainty that he was dead, as my family hoped for a miracle. I was the only one who really knew he was gone. I knew from the first day, and it was me who explained things to my father. We made the decision together to remove him from life support. The funeral went by and the shock wore off and with it went the feeling of invincibility, the feeling of being almost wrapped in a protective cocoon, that I had ascribed to God's grace.

Suddenly, "god's grace" was nowhere. I can't even begin to describe what it felt like; a friend of mine, trying to reassure me, said that Job felt the same way, that God was testing me, and that even Jesus had cried out about being forsaken- but he wasn't. This friend told me this was my gethsemane.

As for the gory details, I prayed, I read the bible, I screamed at god, I threw the bible across the room. I talked to priests and friends who were in seminary. They actually made it worse. I retreived my mother's lost pendant, the one she'd been looking for days before the accident, and wore it. I threw that across the room too. I felt like I was losing my mind. I went to church and while everyone around me prayed, I had to supress somewhat crazy laughter. I felt that god was real, and was my enemy. I blasphemed like nobody's business; I told god in no uncertain terms how much I hated him, with lots of elaborate cursing thrown in, and told him I'd rather go to hell than be with someone who would create such a painful reality. I told him that if my mother and brother were in hell just for not believing, then I would go to hell with them. I said "get out of my life, get out of my heart, and stay away. I don't need you and I don't want you. I hate you with every fibre of my bei ng and if there were a way to kill you, I would do it." I don't think you can get much more blasphemous than that.

Fortunately, this volatile phase eventually passed as well. I got counseling; I needed it. I started exercising and eating better (after losing an unhealthy amount of weight). Lots of other things happened in my life, and I read books about physics, philosophy, eastern religion, etc. I talked to my best friend, a devout christian who remains my best friend today. She still prays for me, but she's afraid to talk to me about religion because she can't answer my questions and I think it gets too painful for her. She asked me to read books by C.S. Lewis and things, and I did. She gave up after a while, and will only say "it's never too late to change you mind." She's respectful and supportive, but we cant discuss the issue in any kind of detail. It's just too much.

I began to uncover what, for me, was a profound truth. Between physics and taoism, I began to feel that I was asking all the wrong questions. The question wasn't "why." The questions were "why not?" and "why ask why?" Furthermore I began to realize there didn't need to be a reason for anything. Most of my belief had been based on the sense that there must be some origin, some reason, some force behind existence. And a little bit on Pascal's wager, when I'm honest with myself. But during two years of sleepless nights spent reading mind-bending quantum physics and philosophy that I hardly understood, I began to let go of my need to blame some imaginary man in the sky for what had happened. I found I'd long ago lost the need for imaginary comfort, for answers to the unexplained. I'd become incredibly self-reliant. My life was no easier or more difficult for lack of prayer. I gradually saw the humor and futility in it, and I just realized... there is no god. There's no heaven, no hell, no afterlife, no spirit world, and no point in forcing yourself to believe in it all. It was an epiphany in the truest sense of the word.

I guess I'm a 'soft' atheist because I admit the (very slim) possibility that god exists. But I maintain my original assertion from 2002: if there is a god, and he has condemned my mother and brother- who were good people- to hell, then I would refuse heaven even if I still warrant the choice. If god turned out to be real, my anger with him would return, and I wouldnt want to spend eternity with a god who would send good people to suffer torture forever. I would rather be in hell where my family was, even if it was the literal place of fire, darkness, stench and agony. Fortunately, the evidence in favor of hell's non-existence is strong enough that I see no need to worry.

It took so much anguish before I came to this conclusion that seems so obvious to me now. I've found more peace in the lack of god then I ever did back in the days when I thought I was "spiritual." I'm a stronger person than I ever was, and my life is in much better shape. I'm rational, my emotions are no longer out of control, and I take care of myself - knowing I'm the only one who can.

To be honest, I do feel some lingering animosity towards Christians. I know it's not a good thing, but I can't seem to help it. Most of the outspoken Christians I encounter are bigoted and pushy fundamentalists. Even from the ones who aren't, I get all the "but you HAVE to believe in something!" and "you gotta get yourself back to church" crap you can imagine. I keep telling myself that they're not all bad, and in fact I know tons of people who are religious (like my Grammy and my best friend) who are wonderful people. I sometimes think "religious people are stupid" despite knowing that's not true either. I know people with PhDs and IQs in the 150s and higher who believe in God. I don't honestly think I'm smarter than them. I'm just frustrated because I feel I've discovered, through immense pain, an immutable and liberating truth. I wish my best friend would realize what I have, although without having to go through what I did. When I look at her, and her life, it seems to me that religion causes her more doubt and confusion than comfort or guidance. I wish she could be free of it- I wish everyone could.

Since all this happened I've also been to Iraq, and now more than ever I feel that religion is one of the biggest causes of voilence and hate in the world. Then I have to admit that I understand why. It hurts to have your beliefs challenged. It hurts when people can't see your point of view when you feel it's both true and important. Obviously, trying to force atheism or agnosticism onto others is no better a solution than crusading and jihaading against them.

I wish everyone were an atheist, sometimes. But rationally I know that wouldn't solve the world's problems, and that it wouldn't really be good for everyone. Some people are scared of the idea of nothingness after death, of randomness in the universe, of not knowing the answers. Some people need the comfort of their faith. Those people need their belief to make them feel that all is right with the world.

I don't know if I have a point to make or not. I just wanted to share my story. Thanks for creating this site, I really do appreciate your positive approach to the subject and the effort you've put into it.

I am very, very flattered that you chose to share your story. It is powerful and makes many important points. As I read it, I thought of a great many things I'd like to say about what you went through and the people you describe, but I think I'll just let your words speak for themselves. Everything worth saying is there.

I just had to say something about this line from someone elses comment

"and it would be nice to have the answer of an intelligent and mature athiest who probably understands that the existance of a God is a possibility at least"

if you are an atheist then you deny god period. There are no possibilities of a god in any way shape or form....if you think otherwise maybe you should consider agnostic or becoming religious..there is no way to have your cake and eat it to when it comes to believing in god and being an atheist.

I disagree, but our disagreement is simply one of vocabulary. What you describe is "strong" atheism, but not all atheists are strong atheists. One can be an atheist (in the sense of being a person without religion) without explicitly saying that there are no deities. In fact, I prefer that philosophy myself.

Think about it this way. I don't think that there is multi-cellular life on Mars, and although I agree that there is a possibility, the odds are looking bad. So, given this, do you think that I should state my opinion as, "I deny that there is life on Mars"? Of course not -- what sense would that make? Do I think that there is no multi-cellular life on Mars? Well, until I see evidence otherwise, yes. The scientific evidence is mounting in that direction, and there is enough of it to make a tentative conclusion, if not a definitive one.

I don't think there is anything wrong with thinking in this way, and I don't see any reason I should grant special status to the possibility of a deity, causing me to use special terms and a special label for myself because I feel about God the same way I feel about anything else I don't think exists. Would I say that there is a possibility God exists? Sure. Would I say that there is a much greater possibility that Mars once was teeming with life? Heck yes.

And thanks for the cake.

Fuck you, I was set up. I wasn't an atheist before coming here. Now wil have to start over again.

I just wanted to let you know that by my visiting your site, you have been registered as an honorary member of the Flat Earth Society. I have also disabled your browser's pop-up blocker and your email's spam filter.

Well, that's what you get for not accepting Western Religious Doctrine. I do hope you enjoy your correspondence with your new friends at www.ilovetogetwhitesupremacistnewsletters.com

You will have plenty of time in hell to reflect upon this. Enjoy!!! ;)

Not accepting Western Religious Doctrine gets me more spam? Well, that does explain a lot. Thanks!

Check out this hilarious/prescient/scary Choose Your Own Afterlife novella, The Rapture Is At Hand. I SU d it today in the Atheist cat. It s an interactive novella like the old CYOA books. The Xtian Rapture is imminent and you are in the Bible Belt. Do you leave or stay? Go inside the head of an Evangelical or be an atheist. I ve gone through a dozen times with a dozen different endings. On my first try I went to Pastafarian heaven and drank from the beer volcano!

www.theraptureisathand.com

seems like that your "rights and responsabilities" are quite similar to the Ten Commandments. So, being an atheist is something like finding a new name for an old stuff?

I'm disappointed

No, being an atheist is more like getting rid of a lot of old stuff you don't use any more.

The point of the page is that, even though atheists are not that morally different from "Bible believing" Christians (or, at least, from how many of these Christians describe their morality), many Christians still condemn us as immoral.

There is no God. Period. Your site's given me so many arguments against this supernatural being and its religion, and I thank you for that.

*bows to site creator*

i like your site. specially the faggot comment. that one's the best. and your disclaimers. hilair.

what a line of bullshit the pope you say he the biggest con game going intodays world. he neededs to lock way till he dies and never ever put any man kind in that high of spot. if he and his group is not steeling money from hard working just to better them selfs they are haveing sex with little boys and getting away with free and clear. never going to jail for any for there steeling raping, remove me frome your lisst and never send to me

Hi, just wanted to let you know that you're wrong.

Thanks! You, too!

Nice site! In some recent correspondence, you mentioned a Mark Twain quote that you couldn't quite put your finger on. In case you haven't found it yet, here it is:

"Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company." -- Mark Twain

I am very sorry that I have not written in a long time and that this must be a short letter. I will tell you why I am writing these letters then I am afraid I will have to close and write another. The only time I have to write you is on some Fridays. I am very sorry. If I am to try and convince you from the way I learned it, there might be some problems. For every question I have asked you and other people, there has been an answer. I am still young in years and have quite a lot to learn, but so far even though you say you have found holes in my questions, I can fill them in my mind though its hard to explain them to others. Plus, I have felt God in my very being and even now, when I really have nothing to say, I am given words to say that make sense and some of it I have never learned. I have been exposed to many other religions and athiesm and Islam both really interest me for several reasons, which is why I am writing to you. I am in a Bible study about atheism and science and I had some questions that only an atheist could answer. Yes, I have not been asking you questions, but I have learned many things. I could not believe that anyone could point blank deny God. I still don't think you do but you are waiting for some proof that you cannot deny. Finally, we are commanded to go into all the world and teach others about God. Since I cannot travel I am writing to you, telling you everything I know in ways that I believe you can understand. I hope that clears it up for you. There is a saying that you will believe what you want to believe. If you really believe you are going to die today then you will. The mind is a powerful thing. If you continually convince yourself that there is no God, then no matter what you will continue to believe that.

Great to hear from you again!

You mention that you feel God in your very being, and of all your reasons for believing in a deity, I'd say this is the best. That's something to keep in mind.

I'd be very interested to hear more about your Bible study, particularly about what it says regarding atheism and science. If you could tell me what kind of group it is (casual, formal, if through a church then what denomination), that would help me understand where you are coming from as well. I certainly welcome any questions you -- or, for that matter, anyone in your group -- might have about atheism.

You say that you could not believe that anyone could point-blank deny God. You're right that I don't do this, in part because "deny" is a bit of a loaded term. For example, I don't "deny" that I'm from Japan, but I'd sure be surprised if it was the case since I was born in California. More to the point, I wouldn't come right out and say that there is no deity, because I can't prove any such thing. But, again, I feel that the evidence is very, very much in line with that conclusion. I wouldn't say that I'm waiting for proof that I can't deny since that would imply that I'm searching for proof of God's existence, but it is certainly true that it would take significant evidence to make me change my mind.

Your beliefs include a command to teach others about God. I'm happy to provide you a forum where thousands of people will read what you have to say. I don't have any divine command compelling me, but I, too, believe that the world will be a better place if we all understand each other's beliefs a little better.

You're right that people often believe what they want to believe. I'm sure we all do some of that (and some do a lot of that ). However, I wouldn't put myself in the camp of someone who continually self-convinces that there is no God. My beliefs are the result of many, many years of searching for a belief system that made sense to me, and I spent a lot of time being very religious before I realized that it wasn't something I needed. I have no rancor against religion, and I am always willing to learn. And one thing I've learned is that belief due to need comes in many forms, and we all need to watch for it in ourselves.

I am an Athiest and I agree with this website!

Thanks! Me, too!

Ur not an atheist,ur just fucking gay

Okay, so what is it with the whole "gay" thing? Apparently there are many more homophobes with no ability to think of a good insult out there than I ever imagined.

Hey, I've been an Atheist since i was fairly young, despite my school's attempt to turn me christian i was never really interested so here i am, bored at work and typing "Iamanathiest" in to my browser and seeing what happens.

One thing that slightly irritates me about the site. You seem to reply to your correspondence that you have a complete respect towards theists and non-theists alike. Fair enough. However on another one of your pages (i forget which one) you say that all theists will "have a go" at athiests because of their beliefs. So all i'm saying is, i agree with you on most parts, but you're a little hypocritical on the website.

I think you might be talking about the rights and responsibilities page where I say that "theists will condemn you for living by this code." If so then you're right -- "will" should be "may." I'll make the change.

Woopiee Free from reading anything at all and now I just go around and push people down. If the complain I yell "theises are people too. or better then them." I'm so glad that you told everyone you know and repesent me. I'm going to use you in court. That charge will be down to vountery manslater in no time.

Manslater?

Fagot! Faggot! I'll say it easy so you can understand, u r a faggot! When the time comes you and all the other faggots are going to be gathered together and burned like the kindling you are. Faggot!

Hello, I have been reading your site and enjoy your posts. For several years now I have considered myself an agnostic. I never felt that I could commit to saying that I was atheist. This was in part, because for so long I thought that I KNEW there was a God and looking back on that it seemed like arrogance. So now I find that I cannot say with the same conviction the opposite, that I know there is no god.

However, I came across a site recently. I do not remember the link but the author was talking about 'strong' and 'weak' atheism. I'm not so sure I agree with the adjectives they used to describe atheism but as you probably know they're pointing out that some atheist say 'there is no god' and others say 'they see no evidence of god'. The author then went on to point out that atheism/theism deals with beliefs in god (or lack thereof) while agnostic/gnostic dealt with knowledge. So it was their claim that someone cannot be either theist, atheist, or agnostic because it doesn't fit on the scale of belief. Instead they posed it as matrix of knowledge and belief, pitching people into 4 groups. Gnostic Theists, Agnostic Theists, Gnostic Atheist, and Agnostic Atheist.

I just wondered what your thoughts were on this line of thinking. I guess this would cast me into the Agnostic Atheist camp. It looks to me though that anyone who claimed to be a gnostic 'anything' is fooling themselves. Perhaps in their own perceptions they are sure they can 'know' that god does or does not exist. I'm just not convinced that anyone who claims to be a gnostic really knows anything. Isn't the whole point of the scientic method to support a hypostheis or disprove a hypothesis. Meaning that you can never reach that 100% certainty. Only that you can make a very well informed highly probable statement.

Anyway, I only bring it up because I've noticed that same subject of 'strong vs weak' atheism on a few sites and wanted to see your take.

I think that trying to subdivide atheism and agnosticism generally just leads to confusion. The fact is, there are many kinds of atheism and many kinds of agnosticism (just as there are many kinds of Christianity). I agree that this leaves some ambiguity, but I think this is better than trying to think up labels for all possible subdivisions of non-religious philosophy, since it's difficult to do that rigorously. For example, the terms you list seem to leave out people who call themselves atheists because they are anti-Christian but believe that there may be some kind of spirit, universal mind, or other big supernatural thingy (these people drive me nuts, by the way).

I, too, don't like the adjectives "strong" and "weak" atheism, but the definitions are useful. I am a "weak" atheist myself, in that I cannot prove that there is no deity. Depending on personal preference, I think that a weak atheist can use either the atheist or agnostic label, because the terms overlap a bit, but I personally try to avoid the word agnostic because using it would make me feel like I'm defining my philosophy by what I can and cannot prove, and I find that unsatisfying (particularly since I don't use that type of definition in other parts of my life — I'm not a "bigfoot agnostic," for example).

At least in my case, atheism is not about belief or disbelief in god. It's about "a-theism" or lack of religion. Not believing in god goes along with this, but it is not the crux of my belief system. I see atheism more as a strong dedication to Occam's razor than a statement about deity, and as such it touches every area of my life.

It sounds to me like you could comfortably call yourself a weak atheist — or just an atheist — if that sounds better to you than agnostic. Use which ever you are most comfortable with.

ok il add osme slightly more constructive comments

neway, i do not believe its possible to 'disprove' gawd, or nething else, instead the more logical approch to dealing with belief systems is analysing hte belief rather htan atempting to fight crazy magic stories and circulur logic with real logic and science

first of all people of today who werent blessed with the prevliege of seeing jebus and his numerous mircicles nor having any direct contact with gawd only hear about gawd thru people who hear it thru people why not walk back thru the chain and assess the validty of these people's claims and how stupid it would be to believe PEOPLE as a pos to anything less than seeing mircles and gawd urself?

people should focus more on why they believe something than wether or not god COULD exist, and why they should or should not believe

but as for attacking god il have a crack firstly i cant subjectivly fight the concept of an ompitiant being with out first being one, nor can i really argue agisnt an omipitant being doing say evrything the bible says such a being did.... so i wont botehr while attacking gods morality doenst disprove nething it shure raises questoins of his character if god is omipresent, then why would he doom man kind?

I agree that it's generally futile to try and prove that God exists. One can, however, argue about particular characteristics of a deity if one exists (for example, is God "good").

I disagree that it is illogical to argue against circular logic and other errors in thinking. In fact, I think that the best defense we have against the advancement of untrue ideas is to help people who have little experience in thinking through their philosophy and beliefs in a logical manner or who have beliefs that contradict themselves.

You talk about arguing against belief based on the reports of witnesses. Certainly that is a valid argument (although I would never use the word "stupid" to describe people who have belief for these reasons). However, you should be very careful about how you apply this argument, since it can easily be used against you. For example, why should you believe the reports of a scientific experiment if you haven't done the experiment yourself? I think a far better tactic would be to point out that extraordinary claims (such as miracle) require extraordinary proof, and that the kind of reports we have of Biblical miracles do not live up to that standard.

I agree that it is important for people to think about why they have belief. Reasons for belief do not tell us whether or not religion is truth, however.

I don't see how you can say that you can't argue about whether or not an omnipotent being exists because you yourself are not omnipotent. We can discuss the possibility of an infinite universe without being infinite. I agree you can't argue that an omnipotent being couldn't have made all the things in the Bible happen as written (so far as they are logically consistent). I also agree that God's morality has nothing to do with proof of His existence, but I don't understand what you mean when you say that an omnipresent God wouldn't doom mankind. To me, these are not related concepts.

Hi, all!

I found this website yesterday, and I loved the whole "Rights" concept; the whole "10 Commandments minus God" bit. So I was talking with another guy today, a man with his PhD nonetheless. He is very smart in academics, but in life as well. I am not sure if he is athiest, but he left the Catholic Church at age 12 (I was also around that age when I too left the Church).

Anyway, he said something very interesting today. Now, I know both sides (those who are religious and those who are athiest) both have their morons who don't listen and their only reason for their beliefs, or lack thereof, is because the other one is "stupid". However, this man and I both find more than enough Christians whose reasons we should be religious is "because it's just not right if you aren't religious", and then they talk in circles; we never meet the people that make sense and listen to our side of the story as well.

So this one obnoxious Christian was trying to tell the man about how he will go to Hell if he doesn't believe in God and such, and this man said, "That's great; I'd actually prefer Hell; that's where all the interesting people are!" And if you think about it, it is true. Some of the most interesting people in history had some form of an aspect (being athiest, not believing in God, committing mass genocide) that would condemn them to Hell, but those are the interesting folk. I am not making it sound as great as the man described it today, but basically his thoughts were, "Even if I had a choice, I'd still chose Hell over Heaven".

So there you go. I thought it was a neat idea, since everyone seems to think Hell is bad. And here, this guy would take Hell over Heaven, if given a choice.

That is indeed a neat idea, and perhaps the most famous reference to it is more than 100 years old: "In heaven all the interesting people are missing," Friedrich Nietzsche. I believe Mark Twain said something along these lines as well, but I can't find the quote so I may be mistaken.

You might be interested to know that the concept of going to hell to be with the interesting people is not unknown to all religious people. I have heard it specifically (if, generally, lamely) addressed a number of times.

Descartes: 1. I exist 2. I have an idea of a supremely perfect being, i.e. a being having all perfections. 3. As an imperfect being I would be unable to create such a concept. 4. The concept must have come from God. 5. To be a perfect being God must exist. 6. God exists.

OR

ThaTGuY: 1. I exist. 2. I eat stinky cheese. 3. As an imperfect being I would be unable to create stinky cheese. 4. The concept must have come from God. 5. To have a perfect head of stinky cheese God must exist. 6. God is stinky cheese.

I mean really the evidence is there!!! Who could refute?

Love, me

Y'know I have to say that if men are from mars and women are from venus then I have to say, atheists are from saturn and believers are from I really don't know where. At a private level, I am stuck in the middle - an agnostic. I would like to believe but cannot really do so. My rationality does not let me. But neither does it allow me to say it just aint so because I keep having this damn hunch that there may be something to this God thing. Not the bible stuff - thats a crock: A bunch of silly fairy stories told by a group of tribal elders to their people to explain the unexplainable and the fact that so many damn silly fools take it seriously in the 21st century just has me goggle eyed with amazement and gasping for breath. What ever is true then I know one thing; its more complex, confounding and, at the end of the day interesting than either side perhaps acknowledges. (Another hunch.) But this is a private belief as I say. I mostly try to keep it to myself and I sure as hell do not go aroound trying to ram it down other people's throats.

This is the thing that most of all gets me damned angry about the believers. So is it worth an atheist trying to argue the case to convince a believer to recognise the errors of their ways.Well as long as "God is on thier side" its not an option and sorry pal its about as useful as trying to fill up the grand canyon by pissing in it. Speaking from personal experience, atheists do not chose not to believe. They just cannot believe something that is so patently absurd that blind Freddy and his half wit dog rover would not believe it unless they were brainwashed. (Mostly I am talking about the literal "truth" of the bible here.)

Believers on the other hand are called believers for a good reason - they want to believe, they need to believe and cannot help themselves! I have no problem with someone having a private belief that I do not share. But I get pretty shitty when they try to beat me over the head with it and force me to believe. And if there is anything more reprehensible than a bunch of self righteous God botherers trying to force society to obey their private beliefs then I cannot think of it.

I just wanted to thank you for your response. I do appreciate your insight and it is nice to hear these things from a stranger. Anyway, I just wanted to say that...Thank you.

Now to turn to a completely different topic. I was wondering what your take is on the recent debates over federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. The only reason I bring this up to you is because of the ethical/moral implications. There are plenty of people out there who do not support it because they have a belief (often for religious reasons) that life is 'sacred' and begins at conception and that this cluster of cells actually does have soul. Personally I have my doubts about the existence of a human soul but it's still a murky issue for me. Because as much as some of these politicians aggravate me...especially Sam Brownback with his grandstanding, obnoxious, condescending presentations...there seems to be a rational point in there. If you destroy that cluster of cells (the blastyst) you do destroy a potential human life. Of course if you don't further this research you only delay the development of new cures for certain diseases or injuries. This has a potential direct impact on the quality of life of those people who are currently living with diseases or handicaps.

To me it looks like the crux of both arguments hang on the word 'potential.' The potential for new human life vs. the potential for cures/treatments of life threatening problems. I just wondered what your thoughts were being an atheist who encourages people to lead ethical/moral lives.

Whew -- heavy stuff! Not that I mind .

Okay, so avoiding the topic of whether there should be federal funding for any science at all (which is too far outside the scope of this site to get into), here's my take.

• The concept of soul is, obviously, unimportant to me. However, I think that humans have certain rights regardless of whether or not they have a soul.


• I think that any statement about when human life begins is going to be, to some extent, arbitrary and purely philosophical. For this reason, I have no problem with saying that life begins at conception, even if it's just for the sake of argument.


• I don't have a problem in general with using human tissue for experimentation, particularly when the experiments could lead to significant benefits for humanity.


• If I understand it correctly, the law under discussion involves using for experimentation embryos that are slated for disposal.


• If I had a one-month-old baby and it died, I would feel that donating my baby's organs for transplant or donating some of my baby's cells for significant, respectful experimentation might bring some good out of a great tragedy.


• Therefore, I think that it may actually be better to use tissues from these proto-babies for research than to just dispose of them as bio-waste.

I too am annoyed by some politicians who use the "life is sacred" argument in this particular discussion. If these people honestly consider the embryos to be fully human, then why aren't they pressing for funerals or decent burials for them? Why aren't they trying to at least have them cremated and returned to their parents in a little vase? I know I'm sounding sarcastic here, but I think this is a very important point.

As for Sam Brownback in particular, I do find his arguments annoying but at least he is pretty consistent in his beliefs. He is against embryonic stem cell research, but he's also against abortion, and he has two adopted children (I'm a great believer in encouraging anti-abortion advocates to adopt children and therefore possibly make abortion less necessary.) I'd never vote for the guy, but at least on this subject he's not the worst of the bunch. What Brownback needs to do is realize that his opinions on these subjects are based on religion and therefore have no place being put into law.

While we're on the subject, I'm generally against full-body human cloning and elective genetic engineering. I don't have any problem with cloning individual human organs for use as transplants or with eliminating disease genetically. And I'm against the recent anti-fetal farming bill, because it bans something that, to my knowledge, nobody is even proposing doing and it colors the debate on stem-cell research.

So that's where I stand. Thanks for asking!

OK, so having had a brief canter through defining good/evil, and legislating morality, I'm now interested in the question of WHY faith?

Having the background I do (English, white, lower-middle-class, brought up in the 50's and 60's) I was constantly exposed to christianity - Church, Sunday school, Bible classes, baptism, confirmation, and so forth. All of this was presented to me by competent teachers, clergy and communicators, none of whom ever gave me cause to doubt their sincerity.

All of my young friends and schoolmates had pretty much the same experience - yet I cannot think of one who is now a believer.

Nontheless, there are many people in the wider community, with similar backgrounds, similar or better intelligence compared to mine, who were and are believers.

What is the difference between us?

The above suggests that it is not "nurture" but "nature". I and people like me lack an inner something that allows us to have belief in something the existence of which we have no credible evidence for. At the same time, some very similar people - similar enough to be a matched cohort - have no trouble with this.

Anyway, aftre long and convoluted arguments with myself, I am leaning toward the idea that I lack the "faith" gene (or gene complex)- or conversely, that believers lack a fully functional skeptic gene/complex.

I can see some past evolutionary advantage in having the "faith" gene - besides the more subtle societal advantages, there have been many periods in the histories of many cultures when a lack of religious belief, if not well concealed, could have been fatal - indeed, this is still true in some places.

My lack of belief seems (so far) to be doing me no harm, unless and until some fervent believer decides to be the instrument of god and strikes me down, that is - so perhaps the evolutionary advantages are slowly disappearing.

Is it true to say that there will soon be an advantage in inheriting the ability to need to understand rationally that which is known and will become known about the workings of the Universe?

Well, yes - because the corollary of that is that if you believe in a supreme being, you tend to leave your fate in its hands. If you have a burning need to understand the HOW of everything, your descendants will be the ones who will discover how to escape a dying universe if such a thing is at all possible - or better still, will discover sufficient of the HOW to develop the techniques of building a new one.

So it could be that the the spawn of the skeptical become the (no doubt benign) amsters of the new universe, whilst the offspring of the credulous faithful die with the old one.

Now there's a thought.

Personally, I think that religious belief is almost 100% nurture, not nature. But just to confuse the issue, I think that the potential for religious belief -- and the propensity for it -- is nature.

Let's look at the nature part first. Humans are very good at recognizing patterns. We do this instinctively and automatically, and it is a facility that has many evolutionary advantages (by helping us identify hunting targets in complex environments, for example). The down side to this ability is that humans also tend to pick out perceived patterns in random data, and this cherry picking of data very often leads to beliefs that would not be supported by more rigorous evaluation.

For example, let's say that 80% of the land in a certain area is over an underground source of water. A dowser comes in and chooses ten places to dig. Eight turn up water and two do not. It would not be at all unusual for the dowser to find some pattern that justified the eight "hits" and made the two "misses" not count -- for example, perhaps the two misses were near natural sources of magnetism. So with 8 hits out of 8 tries that "counted," the dowser feels that he has a 100% success rate when he is not interfered with. And, of course, this completely ignores the fact that random chance would have given the same results.

The same kind of thinking can "prove" the efficacy of prayer. When prayers appear to have been answered, God is credited. When prayers are not answered, it is for a good reason known only to God. So no matter how things turn out, even an imagined deity couldn't help but win.

Now think about our ancestors, way back when religion was in its infancy. Og has an argument with Ur, runs out of the cave during a storm, and is hit by lightning. On another occasion, there is a lightning storm while the tribe is considering moving to a new hunting ground. Is there a pattern here? If you're still figuring out how the world works, you certainly might think so.

Another factor -- and I think this is a cultural one -- is that people have a big problem with saying that they don't know the answer to a question. We try very hard to find answers even when we have nothing even close to enough information, and when some of these answers become part of our culture, they are very difficult to revise. You can see this in some parts of current creation/evolution debates: because creationist explanations have become part of culture, a creationist might say that scientists are attacking religious beliefs instead of saying that scientists are trying to find out the truth.

So, summing up, humans have the propensity for religious belief based in part on pattern recognition and a need for answers. Even so, I say that religion is largely cultural because I am not convinced that anyone has an innate, genetic need or resistance to religious belief. A child may have a propensity for curiosity that will lead it to investigate its cultural beliefs, but such curiosity can generally be suppressed or limited by cultural factors (e.g., punishment of one sort or another for questioning authority).

I think that the relatively large numbers of people "losing their religion" today is not due to any genetic shift, but instead due to the availability of information and more acceptance of the fact that asking questions is not in and of itself evil. It might be interesting to informally survey your friends who have lost their religion and those who have stuck with it -- is one group more willing to investigate their beliefs than the other?

This is one of the main reasons why I spend so much time talking about examining beliefs, and pretty much no time talking about trying to get rid of religion. I think that asking questions is the path to atheism or, at the very least, fully informed religious belief, and both are an improvement over where much of the world seems to be today.

I have really enjoyed your site - thank you for the hard work that must be behind it. Your responses are genuine and well thought out. You provide an excellent behavioral model for intellectual discourse.

I'd like to know your philosophical leanings. Is there a particular line of thought that you agree with, or a particular philosopher?

I have considered myself to be an atheist for many years, but have a lot of faith in Buddhist teachings (which does not rely on a creator god, but does have a significant amount of metaphysics to it). What are your thoughts on Buddhist's concepts of emptiness and interdependence?

Thank you for the kind words about me and my site. I have read the work of a great many philosophers, but there is none whose school I would put myself in. I guess the person I most admire would be Robert Ingersoll, but he's not really a philosopher.

My knowledge of Buddhism is sorely lacking, so I can't really answer your questions on these topics. Can you describe the Buddhist concepts of emptiness and interdependence to me?

Thank you for your response. I enjoyed reading it, and it certainly gave me some more things to think about. In particular, I enjoy discussing concepts with people that both have a strong opinion, and know why they have that opinion. I always enjoy talking to someone that can better increase my understanding of the world.

You seem like a very educated person. I'm curious as to what you do with your life. With what profession does the webmaster of IAmAnAtheist.com support himself with?

Which also brings me to another question. Do you consider it a personal prerogative to "cleanse" the world of religion?

I enjoy discussing politics more than anything. One thing I've noticed is that a lot of fighting in the middle east stems from competition over the "Holy Land". Do you think we can live in a peaceful world where religion exists? Must people give up their belief to establish serenity?

And finally, my last question. From an atheists perspective, is it wrong of people to follow organized religion? Even if none of it is true, is it wrong to follow an idea that makes people feel safe?

Don't take anything I say too seriously. I'm eighteen years old, and my family just moved following my graduation from high school. I've got an entire summer (which is winding up pretty fast), zero friends, and only an internet connection to entertain myself.

Thanks for your complements and further questions. I'm going to have to pass on discussion of my profession as I like to leave certain personal details out of bounds. (I also avoid references to my gender, even in pronouns.) I will say that I do not have a college degree and that Pants Aflame Productions is the Webmaster of this site.

You asked if I, "consider it a personal prerogative to 'cleanse' the world of religion". I assume that by "prerogative" you don't mean to ask if I think I'm the only person who can eliminate religion from the world. Rather, I think you're asking if the elimination of religion is one of my main goals. In either case, my answer is no. I do not seek to eliminate religion. I realize that religion is helpful to many people and I don't seek to deny them this comfort.

What I do want to do is help people examine their own beliefs and make sure that they conform to my two rules for acceptable philosophy (that is, an acceptable philosophy must at least be self consistent and not condemn those who think in the same way). I think that promoting rational thought and behavior will go a long way toward eliminating a great many social problems, including those caused by the blind following of certain religions.

Despite the situation in the Middle East, I do think that peace and religion are compatible. However, I also think that any kind of fanaticism -- be it religious, political, or what have you -- is dangerous in that it discourages free thought and can therefore lead people to take completely irrational actions.

Must people give up their beliefs in the name of serenity? No. Heck, you can even believe that members of other religions deserve to die and live in peace, just so long as you also believe that you aren't the one with the right to carry out the death sentence. (This is an extension of my second rule -- if I believe I have the right to kill unbelievers, then I must not condemn anyone who believes they also have the right to kill unbelievers, so if I don't want everyone killing everyone else the rational thing to do is leave the killing to God.)

From an atheist perspective, is it wrong to follow an organized religion? Well, it would be wrong for an atheist, obviously. For anyone else, it is, at most, incorrect. Individuals must decide for themselves whether giving a certain amount of their belief up to faith is worth the benefit they get from religion. For those who think that the universe makes more sense if religion is true, then following an organized religion may make sense. But for anyone, I'd say that giving up your thought processes to another is always bad -- even if that other is always correct. Fortunately, there are some religions that do not require mindless belief.

Your last question is a difficult one: "Even if none of it is true, is it wrong to follow an idea that makes people feel safe?" The reason it is difficult is that you are mixing the theist and atheist perspectives. Is it bad to devote ones self to an idea that one knows is untrue for the sake of comfort? Probably. But this isn't generally what religious people do since they don't consider the ideas they are devoted to are false. But what about the person who believes in an afterlife because life without such belief would be overwhelming and there's no proof one way or another? Although it's bad to have any belief for simply emotional reasons, since this belief in and of itself harms nobody and helps the one holding it I can't condemn it to strongly -- just so long as the person with the belief admits its origin and does not try to convince others that it is based on something objective.

You tell me not to take what you say too seriously and mention that you just graduated from high school. If these are your beliefs and your honest questions we're talking about, I'm going to take them seriously whether you're 18 or 80. Even if you are just having this discussion to entertain yourself, so long as you are doing so seriously and with an intention to learn even when you disagree, then I welcome your correspondence.

I like this, from the "Feedback" column, New Scientist, 22 July 2006

"....Feedback's Statistical Proof of Alatry.* It goes like this. The only thing we know about deities with any certainty is that the number of them is a whole number, the idea of a fractional deity being frankly absurd. So the number of deities in our universe is an integer, in the range from minus infinity to plus infinity. (We leave the theologians to interpret a negative number of deities: this is number theory, and its conclusion should save them the trouble.) For it is commonly accepted that we should expect our universe to be typical of possible unoverses. So the expected number of deities is in the middle of the range of of possibilities. That is, zero. Quod erat demonstrandum"

*Alatry - the practice of not bothering to worship any deities.

That's pretty funny (even if the conclusion is not logically sound).

I like the point about what it would mean to have negative deities. Perhaps -1 dieties might be a new type of agnosticism -- there are no deities but the universe owes us one?

I am interested in having a rational conversation on religion with you. I need a sounding board and your posted conversations reveal that you are logical, ethical, and thurough when helping people clarify their positions. Would you talk with me?

I certainly welcome your correspondence. Just keep in mind that anything you write to me may be posted on my Web site.

Thanks for the reply! More to think about, which is always welcomed. I'm afraid I can't reply without addressing a few more things. Probably at length again...

I'm afraid I seem to have misled you somewhat. My intention was not to establish that one must believe in God, or in any specific belief. I personally don't believe in God. My point was just that one can alter one's beliefs by a choice, and that they are not "inherent" to who we are.

I completely agree that a change of belief cannot be brought about instantly by choice.

Hoever, when you say that one could bring oneself to believe something that one initially *knew* to be true, that statement slightly misses my point (I think). If one actually knew something to be true then one would indeed be irrational to bring about one's belief in the opposite (or really, negation, I'm a maths student) of that thing. But the point is that I am talking about changing a belief, a thing one holds true through faith, and not a rationally "known" idea at all. For example if one currently believes in God, but for some reason wishes to change that belief, my contention is that this is possible, by a process that begins with a choice. Since I am not talking about holding a view which is supported by rational thought, it cannot be irrational to alter that view through choice.

Perhaps we have differing interpretations of what exactly beliefs and faith constitute. My position is, as suggested above, that a belief is an idea that is held, irrespective of any rational arguments against it. It's not fixed in stone though, like any of this.

I like your example about the long-lost King of Prussia. That made me smile. But, I'm going to have to object to that as well. Sorry!

I don't accept that, if forcing yourself to believe you are the King of Prussia will make you happy, doing so makes no sense, or is irrational. It seems quite straightforward to me that making oneself happy is a rational action. Or perhaps the notion of rationality doesn't apply to such complex ideas as happiness. Rationality is very straightforward in plenty of circumstances, but hopelessly convoluted in plenty of others. Perhaps this is one.

All in all, though, I agree with you're most general point that there is no rational argument to convince anyone that God exists, and I would never make such a claim. I apologise if that didn't come across. I'm in agreement with you about a lot of things, but thought I'd take the opportunity to start a discussion about one particular point. Thank you for the opportunity!

I think our only real point of disagreement here is that, even if one can alter one's feelings, one must first make a decision to do so, and I have trouble seeing how a rational atheist could be convinced to change their own beliefs about religion in this way.

You are right that making yourself happy is a rational action. But is intentionally deluding yourself to make yourself happy a rational action? Even if you could argue that it was, I think that such self delusion could easily lead to an inability to trust your own thoughts, and in that there is a minefield of potential difficulties.

I'd just like to address a fairly minor point (at least in comparison with most of the concepts related to religious faith!) that you've made in reply to the person who accused you of making up other people's minds for them.

The point that I'd like to address is pretty much contained in this quote from you:

"The "you are now an atheist" concept is a joke, largely at the expense of those who believe that an intelligent person can just choose what to believe."

Specifically, the idea that an intelligent person can just choose what to believe. Now, I'm slightly playing devil's advocate here, but my own perspective on that issue is that an intelligent person actually can choose what to believe, as well as choose how to behave and feel in any given situation. However, I am not stating that they may *just* choose, but that byt their own choice they may modify their own beliefs however they please.

Now, I am by no means suggesting that this process is easy in all, or even the majority of cases. For example, it would be very easy to change a weakly held belief that the only word worth saying is banana, but it would be very difficult indeed to sincerely adopt a belief that a human can live without breathing oxygen.

The reason I say I'm playing devil's advocate a little is that in the case of belief about the necessity of breathing oxygen, it would be so difficult to change that belief that it would be nigh on impossible. The devil's advocate in me is saying that this does not mean that its impossible. The exact nature of the belief here doesn't really matter, since we can easily imagine beliefs that would be nigh on impossible, if the breathing oxygen example is not sufficiently difficult.

I haven't actually argued my case here, merely presented my opinion on the matter, but essentially my case is that this is precisely what one can learn from a psychological therapy technique known as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. My trust that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy can change how one feels, behaves and believes about things is born out of personal experience, which obviously I can't simply transmit to you. So really, I am unable to argue my position, except to point to empirical evidence that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy works, which must be interpreted as you see fit, obviously.

Also, I'd just like to say that I find your correspondence very interesting, and think that it's a very good thing that you receive and respond to comments other than the shouting and abuse demonstrated by some. It's good to see some genuine debate on the matter, rather than the dogma which appears so often on both sides of religion/atheism debates, particularly online.

If I have misinterpreted your position on the matter I've just commented on at far too much length, then I apologise, but at least I've given you something to chew on. Also, I've never formally studied philosophy, so if there are good arguments against my position that you think are worth mentioning please let me know. I'm always interested in any arguments against any position I take, cos how else am I supposed to develop my thinking on the question?

Cheers, and sorry for the length. Succinctness is not often one of my strengths...

If I understand correctly, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a means by which one can use inner dialogue to modify bad mental habits or change negative feelings. I suppose that one could use this technique to gain a belief in something one initially knew wasn't true, but this, it seems to me, would essentially be self brainwashing.

Even if I am incorrect on this point, though, I think that it has no impact on my statement.

If a religious person comes up to me and says that I should not worry about rational arguments and "just believe" that God exists and Jesus died for my sins, I cannot, as a rational and sane individual, simply instantly gain that belief by choice. It may be possible that through a process such as that you describe I could build up a belief in the supernatural. However, before doing that I would have to make a conscious decision to undergo a process that I knew would mess with my thoughts and emotions, and I would need to be convinced that this was a worthwhile course of action before doing so. Which brings us pretty much right back where we started — to the necessity of convincing me that God exists through rational argument.

I should also point out that, in my opinion, using a process such as you describe to create belief in something I currently believe to be untrue and that I am not convinced reflect reality is not rational. Forcing myself to believe in God just because it would make me happy makes just as much sense as forcing myself to believe that I'm the long-lost King of Prussia for the same reasons.

I saw of your recent conversations with the man who s girlfriend was a Christian and he believed he was an agnostic. It got me thinking. I have a somewhat similar situation. At least from the relational perspective.

My wife and I were married last year. We are very much in love and I cannot imagine my live without her. When we met one of the first things I did was tell her that I wasn't a Christian. During that time I wasn't sure what I was. I had been raised in a Catholic family. It was fairly conservative as Catholics go but I had a pretty good education at a Catholic high school an some of the more archaic believes were no longer being taught. They were hard-line on things like abortion, euthanasia, no women priests, etc but also taught that while they believed the bible contained inherent truth that many of the stories in the Old Testament were not meant to be taken literally. I appreciated this very much. I did believe in God and in Catholic teachings and this willingness to acknowledge that some of the old miracle stories were not literal made a lot of sense to me.

During my time in college I continued to attend church every Sunday but this was an extremely progressive Catholic church. They encouraged me to think outside the box and be accepting of other religions and faiths. These new teachings coupled with my philosophy courses pushed me toward agnostism. I realized that his existence wasn't scientifically justifiable so all I had was faith and quite frankly that just wasn't enough for me.

Since that time I've found that I am very happy with my life and do not feel like I'm missing anything by not believing in God. But back to reason I'm writing you. Like I said, I told my soon to be wife when we met that I wasn't Christian/Catholic. I felt it was important to reveal that to her right away because I knew she came from a Catholic family like mine. Well we jumped in with both feet and are happily married. But that doesn't stop me from worrying about how our differences will affect us later. She says that she does believe in God and the Christian belief that Jesus is the son of God. But she is also fairly progressive. She doesn't believe that Catholics are 100% right and all the (insert your religion of choice) are wrong. In fact the only groups that do bug her are the extremists from any religion who shout that they re right and everyone else will burn or suffer or whatever because they don't believe in the right god.

She s never said she wanted to convert me back to being Catholic or forced me to attend church with her. She asks me to go with her and most of the time I do because it doesn't really bother me and I know she appreciates having me there with her. And probably in her heart she wishes I did believe. But (and here's the part that gives me pause) we don't talk about it. I will occasionally broach the subject. Just trying to see why she believes or whatever. I try to be delicate with it. I don't want to strip her of something that does make her feel good inside or give her life direction. But I guess part of me expects that if she tried to vocalize why she believed it more often then it would cause her to think about it and maybe start asking herself those questions. But she usually avoids the subject. She doesn't like to bring it up or talk about it because I think it makes her uncomfortable and she doesn't like to make waves.

What bothers me is that one day we may have children. If we choose to have children then we'll reach a point where we HAVE to talk about it. The question will come up about where to send them to school? Do they attend just Catholic church, do we expose them to multiple faiths, or expose them to none? I personally want my children to be free to decide for themselves. But of course children at a very young age don't have the cognitive skill to make those choices. I'm afraid that sending them to a Catholic school will imprint on them while they are impressionable and that will be that. Could I undermine what they learn in school? Of course I could but that would probably just confuse them more and make my wife unhappy.

I could go ON AND ON about how having children will complicate things but the root of all of it right now is that we don't talk about or differences. I don't know if I'm seeking your advice or just venting. But it does worry me. Because I do love her so much I don't want this to become a problem. I know every marriage has problems of varying degrees but as always, issues of religion tend to have their own especially high level of complexity. It's not a regular argument over where to live or what car to buy. It's an issue that's deeply tied to who people are and they will fight to protect and may be deeply hurt of you take it from them.

I'll stop now because I could go on and on but I think I've said all that needs to be said for you to get my drift. Lastly I want to thank you for putting together your website. I do appreciate that you always give respect where it deserved and that you can carry on civil debate and conversations with theists and atheists alike.

I am flattered that you chose to write to me about this very personal subject, and I will offer what advice and support I can. I think you are absolutely correct to want to work this out with your wife now, before children are on the scene and the issue is forced. I also would like to complement you on your attitude toward your wife's beliefs — you are supportive and realize that she may have different needs than you do, which is something some atheists and agnostics have a hard time doing.

Obviously you need to discuss religion with your wife, but this is difficult because she is uncomfortable with the subject. Is it possible that she thinks you think less of her for being religious? Many non-religious people have a condescending attitude toward religious people, so it's important that your wife know you are not like that.

If you have read some of my past conversations, you may have noticed that I believe some people have an emotional need for religion and that I don't condemn them for this. You seem to think along the same lines. So I'd say that the first thing you need to do, if you haven't already, is make sure that you wife knows you understand that the two of you have different emotional needs in this area and that there's nothing wrong with that. Fortunately, because your wife is Catholic, she does not believe that you will be sent to damnation for not being a Christian, so you don't have to worry about her fearing for your soul (assuming that you're living a moral life, of course ).

I think it's nice that you go to church with your wife if it makes her happy. I see no reason not to continue to do this. There is a sticky point, though, about whether or not you should receive communion. You did not bring up this subject, but as a non-Catholic I do not believe that you should receive communion. If there is any doubt on this subject, your wife should speak with her priest about it.

The reason the communion point is important is that you want to make sure your wife isn't basing her future on the hope that you will return to Catholicism. By the same token, I don't think you should worry about whether your wife will some day lose the need for God. You guys can live happily with the beliefs you have right now. If those beliefs change, fine. If the don't, fine. There is nothing insurmountable here.

But what about when you have children?

That's a tough one, but I don't think it's as tough as you might think. I think the key thing here is that your children understand that Mommy and Daddy have a difference of opinion, that the difference is based on how you feel (as opposed to on objective proof of whether God exists), and that you all love each other anyway. Your wife can help your children learn about Catholicism, and you both can help them learn about asking questions and thinking rationally. I'd say, don't worry so much about trying to "undo" any learning, just make sure your kids have the tools to undo it themselves when they get older, if necessary.

I wouldn't worry too much about Catholic school. Choose a school that is best for your child from an education standpoint and help your child see religious education from both your and your wife's perspective. There's actually plenty of important cultural information in religion, so there can be a benefit to learning such things even for an atheist. I also think that knowing a bit about religion can make a person a better (or, at least, more tolerant) atheist.

Now, I will hasten to point out that there are plenty of atheists who are going to disagree with me on all of this. They will see the difference of religion as a war to be won through your children. They will see it as evil to give children religious education. I don't see how a marriage can be anything but a time bomb with that kind of thinking. Don't go there.

I also should point out that I would feel very differently if you were an atheist or agnostic and your wife was a fundamentalist Christian. There is a big difference between fundamentalism and Catholicism. Modern Catholicism actually gives a lot of leeway for freedom of thought and doesn't condemn people for asking questions. Those are both factors in your favor.

So, to sum up: You love each other. Talk it over. It's not a war. Nobody has to change to make things work.

I hope some of this has been useful to you. Please feel free to write again if the mood strikes you.

Firstly, let me thank you for presenting ideals that I have held close to my hart since adolescence. Also thank you for posting the opposing ideals of the others, as one would not see such statement of atheism on any religious website.

Preface: I will speak in regards to Christianity, as I am not very knowledgeable as to other religions, though I am sure the following relates.

Fear, according to wiktionary is An uncontrollable emotion of anxiety about something that causes a scared reaction or frightening impression. Fear and fear alone is the driving force behind all religion. Not the so called love of a Heavenly Father or his begotten love child, or some ghost that tickles the hairs on the back of ones neck. Since the dawn of man, from him monkey forefathers, fear has been the justification for religion to rape, murder, pillage, enslave, seize and degenerate mankind. And to this day fear is what drives losers like myself and the other fuckos to defend their ideals on this website.

It has been said that mans greatest flaw is the knowledge of his own demise. With this understanding we can see how fear has become the catalyst for a needed God. The prospect of nothingness post death is certainly unnerving to all persons. We all fear death like we all fear the unknown; the question we should all ask our self is how are we going to deal with this fear.

Theist: I shall live the literal message of the Bible. I shall putt my faith in my religious leader s judgment and that of my brethren. I shall tolerate other religions, though I shall never concede to there ideals, for I know my religion is the one true path to heaven. I shall pretend to not fear death for I am told that I am heaven bound. I shall not use reasoning to question a place beyond the physical laws of our universe. I shall strike out at those persons and ideals who threaten MY FACT MY TRUTH .

Atheist: I shall live my life as I see fit. I shall putt my faith in myself and others who use objective reasoning. I shall tolerate and embrace the people of all religions, reaming open to all ideals and perceptions on life and death, never assuming I know fact because I FEEL it is right inside of me. I shall fear death, darkness and nothingness, though I will LIVE to the best of my ability and reach achievement outside the bound of heaven. I shall use reasoning to question everything in order to find FACT and TRUTH . I shall strike out at persons who use religious Doctrine as fact.

You make a number of interesting points, some of which I agree with and some of which I don't.

I agree that some religious belief comes from fear of death. However, I also think that much of religion comes from a need for answers where simple answers may not be available. Why are there disasters? Where did the universe come from? How can disease be cured? You might call this fear of the unknown, if you like. A third "fear" that leads to religious belief is the fear of injustice. Without a deity, some wrongs will go unpunished and some bad things will happen for no reason.

On the other hand, I would say that you could name fear as the cause of atheism as well. In this case, it might be the fear of believing things that are untrue. To an atheist, the truth is more important than certainty. And to the strong atheist — one who says that there is no possibility of a deity — there may in some cases be fear motivating such a strong statement.

The point here is that fear, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing as a motivator. It's a matter of what you do with it.

Your breaking down of theistic and atheistic beliefs is interesting, but unfortunately it does not allow for the wide variety of beliefs in these two areas. There are plenty of Christians who do not believe the Bible to be literally true, don't tolerate other religions, or don't strike out at those who disagree. Likewise, there are plenty of atheists who don't tolerate religion, aren't open to all possibilities, base beliefs on feelings, or don't fear death.

Beliefs and motivations are incredibly varied. I think you would be hard pressed to find two meaningful boxes in which everyone clearly fits.

I find it hard to believe that you don't believe what I believe. How can you not understand that the Bible is infalliable? For instance, it states that we were made in God's image. In the evolutionary debate and the larger, more important "banana is perfect for human use" example, we know evolution is ridiculous because humans were created perfectly by god. That is why we have appendix (Sorry if my spelling is off, I'm praying very hard for His guidance in that regard!!!!!) (also, I'm letting him lead me in my punctuation!!!!). Why would we have wisdom teeth if God didn't put them there???? Huh???? Or sinuses? Or the cocyx bone at the end of the spine? All these things show, without doubt that God CREATED us as is. I'll pray for you but I don't think it will do much good because the Bible says we have to make choices and by praying for you I'm asking God to influence you which would not be your choice. Actually, on second thought, I guess I won't pray for you. I'll p ray for aborted fetuses (fetusi?), and maybe soilders and murder victoms, and the sick. But mostly aborted fetuses.

May God have mercy on your soul for surely you'll go to hell when you die. But before then be sure to enjoy the lovely bananas He's provided.

You have every right to your beliefs or non beliefs. I am not sure which is the correct term. My oh my but the emails are a bit vitriolic . I have unanswered questions about the world, universe, life but there is bad news and good news as they say. The bad news is there is no key to the universe. The good news is that is was left unlocked. God or not, life is what you do with it- it is a journey. I guess we just all have different tickets and destinations. If free will was given to anyone then I think that means that you may feel and do what you feel that you should. I apologize for the closed and mean minds of those who believe (as they say that they do but do not sound like it at all). Sincerely yours in this world and who knows what others.

I would just like to say that I love your site. I just visited after being away for several weeks and caught the new section with your favorite hate-mail and I have to say that some very closed minded people have stumbled accross this infinitly small section of the internet and still don't have the intelligence to type in complete sentences or spell correctly. Funny how it doesn't seem that they have actually read the bible in context... Anywho, I love what you are doing and would like to say keep it up.

OMG I JUST THINK ITS SO SICK OF WAT UR DOING U CANT JUST GO AND SAY THAT GOD ISNT REAL CCUZ OF THAT ONE BABNANA THING WELL I CANT RMEMEBER THE LINK RIGHT NOW BUT IT SAYS THAT IF YOU CAN HODLD A BANANA IN UR HADNA THAT GOD IS REAL!

If I understand you, you're referring to the video in which a man describes a banana's "design" as proof that God exists. The argument is that a banana is just the right shape for the human hand, has a tab at the top so it's easy to open, has a biodegradable "container," turns yellow when it's ripe, and is easy to eat, and since these are all things that are handy for people, God must have designed bananas for people to eat.

Right off the bat, this argument ignores the fact that domestic bananas (the kind most of us are familiar with) are the product of selective breeding. Wild bananas had seeds and, if I remember correctly, were tougher and brown. Saying that God designed the modern banana for us is like saying that he designed dachshunds for us.

Even if we look at wild bananas, any "convenience" they might have for eating by humans could just as easily be the product of evolution. There are many plants that have evolved with fruit that is attractive to animals so that the animals will eat the fruit and excrete or discard the seeds, helping the plant spread to new locations. If wild bananas appealed to primates, they may have benefited in the same way.

I think the most important thing to note, though, is that this chain of reasoning sounds good when it's applied to bananas, but it's a mess when applied to other things. For example:

• Cocoanuts are difficult to open, one must avoid sharp needles to get to cactus fruit, and improperly prepared pork can lead to serious illness. Can we conclude that God designed these things in this way so that we wouldn't eat them?


• Or look at how good a tapeworm has it. Its human host protects it from predators, keeps it warm, feeds it, and has plenty of intestinal length for the parasiteto grow into. Can we conclude that God designed humans as homes for tapeworms?


• Bananas are just the right shape to stick in the tailpipe of a car or abuse in an urban-legend-about-Richard-Gere kind of way. Were they designed for these purposes as well?

Really, this kind of thinking gets us nowhere.

It is an interesting byproduct of their breeding history that domestic bananas are sterile. I'd say that this argument is equally virile.

lol to all the ppl who write you hate mail:

"I LOVE JEEEEZUS!"
"YOU.RE GAY!!!"
"YOU.RE GONNA BURN IN HELLLLLL!!!!!"

shutthefuckup.

bunch of rambling-ass, loud-mouthed fuckin' baptists this guy.s not spreading some "sickness" - he.s spreading some common sense.

gofuckyourself.

to you, mr. ownerofthesite:
if there is indeed a hell, my friend, i.ll be happy to burn with you. keep up the work. :)

Firstly I want to say that I will understand completely if you do not reply to this, for there may well be a lot of questions in here that are unrelated to each other, but I will appreciate it if you do. And I also would be willing to reply if you reply with any questions of your own.

I stumbled upon your website and browsed it for a bit, and a few things caught my eye which compelled me to send a comment. One of the things being the hate mail you have recieved. I have heard of numerous atheists who generalise religious-folk as those who hold their beliefs, but when questioned they get angry and start insulting people and make themselves look stupid. After seeing your hate mail and posts on other websites, at times, I find myself reluctant to label myself as a Christian, but I am not the kind of person who attacks anyone with other beliefs. Secondly I have read a few of your replies and you seem mature in your responses compared to some of the athiests I have met, like those who consider believers instantly stupid, and it would be nice to have the answer of an intelligent and mature athiest who probably understands that the existance of a God is a possibility at least.

The following are a few questions I would have liked to ask for sometime, but have never found a person who would give me an answer that wasn't along the lines of "that's just stupid" and such. One of them is against a usual reason why people are atheists - the usual "I've never perceived God and therefore I don't have a reason to believe in him". However, I believe that there are a lot of atheists who have faith in other things which they have never percieved. One example I could give is the fact that I have never percieved America. I have never been to America myself, never touched it or seen it (aside from TV, but I've seen Santa Claus depicted on TV and I don't believe in him), and so I have absolutely no proof that America even exists, yet I believe it in. I would tell someone that I was 100% sure that America exists even though I do NOT really know. Of course you might say that you've been told by people that America exists, but I've been told by numerous people about God and his influence in people's lives and how he changes them. So I guess my first question is: if you say you cannot have faith in God due to lack of evidence, why do you have faith in other things?

My second question is slightly related to the first, but with a different slant I guess. I studied ancient history at college and a few of them thought the idea of God stupid, and yet they believed in Julius Caesar. Now, as far as I know, there are more writings concerning God than there are talking about Julius Caesar, and yet they were more willing to believe in Julius Caesar. Now, I guess this is because Julius Caesar was a normal human being who (aside from being deified after his death) did nothing as 'unbelievable' as things mentioned in the Bible. Why is it we (well, a lot of us, I'm sorry if you don't) believe in what a lot of history books tell us, but when we get to a part that contains something we don't deem as possible we rule it out. The Bible supposedly (I've not researched it that much) contains a lot of factual events that historians verify as being historically true to what happened at the times, even the death of Jesus is written in Tacitus' work (it s peaks of him being put to death by Pontus Pilate), and yet when it comes to other things we consider them as obviously untrue. This is very hypocritical, because I know myself that I do not believe in everything that is written down, but I accept the possibility, as often I have to do in history, that when I take a writing to be false it could well be true. My second question, then: Why believe in things which have less evidence for them? And when is the point where the Bible turns from historical document into mythical text?

Sorry if those previous questions aren't relevent to you, but I obviously have to make assumptions because I don't know you. However, this next part is not really a question, but it's in response to something you typed about in part of your response to the guy who talked about his girlfriend. You said, "If her faith does not believe that there can be salvation through living a good life... how her religion believes God to be good when he will eternally punish a moral individual just because that person has no (or has the wrong) religious faith." Okay, I'm going to make a simple point here, and it is this. Let's just say for a moment that there was something which was all-powerful, do you think that you could understand it fully? Personally I don't think I could, and therefore I accept that what we, as human beings, perceive as good might NOT always be what this all-powerful being thinks is good. I don't really think that humans even know the meaning of the term 'good' (philosophists have been asking their question for years and years and not arrived at an answer), so how they can suggest that an all-powerful being (still assuming such a one existed) is wrong while they are good is beyond me.

I apologise for the length of this, and if anywhere it seems I might be insulting in anyway it was not meant that way. I appreciate your answers to these questions, and if you have questions of your own (I'm sure you know of lots of questions which I couldn't answer), feel free to ask them. I do have other questions, but they can wait for another time - I've gone on for long enough. Thanks.

I'm going to answer your questions and address your points briefly as best I can (which, it turns out, isn't very briefly at all ).

Don't let the hate mail I (and other atheists) receive make you worry about calling yourself a Christian. There are plenty of people -- both atheist and religious -- who are obnoxious, unthinking, judgmental, or all of the above. This isn't the fault of belief or lack thereof, it's the fault of the individual. It has nothing to do with you, although trying to be a good example to counteract the idiots who say that they represent your group is certainly a good idea.

I do understand that the existence of God is a possibility. However, I should point out that I consider this to be a very, very remote possibility. In my opinion, there are many other more likely explanations for the universe.

You ask an interesting question about atheists having faith. To answer, I would first like to point out the difference between faith and trust. As I use the word, faith is believing in something without evidence or in spite of evidence. Trust is believing something because experience has shown that the source of the information is reliable. I trust that when I think I see a cat there really is a cat there, because my eyes have never deceived me to that extent. I have faith that the universe exists, even though I can't test that statement, because other options make less sense.

It's also common to trust a source for one type of information and not another. I trust medical information from my family doctor more than I trust it from my philosophy professor. I don't trust what I see when I'm asleep.

I live in the United States, so let's talk about my belief that Japan exists. I have met people from Japan who say it exists, I have seen atlases that show where Japan is, and my sister says she's been to Japan. For me, these are trustworthy sources for information of this type, so I think they are sufficient evidence that Japan exists. In Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift writes about Japan. However, because most of the places in that book are obviously made up, I would not believe that Japan exists just because of Swift's writing -- I don't trust him on this subject.

God is such a huge concept that I can't imagine believing in Him just because someone said He existed. I trust you to tell me if you believe in God (since you are an expert on what you believe), but that does nothing to prove to me that God exists. It is not uncommon for people of all intelligence levels to sincerely believe all sorts of things that aren't true. If I took their word for the existence of God, I'd have to take their word about all sorts of things, and that would complicate my search for truth unnecessarily.

So, because I don't trust anyone's expertise on the subject of God's existence enough to take it as the final word on the subject, I must see convincing objective evidence of His existence. I have not seen this evidence, so my only other option for believing in God is to have faith that God exists. I do not feel that God exists, and I do not see that having this faith is my best available choice (as having faith that the universe exists does), so I have no faith that God exists.

So, to sum up, I agree that everyone has faith (as I define it) in some things. The goal should be to have faith in as few things as possible as a defense against unnecessary or incorrect beliefs.

Your second question is another complex one.

For the belief in Julius Caesar, you are correct that less evidence is required to believe in his existence than to believe in the existence of God. This is because the more extraordinary a claim is, the more evidence is required to support it. Scientists used to believe the thought that meteors fell from outer space was ridiculous, but after enough evidence was amassed, they changed their minds. They would need significantly more evidence to be convinced that meteors fell from outer space because God was throwing them at something, because introducing the concept of God massively complicates the issue.

The Bible does contain some historical facts (although not as many as some would like), but it also has a lot of things that are pretty obviously legendary (such as the Tower of Babel), or that should be considered extraordinary claims because they violate science as we know it (such as many miracle stories). I wouldn't say that these things are obviously untrue, but I would say that I would need a lot more evidence before I considered them to be proven true.

Some argue that there is so much historical accuracy in the Bible that we should consider it accurate on all subjects. I do not believe that this logically follows. A biology text from the fifteenth century might have a lot of correct information in it, but that doesn't mean I should consider it accurate by modern standards. Also, religious texts are unreliable (from my perspective) because their standard of truth and mine may not agree. For example, someone might say that they saw Jesus, when what they mean is that they saw Jesus in a vision. To me, these are not the same thing. Also, a religious person might argue that event X happened because it was prophesized that X would happen when Jesus was born, prophecies are true, Jesus was born, and therefore X must have occurred. This statement might have religious veracity, but it does nothing for me.

Let's take another example. Homer's Iliad tells the story of the Trojan War. There is now evidence that this war took place, and that some of the military facts in the Iliad are correct. The Iliad also says that the War was caused by the gods, that the gods took an active hand in it, and that warrior Achilles was invulnerable. How much evidence for the Iliad's accuracy about the Trojan War would you need before you believed that it was sufficient evidence for the existence of the Greek gods and magical invulnerability? I assume that complete military accuracy would not be enough.

There are many, many examples like this. Another one: the Japanese used to trace their emperor's ancestry back to the sun god. No matter how many hundreds of years of accurate ancestry they had, without a lot of additional proof I'm going to assume that the list of ancestors becomes inaccurate at some point before the deity is named. And I seem to recall reading about an Egyptian military monument on which was written that the Egyptians had completely wiped the Jewish race from the face of the earth. No matter how much we rely on such monuments for our history, we obviously can't rely on this one.

At one point does the Bible turn from a historical document into a mythical text? There is no point at which this happens. The Bible mixed history and religion, and individual facts must be judged on their own merits. In some cases, the truth is not yet known because there is not enough evidence. All historical documents should be treated in this way, to one extent or another.

In the discussion of good, you make some excellent points. I agree that the term "good" is hard to define, and in fact I discuss this at length in some other conversations on this Web site. I also agree that if there is an all-powerful being, I can't know its mind. Might this being and I disagree about what is good? Sure. But that doesn't change the fact that I might consider its behavior not to be good. For example, an infinite being might believe that it can do whatever it likes for its own enjoyment with creatures it created, and that obtaining entertainment in this way is "good." I would disagree. This does not mean that my definition of good is wrong, only that this deity and I have divergent moral systems.

Even if we can't rigorously define good, I think that most people these days would say that not killing innocents is good and torturing the guilty is bad. Many religious people would say that these are things that are not good if people do them, but are good if God does them. In that case, we shouldn't refer to God as good in the same way that we would tell an individual to be good. Things get even more complex when religious people refer to God as "infinitely good."

But at the root of the argument, all this is irrelevant. My question was about how a particular religion defined God to be good under these circumstances -- not about whether God really has these qualities. If their answer, akin to yours, is that God is good and we can't say otherwise, then they are just defining "good" as "whatever God wants good to be," and I'd say that this is a pointless definition.

By the way, in my experience, most religious people I've heard address this issue in a coherent way generally say that anyone who doesn't believe in God is specifically showing hatred for God (whether they admit it or not), and that such hatred deserves eternal punishment even from an infinitely good, infinitely loving, infinitely forgiving deity. I don't buy this argument at all.

Thanks for all the great questions. Nothing insulting here at all. If you have anything else to ask or wish to discuss any of these topics in greater detail, let me know.

Now, I have a question for you (and it's a big one): If you don't mind my asking, why do you believe God exists?

Hello. I stumbled upon your sight when trying to search for a way to talk to my girlfriend, a somewhat "devout" Christian. Sometimes it can get very frustrating when I try to discuss why she believes what what she does, and she just resorts to saying "I just want you to be saved". Fortunately, I feel I'm making some progress with her to opening her mind. If she wants to believe in Christianity that is fine, but at least accept the fact that we can't be sure of pretty much anything that she has been taught, and that it is most important to cherish the life we live now, and let whatever happens after we die to just happen.

The reason for this comment, however, does not relate to my girlfriends belief. I'm curious on your opinion of Agnosticism. I have always been very math/science oriented kid. I love sitting in bed at night thinking about random things, analyzing concepts, etc. Sometimes I wonder about us, as people. I am a person. I am made up of organs. Organs are made up of tissue. Tissue is made up of cells. Cells are made up of various parts. The necleolous of a cell consists of DNA. DNA can be stripped down and made up of whatever it is. It just gets smaller and smaller. You can keep dividing the pieces, and what do you have on the smallest level? Who knows. But what I do know, is that there is something about that very small part about us that makes us a living being. We are charged with some special power that seperates us from a rock, that gives us life. And when we die, meaning that our complex body systems can no longer function as a whole, what happens that "power" ?. Cleary, it is no longer contained within our body, as we are no longer a "living" being. So what happens? Does it float off, becoming part of nature? Do we become some spiritual being? Does the "power" infuse some other complex organism on the other side of the universe?

Something is fueling us. I think we are proof of that. It's not just the grilled chicken sandwhich I had earlier; its something else.

Because of this belief, I consider myself agnostic. It may not be "me" that passes on, with the same brain and logical patterns. But I do think there is more to life than the 80 or so years I'll live on this planet. I guess we can only wait and see, and live life to the fullest. I would appreciate an E-mail back from you, to hear your opinion of my views.

I know you said that your note isn't really about your girlfriend, but this is an important topic that we haven't really discussed on my site yet, so I'm going to go ahead and say a few words about it before getting to your main question.

I noticed a few interesting things in your description of your apparent frustration with your girlfriend's beliefs. One is that you put the word "devout" in quotes. I'd be interested to know why you did this. Do you think she's not really devout? Or that the word is of dubious meaning or potentially bothersome? I'd say that there's nothing wrong with describing someone as devout if that's what they are. It's not an insult, just a statement of fact.

I understand that it can be frustrating trying to discuss a difference in religious opinion with someone you care about, particularly if neither of you have a lot of experience with this kind of discussion (which may be the case here). You seem to be taking the right track by asking why your girlfriend believes what she does, as opposed to specifically confronting her beliefs. Too many would start out by attacking details of the religious person's beliefs, and that very frequently turns into a struggle instead of a mutual understanding.

If your girlfriend does not have a strong theological base (that is, if she is devout without a lot of significant religious learning), she may have difficulty explaining why she is religious. It may just be part of the way that she thinks at this point. This may be why she falls back upon "I just want you to be saved" when you are looking for something more specific. She doesn't really have the answers you are looking for, but because she cares about you and believes that people who do not share her beliefs will be punished, she is understandably concerned about your eternal welfare. It says good things about her sincerity and her feelings about you that she wants to save you from eternal punishment, whether or not you think that such punishment exists.

You mention trying to open your girlfriend's mind. Personally, I would stay away from thinking in those terms. Far too often, people use the phrase "open your mind" to mean "stop thinking rationally and just agree that I might be right." You aren't using it in this way, but I think that avoiding the phrase might serve you well down the road. (Also, it can sound a little condescending.) Really what you want to do is help your girlfriend see your point of view while, at the same time, make her point of view clear to you. You both need "open minds" because you both need to be able to see the situation from the other's perspective.

I'm going to dissect your next sentence rather severely. You say, "If she wants to believe in Christianity that's fine." This makes it sound like she is making a conscious decision to agree with Christianity or to disagree with you. I very much doubt that is the case, any more than it is the case that you are choosing not to agree with her for one reason or another. You don't want to risk thinking that she's religious because she's stubborn, when she may be religious because she has feelings that compel her to be religious.

You continue by saying that you want your girlfriend to, "at least accept the fact that we can't be sure of pretty much anything that she has been taught." Well, this may be true, depending on what she has been taught. I don't know what religion she is specifically so I can't say. I would, again, caution against making such sweeping statements, though, since if she gets her sense of morality through religious education you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater (that is, some of what she believes may be correct, even if it is correct for incorrect reasons). The important point you are making is that if she has faith based on feelings instead of evidence, then her reasons for faith are compelling to nobody but her. She can't expect you to be religious because she feels religious. True, she may have concerns about your eventual damnation, but if she has no other compelling reason for religious belief, then she has no way to convert you. I'm guessing that in her religion you can't just say you believe in Christianity in order to be saved (since God would know that you are not sincere), so you must be convinced.

Depending on your girlfriend's particular faith, she may believe that you can avoid damnation by living a good life, whether or not you believe in Christianity. This is something you and she should discuss. If her faith does not believe that there can be salvation through living a good life, then it might be worthwhile for her to find out (if she doesn't know already) how her religion believes God to be good when he will eternally punish a moral individual just because that person has no (or has the wrong) religious faith.

Finally, you say that you want your girlfriend to know, "that it is most important to cherish the life we live now, and let whatever happens after we die just happen." Frankly, I think you're a bit off base here. This statement makes sense from a non-religious perspective, but it doesn't make sense from the perspective of many Christian believers. If your girlfriend thinks that there is a serious chance of being punished for eternity, then letting the afterlife "just happen" makes no sense at all. From her perspective, you might be saying something similar to, "I know that there's a bomb in that house, but it may not go off, so let's go live there and just let what happens happen." In order for your girlfriend to accept your beliefs about life and death, you need to convince her that either there is no afterlife or that if there is an afterlife you have as good a chance of a good afterlife as she does (since for all we know God may value sincerity over rote devotion). This may require a significant change in her religious thinking, and you need to be prepared for the possibility that she cannot make that change.

Sorry for going on about this in such detail, but this is actually a very important topic. If your relationship with your girlfriend is serious, then these issues need to be addressed sooner or later. I have seen several couples come to great difficulty when they believe that they can live with mutually exclusive religious beliefs -- particularly when then try and raise children. Even if the relationship is not that serious at this point, couples may have difficulties when dealing with philosophical differences about the morality of intimacy and other subjects. It is great that you are working through these issues now. And if your girlfriend would like to write to me about the issue from her perspective, I would welcome the correspondence.

So, after an acre or two of answers to questions you didn't ask, let's get to your actual inquiry.

You ask about agnosticism. I use the word agnostic to indicate the belief that the existence of a deity is not provable one way or the other. I don't think that the beliefs you describe having fit into that category (if I had to choose, I'd say you actually sound a bit more Deist or Buddhist).

You say that you know, "that there is something about that very small part about us that makes us a living being." This is a very interesting statement, coming as it did after your statements about your girlfriend's beliefs, because it is essentially a statement of faith. There is no logical, rational reason I can think of for believing that life has anything to do with some "special power that separates us from a rock" If you have two lumps of iron, I don't think there's any way to tell that one lump is composed of iron that used to be part of a living creature.

I'd say -- and this is completely from an atheist perspective, so you may not agree -- that your feeling that there is some kind of life force is similar to the feeling that a cave man might have about an automobile. The cave man might see the car drive and then take it apart to see what makes it move. He'll keep looking and looking, dividing the car into smaller parts, but never find something he recognizes as a force of motion. He may end up holding a single bolt, looking at it, and wondering what it is about this bolt that makes it part of a moving thing instead of just something made of metal. But his belief that there is a special motivating force is nothing more than a statement of his ignorance (in the non-pejorative sense) of how a car works.

I think that your feelings about life fall into the same category. Life is an incredibly bizarre and difficult to comprehend phenomena. It is, in fact, difficult to define life in a rigorous way. Are viruses alive? Is fire? But I'd say that life is just a natural phenomenon, a wonderful, fascinating, complex process that deserves our respect and inquisitiveness. Science can tell us a lot about living things -- and there is still a lot to learn -- but it does not require any thing beyond the visible to explain living systems.

Given all this, if you feel that there must be more to life and thought than mere mechanics, that's okay. But in that case, you must realize that you have a belief based on your feelings as opposed to on objective evidence. This puts you in the same boat as your girlfriend -- you both have beliefs that are not based on evidence. That might be a good basis for your next conversation.

Good luck, and feel free to write if you wish to continue our discussion.

Thanks for tackling an insurmountable problem. Your work is a noble step toward peace on earth. I know it is frustrating to talk to religious people who claim to know the meaning of life already. I feel for ya'!

I appreciate the kind words. Actually, I don't find it frustrating talking to religious people in general, and we have had a lot of very worthwhile correspondence here. What I do find frustrating is talking to anyone, no matter what their beliefs, who think that shouting down others is an argument and asking questions is an insult. I've seen a lot of that, too.

You really kind of like making up the minds of people for them like (am i an athiest no. Yes. Can i change my mind? NO.) why do you do this and please don't give me an answer like christians haven't thought for themselves without a preist all their lives. (some) Religious people think for themselves, and there are other religions out (whether those christians want to beleive it or not)so just don't critisize christians theres a ton of others out there (even though christians seem to be the most player haters out there)to punt on, i myself am somewhat of a buddist so find something intelegent to joke about that and not something like (the idea of reincarnation is that one day my friend dies, he becomes the gas, a cow eats him, he then passes through the digestive tract, and then plops out of there all brown and wet, i then walk up to this turd and say "boy my friend sure hasn't changed a lot.") Because thats not reincarnation and i couldn't say im a full buddist becau se when i meditate it kind of scares me plus i dont know how to practice everything so best to say im really nothing more than a dream. forther more (stop me if im getting too long winded) as an athiest you claim to be seperate from all religions with no bais or prejudical veiw so instead of just joking on all the religions (which isn't half bad) you should be able to find something that is also good about them that isnt sterotypical or sarcastic. if you are a ture athiest you could do this and more. so please respond to theis comment somewhere on this site cause i have no e-mail and for the benefit of others to

Your note is a bit rambling, but I think there's a good question or two buried in there.

I don't attempt to make up other people's minds for them, despite what the site's home page might say. The "you are now an atheist" concept is a joke, largely at the expense of those who believe that an intelligent person can just choose what to believe.

I agree that there are many thoughtful and intelligent Christians and other religious people. I do talk about Christians more than I talk about people of other religions, largely because most of the correspondence I get is from Christians, and most of the conversion attempts (and verbal attacks) I've experienced have come from Christians.

I don't claim to be separate from all religions, since I'm not quite sure what that would entail. I am certainly affected by religion, whether I want to be or not. As an atheist, I simply claim to be without religion. I also do not claim to be without bias or prejudice, although I do my best to be, and I don't claim that all religions are equal — some are, to me, clearly worse than others for one reason or another.

What is good about religion? Well, religion does bring comfort to many people. It also inspires some people to do great things. I don't say that religion is all evil, but I will say that there has been evil that came from religion.

Oh Noez! I'm an Atheist! That's okay, I was already one before I visited this site.

We need more active atheists in the world. I get really sick of Christian Fundamentalist telling me what's best for me.

Don't get me wrong, I don't HATE Christians or any other religion, just the judgemental, uneducated, ignorant individuals that push their beliefs unwillingly on other. (Which is why I love the irony of your introduction paragraph to this site!)

Thanks for the laugh, and the spead of Atheist pride!

I must say i am impressed with your site yet heres the rub i can only look at your opinion and point of veiw and those hateful people who send out hate mail but how can anyone tell which is bullshit i know you encourage others to seek out research on religious or philosophical veiws on their own but how can you make a real point to any one with out doing it yourself. Show poeple the religious fanatics are realy the crazy ones merely asking themselves the question have you accepted christ when they lean over you with those judgmental eyes. People need to see that religion is no longer spiritual when used to control people with sensless riturals and in fact when they are no longer spirtual and only ritual is when the have become a cult

In the area of religion, it can be difficult to sort truth from falsity because the concepts can be very complex and, in some cases, untestable. I would say that the first step should always be to make sure that a religious system follows my two rules for acceptable belief (it doesn't contradict itself and it doesn't condemn others who use the same thinking). If it does not, then it is probably in danger of falling into the "bullshit" category.

I have repeatedly pointed out that it is not the fact of being religious but the actions of one once they are religious that I consider most important. Anyone showing fanatical behavior — whether theist or atheist — is a problem in my book. And anyone using a system of belief (religion, prejudice, politics, etc.) to control others is also a great danger. My hope is that by encouraging people to think for themselves that they will be able to build up defenses against such things.

I disagree with you a bit about rituals, though. Many people find rituals comforting or consider them to be important landmarks in life (such as a wedding). So long as a ritual isn't being used to substitute for thinking or to placate those who might otherwise question, I don't have a problem with them.

nice site, i was reading teh hate mail. from my previous experience, people always state that there IS PROOF OF GOD and thats its EVERYWHERE, but they never say what IT IS!?!?! this is very amusing to me beecuase i study social anthropology and psychology

Actually, I hear people offer proof of God's existence all the time. I ranges from miracles (words from the Koran on the side of a fish), to scientific proof (irreducible complexity), to personal revelation (the feeling of God's presence). What I don't see is proof of the existence of God that both compelling and stands up under examination.

During you're arguments, you have come mainly to the premise as follows

That people who have utter faith in God due to feelings cannot be construed as unintelligent, since that is their feeling and is not able ot be proved or disproved. You also claim that a person who has this faith would be wrong or unintelligent to use this faith as a belief and try to justify a similar belief to others.

I ask you this: if I, and I believe myself a rational person, feel overwhelmingly that God exists; how can I morally ignore people who sin will go to hell if they are not Enlightened? Your reader claims unintelligence lies in not recognizing the source of your beliefs. I fully recognize that God has implanted in me feelings of His Glory, and I also understand that He has chosen not to do this in others. As a rational person, I ask myself why would He do this? The only answer I can get is that He has set out this as a challenge for me. Intellectually, if I believe that you will go to Hell for not recognizing the Truth, how can I allow you to succumb to your fate without trying to convert you?

I put it to you that those people - even those misguided persons that swear and insult, who try to convert you because of their faith do so only to redeem your soul, they do you out of love for you and their Lord.

You also say that most religious people place their belief in God on emotion, not scientific reasons. Even though I myself am one of the former, I want to know whhy you find it so hard to believe that we could believe n the Bible. You say yourself it is a historical text, and most historians agree that Jesus existed and spread the word of God. They have even found evidence of a flood of Noah's proportions!

If I choose to believe this evidence over speculation and elaboration that supports evolution, or scientific mumbo jumbo about carbon dating which was propagated by a bunch of non-believers itself, than how am I unintelligent?

You misstate my position slightly. I don't say that someone who has faith based on feelings is not unintelligent, but rather that such faith is not in-and-of-itself evidence of unintelligence. However, I don't think that this misstatement make much of a difference in the context of you letter, and you make some very good points.

You are absolutely correct that if you believe certain types of behavior will lead others to hell then you may be morally compelled to try and show them the error of their ways. In fact, I wish more people took their professed beliefs this strongly -- I see far too many examples of people who say that they are religious breaking significant commandments, seemingly without batting an eye. As a concept, I have no problem with attempts to convert others to a certain belief system for their own good (in a sense, that's what this Web site is, so I can't very well argue against such actions). However, I do believe that we can condemn certain methods of attempted conversion (physical force, harassment, discrimination, force of law, etc.)

I have met many people who really, honestly want me to be religious for my own good. On the other hand, I am going to need quite a bit of convincing before I accept that those who curse at me, spit at me, or try and have me silenced are motivated by anything but their own needs.

I don't find it hard to accept that many people believe in the Bible. There are, however, degrees of Bible belief. For example, I can accept that someone might believe that the Bible is truth and science is not an effective means of obtaining knowledge. I start to worry about consistency, though, when you speak about evidence of Noah's flood (which is, so far as I have read, incredibly shaky) but seem very skeptical about evolution (for which evidence is monumental -- and which was popularized by Darwin, a Christian).

If you have looked into the subject of science versus Biblical literalism as I have, then I applaud you for having the intellectual courage to do the research, even if you have come to a different conclusion that I. I find that one of the most valuable exercises is reading texts from all points of view and trying to figure out what I agree with and what I disagree with. I would not call you unintelligent just because we disagree or because you have a different criteria for judging scientific truth than I do. I would, however, be interested in learning more about your beliefs.

Before I begin (you know, I have work to do, I can't just sit around all day and debate theology!) I would just like to respond again to the hate-mail you recieved. I know I can seem scathing of religious peoples at times, but I like to think that this doesn't carry over to my life. I am actually playing the bass guitar for my local church at a service on Sunday (and me getting out of bed before seven really is a service) and I am only known as "the polite guy who attempts to engage members of the congregation in theological debate" not as the "atheist who laughs sinisterly at innappropriate times during the reading of the scripture".

I only really go for that sweet God-bread though.

Jokes aside, I am prepared to admit a certain inconsistency on my part in knowledge of the policies of various sects and religion. Having denied my hereditary Catholicism at the tender age of thirteen, and for the first couple of years of atheism gone through a violent anti-religious reaction whenever the word "God" was used (without being followed by dammit) I am only just now recuperating knowledge of the religions I previously scorned. That said, I have now realized the error of my ways and devoured much more of the Bible than I ever did when I thought it would save my eternal soul (ironic how it works like that, isn't it?). So I ask for forgiveness when sweeping generalizations or claims upon my part are less than exact.

Ok! First I would like to talk about the Bible, and its relation to Christianity. I had previously hoped to base my analysis of Christian beliefs soley on the Bible as it is a solid text which can be referred and related to, and is - presumably - the basis of Christianity. However, I had not realized the scope of the discrepancies between the Bible and Christianity. I had no idea that the Catholics were not Creationists. The idea seems preposterous to me - I mean, if you say that Genesis is a load of cooked up fairytales, how can you continue to be convinced that every word of the rest of it is gospel? - but maybe the Catholics are trying to regain faith from the scientific community after that Galileo debacle a few centuries ago. So if the Christians don't believe in the Bible - or sections of it - any more, what do they believe in? Are they, dareisay, thinking for themselves?

What I personally think is more likely is that they believe what their respective churches as institutions tell them they believe. I have to say this: anyone with access to the information of the atrocities and huge errors in judgment that the Catholic Church has committed, that STILL wants to follow their whim, is an idiot. I will make no qualifiers. That said - and in light of the fact that I love to generalize - I do realize that a lot of people aren't subject to that information, or think it is lies. I'd like to draw on your wealth of religious information and experience here. I previously thought that the bond that tied the Christians together was belief in the plight of Jesus in the Bible annd the different sects were different interpretations. At which point did the Catholics (or any Christian group for that matter) start claiming parts of the Bible untrue (or not literal)?

As a side note, do biblically literal Christians think that that we just made up the dinosaurs, or what? That always bugged me.

OK! Back to the racist/sexist analogy. I realize that I was probably getting off topic with these digressions, but (I believe) my original point was this. If you feel that a Christian God exists, is that an intelligent reason for believing in the existence of said God? My first rationalist reaction would be no -- I recall a faith is anathema to intelligence argument. However, your response "You can change their behavior, but you can't argue them out of their emotions." is valid. If you cannot argue with someone's feelings, and it is that which convinces them of the existence of their God, how can you call them unintelligent? After all, it is our feelings, not our intellectual deduction that shapes the way we view our world: if you tell a lifelong colour blind person that what he sees as green is actually red, he will still be convinced that the way HE sees trees is what they should naturally be (our red) because that is what he feels. I still feel objects are completely solid even though science tells me molecules are mostly space. In this way, however, I would like to draw a distinction between faith and feeling. Neither the religious nor colour-blind example show faith. I feel that objects are solid, but I know they are not. I do not have faith that they are solid; I have been presented with the evidence and made a deduction which I have intellectually overcome but emotionally not.

Where this applies to religion is when a person feels that that a Christian God exists, yet intelligently knows the contradiction in the Bible make this highly unlikely (that is, makes it highly unlikely that the God that is described in the Bible exists; one that is infinitely good but punishes Mother Theresa to Hell, to quote yourself). That person may feel a Christian God exists, and might say the same to others the same way I say I feel objects are solid; but he/she would acknowledge that this is seems imposssible or is likely to be untrue. When a person feels that God exists, and has seen the same evidence in the Bible, but takes her feelings as sacrosanct, that person is - to me - at least ignorant, if not unintelligent, the same way I would be unintelligent if despite the tests proving molecular structure I have studied I chose to take my personal feelings as truth. Obviously my faith in solidity of objects would have little ramifications affecting my daily life, howev er the faith in feelings of a Christian God would cause this person (assuming their faith is drawn from the 'Truth' of the Bible) to live their life according to this Bible and decide owning slaves should be legal etc.

I have absolutely no quibble with the first person who acknowledges the unlikeliness and seeming impossibility for a Christian God to exist yet bases their belief on an immovable feeling. In fact, I doubt whether I would even consider this person religious in the first place, in that they would obviously not try to 'spread the word' or to enforce their beliefs on others. "Any belief based on feelings of this sort is necessarily limited. You can't convert someone based on your personal feelings, and you are on morally shaky ground trying to pass laws or compel others to action based on these feelings" were your exact words which pretty much confirm what I've said; however, you were using this to describe the grounds of faith based religious people, and this is where I disagree. A faith-based religious belief could be used to describe anything: faith in the correctness of your feelings (which is, at best, irrational; what do the same people do when they feel like murdering some one because they took their favourite parking space?), faith in the correctness of those around you (a hereditary belief is part of this, which is also obviously irrational) or even faith that there is justice in the afterlife (possible the most irrational faith of them all: all we experience is injustice in the world, why would the after life be any different?!).

In this way (this is where I was getting unstuck before) the statement of yours is still basically true: "6) Non-scientific (e.g., emotional or "faith") reasons for being religious are impossible to refute" I only strikeout non-scientific because it is too broad - me believing in God because the Pope tells me to is not scientific but I hope still possible to refute - but I understand what you meant by it: that emotion is subjective and therefore irrefutable.

I think I understand the difference between rationality and intelligence: although the example of your son is a little misleading because age is involved. But maybe your point is this: it is okay to be irrational as long as you recognize this irrationality, and show that you recognize it by changing your actions. Therefore our racist man recognizes that his belief in the inferiority of racial minoirties is irrational and thus makes sure he is never racist -- I think I am mirroring another statement you made. The point of the analogy is this: the man recognizes his irrationality, and is thus still intelligent in my eyes. He lets his rationality overrule his personal feelings, as does the religious person who acknowledges the unlikeliness and seeming impossibility for a Christian God to exist yet bases their belief on an immovable feeling. The religious person who, to my mind, is an idiot, is the one that lets irrationality win and thus has to introduce the concept of faith to explain their stance.

"If a religious person recognizes that religion is based on faith as opposed to reason, it is completely possible for them to be intelligent and logical in their world view, actions, and treatment of others from that point." If, in your quote, you substitute my changes to the concept of faith that has been used so far in the argument - as I defined it way back in my seconnd comment - the meaning is as follows, and succinctly sums up my arguement. If any religious person realizes the basis for their own belief, whether it be personal feeling, sincere logical argument, or faith in its many detrimental forms, and is able to admit this to themselves and others, that person will be clearly intelligent in my eyes (in the case of those with faith in justice, the others around them etc. being able to admit this to themselves will likely change their feelings outright -- i.e. if you base your belief in faith in your culture which has dominantly chosen Christianity, you are likel y to change your mind when you realise you are just being a follower and not thinking for yourself.

So from this conclusion, me ever the cynic, how can we determine which religious people are unintelligent? Is it those who just don't examine the basis for their beliefs? Is it only those that are capable of doing it and choose not to?

What do you think?

I, too, have read more about religion -- and read more religious texts -- since becoming an atheist than I ever did when I was religious. I wish more religious people took this kind of interest in their beliefs. I think we would all be better for it.

Yes, it's true that there is a wide variety of belief in Christianity. Catholics believe in the Bible, but it is understood that some parts of scripture are spiritually true if not literally true. So, for example, the creation story was written for people who did not have a lot of scientific knowledge and therefore is not to be taken literally as science. Interestingly, it looks like the Catholic church has also taken a narrower view of miracles and such things in recent decades. They still say such things occur, but they are not quick to call something a miracle. As religions go, they're fairly progressive and non-judgmental. By the way, there are some Protestant groups who do not consider Catholics to be Christians.

Regarding your statement that anyone who knows the Catholic Church's past and still follows it is an idiot, I'd say in Catholicism's defense that at least the Church is willing to admit its mistakes (albeit slowly). Also, the Vatican II council some decades back made sweeping changes to the church, so it is a very different institution than it was a century ago. The church also has a lot of ceremony and history that some people find attractive.

One last word about Catholicism: so far as I have seen, this is also the religion in which the largest percentage of followers specifically do not follow certain rules of their religion. For example, Catholicism condemns birth control, but use of birth control by Catholics is rampant.

You ask at what point did a Christian group start claiming that parts of the Bible were untrue. There has been disagreement since almost the beginning. There was disagreement about what books belong in the Bible (Catholics and Protestants still don't agree). In the fifth century (if I recall) there was quite a famous controversy over the nature of Jesus. Today, there's still disagreement among Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish beliefs about what the Ten Commandments are. So, to sum up, if you look at the history of the Bible -- and at all the gospels and other religious texts that were written but didn't make it into the official book -- you can see that disagreement about what is holy word goes right back to the beginning of Christianity.

Do Creationists think we made up dinosaurs? No, they think dinosaurs were created along with everything else and went extinct.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled discussion.

I think we're getting very close to agreement on how to look at people who are religious because of emotional imperative. You say that when a person has access to the facts but still goes with their emotions they are at least ignorant, if not unintelligent. I still say that there are many people whose emotions are so strong on this subject that they effectively are unable to use the information that you would have them understand. It would actually do them emotional harm to disbelieve because they have so much mentally invested in theism. Atheist bias time: I feel that these people use religion as a crutch, which, if pulled away, would cause them to fall. They could probably get back up again, but most of them aren't up to taking the risk. There is also a certain segment of the population that is intelligent but that is either not intelligent enough to see the weight of atheistic arguments or does not find them sufficient (particularly in the area of the origin of the universe).

You are right that there is a danger of believing bad things or being led to immoral behavior once you put your trust in a religious organization. This is where, as I've said before, religious people have far less excuse for not behaving rationally.

By the way, there is disagreement about whether the Bible says that owning slaves should be legal (at least in the new testament). These days, most people would say it does not.

You say that you would have little quibble with someone who bases their religious belief on an immovable feeling and that you might not even consider such a person religious. We're very close to agreement here. The big difference is that I think that most religious people fall into this category. The problem is, they don't realize or won't admit that they fall into it. I think we need to educate people so that everyone in this camp knows that they are in it and stops trying to say that they are religious for scientific or rational reasons. That will be a big step forward for everyone.

Another big difference remains our definition of faith. I consider belief due to emotional need to be faith. You mention other flavors of faith -- faith in one's own feelings, for example -- that are irrational. I would agree, but then I consider all faith to be irrational, even when it's pragmatic. I also don't see faith in post-life justice to be any more irrational than faith in the existence of a deity. It's something some people need emotionally so that they can face an unjust world.

Let's look at the example of someone who has faith in the correctness of their feelings and feels that someone in their parking place deserves to die. If that person recognizes the source of their faith (emotion), then they realize that the source is not compelling, and although they may be convinced that the mal-parker deserves death, they will know that they are not justified in killing that person themselves. Once again, the problem isn't the emotion that leads to faith, it's not recognizing that faith is based on emotion.

You say, "believing in God because the Pope tells me to is not scientific but I hope still possible to refute." Small quibble here -- you can probably prove that the Pope's word isn't sufficient for belief in God, but I don't think you can prove there is no deity. At best you might be able to prove that if there is a deity it does or does not have certain qualities.

You say, "But maybe your point is this: it is okay to be irrational as long as you recognize this irrationality, and show that you recognize it by changing your actions." Exactly! My only caveat would be that one should strive for as little irrationality in life as possible.

I agree that the person who lets irrationality win in the face of obvious evidence might be called an "idiot." I disagree that introducing the concept of faith to explain their stance makes someone an idiot (since that is what I'm doing ), but I will say that it is foolish to use faith to justify a religious stance. That is, to use faith as proof, to treat it as compelling, or (bias showing big time) even to say that it is something everyone should have.

Now we get to the big question: how do we determine which religious people are unintelligent. We're getting into "lest you be judged" territory here, but what the heck .

I don't think that there is any rule that is going to apply to everyone. However, you may have seen in my previous posts that I have two rules for acceptable philosophy, and I would say that anyone who disobeys these rules runs a serious risk of being called unintelligent.

The first rule is that your beliefs can't contradict themselves. I see religious people contradict themselves all the time. For example, when a religious person says that killing a baby is bad, and God would never allow an innocent to come to harm, but when God kills a baby (say, in a natural disaster that was sent to punish sinners), it's not bad (or it's actively good). There are tons of examples like these.

The second rule is that you can't blame others for thinking in the same way you do. If I believe in God because I have a strong emotional need, I can't blame you for believing in Allah because you have a strong emotional need. Again, examples of violations of this rule are numerous.

Violators of these two rules include an enormous number of people. I hesitate to call anyone an idiot because idiocy implies an inability to learn, but people whose philosophy doesn't at least meet these two criteria certainly have their work cut out for them if they want ot convince me that their beliefs make any sense.

As a Christian, I firstly would like to apologize for the hate-mail written by a supposed fellow Christian. I understand that it is people like that which have turned a lot of believes into atheists or agnostics, and for that I am truly sorry. However I would like to argue with "Fevered Dream"'s (yes, I understand the joke) reply.

In this, which is highly cynical but probably justified, the writer claims his generlization of religious people as stupid is justified because he has tried to explain it later. I have read the 'justifications' myself, and I can see even you, a fellow atheist, strongly deny his arguments as stupid themselves! This outright and intended insult needs to be refuted from a religious perspective as well.

I will add my commentary in the next week or so. I hope you will affix my previous comments to the hatemail section, as I believe more rational Christians deserve to see my arguments.

There is no reason for you to apologize. It's the people who write the hate mail who should be apologizing. I don't think that those people represent all Christians any more than I represent all atheists.

I certainly look forward to your discussion and will be happy to post it here. However, I should make clear that I never said the arguments you mention were "stupid," even though I disagree with them. I try very hard not to use words like that, and in general I'd find it hard to think someone was stupid when they were trying to work out whether an argument makes sense or not.

By the way, I don't have a "hate mail" section. All correspondence that I post goes in the same area, whether it agrees with me, disagrees with me, or just plain makes no sense at all.

you claim in your letter to a 'young girl' that if she says her belief is drawn purely from faith it cannot be argued. So if i have complete faith that you are a hound of satan you cannot argue that?

also, you say that religious education should be kept out of school. this proves you are satans minion and hate God and America. If we are a democracy and the majority of us are christians who believe that religion should be taught even to children raised by satanic atheist alongside the evolution crap, then that is what musthappen!!

I can't argue against your feeling/faith that I am a hound of Satan. I can, however, argue against the fact, so far as it is provable. And the fact is, if I were working for Satan, I'd be making more money.

Your second statement is a good argument for the need of better education in this country. Even though the United States is a democracy, there are certain rights denied to voters. That's what the Bill of Rights was all about. In fact, I believe there's something in the Constitution about separation of church and state -- I suggest you research this topic.

You also might want to read up on a gentleman named Thomas Jefferson who had quite a bit to do with the formation of this country's government. He was a Deist (as were many of those involved with the Constitution) who didn't believe that god did much in the way of interfering in human affairs. In fact, although he thought Jesus was a good and wise man, he didn't think Jesus was divine. If you won't take my word for it, check out the Jefferson Bible -- Jefferson took the Gospels out of the Bible and cut out all the miracles, leaving just the part he believed in.

To the author of the hate mail:

I am hurt that you have discovered I am just a fevered dream of the webmaster. And do you know what is worse? Now I am aware of my own fictionality! Woe is me.

Seriously, I can see how people might be offended by the claim I am making, that is why I spend so long trying to justify it, and to see if what I feel is logical. The problem is, your epistle isn't exactly the literary genius need to prove my case to the contrary. Do you honestly think your God, called forgiving constantly, will reward rationality and good intentions with - and I quote - "brurning for enternity"?

Grow up.

Yours sincerely,
Fevered Dream.

I'm reading the bull shit you have on this site about weather the followers of Jesus Christ are stupid or not and I want to know where the hell you get off putting yoruself as judge and jury over the saved when you haven't even got the common sense to stop yourself from burning in Hell for alleternity. You think religious people are all a bunch of drooling idiots just because we can read the Bible and understand its Truth. So here's what I have to say to you and your "friend" --

Fuck you

Fuck your friend

Fuck you and your friend

Fuck you again

Let me tell you something else I know that this whole site is bull shit and you just make it all up. You make up these pretend "conversations" to jerk yourself off and sound so smart but anyone with an ounce of intellingence (which you don't have) can tell that you are just writing to yourself. That's why there's nothing from real Christians here and I'm sure we'll all get to see in a few days when this "conversation" ends that you'll have come to the conclusion that sure enough you think all followers of Jesus Christ are idiots and the only intelligent people are assholes like you.

So if you're so smart tell me this? If there is no God and not Jesus Christ thenhow do you explain the miracles of life and the Signs that are seen every day? You can't because they are beyond your understanding.

God will forgive you but you will reject him and end up brurning for enternity for trying to lead so many down the path to hell with your big rambling streams of crap when all anyone has to do is read the Bible to see that you don't know what you are talking about and tha tmakes me smile.

I'm not sure that your letter really deserves a response, but I'm going to respond anyway, just in case there are others thinking along the same lines as you.

First, I don't think anyone here is saying that religious people are all idiots. The correspondent you are referring to thinks that people who are religious are not behaving intelligently, and I am disagreeing with that argument. Will I change my mind by the end of this conversation? I don't know, since I don't know how the conversation will play out.

Second, the conversations here are not made up. The letters are all real as are the responses. I have received much correspondence from Christians, as you will see if you read deeper into the correspondence pages. I do not receive as much correspondence from religious people as I would like, however.

Third, there are plenty of non-supernatural explanations for what you would call miracles. Give me an example and I will try and show you what I mean. By the way, followers of Islam also say that they see miracles that support their faith, and I'm guessing that you don't need my help disbelieving that they are sent by God.

And finally, please feel free to quote the part of the Bible that shows that I don't know what I'm talking about.

12 hours later, here I am back on my keyboard -- not that it proves I am necessarily here, or that my universe exists!

So, your clarifying statements, with which I largely agree:

#1, 2 and 3: I understand that you are oppen to the possibility that there are rational explanations for specific religion; however, until I come across a person with said arguments I have to assume that there is none of such. Even if there is scientific argument to prove the existence of a Christian god - which seems impossible to me - then the Christians have not thought it up yet; you would have to deduce if they had such argument it woulod the basis of any conversion efforts or indeed any casual religious debate. So we a brought back to the realization that no Christians would have such evidence on which their religion is based -- if they claim to have such evidence I would assume they are lying, or at least ignorant. The Christian analogy, I believe, holds for Muslims and any other religion I am aware of.

#5, 6 and 7 I will come back to.

#9: I would like to reintroduce my favourite racism analogy for this one. If a person is racist, does it matter as long as they act in a non-discrimnatory towards said racial minorities? Before you remind me that racism is obviously negative whereas religion is not, I remind you of the scope of my argument, Christianity and Islam. Both religions school predjudice against minorites: the Christians at least refuse to allow women to become ministers (I am aware some sects of Christianity allow this, however, I have already stated my belief that Christianity is based upon the Bible), and Muslims are much more extreme in the persecution of women. So would you see someone who believed in the inferiority of women but acted according to non-discrimination laws the same as one who held women in an equal esteem as men?

I agree with your statement that the analysis of faith is central to this topic; however, I believe you are missing the crucial point of my analysis. The point of my original and subsequent essays was to prove that belief in specific religion does NOT stand up to logical dissection and is therefore based on faith; and that this faith is NOT intelligent. Back to your previous statemnts, then --

#5, 6 and 7: These point illustrate the analysis of faith and is relation to intelligence. Firstly, #5: This is the centre of the discrepancies between our two arguments. I whole-heartedly agree with the statement, however believe it is irrelevant. The point of these essays have been to scrutinize the intelligence of those that believe in specific religions, and thus we must ONLY look at their logical arguments. These arguments are the only ones that we as fellow people can examine, and that have the chance to sway us. To look at any of the three main reasons for choosing religion that you have mentioned inn another argument would be straying beyond the point.

#6: Another statement central to the debate. I whole-heartedly DISagree with this statement, and any like it. We must, in my opinion, dissuade theists and atheists alike of the notion that their on belief based on faith is foolproof (even if they agree it cannot be used to convert others). If we take your statement as gospel, that if you believe something for emotional reasons or intution it is impossible to refute (I'm assuming you mean to refute to that person, not as an overall ideal -- we can still argue religion even if an idividual believes blindly) then consider the following.

I am a 16th century priest. I take the idea that the world is flat as a matter of faith: it is ingrained into my being and I feel its truth. Galilieo is born and atttempts to tell people otherwise using logical reasoning. I tell him that he cannot convert me with logic because this is a belief I hold on basis of faith. I listen to his evidence to the contrary, calmly state that it doesn't sway me in the least because of my gut feeling, and toddle off and convict him of heresay. Say I am alive five centuries later. I still believe the world is flat, because I feel it, although Americans and Russians claim to have been on the moon, and people claim to have circumnavigated the world. I believe it is all lies because to me the world seems flat, and I believe that.

Can you honestly say that neither of these people who believe on the basis of faith have arguments which are irrefutable? If we cannot argue this obvious idiocy, what can we argue? If I claim that I have unerring faith that religious nuts are idiots, would you refute this, or claim it irrefutable because it is my feeling?

The only context of statement #6 which I am prepared to admit make it true, is the pointlessness of arguing with those who accept no logical argument. We have all been in these situations: but this doesn't make their faith less arguable! If they won't listen to reason, that makes them stupid, not justified. Faith is not an essential, grand, romantic thing that the theists will have you believe. It isn't an irrefutable matter of personal choice. It is simply a childlike refusal to accept the possibility of your incorrectness, or an immovable belief in the correctness of your instinct.

In your Matrix hypothesis, you state your faith that the world is as it seems purely for the fact that it is convenient, and other hypotheses (such as the universe we perceive is a Matrix) would not alter your behaivour anyway. Is this faith? "I take these as given because they make sense to me and are consistent with the world I see." This to me, if it is a type of faith, is a different type to that which religious people have.

Your use of my racist analogy was unexpected, however. Could it be fair to call someone with a conditioned knee-jerk reaaction to racial minorities stupid, just because of their bred feelings? Take this example, then. Martin Luther King's (an exceptionally bright man to anyone) mind is raised in a white body, with a heavily racist family. Sure, for the first twenty years of his life he may defend his racism as he is not old enough to think for himself (likewise I refrain from condemning religious people not yet old enough to break free from their nurturing). However, when logical analysis - which is the only tool of the intelligent person - leads him to realise the inadequacies of his beliefs, than has he not changed his feelings? The knee-jerk reaction lasts only as long as you support your parents as infallible. Any person has feelings, but these feelings only derive from what the person accepts for truth. When you have intelligently deducted that racism is wrong, your feel ings have changed. I would be surprised to find a person who logically deduces that religion is illogical, yet still believes in God because of feelings: they deduce that religion is illogical, and subsequently stop believing, or they continue on faith -- which is not intelligent at all.

"There are some people who, after being shown the best possible proof in the universe, will still feel that there is a loving, personal god out there and that Jesus died for their sins. These feelings are part of their being and not subject to cancellation by logic." Sure there exist such people. I remember as a boy deeply believing that I would never grow older, despite evidence of people of various ages around me. I thought I was stuck in some sort of ageless limbo. Was I an idiot? Yes. I refused to accept proof and logical deduction, and instead envisioned the world as existing based on my own personal feeling. I was seven. People are religious all of their lives.

"If a religious person recognizes that religion is based on faith as opposed to reason, it is completely possible for them to be intelligent and logical in their world view, actions, and treatment of others from that point." This is the only other statement of your essay which I disagree with. If a person is a Christian, and believes that women have no place in the ministry and they will go to Hell if they attempt to, then how is it possible to continue their life unnbiased? Their intelligence and reasoning is affected by their beliefs as much as their belief is affected by their capacity for intelligence and reasoning. It is a rare - to me non-existent - religious person who does not strive to act according to their respective scriptures: if you believed you were going to Hell if you didn't destroy sinners, how could you continue to act rationally? I digress from the topic of the argument here, but it is definitely food for thought.

I agree that some people need a god to exist for emotional stability, and these are another of the type to generally avoid having religious argument.

So have I yet proved the religious unintelligent? I realize now that unintelligence is probably too harsh an adjective. After all, if you base your religious conviction on the arguments of those around you and ignore other rational atheist arguments, are you stupid or just ignorant? If you have managed to convince yourself of the afterlife purely because you need to believe to continue with current life, are you stupid or just emotionally unstable and dependant? The second is more shaky: I doubt there is many truly religious people who have managed to convince themselves of their beliefs.

I think you succinctly summarize the point of my essays with your final paragraph; I would even go as far as saying if we were all born with the proverbial 'clean slate', free access to information and sufficient intelligence, we would have an overwhelming majority of atheists, with perhaps a substantial minority of theists of no specific religion. If one of these reasoning adults was given the Bible and Koran and their sources, I doubt they would chose one over neither. So what about our conditions for a basically atheist world? The 'clean slate' idea is easy: people are taught how to think, and later don't have the self-examination skills to dissaude themselves of that notion. Is a lack of self-examination ability stupidity? No, but it is a fine line and can easily seem as stupid to others. Free access to information is also obvious; we see everyday people taught to think a certain way because incorrect or innsufficient data is presented to them, and this certainly doesn't make them stupid.

So that leaves me with the following qualifiers on my earlier generalization: if the religious person has been conditioned into a religion, I may not assume they are stupid until of have seen them capable of examining their own beliefs. Likewise, I may also not presume them lacking of intelligence until I asssess whether they have had access to the logical arguments against their religion. I admit, a person - to my eyes - would have to be quite isolated not to hear debate on religion, and I don't include those whose society enforces a specific religion: no-one can be forced to believe, only to act as they do.

Do you accept these qualifiers -- and their inference, that those who do not fit these are possessed of little intelligence?

Welcome to what may be my longest response ever! Here we go...

Regarding arguments for specific religions: I really don't like to cite other people's work on this board, but if you would like to see examples of arguments for Christianity, take a look at some of Lee Strobel's books -- The Case for Christ, for example. I don't agree with his arguments, and I think that they are seriously flawed, but I could see an intelligent person being swayed by them (or at least having their beliefs reinforced by them) under certain conditions. In fact, if I remember correctly, the author says he was converted to religion by these arguments.

Back to the racism analogy. You ask whether it matters if a person is racist if they act non-discriminatory towards racial minorities. Well, that depends on whether they act racist at other times and how they feel about their own racism. It is possible to be emotionally racist but realize that these feelings are wrong.

Regarding your discussion of prejudice in religion, I'm going to get really picky on you . First, women aren't minorities (although this doesn't impact your point, I thought I'd mention it). Second, there are very many Christian (and Jewish, for that matter) religions that allow women to serve as ministers. Your statement that, "I am aware some sects of Christianity allow this, however, I have already stated my belief that Christianity is based upon the Bible" confuses me a bit. Does the Bible actually say that women can't be ministers? I can't recall such a statement, but it might be there. And if you are going to say that this discussion should only be about religions that take every word of the Bible as law without interpretation, then I think we run the risk of eliminating most branches of Christianity. Catholicism would certainly be eliminated from the discussion, and ironically that's the group that is most famous for not allowing women to be priests. It seems to me that followers of Jesus who do not give up all their material goods would also be eliminated from the discussion. So far as Islam is concerned, yes that religion is known for marginalizing women, but not all sects of Islam are the same on this subject. In fact, there is a great range.

But the real question you have for me is whether I think that someone who is sexist but acts according to non-discrimination laws is the same as someone who is not sexist. No, I don't. First, you can act sexist without breaking the law. But even if you are asking whether someone who is sexist but doesn't act sexist is the same as someone who isn't sexist, I'd still answer no. Really, though, this is beside the point. The point is that if a person is sexist at their core, you can't necessarily do anything about it. You can change their behavior, but you can't argue them out of their emotions. Fortunately, if you can change their minds their emotions may follow. And if you can get them to change their behavior, their children are less likely to be sexist and the problem is taken care of in a generation.

You reiterate your point that, "The point of my original and subsequent essays was to prove that belief in specific religion does NOT stand up to logical dissection and is therefore based on faith; and that this faith is NOT intelligent." Yes, I understood this to be your point. Where I think you are incorrect is that you do not draw a distinction between "not rational" and "not intelligent." My son's love for his imaginary friend is not rational, but I wouldn't say that makes him unintelligent. However, if he started trying to use science to prove that his imaginary friend existed and refused to examine scientific evidence to the contrary, that (depending on the specifics) might be evidence of unintelligence. However, it might also be a sign that there are emotional issues disrupting the logical processes in an otherwise intelligent individual.

Now we come to our big disagreement. You say, "The point of these essays have been to scrutinize the intelligence of those that believe in specific religions, and thus we must ONLY look at their logical arguments. These arguments are the only ones that we as fellow people can examine, and that have the chance to sway us. To look at any of the three main reasons for choosing religion that you have mentioned inn another argument would be straying beyond the point." I think you are unintentionally constructing a straw man here. You say that we can only examine the intelligence of people who have logical arguments for their religion, and then you seem to apply the results of that examination to all religious people. You also seem to only want to consider logical arguments that are compelling to outsiders; that is, ones that are intended to convert people to a specific religion. The problem is that there are plenty of people who are religious without having been swayed by a logical argument, or who are religious for personal reasons that are not compelling to others.

You say that looking at non-logic-based reasons for choosing religion is beyond the point, but these reasons are my point. I'm saying that even if you can prove that everyone who attempts to use logic to prove religion is unintelligent, you can't use that to prove that all religious people are unintelligent. I feel that this would be akin to an argument in which someone said, "There is no logical reason for humans to be vegetarians, therefore someone who is a vegetarian because eating meat makes him sad is unintelligent." (Not that I think it's necessarily illogical to be vegetarian, but I think you see what I mean.)

You disagree with my statement that emotional reasons for faith are impossible to refute. If someone says, "I believe in God because I can feel his love all around me," I think you're going to have a heck of a time refuting that belief. At best, you could argue that the feeling is all in the person's head and meaningless, but then you get into the problem (one that theists love to bring up, by the way) that love can be refuted the same way. You can, of course, point out that the feeling isn't sufficient proof of God's existence, but in a way that's just defining faith.

Your example of Galileo is an excellent one. Let's look at this priest who takes the earth's flatness as a matter of absolute faith. This example is a little unanalogous to the belief in god because it can be tested, but I think it works for our purposes here. Assuming that the priest is able to understand Galileo's argument, should that argument have changed the priest's feelings? I say, not necessarily. The argument should at least have shown the priest that an intelligent person can have a difference of belief on this matter and made him realize that his own belief that the planet is flat is based on faith alone and is therefore not compelling. So even though logic might change the way the priest acts in regard to his belief, it can't necessarily change an ingrained emotion. The priest may feel "in his heart" that the earth is flat to the end of his days.

Where we get into trouble is when someone sends someone off to be executed based on a belief such as this. Because faith-based belief isn't compelling, it can't be the basis for punishing those who do not hold it.

Continuing, you ask, "If I claim that I have unerring faith that religious nuts are idiots, would you refute this, or claim it irrefutable because it is my feeling?" I would say that I disagree with you and I would try and show you that you should not act on these feelings because they may not reflect reality. However, I can think of no argument against how you feel if your feeling is purely emotional. Similarly, if you are afraid of moths I might argue that your fear is irrational and I might try and help you overcome that fear, but there are no words I can say to convince you that you are not afraid of moths.

To clarify my position, I am not saying that something someone has faith in should be treated as true, or that faith is any kind of proof for anything. I am just saying that we need to draw a line between faith and science/rationalism and keep ideas on their correct "side of the fence." I also believe that the vast majority of things in the world fall outside the realm of faith, and that those that belong in the realm of faith are good for comforting individuals and that's about it (atheist bias showing here).

You say that it is pointless to argue with those who accept no logical argument. Entertainment value aside, I agree. But then, I would never get into an argument in which I tried to use logic to counteract faith. The fact is, though, that almost nobody who approaches me to argue religion does so on the basis of faith. They usually want to argue using science or logic, and because I am fairly knowledgeable about this issue, they are pretty much doomed to failure. But the reason they are doomed is that they are not making statements of faith, but statements of science and logic. Those I can argue against.

You say that if someone won't listen to reason, "that makes them stupid, not justified." I know I say this a lot, but I think it's important to remember (particularly since some of the concepts here are pretty hairy) that someone can disagree with -- or just plain not understand -- an argument and not be stupid. They can just be ignorant or unable to deal with the implications of the argument.

You're right that faith isn't a grand, romantic thing. I'd say it's something we need to minimize, as your Galileo example illustrates. You're also right that it's not an "irrefutable matter of personal choice" -- if it were a choice, then the reasons for that choice could be argued with. I have often had theists tell me that I will see the rightness of religion if I'll "just believe" in Jesus. Well, I can't. I can't turn on an emotional belief in Jesus any more than a religious person can turn it off. Emotions aren't light switches.

By the way, I was raised religious, and although I am much happier now that I'm free of the baggage, I can still sort of feel the remnants of my upbringing rattling around in my head sometimes. I don't feel the need for religion anymore, but I do remember what it felt like and I remember how long it took to get rid of. I also find it very interesting to watch how my son behaves, since he is the first generation in my family who is atheist from birth. His thinking is, interestingly, much more like yours in that he doesn't understand how intelligent people can believe in religion (or Santa Claus, for that matter). I'm not trying to imply that your thinking is "child like" or anything like that (because it isn't) -- it's just interesting to me.

Now, where were we.

I think your statement that faith, "is simply a childlike refusal to accept the possibility of your incorrectness, or an immovable belief in the correctness of your instinct" does not apply to everyone. Certainly it applies to the creationist who has to go to greater and greater lengths to distort the insurmountable scientific evidence that their beliefs are incorrect. But I don't think it applies to someone who can't help but feel that God exists, particularly if that person admits that they might be wrong.

Regarding my Matrix analogy and faith: I think there are plenty of religious people who have faith because it makes sense to them and is consistent with the world as they perceive it. There are also plenty of religious people who have faith and try to rationalize the world as they see it to fit their faith. It's these latter people I think you should be concentrating your disdain on, since they are the ones crossing the faith/science line.

I disagree with your statement that a racist person's knee-jerk reactions last only so long as they think their parents infallible. Emotional development is much more complex than that, and I have met people who have to fight very hard to get past prejudices they were raised with. Can a person's feelings change in the face of reason? Sure. But they may not, and even if they do, it can take a long time. I think you are incorrect when you say that once someone knows intellectually that racism is wrong their feelings change. Intellect and feelings are not always in sync -- there are plenty of people who stay in relationships because they need them emotionally long after any reasonable person would have left.

You say that you would be surprised to find a person who knows that religion is illogical but still believes in God because of feelings. I have known many such people (this may be a difference in experience due to our different cultures). Most of these people eventually stopped feeling the need for a deity, but it took time. I would not call these people unintelligent just because their emotions didn't agree with their intellect.

You say, "If a person is a Christian, and believes that women have no place in the ministry and they will go to Hell if they attempt to, then how is it possible to continue their life unnbiased?" I don't know if there is a religion that has this set of beliefs. For example, Catholics don't allow women to be priests, but they also believe that you don't have to be a Catholic to avoid going to Hell, so a woman who preached would not be accepted as official by the church, but she wouldn't necessarily be damned. It's also important to ask whether a church in which only men can be ministers is biased against women. In some cases (in fact, the majority of them in my experience), they are. But it is possible to have a religion that divides roles by gender but does not imply that one gender is better than the other.

I agree that religion will impact someone's thinking. But I think it is possible that an intelligent religious person can live an examined life within the context of their religion. Such a person would know what parts of their beliefs they have because of faith and what parts are based on reason, and act accordingly. If their faith tells them that they can't do work on Saturday, then they don't do work (so far as their religion defines it) on Saturday, but they also don't try to use the law to force those with differing beliefs to take Saturday off because they realize that their beliefs aren't compelling.

Looking at your extreme example: "if you believed you were going to Hell if you didn't destroy sinners, how could you continue to act rationally?" Well, to be brutal, the rational thing to do in this situation is to destroy sinners. But if a person with this belief knows that it's based on faith, then that person realizes that others with different religions could have the same belief and that he might be one of the sinners targeted. Thinking like this has caused religions to change over the centuries, and although it hasn't stopped people from being religious, it has changed how they are religious.

You say it is a rare religious person who does not strive to act according to their scriptures. I'm going to be really, really cynical here and say that it is far more common in the U.S. for people to look to their scriptures for justification for their actions than to look to these books for inspiration. These people are not even being intellectually consistent within their own religions, and that's just tragic.

You mention avoiding arguments with people who need religion for emotional stability. The problem is, from my perspective, that most religious people fall into this category, and most of them aren't interested in arguing with us, either. At least not in a worthwhile way.

You make some qualifiers on your earlier generalization. I agree that you can't judge someone stupid until you know that they have the tools to examine their own beliefs. At least in the U.S., these tools are sorely lacking. The educational system is set up to disseminate facts for memorization and does a very bad job of teaching people to think critically. And even when critical thinking is present, people here are not in the habit of applying it liberally to all areas of their lives. It's tragic, really.

I also agree that the person must have access to knowledge and logical arguments before being judged unintelligent. Again, this is not nearly as common as we might hope. There are plenty of arguments for and against religion out there, but the vast majority of them that I run into in daily life (outside of when I'm seeking such things) are very weak on both sides of the issue. Most religious people only hear atheistic arguments from other religious people, so these arguments are presented incorrectly or in a biased way. Other than that, all they hear from atheists are protests over religion-based laws and discrimination, which may actually make them resistant to atheism.

I'd still hesitate to blanketly say that anyone who is religious and meets these qualifiers is unintelligent until I heard what they had to say. I would be very surprised, however, if they had extreme religious beliefs or if they tried to say that their religion was based on reason alone.

To your qualifiers I'd add that the person must not have any emotional issues that are preventing them from applying logic and reason to the subject of religion. There are people who feel that they need religion just to get through the day, and they will become very defensive in the face of arguments for atheism just as a starving man would fight if you tried to take his bread away. These emotional issues need to be dealt with before we start assessing intelligence.

As an aside to all this, I want to point out that there are plenty of atheists in my neck of the woods who are atheists for irrational reasons. I know people who are atheists because they had a bad experience in church or they are mad a their parents for taking them to Sunday school. I have met atheists who condemn or disdain religious people as a group without trying to look at the subject rationally as you do. I have met atheists who don't just think that the Bible isn't holy, but actively hate it to the point that they refuse to recognize it as a cultural source or an important historical document. I'd say that these people are just as bad as religious people who do not examine their beliefs rationally. They aren't doing anyone but themselves any good.

I'd like to thank you for replying to my comment so quickly, it's very interesting to have someone with which I can have a rational conversation with about the topic, and I'm so used to - being from a largely non-religious part of Australia - having my views confirmed by my peers that I have probably been induced into believing my agruments rational when they may be less than that. It is far less stimulating to have your ideas ratified by contemporaries on the basis of already established belief than it is to have rational argument accepted by a intelligent essayist who strives to be free from bias as you clearly do; so, I guess that is why I am still up typing till two o'clock in the morning!

Having read - and agreed with - your response to another user (concerning the main reasons for religious belief) I can see where you are coming from regarding belief for personal reasons. However, I based my (now seemingly rather hasty) assumption of theist's lack of smarts on their own logical analysis of their beliefs; I fully understand that mostly they are born into it or just 'feel' that way, and this is part of my argument. If you are born into a racist family, or just 'feel' that black people are inferior, and you accept this despite any argument to the contrary, does that not in itself point to stupidity? People who base their beliefs on these irrational sources (I assume that we accept that intuition or hereditary beliefs are far from rational sources) not on logical argument, are the people that persecute blindy because of similar feelings. These are the people with blind faith.

I excuse the fact that I use rather general assumptions of the both the Bible and Koran and base my outlook on religion on the same, as these are the only two religions I am familiar with, and cover most of that Western world in one form or another as far as I know. Speaking specifically about the two religions, then, the point I was trying to get across is that if Islam is centred around the Koran the way Christianity is centred around the Bible, and if the two are both filled with fables and 'eyewitness' accounts and the like which are not provable as the authors are long gone, then how can you choose a specific religion and still maintain rational argument for your choice? Your textbook analogy misread my argument: instead of there being one textbook based on fact and observation (science) and another on assumption and presumption (creationist) - and I am assuming that this is the format of such books, not having any personal experience - there is two books, both based on 2000+ year old stories and multiple translations. See, the aspect of the books which means that they are both essentiallly the same is that they are based on humanity: it doesnt matter who witnessed the miracles, or how long ago, they were witnessed by a human who could have lied, passed to a writer who could have lied, and translated by many zealous linguists who would have lied, or at least embellished.

Mutual exclusivity (although I admit this was less than clear in my last comment) was derived only from the "worship no other idols" ethos that is present in Christianity and (again with the assumptions: I should really do more research before I claim to know things) I can only assume is present in Islam and most religions; commanding you to follow a way of life is pretty hollow if you're allowed to accede to the demands of another god. As for the 'base' religious argument any theist will use, I have yet (though am open) to hear any argument on these grounds for a specific god; it seems to me what works on this base for Buddha is just as effective for Allah.

In the specific case of Muslims and Christians, the idea therefore is this: 1) To choose either religion on rational ground, you would at first have to peruse both religions. 2) You would, in this instance, rationally deduce that although they contain different arguments, neither is provable as 'divinely inspired' (to paraphrase yourself). 3) Both have had a overwhelming opportunity for total annihilation for even the message meant by the millennia-old auhors. 4) Both have human sources (not even the Bible claims to be directly from God' hand) and require the denunciation of the other to reap the religious 'rewards' (a nice place for eternity in the afterlife).

Thus I challenge any Muslim or Christian to claim they have logical grounds for their respective beliefs.

On the issue of faith, I first want to make a clear definition between "blind" faith I have already talked about and the faith that you mention having. Blind faith is what, I believe, religious people have: they are presented with other logical explanations, yet ignore and refuse to accede even the possibility of them because of a personal opinion they won't allow tot be budged. Your faith analogy, I think you may find after self-examination, is different in two ways.

Firstly, if you were offered a seperate and plausible explanation for the perception you are endowed with, would you immediately disregard it? I believe no truly intelligent person could. Secondly, is the belief in something which is the only conceivable option, such as the universe existing according to your senses, really faith, blind or otherwise? When the idea is supported by every single one of your contemporaries (I think you'll find there are few if any atheists or theists which are prepared to debate the actual existence of the universe) and backed up by every experiment and observation (me typing, for example, proves to me that my universe does exist; how could I be typing if I didn't?) we accept it as scientific Law. That is the highest regard our intelligent minds can place on a concept: if it is an incorrect Law it is above our reasoning. Surely it isn't ANY kind of faith to accept that if it isn't this way, my mind cannot comprehend it? I believe that true intell igence challenges any sort of faith or assumption based on pesonal feeling, nurture, etc. with rational argument; faith is the anathema of intelligence because it embodies the unknown, not the known. If you don't know how something works, then you just have faith in the fact that it will work. If you are intelligent, you analyse and explain its parts and functions, attempt to replicate. Monkeys have faith that the rainy season will come. Humans analyse weather patterns and stock food for a longer dry season. Faith IS an anathema to intelligence.

As for the fact that a person can be intelligent and still make mistakes in their reasoning, I full accept that; I hope I am possessed of some intelligence, but I accept the fact that I make frequent errors in judgement. However, I 'bloomed' into atheism a few years ago, when I realized how ridiculous the whole concept of religion was. What I am saying when I make the sweeping statement that religious people lack true intelligence is this: these people base their whole perception of the universe and the way they live their lives and treat others on the holes in their own logic, and when someone shows them their mistakes they refuse to budge. That is not intellience. I'd like to think that an intelligent person takes that logical argument on board, when due, and modifies their view of the world.

So, I hope I have explained to you to some degree why I feel justified in thinking religious people are, if not 'stupid', then at least have an intense ignorance and unbudging stubborness that combine to lend themselves to a stupid facade. People that believe their specific religion choice is based on logical argument or "quasi-scientific" evidence are clearly ignorant to my mind: I have yet to encounter a person, religious or otherwise, to remotely convince me the correctness of specific religion on a scientific basis and sincerely doubt you or I ever will. To me, anyone willing to make assumptions of such paramount importance to their lives on anything less than solid reasoning is not intelligent. I agree that many people would convert to atheism if given a 'clean slate'; this only highlights their idiocy in placing beliefs in one of the less foolproof reasons of feeling or conditioning mentioned before.

Finally - I'm not sure this rant will fit in the comment box when I cut and paste, I sincerely hope there is no word cutoff point - I would like to propose my belief that nurturing this religious stupidity is the cause of almost all worldwide problems. Nationalism in Germany - blind faith in the superiority of your country for no other reason than you are told so - caused both world wars, 'terrorists' are being bred by the environment that teaches the fact that the Westerners have it better is a crime against Allah (again, excuse my politically incorrect generalization) and should be punished with heir OWN lives; and Western governments - at least, Australia's and that of the U.S.A. - are forced by openly predjudiced religious voting factions into coddling the rest of the population that we have no duty to our fellow human beings who are worse off than us. If we stopped and applied rational thought to the situation, maybe we would say "damn, maybe we should have attempted to end their poverty BEFORE they decided they need to declare holy war". Wow, that sentence sounds like a conspiracy theory. Thats right, were discussing relion, not politics. Well, you have supreme editing power. I eagerly await your response.

Wow -- someone who writes responses as long as mine!

In an attempt to make this discussion more clear, let me make a number of statements to summarize my position:

1) I agree that there is no logical, scientific argument that seems sufficient to prove that a specific religion is true.

2) There are religious people who disagree with statement #1.

3) I don't think that the people mentioned in #2 are necessarily unintelligent.

4) Even so, I find science-based arguments for religion pretty much doomed to failure.

5) I also find that most people who make science-based arguments for religion would be religious even without those arguments, so the arguments are essentially just word games to them.

6) Non-scientific (e.g., emotional or "faith") reasons for being religious are impossible to refute.

7) Even if a faith-based reason for being religious in general can't be refuted, certain religious statements (such as biblically literal creationism) can be refuted, so long as the possibility of supernatural deception is discounted.

8) In order to prove that religious people are unintelligent, you must prove it within the context of a person who has a strong religious predisposition.

9) It doesn't matter if a person is religious, so long as that person acts morally and intelligently with religion as a given.

Now that that's off my chest, let's look at specific points you bring up in your letter.

You say that you base your assumption of the lack of intelligence of religious people on their own logical analysis of their beliefs. I think that this may be the crux of the whole problem. Faith-based belief generally does not do well when subject to logical analysis. If it did, it wouldn't be faith-based. There are a lot of people out there who make quasi-scientific arguments for faith, and as sincere as these people are, their arguments are generally either really bad or uninformed. However, as loud as these people are, I don't believe that they represent the majority of religious people. Religious people may find comfort in these arguments, but in general the arguments really have nothing to do with their reason for being religious.

Are the people who make the arguments unintelligent? It depends on the argument. I'd say that in general the foolishness most often shown by religious people is the need to try and justify their religious beliefs rationally when they'd do far better saying that they have faith for personal reasons and letting it go at that.

You ask, "If you are born into a racist family, or just 'feel' that black people are inferior, and you accept this despite any argument to the contrary, does that not in itself point to stupidity?" This is an excellent question. If someone is born racist, how would you convince them not to have an emotional reaction when they see a person of the race that they were raised to hate? You can convince this person not to act racist, you can convince this person that racism is wrong, but you can't convince them not to have feelings that they were raised to have. True, those feelings might go away in time, but even though you can say that the feelings are stupid, you can't say that a person is foolish for having feelings --only for acting foolishly based on those feelings.

Applying this to religion, there are some people who, after being shown the best possible proof in the universe, will still feel that there is a loving, personal god out there and that Jesus died for their sins. These feelings are part of their being and not subject to cancellation by logic.

It's very important -- both for us and for religious people --to keep in mind that any belief based on feelings of this sort is necessarily limited. You can't convert someone based on your personal feelings, and you are on morally shaky ground trying to pass laws or compel others to action based on these feelings. I'm guessing that this (and in some cases insecurity) is why so many religious people look for justifications for their beliefs outside of their personal emotional context.

I think that if we look again at your example of someone born racist, we can see something of the future of religion and atheism. Let's say that there is someone who was raised racist and can't get over those feelings, but is convinced that those feelings are intellectually incorrect. That person will raise her children without a racist context, even though inside she is still technically racist. Her children will be free from racism both in thought and deed. I think we are seeing the same sort of thing happen with religion in the U.S. There is still a religious majority, but their degree of devoutness is (on average) on the decline. Therefore, more children are being raised without that internal need for religion, and for that reason their potential to be convinced at some point that religion is unnecessary is much higher than their parents' was.

As an aside, some religions do try and keep up with science while maintaining elements of faith. The modern Catholic church, for example, does not believe that the entire Bible is literally true (Catholics are not creationists). They still aren't perfect from a science perspective, but I'd say that they're a lot more intellectually defensible than some fundamentalist religions.

On another point, I think my textbook analogy was fairly accurate -- it was just looking at the problem from a religious person's perspective. You and I would agree that the Bible and Koran are not divinely inspired. However, to a person who believes in the Bible (for example), the Bible is inspired and the Koran is not. For them, any argument based on similarity of the books is going to fall flat -- not because they're unintelligent, but because they have a different context. (This gets even more complex because Moslems and Christians consider some of the same texts to be holy.)

Yet another aside, I like to avoid pointing out that religion could be based on lies. The Bible is the religious book I'm most familiar with, and it's entirely possible that it was written by completely sincere individuals. If you disagree, we can talk about this in more detail some time if you like.

You are right that the "worship no false gods" commandment is common to Christianity and Islam. However, how this commandment is interpreted varies quite a bit depending on the specific religious group. For example, some religions believe that if you do not agree with their exact beliefs you are doomed for eternity, while others believe that even if you are wrong about god (or lack there of) you can still achieve paradise. You are correct that all religions are pretty much mutually exclusive in the sense that they all think they are correct and others are at least incorrect. I have read many arguments for a specific god (namely the Christian god), and although I found them badly flawed, I would at worst call them ignorant.

Where your point is best made, I think is when we get into discussing different sects and how a religious person without other bias would go about deciding which was "correct." I think it has to come down to how one feels, as I have never seen an argument for (for example) Southern Baptist vs. Catholic that was both worthwhile and not based on pragmatism.

Your four-step process for deciding between Islam and Christianity is pretty much correct (although I would quibble with details -- for example, some Christians believe that the Bible was divinely inspired if not actually written by God, and the Ten Commandments were supposed to have literally been written by the divine hand. The problem is that in step 1 you talk about how one would go about choosing between the two religions, and in the vast majority of cases that's an artificial circumstance. Almost nobody sets out to decide between Christianity and Islam in this way, and if they did I'd guess that their needs are such that they will either end up deist, atheist, or choosing a religion based on fulfillment of social needs as opposed to metaphysical fact.

You challenge a Muslim or Christian to show that they have logical grounds for their respective beliefs. If you mean that you dare a religious person to show you a compelling argument for your converting to their religion, then I think you are pretty safe. However, I'd say that, "When I read the Bible I can feel God's love and I know in my heart that Jesus is my personal savior," is not an illogical statement, it's just not a rational statement (that is, it's a statement of faith and emotion as opposed to one of pure reason). A religious person could also say that they asked for a sign that their religious belief is true and soon after received a sign, therefore demonstrating that they are correct. Again, this is a logical argument, even though a non-religious person would not find it compelling because there are probably non-supernatural explanations for the "sign."

Regarding "blind" faith, again you are correct from a non-religious person's perspective. A religious person may very well have a reason for their faith, it's just not a rationalist's reason. There is also a lot of range on this subject -- I have met many religious people who are happy to grant the plausibility of other logical explanations and yet are religious either because they don't find those explanations sufficient or they can't stop feeling that religion is true.

Next we come to my discussion of whether everyone has faith. If I was offered a separate, plausible explanation for reality, would I disregard it? No, but I might consider it irrelevant. For example, what if I'm really unconscious in some laboratory and everything I perceive is being fed to me electronically by a computer? It could be, and I have no way of judging the likelihood. However, this possibility that we're all living in the Matrix is irrelevant to me because without knowledge of the metaphysical truth I will not change my behavior. I make the same kind of argument in the face of the possibility that there is a deity out there despite my thinking it highly unlikely.

Continuing with the Matrix hypothesis, it is irrelevant that the falsity of this possibility is stated by my contemporaries (since if the hypothesis is true they may be computer simulations), and your typing proves nothing since, if the hypothesis is true, you aren't typing.

I treat the universe as a given because it is convenient to do so. I do the same for the immutability of the laws of science and the existence of the past. You can't prove any of these things, and there are alternate possibilities, but I take these as given because they make sense to me and are consistent with the world I see. I have no problem with people saying I have faith in these things. To me, faith isn't a bad word -- it's just something people should strive to have as little of as possible in order to defend against being convinced that something unreal is true.

Now we come to my favorite sentence in your letter: "What I am saying when I make the sweeping statement that religious people lack true intelligence is this: these people base their whole perception of the universe and the way they live their lives and treat others on the holes in their own logic, and when someone shows them their mistakes they refuse to budge."

I like this sentence because it so clearly outlines everything we're discussing here. We've already covered my belief that religious people generally aren't basing their beliefs on logic at all. But what' really important here is that you discuss they way that religious people live and how they treat others. That, I think, is where we should measure their intelligence. If a religious person recognizes that religion is based on faith as opposed to reason, it is completely possible for them to be intelligent and logical in their world view, actions, and treatment of others from that point. In fact, as atheists I think it should be one of our goals to strongly encourage this kind of behavior, both because it will lead to the elimination of those facets of religion that are truly illogical and self contradictory, and because it gives atheist the greatest chance to thrive in the future.

I said before that some people do not have the potential to be atheists. The fact is, some people very desperately need religion to be true. If someone's emotional health depends on their believing that there is a "higher power" out there, is it illogical for that person to believe in the higher power? That is a very difficult question, and it would be hard for me to either say that we should try our best to show such a person that there is no god or to condemn that person as unintelligent. Instead, we should at most help that person deal with the difficulties that cause the need for a concept of god -- and in many cases even that might not be a worthwhile effort.

Finally, let's look at whether lack of rational thinking has led to world horrors. I'm going to pretty much agree with you on this. Where we differ is in the solution. I believe that people don't have to give up their need for religion in order to be intelligent and behave rationally and morally. In fact, there are plenty of atheists who don't behave intelligently, rationally, and morally. That's why our focus should be on behavior and developing good thinking habits, as opposed to on the detail of whether one is religious.

I think that for religious people the key to this is getting them to stop trying to make logical arguments for faith and start admitting that they have what you call "blind faith." Everyone should learn how to have a logical discussion on a topic, and right now (at least in the U.S.) there seems to be a fear of science and reason among some groups because they see such things as a threat to their faith. If we can convince people that they don't have to give up faith (which they may desperately need) in order to be rational, if we can show them that it is no sin to examine your own beliefs, and if we can convince them that they should make their own decisions based on reason instead of blindly following the words of a religious leader, then I think we can eliminate the very problems you mention without pulling the rug out from under those who can't live as atheists.

After perusing your site, I came across an article from a visitor who was ashamed that he immediately thought less of religious people. This caused me to challenge my own previously steadfast beliefs. Am I wrong to think all religious people are stupid? After some soul-searching I discovered my view: that anyone who believes in an interventionist god, and therefore a specific religion, is indeed less than generously endowed in the brains department. However, before you deduce that I am one of the atheists whose blind faith in non-religion ironically mirrors that of religious people, consider this.

Most intelligent religious people accept that their belief is based on either:

1. Evidence which is specific to their religion - for example, the Bible for Christians and the Koran (Karan? Sorry to the Islamic readers for my ignorance) for Muslims - and thus refutable on the basis that contradictory reports exist with the same basic origin: since both the Bible and Koran were written in roughly the same era and are mutually exclusive, we can never prove either is 'gospel' in any sene of the word.

2. Evidence which is common to all religion: the 'God' answers to the unanswerable questions that are cited by all religious movements (eg. "we have a complex universe, so we must have had an intelligent creator" etc. arguments).

Therefore, if we follow through on the Christianity vs. Islam analogy, a Christian/Muslim follows his beliefs purely on blind faith, because we can see that both Islam and Christianity have the same provability. Blind faith is, however religious people will argue, clearly an anathema to intelligence (you cannot have a rational conversation with someone that believes in your stupidity for no logical reason), and I think I am subsequently justified in assuming that anyone who is not a gerneral theist, atheist or agnostic, is an idiot to some degree.

Do you think I am justified in this opinion? Am I being close-minded?

I don't think you are being close-minded. However, I do think you are incorrect.

I would argue with your premise that religious people accept that their belief is based on either a holy book or quasi-scientific evidence. It is true that religious people tend to give these reasons when pressed for the reason that they are religious, but for most, they were religious even before they knew that these arguments existed, therefore the cause must be elsewhere. Most people, in my experience, are religious because they were raised religious and it has become a part of their being, or they have undeniable emotional or personal reasons for being religious.

But even if your premise were true, I would disagree with your specific arguments.

1. Whether the Bible and Koran are mutually exclusive is out of my range of knowledge (it is possible that they are not, at least from an Islamic perspective, but I don't know). However, that is not relevant because believers do not consider the books equal. This might be (in a sense) like saying that a science textbook and a creationist textbook are equal because they were written at about the same time and they are mutually exclusive so neither is true. You're right that we can't prove that either of these religious texts is divinely inspired, and that's where you should probably focus your argument. (Also, I'd argue against saying that the Bible and Koran were written in roughly the same era -- there's quite a bit of time involved here, and the books were written in very different ways and circumstances.)

2. You are definitely correct that any evidence for a prime mover (a deist deity, if you will) is not in-and-of-itself evidence for a specific religion. However, there are a number of arguments religious people use, with a prime mover as a base, to show that their religion is preferable. Granted, IMO most of them are pretty bad.

Your conclusion uses the term "blind faith." This is problematic, in that religious people very often don't think they have blind faith. They think they have informed faith, or their faith is based on personal feelings or an "experience of the divine."

I would also argue with the statement that blind faith is "clearly an anathema to intelligence." Everyone has a certain amount of faith -- or, at least, we all assume that certain things are true with no evidence for their truth. For example, I assume that other people exist and that there really is a world outside my mind. It is impossible to prove that this is true.

If you mean, however, that religious faith is anti-intelligent, then I would disagree with that statement as well. If someone "feels strongly in his heart" that Jesus died for his sins, all the proof in the world isn't going to change that feeling. You can't say that someone isn't intelligent because they can't change their emotions -- this would be like me telling an orphan that he is dumb for feeling love for his mother because he doesn't know who she is and she might not even be alive. It's how a person who has these religious feelings acts that shows whether they are intelligent or not.

You should also keep in mind that there are many books out there that make scientific and/or rationalistic arguments for the truth of one religion or another. I have read a good number of these, and although I found them all lacking, they were often lacking not because of the author's lack of intelligence, but because of the author's lack of knowledge, experience, or familiarity with certain logical fallacies. I allow that a person can be very intelligent and still make mistakes -- even very significant ones -- in reasoning.

It all comes down to this. If everyone started life with a clean slate, free from any sort of religious education and bias, and was given the evidence for religion based on today's scientific knowledge, then I would tend to agree that most intelligent people would choose, at most, deism (although I admit a bias in saying this). However, we don't start out that way, and people have all sorts of different needs and ways of thinking. In my opinion, some people just don't have the potential to be atheists, and I can't condemn them for that.

In closing, let me address the statement, "you cannot have a rational conversation with someone that believes in your stupidity for no logical reason." That's true. It's also why I avoid assuming that anyone I speak with is stupid.

(By the way, I think you should be careful when you talk about "most intelligent religious people" and then only mention Christians and Muslims, since that might unintentionally imply a bias against other religions.)

Well said. But point is, I AM a student who is an atheist and I AM boycotted by most students in my school. There's graffiti on my lockers, any books lying about, snide remarks in the corridors (most just slinker away, leaving the corridor empty), I'm totally ignored by the students, sometimes teachers and all. The fact is, I took up atheism when I was 7 years old (although my parents are not) and I never spoke about it. I don't HAVE any problems talking who follow any religion. I mentioned the fact that I'm an atheist in school when I was 11 years old, and since then students have been gradually abandoning me. I said nothing then. For three years about it. But when I was 14, almost everyone had deserted me, and a sea change came across the behavior of others when a new kid came in (extremely religious fanatic). And then started this campaign of vendetta and misinformation against me, and atheism. I still didn't do anything initially, because I held the view that religion should NOT be brought into the academic sphere. But when posters and pamphlets spreading rumors about me, and (ridiculous) ones about secret societies of atheists, they kill people, secret rituals, devil worship etc. started appearing on the school campus. I guess they were jealous too, because I've been to spelling bees, numerous quiz contests, math olympiads, computer symposiums, LUGs, the Intel Science and Engineering Fair, (I'm crazy about science!) and I have been winning many of them.

I held your viewpoint in those days, and initially tried to present the rational side of atheism, keeping my cool. But then, things only got worse. Like my website (the link given below) was hacked etc. Incidents like this made me depressed, ever known how it feels to have NO friends at school, huh? I had seek medical attention from psychologists (talk about atheists requiring shrinks in school) and for a brief period was prescribed Prozac.

I had had enough, and then I too, went on the offensive. With stronger arguments, I got converts (as I mentioned earlier). And with more rational arguments, people did start to see some sense in me, that I was not Satan's remote-controlled being. And also tearing apart (eh, hacking, that is) of the sites / MySpace / Zorpia / hi5 / email addresses of all those making any vicious attacks against me. It worked for me at least.

It's affected me so much that I couldn't bear it any longer and I had to change my school. At least I have an atheism club here (5 members, that's it though). I'm happy here, there are still whispers behind my back, but outright rejection, no.

You talk about children not being allowed to play. Ever asked how those children feel? Did they ignore YOU at school? Ever felt how lonely you can be with practically no friends at all when in school? And what irks me more is when they try to bring in science to prove their point. They're trying to pollute a pure medium free from bias, and frankly, they don't know the scientific principles properly most of the time (poorly informed), which irritates me even more.

Most people are not ready to take up atheism, acceptance is found only when numbers grow. I found that pointing out discrepancies in their reasoning puts more faith in my comments by other students. And it is they who are being irrational and discriminatory, not me. I never ignore a person simply because they're religious.

I very much sympathize with your plight, and although I don't care to go into details about my personal life at this point, I think I know exactly how you feel. You'll note that I don't use my real name on this site, and the site is registered through a company (Pants Aflame) that keeps my name off of everything.

You are, in a certain sense, an atheist in a war zone. I completely agree with you that you should defend yourself and point out discrepancies in others' reasoning and behavior. Where it's possible that we disagree (and at this point I'm not sure we do) is when you talk about using "strong arguments." If by this you mean defending your position to the best of your ability, then we are in agreement. But if you mean "strong" in the rhetorical sense of being forcefully presented, then we disagree. However, after hearing more from you, I don't think this is necessarily what you mean.

I would also like to make sure you understand that I never would say that an atheist should keep that fact a secret, or be a doormat for religious people. But I think that atheists must be careful lest their defenses perpetuate the immoral behavior of others. To take an extreme example, when a minority riots to protest being treated as second-class citizens, it will reinforce the belief of some in the majority that "those people" are like animals and not in control of themselves.

Obviously, you have to do what you feel you have to do to make an awful situation worse. The religious people you describe here are behaving in an incredibly immoral manner, so I can understand your strong reaction to them.

Where I think you are incorrect is in how you wrote about the correspondent who had written to me. Your note about her came across as very mean, even though she had done nothing to deserve this treatment. She is not one of the people abusing you at school. You say that you don't ignore someone just because they are religious, and this speaks well for you. However, I'd suggest that you go a step farther and not speak ill of someone just because they are religious (or scientifically ignorant, for that matter). It's that kind of behavior that makes you look biased and irrational, even if you are neither of these things.

I promised you some links on Kierkegaard and K.E. Løgstrup in order to shower some light on how modern Danish theologians actually take the critique of religion very seriously in their arguments.

Following is a brief description of the main points these two fellows are making in adherence to the debate on this site. But the gist of it all is to give all of you an idea that just because we are a bunch of atheist in here doesn't mean that our arguments are unholy or heathen in any way. It is important to note that both these guys, Løgstrup and Kierkegaard, along with others of note (from Europeans Bultmann and Barth to Americans Paul Tillich and Don Cupitt) are believers, but they accept that the bible or their religious beliefs CANNOT say anything definite about the world we live in. Everything will in the end be human interpretation. Following, we are unable to say anything about god or Creation or miracles etc, based on holy scripture of any kind! As believers you havde to rely on faith alone, WITHOUT PROOF! That doesn't mean that you can't derive morals or ethics or whatever from the bible - but it will always be a subjetive understanding!!!

The only conclusion is that the dominant form of Christianity in Scandinavia and Northern Germany is truly agnostic. This touches on the ongoing debate on this site about the definition of agnostics and atheists. A lot of people insist that atheism is a faith in nothing - an active choice. But if religious faith takes a modern standpoint, like with Kierkegaard and Løgstrup, atheism is nothing but the lack of faith. Faith, says the two theologians, is paradoxical (I'm sure we all agree) in that it is belief without proof or promise of proof. That is the definition of faith. Atheism, says Kierkegaard, is simple the inability in a person to have faith in something that is eternally distinct from the palpable human world. Kierkegaard says further (in Fear and Trembling - Great read: http://home.ddc.net/ygg/etext/fear.htm) that if you are a true believer, you are able to undertake the leap of faith (Yes that is Kierkegaard's invention) without questioning its purpose, and you will receive all the world in return from god. (he uses the example of Abraham and Isaac) An atheist on the other hand will not be able to kill his only son without hesitating a bit and then thinking that it seems a bit crazy, and is as such left alone in the world, with noone to comfort him. Being a believer is hard as hell according to Kierkegaard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kierkegaard - Attack_upon_Christendom_.281854.E2.80.931855.29

http://www.sorenkierkegaard.org/comment.htm

Whereas Kierkegaard describes Abraham as a true heroic believer, Løgstrup is, 100 years later, looking for a way for ordinary people to keep their faith in the face of secularisation. The answer, he believes, is to be found in an ethical interpretation of Christianity that is based not so much on the bible as on the way we express the message of the bible in our daily lives. This may sound utterly boring, and at first glipse it sounds like a fancy way of saying "behave yourselves and then god will like you! But what Løgstrup says, is that since we cannot say anything about god or the afterlife or anything remotely metaphysical, we have to look at ourselves. He concludes that we do NOT behave ethically because some god or other tells us to, but because we agree that that is the best way to do things. This means, he says, that whatever the bible says about good ethical behavior is NOT the voice of god or Jesus, but the words of ordinary people puppeteering god or Jesus to say these things in order to lend them some credibility.

What is left for the theologians to do is then to consider how this ethical behavior is represented in the Christian dogmas, its history and culture, but the important lesson from Løgstrup is that all the believers out there, be they Christian, muslim og Rastafarian cannot lay claim to good behavior. A point I have heard echo on this site often, and which I have now tried to give you a theologian's word for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knud_Ejler_Loegstrup

http://www.rokade.dk/loegstrup/index.php?sprog=en

Unfortunately there isn't much on Løgstrup out there in English, but if you want more his major work Metaphysics has been translated and should be availabe!

Hi, I'm 15, from England and at my school we are forced to take a half course in R.E. Personally, I am very angry about this as I am also an atheist. I asked my teacher if we would ever be studying Atheism and she told me that I have to continue R.E into 6th form in order to learn about it. In order to learn about the only real important thing in R.E, you have to choose it as an A Level. It's a disgrace!

I don't know anything about religious education in England, but I'm going to guess that atheism isn't the only philosophy being given short shrift. I'd also not be very surprised if, when religious education is taught as an A Level, atheism still isn't presented the way we might like it to be. I'd like to learn more about what you are being taught, and would appreciate any information you can share with me.

Since you have no choice about whether or not to take this class, you might want to consider treating it as an opportunity. The more you now about religion, the more you will understand where non-atheists are coming from. This will help you in future dealings with theists. If the classroom is not an appropriate place for debate on the subject, perhaps you could use the class as a touchstone for conversations about atheism with your classmates. Those who are religious may benefit from discussing their beliefs in this way. Those who are atheists will be reminded that they aren't alone in not having faith in this material, and if the discussions are intelligent and respectful those overhearing may look upon atheism favorably and consider that you may be correct.

From my perspective, religion is incredibly interesting. Granted, I did not attend a school where we were forced to treat it as truth. Even so, I find the historical development of religious ideas fascinating in the same way that I find the modern spread of urban legends fascinating. Splits in various religious groups, how religious documents developed, different interpretations of the same material -- it can all be quite interesting.

Now, none of this mitigates the fact that you are being forced to take a class in religion. Unless the class is purely informational (as opposed to devotional), I think that's a travesty. But unless you are up to the work of protesting the system, your best bet is to try and make a silk purse out of this sow's ear. Hopefully, as atheism and tolerant theism gain ground, this kind of class will just fade away.

Hmmm. I did make a sweeping generalisation of vocab when saying that 'time did not exist before Big Bang', but my point was that with 'such people', as that writer, it's better to that we don't start of with the spin of particles and debates about their existence because it will not go into their head. Without demeaning them, it's better to give them in pretty simple terms that they are wrong (mostly that is, not opposed to them as in human beings). Many people with weaker backgrounds in science may read her comments, and think 'oh yes, science is totally stupid, this little girl has proved it'. It's necessary to point that out, maybe just politely saying that she may refer to this URL which will answer her query on quantum particles, whatever, is under discussion.

I do know of the fact what Sir Stephen says about our finite unbound universe. Maybe I slipped on my vocab again. BTW, you like Michio Kaku's works? Even he's awesome, but a bit more philosophical.

My point is, mails from theists are far more strongly-worded, and I've had many a delightful conversations with them which they peppered with words like 'hell', 'eternal punishment', and 'we have overwhelming evidence' (which, somehow, they're generally not able to quote) etc. So if we people take a similar stance sometimes, I've found it works. At least, I have converted a few that way, and they're very vocal atheists now. Sometime, it tests my patience, and the overt self-righteousness, especially Christianity displays on this topic (my poor tasteless joke - in other religions, they don't leave you alive to protest).

I think what we have here is a difference in philosophy. Despite the joke on which this site's home page is based, I do not make it a goal to convert people to atheism (and I don't even like using the word "convert" in that context -- it sounds too religious). Instead, my goal is to help people understand atheism and discuss religious issues in a calm, rational manner, and to examine their own beliefs to make sure they make sense.

For this reason, when someone spews hellfire at me, I don't get defensive or start spewing reason back at them. Instead, I try to politely explain that I understand their position but disagree with it. Far more often than not in my experience, this turns a rant into a conversation.

Another think I try to keep in mind is that there are usually more than two people in any discussion. If someone is berating me for being an atheist, there are usually other people around who are interested to see what will happen next -- be these other guests at a party or passersby on the street. Even if I can't win over the person ranting, I can at least show those who might be listening that the atheist is behaving better and making more sense than the religious person. I think that this helps atheists everywhere, because it plays against stereotype and because the more people who think of atheists in a positive way, the more people might consider it as a possible philosophy.

I believe that there are some people who are going to be religious no matter how many reasons you can give them for being otherwise. It's just a part of their makeup, and it's possible that they are even better off than they would be as atheists. I'm not going to "convert" these people, but what I can do is try and make sure that they don't see atheists as evil or immoral. I think that fighting this bias is even more important than trying to increase the number of atheists, because so long as that bias is there atheists will continue to be treated as second-class citizens by some, and biased people will be resistant to examining their faith because they are afraid of becoming "like those atheists."

I have heard from atheist parents living in small communities whose children have nobody to play with because there are no other atheist children, and the religious parents won't let their child associate with an atheist. I'd rather work on getting rid of that bias so that atheist and the theist children can play together than try to badger people out of their beliefs or look down on those who do not agree with me (not that I'm saying you do this).

I have so much confidence in my philosophy that I believe that once the biases against atheists and against self-examination are eliminated, atheism will spread itself.

Sheesh. I can point out a few discrepancies in that correspondence with the 'Young Girl'. She obviously has no working knowledge of science, and is still trying to bring it in. Albert Einstein never said 'every action has an equal and/or opposite reaction'. Newton did. And it's not and/or it is and. Also, opposite reaction does not mean 'less reaction' as she says. Plus, Newtonian physics does not include all circumstances. And Newtonian physics is for particles, chemistry is different.

Apart from that, the statement 'energy can neither be created nor be destroyed' is only true in 'classical' physics; E=mc^2 talks about exactly this, and this is how nuclear reactions take place.

Also, eminent physicist Sir Stephen Hawking HAS talked about effects before causes.

There was no time before Big Bang, she obviously doesn't know that. And mention cosmic background radiation to her, in relation to Big Bang.

And you went wrong at a point saying Stephen Hawking says Univerese has no origin. His life's work is based on Big Bang. Please read his 'Brief History of Time' carefully. BTW, for that girl, tell her to hang on until 2007-08, because Sir Stephen will publish a book for kids (with help from his daughter) about the origin of the universe.

Universe is infinite was chucked out of the window long ago. Point out to her that this was first done by a Christian priest, later taken up by Edwin Hubble (universe is expanding...)

Did I mention I'm an atheist?

I guessed that you are an atheist.

In fact, though I don't mean this to sound as harsh as it does, I feel that letters like yours are part of the reason that theists have such a resistance to discussion with atheists. You come across as very condescending as self congratulating. Your statement that the correspondent has "no working knowledge of science" sounds nasty both because it is untrue (much of her knowledge of science is just very basic and outdated) and because it ignores the fact that, despite her ignorance on this topic, she is apparently making a sincere effort to increase her knowledge.

I agree with most of your points about the science of the correspondent -- in fact, I pointed out most of these things in my responses. Other inaccuracies I didn't think worth pointing out as they were not germane to the conversation. Our disagreement about Stephen Hawking may be one of vocabulary, in that he speaks of a finite unbounded space in which our universe exists, and that space can also be referred to as the universe. This allows for the big bang to occur within a universe that does not require anything outside of it. The statement "there was no time before the big bang" is also a very complex one, so I'd say that your seemingly condescending statement about her "not knowing that" is misplaced.

My point here is that yes, it's fun to be able to pick apart the arguments of uninformed theists, but that should not be a goal of atheism. Discussions of this sort should be conducted in a way that helps others see why atheism makes sense, not in a way that makes them feel attacked or badgered, or that makes them want to avoid atheists in the future.

Thanks! Reason 2 was exactly what I was looking for! More specifically the line:

"These people may gain more from religion than they might lose by rationally examining their beliefs."

If the advantages of religion outway the disadvantages for some people then it is perfectly rational for them to choose to be religious. I can accept that as an intelligent decision reqardless of whether I agree with it or not.

Thanks for your help,

I am an athiest and have been for as long as I can remember. I guess I fall into the anti-religion category without really meaning to. After reading some of the correspondence on your site I have come to the conclusion that I perhaps need to learn to be more tolerant. However I am at a loss at how to do that... I don't get into religious debates because it irritates me that people can think so completely without reason. I strongly object religion being involved in science and law, or being taught in schools. I am comfortable with that and feel that is a rational standpoint however I my problem is that when I meet someone who is religious I immediately consider them stupid! I can't seem to help it. Perhaps technically they may be brilliant but who could be bothered with a conversation with someone so obviously unable to think for themselves? Even when I like the person to begin with I automatically lose respect when I learn they are religious. I cringe when I hear myself sayin g this stuff because it makes me close minded which is the exact thing I have a problem with. Do you ever feel this way? I tend to think fairly rationally so I need logic to come to a conclusion or adjust a thought. Given that, I have decided that I won't be convinced that a God exists any time soon, and I'm not entirely convinced that religious people completely believe their God exists. so I have decided that the best way for me to stop stereotyping our religious friends as stupid is to stop debating the existence of their God and try to understand why they might choose to be religious. So can you help me at all? Do you have an understanding of why a person might forgo rationale and believe in God? What is it they crave that religion gives them? I don't think I have ever met someone who was athiest who became religious but they would be great to quiz about why they developed beliefs, what could possibly have triggered a change like that?

First and foremost, know that you are far from alone. I have spoken with a great many atheists who feel exactly like you do. These are human feelings and nothing to be ashamed of. But because they are human feelings, atheists are not the only ones who have them. For example, there are a great many religious people who think that atheists are "stupid" to believe as we do and can't understand how we can not believe in a god when they think that their god's existence is so obvious. This is why it is so important for us to learn to understand each other even when we don't agree on many subjects. This is why you have taken an important step by trying to grapple with this issue.

There's nothing wrong with not getting into religious debate. Some people like to discuss religion (or politics or social problems or history or conspiracies or fringe science, etc.) and some people don't. This is just a matter of personal taste. But remember that when you say you are irritated by religious debate because religious people are thinking without reason, remember that some of them may feel the same way about you. Also, as you read through the discussions on this site, I think you'll see that there are a fair number of religious people out there who are quite intelligent and reasonable. That they don't agree with atheism may be a matter of difference of opinion or of honest ignorance -- neither of which is a sign of stupidity. (As an aside, I completely admit that there are many religious people who are willfully ignorant, pig headed, or just plain unthinking, but I've also met many atheists who fall into these camps.)

There's also nothing wrong with thinking that religion should be kept out of science, law, and schools. Nothing that isn't science should have a place in science. There are too many fundamental disagreements about morality from a religious perspective to allow religion to dictate law. And religious education is best left to parents and religious educational establishments. None of these beliefs make you intolerant of religion, since none of them are anti-religion.

Personally, when I learn someone is religious, I don't automatically consider them stupid, perhaps because I have met so many religious people who are not stupid at all. I admit that sometimes I am disappointed when I learn someone is religious, but that is an emotional (as opposed to rational) reaction, and likely stems from the wish we all have that those we like be much like ourselves. On the other side of the coin, I have had the experience of telling someone I am an atheist and having them respond, "Oh, and you seemed like such a nice person." So it appears that atheists aren't the only ones who can have difficulty in this area.

I think you hit the nail on the head when you suggest that a way to get around this problem is to try and understand why people are religious. I'm going to give you my take on this, and warn you (and those who will read this online) that this opinion is completely from an atheistic perspective and therefore of necessity biased.

So, here we go -- why are some perfectly reasonable people religious. I can think of a number of possible reasons:

1) They were raised religious. This may not seem like much of an explanation, but for many it is sufficient. Lots of people who are raised with religion have theism so firmly ingrained in themselves that there's no way it's going anywhere. Even if they do come to the conclusion that there is no necessity for a deity, they will never shake the feeling that there is a deity, and that's what makes the difference.

2) They have an emotional need for religion. Some people cannot be content unless they "know" that there is something after death, or that there is a great master plan, or that there is a divine purpose to their life, or that they are loved and will be taken care of, or that there is a reason things happen, or that the universe can be easily explained, or that there will ultimately be justice in the world, or that miracles happen. Others have turned to religion for comfort while struggling with personal tragedy. These people may gain more from religion than they might lose by rationally examining their beliefs.

3) They believe that a deity is the best explanation for the universe. I think that science will be able to fully explain the origin of the universe without resorting to invoking the supernatural. I also think that scientific theories should be exhausted before we start assuming gods. Some people do not agree. They think that there are things beyond the reach of science, or that science has already proved that a deity is necessary. This is just a disagreement on a scientific subject.

So why shouldn't you look down on these people? Because you can't blame someone for how they were raised, for trying to fill their emotional needs as best they can, or for disagreeing with you about the necessity for the supernatural. Can you be upset if they say that anyone who was raised with different beliefs is a bad person? Sure. Can you be upset if they say that anyone who can deal with no life after death deserves to burn for all eternity. Yep. Can you be upset if they try and make the supernatural part of science education? Definitely. But these things have nothing to do with why someone believes in a deity, only with how they let their belief influence their actions.

Before we go any further, I should point out that someone could be an atheist for any of these reasons as well. You could have been raised an atheist. You might find comfort in a world without the uninvestigatable supernatural. You might believe that science proves atheism. I would say that none of these are rational reasons to be an atheist, any more than they are rational reasons to be a theist. But I don't look down on someone just because they feel this way. (By the way, I have seen people turn from atheist to theist based on both reasons #2 and #3 above.)

You mention not being completely convinced that religious people believe their god exists. This is not surprising. I have spoken with religious people who do not believe that the ancient Greeks really believed that their gods existed. I think this is because it is difficult -- and maybe a little emotionally threatening -- to imagine that someone might be as intelligent as you but have a radically different world view. Think of it this way: let's say you are a guy and your best friend (also a guy) is in love with a woman so incredibly annoying that you can barely be in the same room with her, and so unappealing that you could never find her physically attractive. Is it possible that your friend is correct when he says that he loves her, enjoys being with her, and wants to start a family with her? Sure it's possible. You can't for the life of you mentally put yourself in his shoes, but that doesn't mean that he is necessarily insincere.

I hasten to point out here that no all religion-based behavior need be tolerated. You don't have to put up with a religious person's abuse of your beliefs. You should certainly defend yourself when people try and use religion to discriminate against, abuse, or put down others. And you don't have to respect someone -- whether theist or atheist -- who thinks that a "discussion" involves yelling, calling names, and disparaging those who disagree with them.

Hopefully I've helped you see that religious people shouldn't be looked down on just because they are religious. Where do you go from here? I have three suggestions.

First, it doesn't sound like you enjoy debating religion, so don't go looking for debate. But if someone starts a discussion with you, don't automatically turn away from it, either. If someone says they have a scientific proof for God's existence, instead of debating their science, ask them if this proof is their reason for believing in God, and if they'll become atheists if you disprove it. If they say no (and they almost definitely will), ask them why they are religious. You'll learn more about their beliefs, and since an honest answer will likely have more to do with emotion or upbringing than science, there will be no reason for you to think them foolish. At worst, you will disagree with them, and there's no shame in that.

Second, if someone asks you why you are an atheist, tell them. Many religious people think atheists all "reject" or "hate" religion, as opposed to just having nothing to do with religion. Tell them that (assuming this is true) you have carefully examined your beliefs and think that the atheistic view is the most sensible. If they want details, give them details -- but stay out of the realm of religion as much as possible. If asked, "Why don't you believe in God?" answer that you don't disbelieve in God, you just don't believe in deities because you don't think they're scientifically necessary. From there, discuss the scientific basis for your statement, not the qualities of a being you don't believe exists in the first place.

Third, be a good atheist. Don't hide your beliefs, but don't annoy people with them or act like they're superior, either. Be happy. Enjoy life. Be good to others, charitable, and honest. Show how wrong those who believe that atheists can't be moral or happy are. If you notice that someone has said something untrue on a religious subject, politely encourage them to check their facts or examine their beliefs. If you notice someone behaving contrary to their stated religion, you might (if appropriate) ask them how their behavior fits with their beliefs. By being a good example and encouraging people to examine their own beliefs, you will not only make the world a better place for atheists, you might even make some religious people comfortable enough to critically examine their own beliefs, and for many, that is the road to finding those beliefs unnecessary.

I hope that this great flood of words is helpful to you. Please let me know if I neglected to answer one of your questions sufficiently or if there is anything else I can do.

Hi. I grew up in an evangelical home and received a degree from an academically respected evangelical school. After graduation, however (last year), I began wrestling with questions I had about my faith, questions that I felt deserved real answers. I have researched the issue and read a lot of balony on both sides of the issue (i.e. atheism and Christian theism). I stumbled across your site and I wanted to say "thank you" for creating a site that attempts to engage Christians in a respectful (albeit light-heartedly sarcastic/teasingly at times) and thoughtful manner. I don't know who all posts on this site, but I was hoping that the conversations you had posted were NOT the best conversations you had engaged in. Do you have any conversations that have really challenged you/caused you to think hard over an issue? I would like to read a thoughtful engagement of the subject from intelligent, engaging, and cool-headed people on both sides. Help?

Before I answer your questions, I'd like to congratulate you on your desire to rigorously examine your beliefs. I firmly believe that everyone -- whether religious or not -- should examine their moral, ethical, metaphysical, and philosophical beliefs with great care. The world would be a better place if everyone acted as you are acting, even if we do not all reach the same conclusions after such study.

Now, addressing the points in your letter. I agree with you that there is a lot of "baloney" from every direction on the subject of religion. In my experience, there are far too many arguments, rants, and shows of pride or boast in the cloak of debate, and not enough honest discussions and attempts to understand other people's point of view. The Christian who preaches in a loud voice about damnation and calls honest inquiry the work of Satan will never challenge my beliefs. The atheist who delights in looking down on theists or "proving" ridiculous things by misstating the Bible just makes me embarrassed.

What can we do about this? We can discuss religion and atheism intelligently, respectfully, and politely and hope that it catches on.

You asked who posts to this site. I post the majority of the e-mail I receive that has interesting content (as opposed to simple complements or death threats), as well as my replies. I don't edit the letters sent to me, except to take out personally identifiable information and, in some cases, text that is meant only for me. All the e-mail conversations I have had since this site went live are here -- nothing has been removed.

Are these the best conversations I have had on these subjects? I'm guessing that you mean "best" in the sense of "best arguments for theism." In that case, no these aren't the best I have ever had. They are quite typical, though. I certainly welcome the opportunity to discuss proofs for the existence of God (for example), but so far there has been nothing here that I haven't heard and read many, many times before.

I have indeed had many conversations that caused me to think hard about these issues. The most important one to me occurred when I was in college. I was still going through the process of examining my beliefs, and during this time my best friend had some very bad things happen and turned to a fundamentalist Christian for comfort. She became very religious, and the change in her bothered me. The conversation I remember most was with this friend on the subject of the Bible. I was rereading the Bible with a critical eye and had many questions. During a phone conversation, I asked my friend some of these questions, and instead of answering them herself she would put down the phone and ask her fundamentalist friend for the answers. His answers were along the lines of, "that isn't a proper question," and "you shouldn't be reading the Bible that way."

Seeing my dear friend turn from a brilliant, thoughtful woman into someone who could not answer questions about her own beliefs really bothered me. This isn't what drew me to atheism, but it is what convinced me that there is great danger in allowing others to do your thinking for you.

I'm guessing that this isn't the kind of conversation you were really interested in. However, I think it's a very important one to keep in mind as you search for the truth.

Turning to worthwhile conversations purely about whether a certain religion is true or not, I would say that they fall into four categories.

First, there are scientific proofs. This is the kind of argument I hear the most. People argue that the universe shows signs of a creator, that laws of physics imply a god, or that evolution couldn't have happened and therefore God exists. I enjoy these conversations in that they are an opportunity to discuss scientific topics in which I am interested, but I think that all of them are pretty much doomed to failure.

The reason they are doomed is that they generally are either based on faulty science (e.g., "evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics") or are invoking a "god of the gaps" (e.g., "we don't know what was there before the big bang, therefore God was there.") Moreover, I have never spoken with someone who says that science is what made them a Christian -- that is, if their scientific proof was shown to be false they would be an atheist. There are such individuals, but they are rare.

The only argument from science that I find potentially compelling is one that essentially states, "the universe is so complex that I don't see how it could exist without a creator, no matter what science discovers." This is a statement of personal feelings about scientific knowledge. I don't see how I could argue against someone's personal feelings, and so long as nobody is trying to condemn me for not sharing these feelings I see no reason to.

Second, there are appeals to pragmatism. These are arguments like, "if you're an atheist, you'll go to hell" and other incarnations of Pascal's wager. I hear this kind of thing all the time. This kind of argument is not compelling to me, but in my mind it highlights the need for better critical thinking skills in our society.

People who argue in this way often think that there are just two sides to the issue of theism -- for and against. They don't seem to realize that even if this argument convinced someone to believe in a god, it wouldn't necessarily convince them to believe in the speaker's God. They also don't seem to realize that the word "god" itself needs a great deal of clarification before we could even begin to discuss Pascal's wager. For example, religious people who believe in hell don't all agree on who would be sent there, and that needs to be cleared up long before threats of hell can be compelling arguments.

Those who use this argument also seem to believe that I could change my mind about metaphysics just to be pragmatic. Could I believe in God if not believing in God would get me punched in the face? No -- my mind doesn't work that way. Could a religious person stop believing in God if I'd give them a million dollars to do so? If they could, then I'd say that their belief in God wasn't all that strong in the first place. What bothers me here is that there are so many people who sincerely do believe that I could just choose to believe in God. It makes me wonder how many important issues these people are making choices about based on their feelings as opposed to their reasoning abilities.

The third type of worthwhile conversation is based on historical proof. These are much less common than the first two types of conversation, and they generally run like this: "I can prove the Bible is reliable, the Bible says my religion is true, therefore my religion is true." Another argument in this genre is that Jesus is so unique that he couldn't have been made up.

Discussions like this are generally interesting, in that they boil down to how much one can trust two-thousand-year-old witnesses and how much proof one needs to accept an extraordinary claim. I don't find these arguments compelling because I require extraordinary evidence before accepting extraordinary things as fact, and there are too many possible ways for the Bible to have been written for me to assume that it is essentially an eye-witness documentary. If I lower my standards of proof for the Bible, then I need to lower them equally in all areas of thought, and that opens the door for too many improbable things.

The fourth and last type of argument is the statement of faith. This would be something like, "I can feel in my heart that God exists," or "God has touched my life." I'd say that these are the best arguments for faith. Personal feelings are compelling to the person who has them, and they cannot be denied or argued against. If there's a down side to this, it's that personal feelings are also not compelling to others. Saying, "no amount of logic or science could convince me that there is no God because I feel so strongly that He exists" is a pure statement of faith, but it does nothing for those of us who do not share those feelings.

So long as a person with this kind of faith understands that it is not compelling, they should do well. But they must also tolerate those who have different beliefs based on the same sort of feelings -- and in my experience, they generally do not.

I'm sorry that there is no big "I had trouble dealing with this" argument anywhere in here. I would be very interested to hear something new about why one should have faith, but far too often I hear, "I have found irrefutable proof that God exists," followed by, "The second law of thermodynamics says..."

I suppose I could suggest some books that might be interesting for you to read, but I don't generally like to do that. Instead, I'm going to recommend that you try applying my two rules for personal philosophy to your beliefs (if you have not already done so) before going any farther with your studies.

The first rule states that you should not have any beliefs that contradict each other. Since you have studied religion, this shouldn't be a problem for you. However, I run into plenty of people who believe "God would never ask you to harm someone" and "God wanted (this person) to kill (that person) for a greater good." Or that God protects innocents but also sometimes kills innocents. Or that faith can cure any disease, but faith can't mend a bone or regrow a finger. Or that "God loves you more than you can possibly imagine" and that "If you don't share my religion, God will torture you horribly for eternity." Or that God has commanded us not to steal, but stealing from people who can afford it (or who will never find out or who deserve it) doesn't count.

The second rule states that you should not protest when others think as you do. This rule is violated even more than the first. For example, if someone believes that God commanded them to kill infidels, then they cannot protest if someone else believes God commanded them to kill infidels, even if they don't agree on who the infidels are. If someone bases their view of reality on how they feel, then they cannot condemn others for doing the same (even in the case of "I just know my son is innocent," or "I can sense your aura," or "it's a conspiracy -- I can feel it"). If someone believes that their religion should be made law, then they can't protest someone else wanting a different religion to be made law. If someone doesn't stop at stop signs, they can't protest when they run into someone else who does the same.

I would also suggest that you make sure you carefully define terms used in your philosophy. How do you know good from evil? Right from wrong? What exactly do you mean when you say "God"? What are God's qualities? You might be surprised how many people have difficulty answering these seemingly simple questions.

To be brutally honest (if a bit optimistic), I think that if everyone defined their terms and applied these two simple rules rigorously to their beliefs we'd have a lot more atheists in the world, and those who were not atheists would at least be more accepting and tolerant of the beliefs of others.

I hope that this lengthy answer has been of some help to you. Please let me know if there is a particular argument for religion you'd like my take on, a philosophy you'd like me to apply my two rules to, or anything you'd like me to clarify.

I enjoyed reading your commentary.

religions's main purposes, in my personal opinion, aim to answer questions such as how we came to being and prepare us for the ultimate leap when we kick the bucket. it will all remain conjecture to the end of time unless science proves otherwise. in offering responses to these questions it does offer some comfort. Marx's assessment of religions was spot on.

religions can, but have not if history is any guide, brought enlightenment and moral guidance to the masses even though they claim otherwise. faith and reason are operating in different realms.godlessness is akin to a lack of morals even though acting morally is an entirely rational behavior.

I'd say that religion exists to answer unanswerable questions. The question of what happens after death is one of these. However, as science progresses, the number of unanswerable questions shrinks, and this causes difficulty for some religious people.

I'd say that religion also exists to bring comfort to people who need to feel that there is something bigger than themselves and that there is justice in the universe. I can't fault people for wanting those things, even if I disagree with their means of getting them.

In terms of Marx (and Plato, for that matter), I would agree that religion can indeed be a way to calm and/or control large numbers of people. This is why everyone should be very careful if they have religious beliefs, to make sure that they are not being mislead and that their method of thinking is not being used against them.

I think that religion has the potential to help people lead moral, loving, giving lives, but far too often it does not. Too many people use religion as a way to justify what by any objective standard is immoral behavior, or act against the morals espoused by their own faith, make excuses for their own behavior, and condemn those with different beliefs as "sinners."

You are right that faith and reason operate in different realms. Many of our difficulties arise when people on both sides try and cross that line.

I have been reading through this site and found it really interesting. but i have been wondering what do you mean by "God" i myself dont have a religion, but I find it hard to deny some sort of entity to start this entire process. for instance we are made of matter, matter is the reaction of energy waves with one another, there mere fact that matter exists is astounding. if you look at something like the charge on a neutron also its perfect its not too positive and not too negitive its perfect and perfection is a powerful message. also the fact that salt can dissolve in water it would take a high amount of energy to break apart the ionic lattice of salt but water can do this at relatively low temperatures and if this didnt happen we wouldnt exist. so i was wondering, do you believe in the existance of an entity maybe not the "God" that christians speak of but some sort of idea like that?

Excellent questions!

What is meant by "God" is actually one of the most difficult subjects in religious philosophy. I have found that more often that not, when you get right down to it, most religious people I speak to really don't have a viable definition of "God." When asked what God is, they will generally say something like:

* "God is the creator of the universe," which really doesn’t tell you much about God other than he performed a certain task in some unspecified way at some time in the past,
* "God is love," whatever that means, or
* "God is the omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent, all-loving father of us all," which is a collection of terms that generally don’t do well under analysis (particularly "all-loving.")

For this reason, when I say "God," I generally mean, "whatever it is you mean when you say God." This covers a lot of territory and, though it's still painfully vague, is useful in discussions where I don't think getting into defining this term would be useful.

The physics issues you mention are, indeed, amazing. Then again, we expect to find a universe with qualities like this because if it were otherwise then we wouldn’t be here to talk about the universe. I don’t find it necessary to assume a creator for any of these things. In fact, because "God" is such a fuzzy concept (in a metaphysical sense), I feel like saying, "I don’t understand the universe, so the explanation must be God," is akin to saying, "I don’t understand the universe, and the explanation must be something I understand even less and can’t even investigate." To me, that isn’t helpful.

I should point out here that different people have different levels of proof necessary for proving the existence of a deity, so for some "frozen water floats" is sufficient evidence of divine creation. To me, that’s a heck of a leap, but I can’t condemn someone for disagreeing with me on this, although I admit that I fear people who are easily convince of religious matters may, in some cases, be more easily convinced of untruths in non-religious matters.

The next thing exercising me is the question "how tolerant should I, as a tolerant atheist, be?" - and this is where I have an inner struggle fit to delight any Christian on the road to enlightenment.

In the US, I gather, the Constitution guarantees freedom FROM enforced religion, and prevents public money and facilities being ued for the promulgation of religions. Hence religion cannot be taught in a public school, altough I guess that religions can be even-handedly discussed, say in ethics or social anthropology classes for instance

Sadly, this is not the case in the UK, and public money can be used to support a variety of faith-based organisations, including "Faith Schools"

That is to say, in my view, my government uses my money to assist those who wish to indoctrinate children with any one of a number of sets of beliefs, which do not stand up to critical enquiry, and which indoctrination may not be balanced by the alternatives.

Some aspects of this I can tolerate, if the system tends to produce decent, non-harmful, citizens. In the case of children in the UK, there is at least a good chance that they will eventually have the opportunity to examine the alternatives and discuss them

However, my tolerance begins to creak in some special cases, such as the teaching of any form of creationism postulating an Earth younger than the age shown by the geological and scientific evidence. Young earth creationists are (in my opinion) at worst lying; at best so ignorant of scientific and philosophical method that they should not be allowed near impressionable young minds, "Creation Science" has been thoroughly rebutted in every aspect, from highly technical arguments about polonium haloes in granites, to rather silly arguments about the amount of salt in the seas.

The "Anthropic Principle" type of creationism is different. It incorporates and accepts (provisionally at least) the scientifically respectable theories of the creation of the universe; observes that a very special set of conditions arose in that process, which conditions allowed life-as-we-know-it to evolve, and postulate that a Creator arranged it so, since any tiny deviation from these conditions would not allow us to exist. This cannot be proved or disproved, in the current state of knowledge, so as a tolerant atheist I must allow its promulgation as a theory.

(It seems there is a huge number of people out there who will believe any number of incredible things, not all concerned with religion. One only has to look at the James Randi Educational Forum website to get a flavour of this.)

As a tolerant atheist, then, at what point does it behove me to come out of my grumpy-corner, and begin to strain every sinew against those who disseminate untruth?

I probably have no right to rail against that which I cannot prove to be wrong - but have I a duty to fight that which is proven to be wrong?

I am comforted by this. My children attended a Church-assisted primary school (it was nearest) They were exposed to even more religion than the average lower-middle-class English WASP kids. Now teenagers, and with no pressure from anyone, they too are tokerant atheists, and argue their case clearly. Mind you, one is a vegetarian too, so they aren't all perfect. The comfort is, average youngsters are quite capable of arriving at rational views, given exposure to enough sources of information. In ensuring that exposure, I have done my atheist duty by them.

How far and deep does my duty extend to the rest of society?

All teh best

Wow – another batch of excellent questions. You really must enjoy getting lengthy replies to your e-mails .

At best, I can give you my opinion on these subjects. I hope that by doing so and giving you insight into my thinking, it might help you work through your own feelings on this matter.

To start off with, you ask how tolerant a tolerant atheist should be. I think this is a "your right to swing your fist ends at my face" situation. Someone who is convinced that there must be a deity is, by that criteria alone, at worst wrong. I’m wrong at times myself, so I can’t condemn someone for being, in my opinion, incorrect.

Past this, whether or not I am intolerant of someone has nothing to do with whether they are religious. For example, I don’t want my child’s teacher to promote religion. Then again, I don’t want my child’s teacher to promote a political party, either. This isn’t an issue of religion or politics, it’s an issue of proper education. Another example would be that I don’t think anyone should have to be a certain religion to hold public office. I also think they should not have to be a certain gender or of a specific ancestry. This is because I’m against bigotry, not because of religion, feminism, and anti-racism as separate issues.

The U.S. Constitution does indeed guarantee separation of church and state. However, this is a sticky subject that needs to be looked at very carefully. As I understand it, the Constitution works like this:

• The government cannot promote or discourage any religion. Where we get into difficulty in the U.S. is that some people would add to this, "so long as you have some kind of religion." I feel that this is why our money still mentions God on it. There is also a difficulty in separating public funding for religious items from public funding for historical items. I’d say that the government should not pay for a statue of the ten commandments outside of a courthouse. On the other hand, the Supreme Court building has a mural which includes the ten commandments in the context of important historical documents, and this is fine with me because the mural is historical and plays no religious favorites.


• The government may not fund religious organizations so far as they are doing religious work. A church may not receive government funds (although they are exempt from taxes) unless those funds are for a specific secular purpose, such as aiding disaster victims. I disagree about taxation, but have no problem with funding charitable efforts so long as religion is not a qualification for receiving either funding or charity and there is no religious component to the charity (e.g., prosthelatizing to people in a soup kitchen).


• There should be no religious test to qualify for use of public facilities. Some people say that a school classroom should not be allowed to be used after hours for Bible study. I disagree with this – so long as there is equal access, I don’t see a problem. Where we get a problem is when a Bible study class is allowed but an atheist philosophy club is not. I also think that students should be allowed to express their religious views, read religious books on school property, pray before a test, etc., so long as the rights of others are not being infringed upon. Again, some would disagree with me on this, but in general the law tends to swing this way.


• Public education must not favor one religion over another. Theoretically, this means that a high school-level comparative religion or Bible as literature class would be fine. The problem is that if such a class is taught with academic honesty and neutrality, some religious people protest that their faith is being attacked, so such classes tend to have short lives. I find this sad.


• Laws cannot be passed that have no secular purpose. You can’t legislate prayer, for example. Fine with me.

Teaching of creationism should not be done in public schools, but in my opinion the reason it shouldn’t be taught is that it’s bad science. The religious origin of the theory is irrelevant. Creationism should be out for the same reason that dowsing, for example, should be out.

So at this point what I’m saying is that as an atheist you should probably be very tolerant of religion, but very intolerant of certain kinds of bad or damaging social behavior, some of which happens to be an outgrowth of religion.

You mention James Randi, and that is a great excuse for me to talk about one of my largest philosophical goals. To me, the biggest danger in religious thinking is that it can be a doorway to magical (or otherwise non-skeptical) thinking in a variety of areas. If someone thinks miracles happen, then mightn’t that person be more likely to believe that a fraudulent faith healer is real? Or that a curse needs to be removed by a gypsy? And how can a religious person tell a true religion from a false one if faith is good and reason is bad.

This is why I encourage all people, religious or not, to examine their beliefs and their system of evaluating evidence very carefully. Anyone with a personal philosophy should be able to at least explain their reason for preferring that philosophy – even if that reason is "because I feel in my heart that this is true." Looking at your own beliefs in this way can help you see how compelling those beliefs should be to others, and how much you can judge others for not sharing your beliefs.

For example, if someone believes in the Christian God because they feel in their heart that He exists, that’s fine. But they can’t condemn someone who believes in the God of Islam for the same reason, because then they would be condemning their own way of thinking. And if someone is religious for scientific reasons, they should be willing to say that, as a scientific person, they will give up their belief in God if given sufficient evidence. If they are not willing, then they need to admit that they have emotional reasons for belief. There’s no shame in that, but there should be shame in being intellectually dishonest about what has to be one of the most important concepts in life.

Now, about coming out of your grumpy corner and fighting untruth. I say that you should fight untruth and promote logical thinking everywhere. You only need to draw the line when you find yourself fighting not untruth but difference of opinion. You can fight against dowsing or homeopathy or astrology or the medical efficacy of prayer because science provides you with ample evidence that such things are incorrect. You cannot fight against the belief in a creator because there is no way to prove that such a thing doesn’t exist, no matter how unlikely. You can argue that religion should not be put into law, but not that anything is bad if it is religious.

I am pleased to hear that your children are doing well philosophically despite their public education. I am curious why you say that your vegetarian child isn’t perfect – my son decided to become vegetarian at age 5 because he didn’t want to harm animals, has stuck with it, and does not condemn those who do not share his practices (I’m not a vegetarian myself). I would put vegetarianism in the realm of things that are matters of opinion and should not be condemned. Of course, the behavior of some vegetarians should be condemned, but in that case it’s not their eating habits that are the problem.

Are you a complete idiot? Take a walkd down the street and there is evidence of GOD everywhere!!! You have to be blind and want to be blind to not see it. I hope your happy in your hapless hopeless hoellhole but stop trying to spread your sickness to the rest of the world.

When I walk down the street, I see lots things -- and some of them I avoid stepping in.

Okay, that wasn't very nice. I apologize for that, but the tone of your note is rather confrontational and it brought out the worst in me.

I do not agree that there is evidence for god everywhere. If I did, I probably wouldn't be an atheist. The fact is, there are plenty of non-god explanations for these wonders you speak of. Until you can demonstrate that god is the best explanation for the world, I will stick with more likely solutions.

I agree w/most of your statements on atheism, But there is one I do not agree with that would be that there are atheists who simply choose no religion if you choose no religion but do not deny one then you are agnostic and subconsiously searching for a religion to follow. I'd also like to say that this is one of the greatest atheistical informative sites I've ever seen I praise your work to help people understand what atheism means.

There are a number of different types of atheists and agnostics, and the definitions of those terms overlap in some instances. In any case, I prefer "without religion" as the primary definition of atheism, in that this is what the word literally means if you look at its roots.

Defining another term, I do not "choose" no religion any more than I choose to believe that the Civil War took place. My stance on religion is based on evidence, not on my personal preference.

You say that someone who does not deny a religion is not an atheist. The vast majority of people very many religions, so I'm assuming you mean that an atheist must deny religion in general. I don't believe that it is possible to logically rule out all possible religions (e.g., deism), so by your definition an atheist would be making a statement of faith. No thanks on that .

You say that if I do not deny religion than I am "agnostic and subconsciously searching for a religion to follow." To me, the term agnostic implies either indecision about religion or a belief that the religious truth cannot be found. I do not feel indecisive in my beliefs, I can not say that there is no possible proof for religious truth, and I am not looking for a religion. I do not deny anyone the right to be convinced that there is a deity based on his or her own level of required proof, but this does not imply that I'm any less confident in my own position. I don't see how that makes me an agnostic. Also, I'm sure you didn't intend it this way but saying that I'm subconsciously searching for a religion to follow is incredibly insulting and is the type of thing I hear from religious people all the time. I think it's best to stay away from making statements about how other people feel inside, or this type of discussion can get real ugly real fast.

Finally, thank you very much for the kind words about the site. I do what I can and am glad to hear that my work is helpful.

Problem is, what is the distinction between a belief held by someone because of their religion and a belief with the same effect held by someone with no religion?. I strongly believe that one person should not murder another, but not because I have a religion that says I must believe that. The next bod might believe exactly the same but because his god tells him so (or so he believes) I think we all of us, in this imperfect society, would prefer to see legislation against murder. Some people would claim though that their religious belief in the matter was validated by the law, - or that the law was validated by religion. So the legislation is claimed by all as part of their morality, and you can't stop that.

I know that it's a simplistic example, and I can see other possibilities that might be frightening when religious nuts run countries

My point about the good judge was that he used the law to uphold the separation of religion and state in the USA, and to prevent creationists having creation taught as a science in science classes at the instigation of members of a school board whose agenda was clearly religious and who perjured themselves about it

My personal position that I have yet to see evidence of a god/creator (although I have an open mind) does not extend to tolerance of those who are willing to lie to get themselves in a position to teach children some highly dubious stuff for purely religious motives. OK when they are old enough to be properly critical, but not before, and not with State help.

All the best

I hope you don't mind an enormous response to your note. These are excellent points and very worth discussion!

Let me begin (as I often do in this type of conversation) with my two rules for acceptable philosophy. For a philosophy to be viable, I think we can agree that it must 1) not contradict itself, and 2) not condemn those who reason similarly. It's that second rule – that you can't condemn people for thinking the way you do – that is largely behind my feelings on religion and the law.

As you point out, people can use either reason or religion to come up with a legal rule. If people who think both ways come up with the same rule (in your example, the rule is to not do murder) then effectively it doesn't matter where the rule came from. You are right that some people will think that this means they are legislating their religion, and I agree that is a problem. However, I think that people – even religious people – should be against legislating religion, if only for selfish reasons.

Let me go into a little more detail on that. By my second rule, I cannot say someone is wrong for thinking the way that I do. If I think that my religious principles should be enacted into law, then I can't condemn someone with a different religious philosophy for thinking that their principles should be enacted into law. So if I live in a democracy, I'm saying that the religion of the majority should dictate the rule of law.

There are some Christians who, believing the United States a Christian nation, might say that this would be fine. What they forget is that even Christians do not all agree on what is morally allowed. There is disagreement on birth control, evolution, baptism, medical issues, and even on how many chapters are in the Bible. They don't even agree on who should be considered a Christian. And if your group is still in the majority, are you confident that it will always be so? What if immigration brings with it a Catholic majority? What if changes in thought bring lead to an anti-religion majority? And even if you are confident that this country's makeup won't change, do you agree that the majority's religion should rule in every country? Even if you move there? Even if they want to make practicing your particular beliefs illegal?

It is for all these reasons that I think that the influence of religious philosophy should be solely over how a religious person behaves. Rules of law should be created in a more objective manner. In many cases, these religious and objective rules would be the same, indicating that there needs to be no religious justification for passing them.

As an exercise, let's take a look at the ten commandments and see which ones should be enacted into law. I'll use the Protestant version of the commandments, as they are probably the most familiar.

1) "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Legislating this commandment would mean flat-out legislating religion. People who think that "all religions worship the same god" aside, there is just no way to legislatively define god with enough vigor to make this commandment both meaningful and enforceable as law.

2) "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments." The second commandment is very open to interpretation. Should the law say that no images of real things be made? Does this include paintings? Photographs? And if we agree that the commandment just means that no idols should be made, then do statues of saints count as idols in that they are not images of god? Does a statue of Jesus that doesn't look like you think Jesus should look count as an idol? What about people who "worship" money? There is just too much room for abuse and arbitrary enforcement here.

3) "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." Limits on free speech are always dangerous. Should saying, "That piece of fish was good enough for Jehovah" be actionable? Is speaking against god or misrepresenting him misusing his name? What about cussing in the name of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph? Or cussing in the name of non-Christian gods? If we just want to outlaw cussing without going overboard, then why only outlaw cussing that mentions god? A more general no-foul-language law is probably what people would prefer (even though I'd argue that it's probably a bad idea), so there's no need to invoke religion.

4) "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it." There have been attempts to legislate this law, but they are, of necessity, full of exceptions. You don't want to tell firefighters, for example, that there is a day they can't work. What Sabbath do we enact into law? Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are all used by one religion or another. And how do we define work? Driving a car? Mowing the lawn? Building a model ship? Taking a shower? Enacting a strict no-working law, even with exceptions for emergency services, could also put the country at an economic disadvantage. Again, best to keep the government out of deciding these issues.

5) "Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." This is a nice rule for personal behavior in an ideal world, but it would probably be horribly abused as law. First of all, what does "honor" mean? Obey? Agree with? Just not talk back to? Second, who counts as your father and mother? Your birth parents? Adoptive parents? Estranged parents? Deadbeat dad? And finally, what if your parents do not deserve respect? How long should a child have to remain respectful to an abusive family? Is calling Social Services or reporting abuse to a teacher disrespecting your parents? No, far too many dangers in a law like this.

6) "Thou shalt not kill." This is the first of the commandments that pretty much everyone thinks should also be a law. But because even non-religious people think it should be a law, the commandment is not necessary to justify it. There is also the problem that the commandment as stated doesn't define "kill" very well. Does this just mean murder, or does it include killing in self defense? What about capital punishment? Or killing animals for food?

7) "Thou shalt not commit adultery." There is not enough agreement on what constitutes adultery for people to agree that this should be a law. Is all sex outside of marriage adultery? Is it adultery if someone divorces and remarries? Are married couples who "swing" adulterers?

8) "Thou shalt not steal." This is one of two commandments that work best as a law. There are still some grey areas concerning what is stealing, but they tend to be problematic for legal as opposed to religious reasons.

9) "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Taken as a prohibition against making false accusations, this is the second commandment that generally works well as a law.

10) "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's." This is legally completely impossible to enforce and could cause intense social problems if enacted into law. It's possible that, under a law such as this, watching a commercial could be a crime.

That was fun, and I hope that it highlights some of the reasons that government needs to stay out of the religion business.

If this means that certain subjects in public school science classes conflict with some religious beliefs, that's okay so long as the reason those subjects are being taught has nothing to do with religion. True, this is inconvenient or upsetting to some religious people, but they should be able to explain the truth as they see it to their children, as well as explain how their criteria for truth differs from that of people with conflicting beliefs.

When we come right down to it, not basing law on religion helps guarantee the freedom to practice religion because it helps ensure that nobody else's religion (or non-religion) will take priority over your own.

I am very tolerant of religion, but I agree with you that there should be little tolerance for those who try and use law to force their religious beliefs on others.

you see im 15 and all my family are presbiterian see i cant even spell it im that interested. I mean i dont balieve in god but I dont want to be close minded because i am very ignorant toward religion. I came to the conclusion that I am an atheist from my own thoughts on things and I was hoping that someone could kindly tell me in detail about atheism, Thanks

Thank you very much for writing. It sounds like you are in a bit of a difficult position, and I hope I can help.

Let me start answering your question with a statement. There are many kinds of atheist. Some reject a particular religion. Some are anti-religion in general. Some say there is no possibility that a deity exists. Some are simply people who do not have religion -- and this is the category in which I put myself.

Now that you know where I'm coming from, here's a list of the qualities of an ideal atheist from my perspective.

1. An atheist believes in what is demonstrably real. There is no reason to believe in things because you wish that they existed or "feel in your heart" that they must be.

2. An atheist uses the scientific method when searching for what is real. Evidence worth considering must be scientifically valid. Occam's razor should always be considered. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

3. An atheist has a strong moral code. Because there is no threat of supernatural justice, an atheist must put great thought into personal moral and ethical behavior, and take great care not to make excuses for deviating from that personal code.

4. An atheist is without religion, but that does not mean an atheist must be against religion. Some people need the comfort of belief in the supernatural. Some people do not agree that the universe likely has a scientific origin. There is no reason to fight these people just because they have these feelings.

5. An atheist who is not against religion should still fight back against religious people who do harm to others. You may not condemn someone for being religious, but you certainly can (and should) stand in the way of their using religion to dictate laws, dictate what is taught in schools, choose who is hired for a job, justify violence, interfere with how science is practiced, etc.

6. An atheist who is not against religion can still argue vigorously with those who insist that religion is based on science. Claims of a scientific basis for religion should be countered with science. But just as the atheist should resist the intrusion of faith into science, the atheist should not use science to argue against a religious person's faith.

7. An atheist is a cheerleader for clear, rational thinking in all areas -- science, politics, ethics, morals, religion, etc. Part of this is encouraging others to not hold self-contradictory beliefs or think in ways they would not want others to think. It also means trying to keep discussion rational (as opposed to abusive or personal) and helping people see the difference between truth and opinion.

8. An atheist is a cheerleader for consistency in moral and ethical thinking. Avoid "morality of convenience" or self-serving flavors of situational ethics. Speak up if someone behaves contrary to his or her stated morality.

9. An atheist promotes investigation and education. Help people seek out resources to better understand the world around them, and see that your own education is a never-ending process.

10. An atheist should always be looking to get closer to the truth. There is a great deal in the world that we do not know, and seeking the answers to these questions is humanity's greatest adventure. Being willing to question means always having uncertainty about some things. Only religious people have complete certainty, but they do so at the expense of possibly being incredibly incorrect about some of the most important issues imaginable.

11. An atheist has no fear of being wrong. There should be no apprehension about what the outcome might be when investigating a scientific topic -- if the answer is not what you expected, rejoice in your new knowledge.

12. An atheist should try and make the world a better place. Do what you can to reduce suffering. Help people live together instead of tear each other apart. Bring joy to those around you. This is the only existence we have -- we should take care of it.

I think that's about it. This list is not "the atheist commandments" or anything like that. It is simply an expression of my feelings on the subject. I believe that if all atheists lived by these rules, tried to be accepting of others, and did our best to live moral lives with an emphasis on making the world a better place, humanity would be much the better.

You say that your family is Presbyterian. If you are the only atheist in your family, and particularly if you know of no other atheists in your area, you have both a great opportunity and a great sorrow. The sorrow is that of not having like-minded people close at hand, but rest assured that there are a great many of us willing to be your friend online even if we can't be there in person.

The opportunity is that if you are the only atheist in the area, you can show people that any negative preconceived notions about atheism they have are incorrect. Be friendly. Be personable. Be willing to discuss religion and philosophy in an open, respectful manner. Don't be confrontational or defensive. Define yourself by what you are for, not by what you are against. Show your eagerness to learn new things and to help others learn. If you can do this, then anyone who does not at least respect you for your beliefs has likely got prejudices that they are unable to put aside. Feel sorry for them.

I hope that this has answered your question without overwhelming you with verbiage. If you have further questions or need me to clarify anything I have said here, please feel free to write. I stand ready to help at the best of my ability.

At this moment I must apologize for my delays. Since it is summer I am very busy with many things and at times am away from a computer for long periods of time. For the next three weeks I will be extreemly busy and hope you will excuse my absence. However, if you feel like it you can still email me, it will just be a while till I answer it. I have just a few minutes so I will use them to answer your previous letter.

I agree with one part of your letter, there is another possible way that the earth came into existance. I do not however understand the difference of number five compared to number three.

The difference is the word "created." Creation, to me, implies a creator, and in the context of this discussion it is somewhat of a loaded word.

If number three is to be placed in effect, the other world would have to be somehow there, and so on and so forth.

That is correct. Our universe could be part of an infinite series of universes.

Also, what particles are you talking about going into and out of existance? I am regretably not understanding that part.

This is a really complex topic that is a bit out of range of this Web site. However, you can probably find more about virtual particles by doing an Internet search for Hawking radiation or Feynman diagrams.

About the cause and effect question, relating to Albert Einstien's theory, an action must have an equal and/or opposite reaction. So while in chemistry there is an equal reaction, everything else must have an opposite, or less reaction.

I don't believe that Newton's theory about equal and opposite reactions can be so easily dismissed. It seems to me that conservation of energy would require that cause and effect be equal. For example, when a bat hits a baseball, some of the cause goes into moving the ball, some into moving the batter, some into generating heat, etc. They should all add up so that input and output are the same. I may be missing your point here -- do you have an example?

Besides the universe, please describe what besides the universe or anything else that is remotely related to Christian beliefs or things like that have a begining but no end?

I don't know if the universe will have an end, and anything else I can think of is part of the universe.

The heat death is, to science, when intelligent life, aka us, will be destroyed. That is what most scientists refer to as the heat death. Insidentally, Christians believe too that the world will be destroyed by heat, or fire. Just add those two together. And I don't know about you, but the universe collasping on itself seems kinda interesting. Don't really know if it'll happen though.

I disagree with your definition of heat death. My understanding is that the heat death of the universe will occur when the universe is in a state of maximum entropy and there is no free energy. My guess is that intelligent life will have died out long before that. Since this state would be very cold indeed, it's sort of the opposite of the Christian belief you mention.

Also, a law in science is always permant. It will always be there. So the first Law of thermodynamics has always existed, whether or not we knew about it yet. And yes, it is impossible to prove what was there before the Universe.

Hefty concepts again. One small counterexample is that some believe that the second law of thermodynamics might be reversed if there is enough energy in the universe to lead to a "big crunch" some time in the far future. Also, we can't "see" before the creation of our universe so we don't know what things were like before that point in time (if it even makes sense to talk about "before" the big bang). It is possible that, for example, cosmological constants were different in a universe that came before ours.

Yet science lets us know that unless we can prove it, it doesn't happen or exists.

On the contrary, science only tells us that unless we have evidence we cannot prove that something exists. Previous universes may exist, science just can't prove (or disprove) it. The same is true for God, and you should welcome this fact because otherwise I would be able to tell you that you have to prove God exists before you believe in him. As it is, all I can say is that you need to prove God exists in order to convince me to believe in him.

Honestly, I have yet to hear a plausible theory. I hear some that twist the laws of science to make sense, and leave things to a one in a billion chance for more than one thing happening. Do your probability. It seems highly unlikely to me that millions of things happened when they only had a one in a billion chance of happening.

There are many interesting an plausible theories of the origin of the universe, including Stephen Hawking's theory that (if I understand it correctly) there is no origin. The problem is that this is a relatively new and incredibly complex area of science, and most of it is in the realm of quantum physics, which is very weird and often difficult to experiment with.

Getting into probability can also be very confusing and misleading. The odds against you, personally, existing are billions and billions to one against, but I wouldn't use this as proof that you do not exist. We also have to contend with the fact that if the odds hadn't turned up in our favor, we wouldn't be here to calculate them. Again, this is an enormous field for discussion.

In your second to last paragragh, why is it easier to believe a random causeless quantum than a diety?

Occam's razor. I don't have to make up anything significantly new to believe that the universe is the result of natural processes. True, there are still some unknowns, but filling those unknowns with an infinitely powerful, eternal, thinking, being that exists outside of this universe is quite a leap, and I need more evidence to make such a big leap.

Let me give you another example along these lines. When I was a kid, there was said to be some uncertainty about how the pyramids in Egypt were built. Some people used this uncertainty to postulate that aliens must have come from another planet and helped build them. By Occam's razor, they should have exausted more plausible explanations before creating all these new, complex ideas. And as it turns out, new knowledge has given us a very good idea of how the pyramids were built by humans alone.

This is a favorite subject of mine so let me give you another example of an application of Occam. Let's say that we find evidence that it was impossible for life to have evolved in the universe. Where does that leave us? Well, God could have made life. But how likely is that? Rather than one infinitely powerful deity, isn't it more likely that there are many less powerful, such as the Greeks believed in? Some people would say that one powerful deity is more likely than many less powerful ones, just because believing in more deities sounds like you're creating more things and therefore is less likely. But look at it this way -- do you think it's more probable that the pyramids were built by a lot of normal humans over a long period of time, or by one really, really big, strong human in a short period of time? Obviously the former. And whenever we appeal to Occam, we have to take into account not just the number of new things being created, but the number of new attributes those new things have.

God has a heck of a lot of attributes that need proving. A universe without a creator has very few.

Your last question at first made me stumble. Yet if a diety exists, then It made the rules and everything. If you created the rules of science, then you are immune to them. Why should you follow science rules when you created them?

The question under discussion is why God can be causeless but the universe can't. It isn't a matter of whether God must follow the rules of science, since we (I hope) agree that God is not within the realm of science. It's a matter of, if we're going to postulate that there are infinite things, then why not postulate that something we're already sure of (the universe) is infinite instead of something outside the universe being infinite?

The laws of physics were created by humans to describe the universe. In the past, there have been many times when we've discovered that we got the descriptions wrong. If there were a law of physics that said everything had to have a cause, then quantum physics has proven it wrong. And even if it hadn't, I'd rather look into changing the law to "everything has to have a cause except for the universe itself" instead of "everything has to have a cause except for an infinite being that exists outside the universe."

Next time I will add more to show to you that God does exist, and answer any questions that goes along with this letter. I hope I have answered your letter to your satisfaction. I have one question to ask you before we close this letter. Does love exist? Science cannot prove love. Most people do say that there is love, but they only see that through faith. Sometimes it takes more faith than science, because sometimes science can be broken. Thank you.

Sure love exists. So do hunger, hope, faith, fanaticism, joy, and insanity. These are human conditions. Science cannot prove love, except for in a boring chemical-reaction-in-the-brain way, but that's okay because it's outside the realm of science. So is faith -- science can't prove it because it's totally subjective and none of science's business. Once you try and put God on science's doorstep, you are going to find yourself struggling quite a bit because they do not fit well together. But if you keep God in the realm of faith, you may lose your hope of proving his existence to the atheistic scientist, but you will also find yourself immune to attacks on your faith from a scientific standpoint.

I would love to continue our discussion if you really think that you can prove to me that God exists. But let me ask you this as I have asked others, are these arguments you're giving me your reasons for believing in God? If I can find holes in all of them, will you stop believing? If not, then why do you use these arguments at all? Why not try and convince me to believe in God for the same reason you believe.

Finally, you're right that sometimes science can be broken. But science has a mechanism for fixing itself. When faith, on the other hand, goes bad, it generally stays bad. That is why I ask people of faith to please, please be careful with it.

Names have been deleted from the below correspondence.

This will be a little long because I'm reposting the discussion I had with some guy a little while ago. On my space, I posted an article about "Why Christianity is fake" or my theory rather as to the point of why Christianity , though fake and known by the founders as fake, spread it to the rest of the world. Well, a man was offended by this and said this to me.

That is actually a little offensive. I mean how can you call christians fake etc. when you do not obviosly understand or know what a Christian is. So not knowing what a Christian is. how can you call it fake. is it fake according to you definition.

I am 29 yrs. old I grew up in a crappy family , abused etc. who cares though right.

I am a recovering alcoholic, drug addicted ex gang member from North Little Rock, have been shot at stabbed, and even drug down the highway on my head. i was also involved in Celtic withcraft as well as satanism for a while even roomed with a pagan priest.

Yet nothing has ever seemed as real as GOD does to me.

I am not talking about some pansy religious idea of GOD I am talking aboput the real thing.

i never had any one really care about me growing up Yet i know God does.

See most people do not give GOD a chance they form opinions and ideas around what they have seen and heard. When in fasct if they actually took the time to really get to know GOD for who he is they would relize that what they think he iws or is not is not really true.

Most people just don't care including a lot of so-called CHRistians

so the ? is do really care or are you happy with your pseduo beliefs about what is and is not real. Who is and is not fake. Etc.

Please reply to this message.

In my reply, I stated this.

Exactly, why are you a christian? Because you didn't have the best of a life, so you were sucked into Chrsitianity because if gives you a false sense of hope that no matter what, this fake messiah of yours will always guide you and give you strength. I don't give god a chance, because its nothing more then a word to me. You're brainwashed with a sense of hope that it offers to wheel you in, and by making Faith such a high priority, you become so dedicated that you cannot be convinced other wise. And HAHAH! You have no right to call my beliefs psuedo. I refuse to debate with you, for the reason that I will not debate with my group counsellor or any Christian for that matter. You are so blinded by your fake faith, that no matter how much logic and proof I use to debate with you on, You will continue to argue..With nothing..Claiming your book is evidence, when it's not in the slightest bit. You can go on believing in Fairy Tales for the rest of your life, but I'm going to life to the fullest, and give out my opinions to life to anyone who wants to hear them. You don't like my space, you should have read it before adding me. Jesus gained a following through a term known as Routinization of Charisma, (A sociology term.) Another man who we all know gained a following the same way, Adolf Hitler(Who was brought up as a Roman Catholic, but we won't get into his religion.) Even though he had a large following in the past, he's nothing worth worshiping to this day, buuut, Hitler didn't try telling people he was the son of god now did he? Though, it seems as if he could have gotten his followers to believe this since he virtually had them eating out of his hands during his reign. Often other men who have gained a small amount of a following have been able to even get their followers to ceremonially all commit suicide. So in terms, people who strongly believe in a charismatic leader, will often believer anything, as Jesus disciples did, and passed it down onto us to this day. So you can continue your beliefs if you want, but I'm going to keep my article about my thoughts up on My Space reguardless.

I bid you adu,

P.S As stated above in my message, I refuse to back in forth debate my and your psuedo-beliefs. But remember, A great mystery such as death can never be found so easily.

And then lastly, he responded with this.

Believe it or not I respect your beliefs and I do not wish to debate either what you beliee is really no concern to me. However you did say that christians are so bound by faith that it is useless to argue with them because they are close minded. the only thing I did is try to point out that in your message you come off as close minded to me as i do to you. I am not a Christian because I had a bad life. Who cares life sometimes sucks yet it goes on. I did Not become a Christian because I was suckered in etc. For i do nothing on a whim I am very carefull to believe or not to believe in something. and as far as faith goes. My faith in GOD only comes through experience with him. So No i did not jump into somereligion or some form of it because of my past life etc. Yet because of my experience. Besides I feel that religion itself is pathetic and week at best. And is alienating and prejudice among other things. See my fatih is not blind that is foolish yet it is stems from relationship and esxperience.

Anyway I was not wanting to debate only to point out that it seems you are just as narrow minded about God as you feel everyone else is just a different stand point. So as you stated kind of maybe don't be so close minded.

i will never debate religion with you that is stupid.

and it accomplishes nothing. yet only say even though we do not see I to eye can we not still communicate. reply please

Do you believe I debated in a bit of a "Wrong" manner, as with his last comment, he was right about me being as close minded as most Christians are (Which is why you can't get them to believe otherwise, despite any Scientific proof you could possibly pull out.)

This is a very interesting correspondence, and I am flattered that you thought to ask my opinion. Here are my thoughts:

First off, even though I haven't seen the details of your argument that Christianity was knowingly started as a false religion, I'm going to guess that you have no overwhelming evidence for this (at least, those I have heard argue this point before had none). Christianity as we see it today could very easily have begun in complete sincerity, and many people continue to practice it in sincerely. Since sincerity makes Christianity no more or less true, I believe it is a good practice to assume the best in people unless confronted with evidence to the contrary. To do otherwise will generally either get you entangled in nasty arguments that boil down to differences of opinion or make people think that you are malicious, closed minded, or both. Neither of these is conducive to convincing others that your point of view is correct.

If your argument is only that Christianity's originators were insincere, then the first response you shared with me really does not address your argument at all. It's a complete straw man, since the feelings of a Christian today have nothing to do with the origin of Christianity any more than the workings of the U.S. government have anything to do with whether Betsy Ross really designed the country's flag (it's a weird analogy, but try and see my intent).

What is important, though, is that the respondent says that, to him, Christianity is a very real thing. He feels in his heart that it is true, and it has helped him through difficult periods of his life. It is how you react to this type of statement that helps define what kind of atheist you are.

Here is how I would respond.

He says that nothing seems as real to him as God. That's fine. You can't argue against belief by personal revelation because it's based on nothing but how a person feels inside. On the other hand, personal revelation can't be used to convince others that God exists. So as long as this person is saying that he believes in God because of how he feels, and isn't trying to convince me that I should believe in God because of how he feels, then there's no harm and no foul. I'll tell him that I have no such feelings, and he may hope I have them some day, but that's as far as it can go. We should be able work together with mutual philosophical respect.

If he pushes a bit about "giving God a chance," I might say that I have given the subject a lot of thought and done a lot of "soul searching," but that nothing makes me feel like something supernatural is out there and I'm very happy with my view of the world. Again, we should be able to move on in peace from here.

As for your response -- I'm going to be brutal here and say that, in my opinion, it was a big mistake. Please stay with me while I go into this in some detail.

I would never use the "you are a Christian because you had a bad life" argument, no matter how incredibly appropriate it seems. The reason is that there are tons of religious people who say that atheists don't believe in a deity because they had a bad childhood, etc. I don't want to perpetuate this kind of argument, because it can go nowhere and is inherently insulting and condescending.

You then talk about how he and those like him cannot be debated with because they are so blinded by faith that no amount of evidence will make a difference. This person isn't saying that his faith is based on any kind of physical or historical evidence; he's saying his faith is based on his feelings. You can't argue against that, because until he tries to prove his religious viewpoint in a scientific manner, you can't debate him with facts. Frankly, I wish all religious people were like this, admitting that religion is based entirely on how they feel and their level of comfort with the universe instead of trying to tell me that there is some kind of objective proof for the divine. That's honest and clearly divides the realms of religion and science. In fact, if someone has a "proof" for their religion and I'm not in the mood to debate, I'll often ask them, "Is this argument the one that convinced you your religion is true? If I refute it, will you abandon your religion? And if not, why are you using this argument instead of the one that convinced you?" In most cases, this will get the religious person to say that they believe in their religion for personal, emotional issues, and since I don't have those issues I have no reason to share their religion.

You say you are unwilling to debate with people "blinded by fake faith" because they refuse to accept your arguments and keep relying on the Bible when it isn't evidence for anything. I think this might be a sign that you need to either choose your battles more carefully or examine your debating skills. If you are debating against people who have completely faith-based (as opposed to rational-argument-based) religion, then you really shouldn't be, unless you are arguing about how they should behave toward the rest of society. If you are arguing against someone who is trying to rationally prove to you that their religion is true, then you should be able to either find common ground for discussion or get them to realize that they have no argument.

And as for the Bible -- you're wrong about it not being evidence for anything. It's a historical document, and therefore is evidence. The debate should be about what it is evidence of. You do yourself a disservice by dismissing the Bible and then saying that Jesus gained followers through Routinization of Charisma (or, perhaps more colloquially, a cult of personality). Where are you getting your evidence if not from religious texts? And in my opinion, making such a strong statement about how Jesus gained followers is a mistake, since there is a lot we don't know and (to my knowledge) a number of other likely possibilities, none of which involve the supernatural.

Your response is written in a very inflammatory and defensive way, and I don't think it needed to be. In particular, bringing up Hitler was disingenuous, and by Godwin's law should have ended the debate. The tone of your whole response is of someone wanting to defensively beat another into silence, and it will do nothing toward convincing anyone reading it that you are sincere, well meaning, thoughtful, or anything but a philosophical bully. It also makes your opponent sympathetic. I'm sure that's not at all what you intend.

The second note from the respondent was pretty much on the mark. You did come across as closed minded (and mean spirited), and you did seem to completely miss his point. I think that, unfortunately, most people reading this correspondence will end up with a good feeling toward the religious man and a bad feeling toward you, and any negative stereotypes they had about atheism would be reinforced.

In your closing, you say that, "he was right about me being as close minded as most Christians are." That might be something worth working on. An atheist can -- and should, in my opinion -- be completely open minded. If you have particular beliefs about the origin of Christianity that you are unwilling to examine in the light of scholarship, then you should ask yourself why you are holding on to them so tightly. I have done massive amounts of reading on the origins and workings of Judeo-Christian religion, and it has given me quite a bit of insight into religious thinking and development without denting my atheism in the slightest. It has also given me some perspective on why people have religion, which I think is very valuable.

I recommend that in the future you keep in mind that there are many people who don't see many atheists and therefore will tend to think that you are a representative sample. For this reason, I suggest that you go out of your way to try and understand and accept the sincerely held beliefs of others while being politely forthright about your own beliefs. Don't back down from a discussion when a religious person says they can prove religious issues through a rational process, but respect the religious person who believes only on the basis of personal faith and does not try to impose their beliefs on others.

By remaining calm, polite, and respectful while not hiding your atheism, you will do more to convince people to at least respect atheism (or perhaps "give it a try") than you ever will with the type of correspondence you showed me. I think this is a worthwhile goal, and if all atheists behaved in this manner, I think we could pave the way for a future where people no longer feel the need for faith and can accept the world with eyes wide open.

Thank you very much for writing.

We seem to be getting into deep philosophical waters here, and I'm not sure I can keep my head above them.

However, it seems we agree that no deity is needed to define "good".

The great value of IAmAnAtheist.com (besides its superb entertainment quotient) is exemplified by its declaration of Atheistic Rights and Responsibilities. Remove the god stuff from the christian 10 commandments, and you have a set of precepts which, if followed by everybody, will tend to lead to a harmonious and happy community, without anyone having to swallow great lumps of incredible material about miracles and resurrections.

I have a couple of friends who are ordained Anglican priests. They are rock-solid in their beliefs (not creationists or ID-ers, but generally lined up with anthropic fine tuning of the universe, and acceptance of the bible as often allegorical, but certainly divinely inspired) But it does seem as though they live in a parallel world - the church has its own rules, politics (Oh, the politics!), conventions, and even vocabulary. The more I talk to them, the more I tend to the belief that their religion is the main thing holding them together - without it, they would have great difficulty in coping with the world.

And that's what I think religious belief is - it's a way of coping. Sometimes it's also a way of accruing power and authority, but mostly it's a way of coping with a complex and frightening world.

There are substantial numbers of us who do not need a deity and the associated rituals and conventions to cope with the world. The things that frightened and perplexed the people who invented the religions now have rational explanations. We know that storm and flood are impersonal events driven by complex weather systems, not targeted vindictiveness from some too easily-offended deity. We know that people sometimes recover from the most devastating illnesses, or sometimes just die through lack of interest, without the intervention of some bearded sky-guy.

Some of us dare to think that our existence has no particular purpose or meaning except to those we love and love us : worse, we dare to think that we can still lead a moral and ethical existence despite that.

And that's my point, really. I can, as an atheist, lead a "good" life, harming no-one as I lurch through it, yet I have no expectation of reward afterwards, and no fear of punishment either. I do not need to believe in a deity, so I don't. - although I do keep an open mind - I am a scientist, after all - and will objectively evaluate any evidence as it is presented.

Bot, lest you think I am just a kindly sort, with no bad word for anyone, I have to admit to rage against IDers and creationists who try to subvert my children. Which is why I think that Judge John Jeffries lll, who handed down that devastating judgement against the Dover School Board, should be awarded (in the words of the late Bernard Levin) "The Order Of They Shall Not Get Away With It, with Crossed Swords, Oak Leaves, and Golden Knobs On" OK, I'm a Brit, and the case was nothing to do with me, but the man struck a blow for Truth and Honesty, Science and Objectivity, which will not be easily forgotten

Rant over

Thank you for the thoughtful note.

Reacting to your final paragraph, I tend to be very accepting of other people's beliefs, but I also have no use for those who try to use legal or other means to impose their religious beliefs on others. Religion is a personal thing, and it needs to remain a personal thing. If it does not, then we get into the frightening area of legislating religious morality, and given the variety of religious moralities out there, I think it best to avoid that situation completely.

Have you read The Book of Enoch?

What IF the TRUE Bible is The Book of Enoch but instead we believe or read THE INCOMPLETE BIBLE OF TODAY?

I haven't read it, but I am generally familiar with what it is about. It would make no difference to me if the Bible as read today (in its various versions) were not the one originally intended by some ancient writer. I consider the Bible a historical document like any other.

What IF Falling Angels are the ones who's running the government?

I would be very surprised.

If you are an Atheist, do you believe you are real or fake? Because if you are real, then do you belive you are real because of you nerve senses? Then if so, what is real?

I believe I am real. I don't know how it would be possible to believe I was fake. I have faith that the signals my brain receives from my senses are generally reliable, however I have no proof that I'm not a brain in a jar in some mad scientist's laboratory being fed false signals (just in case you are asking).

Since you dont believe in God then how can you distinguish what is real and what is an illusion?

To my knowledge, believing in a deity wouldn't help me distinguish reality from fantasy. In fact, it might be a step in the wrong direction.

What IF Falling Angels lusted with human females producing an evil seed in Babylon thus you get PSALM 137:9?

I find this unlikely.

If life is an accident, then giving birth to a child is AN ACCIDENT? RIGHT?

That does not follow. The discovery of penicillin may have been an accident, but the use of penicillin to cure disease is done with purpose.

Granted Religion was MAN MADE...but then who influence to make the U.S. government of today?

That's a big subject. There were a great many influences, including Thomas Jefferson who believed religion and government should be kept separate. I love that guy.

Do you believe you are YOUR ARE YOUR OWN GOD?

No. I don't even know what that would mean.

Now, let's just say that the prophecies of god and the son of god were correct. Then comes the day when your freedom gets restrained and in order for you to get THAT FREEDOM you need to wear, have or carry the mark of the beast. Would you or an Atheist receieve or accept such thing in order for you to restore freedom?

If all the prophecies of the Bible came true and supernatural beings started showing up and doing stuff, odds are I wouldn't be an atheist anymore. That's like asking if I'd still believe Elvis was dead if he showed up at my house.

Did you prepared yourself when the Y2K phenomena happend? If so, why?

Yes. I was working in a technology-related field at the time and some of our equipment needed to be updated for Y2K. What does this have to do with anything under discussion?

Do you believe or think that the JFK assassination was a conspiracy?

I do not see compelling evidence for a conspiracy.

What about 9/11?

I think a JFK conspiracy is far more likely.

What do you think about The Illumanati?

I don't like them. They overdress and the cupcakes at their bake sales are always too expensive.

Do you think that secret societies exist and they are controling the U.S. Government?

No.

Antartica is going to be no more. Did you believe or put a thought about global warming? If you said yes, then how can you believe in something that hasnt occur yet but will and we are going to experience the meltdown. To be honest with you I NEVER THOUGHT it will or was going to occur.

I think the evidence for global warming is good. The evidence that it might in part be caused by humans is also good enough that I think we should take some precautions. Science is often concerned with things that have not happened yet, and I have no problem with that.

Have you read A Pale Horse by Bill Cooper? If you did read it isn't weird that he was killed after he released his book?

I have not read the book, but my impression is that Cooper's information may be less than reliable.

My suggestion is to read the book titled Bible Codes Revealed by Sherry Shriner. I am doing my own RESEARCH by looking at it as an academic point of view. I am evanglist but now that I am reading more I consider myself as a FOLLOWER of GOD. NO RELIGION influence. I am reading The Bible, The Book of Enoch, Introduction to Atheism, World Religions, The Illumanati 666 prt. 1 & 2, Aliens on The Internet, Definitions of Demon Spirits, A Pale Horse, Sumarian Methos and much more. Looking at both sides of the coin because THAT'S THE ONLY WAY to SEARCH for the TRUTH that we bear in society. But I still believe in Jesus and God but I am NOT SAYING ANYTHING and I RESPECT everyones belief. I share my information to those that want to hear but those that dont then I LET THEM BE!! I am also in the Planetary Society and Sierra Club. Take care and good bye.

Although I doubt that the U.S. government is covering up evidence of extraterrestrial visitations (among other things addressed in the books you mention), I applaud you for respecting the beliefs of others and for reading to expand your intellectual horizon. However, I can't say that I'd choose the same reading material you do. It seems a little skewed toward the fringe. Kudos on being involved in the Planetary Society and Sierra Club, and thanks for the entertaining note.

How can you attack atheists? We need to work together to overcome the forces of religion and it doesn't do anyone any good to attack atheism when we all need to do is show a united front. You're making the life of the religious nuts that much easier. Thanks a bunch.

I don't "attack" anyone. There are people I disagree with, and yes, some of those people are atheists. The point isn't to make everyone agree or to "overcome" religion, the point is 1) to help people understand each others' points of view, 2) emphasize the benefits of rational thought, and 3) clear up misconceptions about atheism.

While discussing the difference between right and wrong is a very good topic, I feel like it is going nowhere. So since you basically asked me to show you proof that God exists, I will for the moment get off the topic of right and wrong to show you that God exists. Hopefully we shall get back to this topic soon.

I hope you know science because what I am about to say deals heavily in it. One of my aunts has a friend whose name is Micheal Hite. He has helped me get into proving that God exists through science. I give the credit to him and to God.

"Does God exist?" the question that most human beings ask in their lifetime. Either God exists or He doesn't. There is no room in between. What evidence, then proves which part correct?(Note: when I say prove, I do not mean by empirical evidence, a.k.a. the five senses. We cannot prove God the same way we prove a sack of tomatoes.) While empirical evidence is very useful in proving something, it is not the only way to prove that something is in being.

All legal authorities reconize the vality of the prima facie case. This is in effect when enough evidence is available to establish such a high probability of a fact being true that, unless taht particular fact somehow can be refuted, it is considered proven beyond reasonable doubt.The arguement of the thesist(me) is taht there is a huge amount of powerful evidence which forms an unshakable prima facie case for the existance of God, one that is unshakeable. I would like to show you a portion of that evidence for the evidence of God.

The Cosmological Argument- Cosmological of course meaning cause and effect- is the most used argument for the existance of God. It says that the Universe is here and therefore can and must be explained. The universe exists. Anyone who is sane understands that. So pops up the question "How did the Universe get here?" Basic science says that nothing can create itself, otherwise called contingent because it is dependant on something else outside of itself to create it or explain it's existance. The Universe has not as of yet explained to us how it got here or why its here, therefore it is labled as contingent. Here is where the law of cause and effect plays a big part in the cosmological argument. As far as scientific knowledge goes, natural laws have no exceptions. This is definatly true of the Law of Cause and Effect because it is the most universal and most certain of all laws. Simply, the Law of Cause and Effect states that every material effect must have a cause that happens before the effect.

Unfortunately, I disagree with some of your statements already. I agree that it is logically impossible for something to create itself, however science does not say that everything must have a cause. In fact, particles come into (and go out of) existence all the time at a quantum level for no reason whatsoever. Cause and effect is only true at a non-quantum scale, and I would also quibble with your qualifying cause and effect by using the word "material" since I see no logical reason for it.

Material causes with no adequete causes do not exist. Also, effects never happen before the cause. In addition, the cause is always greater than the effect. This is why scientists say that every material effect must have an adequete cause. For whatever effects that we see, we must suggust an adequete cause, which brings us back to the original question, How did the universe get here? there are only three possible answers to these questions: 1) The Universe is eternal it will always exist the way it has been doing for eternity. 2) The Universe is not eternal it was created out of nothing or 3) the Universe is not eternal and it did not create itself , rather something (Someone) created it who was superior to the Universe.

I do not understand the statement that a cause is always greater than the effect. In chemistry, for example, the results of a reaction must equal the cause of the reaction. In fact, conservation of energy would imply that causes and effects should be equal.

As for your possibilities of where the universe came from, there are at least two others: 4) The universe is part of a series of universes, and 5) the universe is not eternal and (avoiding the word "created") came into existence from an unknown previous state.

All three of these deserve careful consideration.

The Eternal Universe

The comfort zone for someone who does not believe in God is that the Universe is eternal. However, science today denies this fact, and says that the Universe had a beginning and an end.

Just a nitpick, but science does not "deny" that the universe is eternal (and a non-eternal universe is well within my comfort zone). Instead, science has evidence that the universe had a starting point. There is still debate about the end of the universe.

Amoung the most important and well established laws of science are the laws of thermodynamics. The first law, also commonly known as Law of Conservation of Energy and/or Matter states that neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed. The second law also commonly known as the Law of Increasing Entropy states that everything is running down or wearing out. Energy is becoming less and less available to use. Entropy, a measure of randomness, disorderliness, or unstructureness, is increasing. That, of course, means that the Universe is going to wear itself out. This end is referred to by scientists as the heat death. In other words, the universe is like a giant clock that is winding down from the first time it has been wound up. The conclusion from science which is inescapable is that the Universe is not eternal. Eternal things have no beginning or end, nor do they run down. A famous scientist, who happens to not believe in God, Robert Jastrow of NASA wrote "Modern science denies an eternal existance to the universe." He is correct. We now know that scientifically the universe is not eternal.

Another nitpick: the heat death of the universe wouldn't be the end of the universe, it would just be the end of anything of note happening in the universe. Also, if the universe is closed it will eventually collapse in on itself, but that's a whole other discussion.

Created itself out of nothing

Not too long ago, it would have been almost impossible to find any reputable scientist who would be willing to suggest that the Universe created itself out of nothing. Every scientist as well as school children knew and understood that no material thing can create itself. The Universe is the created, not the creator. And until recently it seemed there could be no disagreement on this point. However, since the evidence is so strong that the Universe had a beginning some scientists stated that the Universe created itself. Normally, a statement like that would seem absurb because it denies the basic principles of physics. Yet those who do not believe in God have been willing to defend it. This suggestion is of course in clear violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics. As astronamer Robert Jastrow put it, " The creation of matter out of nothing would violate a cherished concept in science- the principle of states that matter and energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Matter can be converted into energy and vice versa, but the total amount of all matter and energy in the Universe must remain unchanged forever. It is difficult to accept a theory that violates such a firmly established scientific fact." Also, science is based on observation, reproducibility, and empirical data. Yet when pressed for the data that document the claim that the Universe created itself from nothing,they were forced to admit that there is no such evidence to confirm it. The idea that the universe created itself is absurb, both philosophically and scientifically.

Unfortunately, I think you're way off base here for a few reasons. 1) The first law of thermodynamics doesn't apply until after the universe comes into existence, 2) it is impossible to get any evidence for what there was before our universe came into existence and the statement that scientists can't provide evidence that the universe came from nothing is just a disingenuous way of pointing this out, 3) scientists don't say that the universe necessarily came from nothing, they just say that it wasn't caused by a deity, 4) there are a number of plausible theories for what could have initiated the big bang, none of which violate the laws of physics.

The Created Universe

Either the universe had a beginning or it didn't. All available evidence states that the Universe did in fact have a beginning. Logically and scientifically we can safely say that the Universe had a cause since it is here. Cause and effect states that wherever there is a material effect, there must be an adequate antecedent cause. Also, the fact of the matter is that no cause is lesser than the effect.

Since it is obvious that the Universe is not eternal, and the universe could not have created itself, the only remaining possiblity is that the universe was created by something or Someone greater than itself.

Again, I disagree that a cause has to be greater than the effect. The collapsing and subsequent exploding of a previous universe could have resulted in our universe without any divine intervention or greater cause. There is also the possibility of the universe having come into existence because of a causeless, random quantum fluctuation. I would argue that both of these possibilities are more likely than the possibility of a deity.

Also, I would ask you whether a deity would be immune to the requirement of a cause. And if we were to agree that there was at least one thing that had no cause, why couldn't that thing be the universe instead of God? In fact, a universe is so much more simple than a deity that I think its causeless existence is more likely.

For now I must close. I will try and resume this later. I feel that at the moment your head must feel ready to bust, I know mine does with all this science.

I look forward to it!

I applaud you for pretty much every thing said by you on this site. Very well thought-out and eloquent, or straight to the point as needed.

That being said, I can hardly believe how a large number of people go on in life, having 'faith' in whatever is conveniently taught to them by their parents, and taking it as unshakable truth, even after learning that Santa, the easter bunny and tooth fairy were all fake. Talking to these people about other possibilities is an exercise in frustration. Somehow though, you even seem to have perfect rebuttals to arguments I could never get past.

Hopefully, this site can spur the minds of those who actually consider the possibilities, and help them come to better, more educated conclusions.

On a final note, I noticed your statement that our existance is a 'happy accident.' This is my favorite subject brought up by people who have something to prove in the name of religion. The argument that 'a box of (insert item) parts shaken for eternity will never result in a whole (insert item)' has to be among the more thoughtless of claims involving science or math. Eternity is quite a long time, and since the universe is also thought to be infinitely large, those who speak in defense of our happy accident of spontaneous existance have the ability to say that they are right, times infinity squared. I hope that little line of logic does some good in future arguments.

Personally, I wouldn't even bother bringing up the infinite nature of time when refuting the "shake a box" or "tornado in a junkyard" folks, since that just gets into an argument about probability, which is what they want. What I say is that the analogy is false since there is no natural process whereby bits of metal and plastic naturally get together to form machinery, but there is a natural process by which things evolve.

I was reading some correspondece concerning the question of agnostism versus atheism. The best discussion I have read is in George Smith's Atheism: the Case Against God. As my copy is on loan, I can only paraphrase.

Smith appels to the etymology of the terms "atheism" and "agnosticism". Atheism is quite clearly a negative term denoting a lack of theism. It's right there for everyone to discern A-Theism. Agnosticism is also a negative term and was introduced in the spirit of irony. The "gnostics" were ancient pagans who believed they were in direct communication with the spirit world. The term was later used to parody christians who claimed to have revelatory knowledge of the existence of god. An agnostic is someone who does not believe this knowledge is possible.

"Atheism" is concerned with ontology where "Agnosticism" is concerned with epistemology. Atheism is a passive lack of theistic believe (not an active belief in no god). Agnosticism is the belief that knowledge of the divine is not possible for human beings. It concerns the type of knowledge we can hope to gain, not whether or not we believe in god. I think that it is safe to claim without research data, that most atheists are agnostic-athiests.

When I was first researching rigorous atheism, Smith's book was one of my favorites. He really does a great job of explaining some difficult concepts.

I like the definitions you quote here, and I wish that they were universally used. Unfortunately, language is not so convenient so we have a variety of usages of these terms, adding to the general confusion. Is an agnostic someone who hasn't made up their mind, has decided that their mind cannot be made up, or who is an atheist that thinks proofs of the divine cannot be made? Is an atheist someone who rejects God, rejects gods, doesn't believe in gods, or isn't convinced that the divine exists? All of this highlights my love of defining terms before starting a discussion.

First i would like to shower heaps of astounded admiration on you!Reading through some of the more malignant comments on your site, I am amazed that you are able to maintain your sobriety at all times!! Next, a bit about myself and my perspective on things: I'm a Scandinavian (Dane)- a place where 85 % of the populations are members of the Lutheran state-church, even though a very slim proportion of these have any clue, or any interest in what their membership entails.

As an example, this Muhammad cartoon-thing explode in our faces all of a sudden (A lot of us saw it coming miles away) and people start taking interest in their supposed Christian faith, as a barrier against the evil Islamists. Sadly, however, what they are pounding out is not Christianity, in any shape or form, but Nationalism. Scandinavians as a group aren't religious - all studies show this. About 60% claim to believe in some form of god, but will not adhere to any religion, and refrain from saying anything about this deity. Mostly they fall under the category of agnosticism, because it's the easy answer. In reality we don't give a shit about religion unless there's something in it for us, and as long as we're not threatened on our borders by the "hordes of Muslims"

My point here is that it is very interesting to observe a lively debate about atheism from this crazy country, because nobody cares whether or not you're an atheist. You could even say that our state religion builds on an a-theistic theology:

Fom the 50s to the 70s Denmarks top theologians mostly agreed that morality was NOT to be found in any divine creature or authoritative text. They agreed that there ISN'T anything we can say about god, in any form, and most of them were positive that there was no objective Truth to be found, that we - being mere humans - could say or do anything about. They actually said that theology - as being the teaching about God, was an oxymoron - and we should henceforth use theology only to talk of our subjective UNDERSTANDING of gods message.

A lot of this is due to our influence from such Danes as Kierkegaard and K.E. Løstrup. I can strongly advise people to read some of the work of these two philosophers, if they are interested in how to combine their religious beliefs with a more humanistic call for respect and "good behavior" just as you have set down as a credo on your site. Especially those of your readers who find your site interesting, but not themselves sure if they can accept the "radicality" of naming themselves atheists.

Finally, when this type of attitude towards religion is my background, my culture, my upbringing, and also my college degree, it is just amazing to see a site such as yours, where all kinds of people that are from a nation pretending to be "the defenders of the free Western world" are so narrowminded, and unable to accept that other people may not have the same definition of truth as themselves. If this site does nothing but make clear to the world that tolerance, ethics, morals humanity and general decency are not dependent of ardent text-based religious orthodoxy, then it has earned due praise.

You can find the "limited omniscience" thesis here http://www.polkinghorne.org/, in the FAQ section

The website appears to be run by an acolyte of Polkinghorne's, and the philosphical and logical contortions in some of the answers are remarkable - but they do give a good insight into the reasoning processes of some of the more intelligent christiansYou will note that in the view of this person, we atheists are animals - not just in the biological sense, one gathers, but in a pejorative way.

If I may venture it, may I suggest that the definition of right and wrong is inevitably conditioned by the civilisation, society, and community in which we live. I would think it wrong, for instance, to force my child into a marriage he or she didn't want. In other cultures, this is quite "right", and not always or even usually for religious reasons. (Sometimes it's to settle a feud, others to increase family wealth)

A basic ethic of not willingly harming others who themselves are doing no harm seems to me to be a good basis upon which to build a system of ethics and morals.

I agree with you that the specifics of what is right and what is wrong will vary within societies. However, I believe that the process for deciding what is right and wrong should be independent of society, even if it includes reference to the prevailing morality of the society in which it is being applied. For an overly simplistic example, one might say that it is immoral to eat dogs in a society in which dogs are treated as companion animals.

What bugs me is when people say that they define "good" in terms of a deity, and then by their words and deeds demonstrate that they obviously have a definition of "good" that has nothing to do with their religion. This leads to semi-meaningless statements like, "Good is obeying God, and God would never ask you to do anything bad."

It also makes me frustrated when people define "good" in terms of the ten commandments, and then can't define them for me (e.g., what does "Thou shalt not kill" entail?)

I agree with you about not harming others who are themselves doing no harm. The only sticky point here is defining "harm." For example, I once was told by an atheist that banishment from a religious community didn't harm the banished since the religion was false in the first place and taking away something that doesn't exist isn't harmful. Since, to the banished person, the religion (and the community that went along with it) was real, I would define this as harm. This is why in addition to not harming others I would add that people should in general be treated as they would like to be treated. That's still over simplistic, but it's another step in the right direction.

I don't mean to annoy you, nor to seem ignorant. And I would plead the case that any ignorance you detect leads directly from an argument I did not take the time to fully flush out. My apologies. I believe strongly in healthy debate, and I hope to walk away with an improved perspective whenever I'm lucky enough to engage in a meaningful exchange of ideas.

We can argue semantics all day, and we won't be any further ahead. In every discussion I've ever engaged in on Atheism I have made the agnostic distinction, because I think it is unhelpful to have two such varying definitions, as you attempt to hold in atheism, under one flag. You may not be the kind of atheist that actively believes there is no god, but those atheists do exist. And I believe there is a problem there for the reasons I outlined in my previous emails.

There may also be a danger in the polar conflict between atheists and the church. Before I get into that, let me say I agree whole heartedly that individual responsibility is critical to social change. Religion is not alone in diffusing individual responsibility, science has created "psychology" to convince people that they act as they do because of their childhood, or a trama (I am speaking in generalizations about both religion and psychology, of course there are very useful and important branches of psychology for treating the truly ill, I am not Tom Cruise writing under an assumed name). I have also studied relationships between the work of Jean Paul Sartre, and Nietszche's "On the Genealogy of Morals" and believe that Nietzsche hit the nail on the head when he said that Christianity creates a debt that can never be repaid (Jesus died for your sins), and forces the once Noble man to internalize this guilt, thus becoming a slavish creature etc. etc. Sorry, lot's of summary there, but I hope you get the picture.

One thing is common in most Atheist arguments (as you would claim my above paragraph is part of) is that they are aimed at organized religions, and dead religious texts authored by human beings that wrote those texts partly out of belief, and partly to bring order to nomadic and barbaric societies. If we agree that organized religion, after doing us the favour of solidifying civilization against barbaric and nomadic cultures, has done more harm than good since then - does this settle the question of a higher intelligent power in the universe? No. They are seperate issues, and so many atheists seem to throw both issues in together. "I don't agree with Christianity or the bible, therefore I'm an atheist." In fact, to go back to Nietzche for a minute, I could use his ideas to say that the "belief" in atheism is a "negative will" as it is not possesed of a noble spirit to move forward, but rather is obsessed with tearing another idea down.

My fear is that as secular culture grows in power (though events in the U.S. make one wonder if the tide is turning against secular society) the stringent anti-religious anti-god sentiment will throw out the tiny baby in the foul bathwater. Yes, I would suggest there are some things wrong with secular society (shock!). Though I don't and would never attend church, I recognize that "church" as a function of religion created a "sameness" and community. Something that is being lost in non-religious society. Religion also stands as a powerful (if dumb and inconsistent) opponent of greed and selfish crime. What check will balance capitilist greed if we yank the underpinnings of religion? There are found even within the dead texts of christianity some truly beautiful and important philosophies.

So, why am I splitting hairs, or "waving my ignorant club" as you put it. I think that atheists need to learn to accept and welcome thinking agnostics (real ones, not just devil's advocates like myself) and even "religious" people who have left the church behind. All of these groups have reason to try to reform a society without the church. And if we ever truly expect that to work there is a lot of work to be done. That is why I object to those that have "faith" there is no god, and are happy to tear away at religion, seemingly so they can feel superior to the sheep in the church. There are much more serious problems to be tackled.

Oh, and to answer your question: there is no real philosophical reason to debate the existence of fairies. But very serious philosophical minds have debated "happy accident" vs. "creator/planned universe" for centuries. As I said above, this debate is profound and meaningful when removed from the soiled history of organized religion.

Wow, what an excellent response! I think I now have a much better feeling for where you are coming from.

You're right that arguing semantics will probably get us nowhere at this point, since I think we understand each other. One thing I have learned in my years of discussing atheism is that it is very important to get definition of terms (particularly terms like "god" and "good") out of the way first so that we're all on the same footing.

I understand your thinking it's unhelpful to have more than one type of atheism. I tend to agree, but this is a common problem in this area of philosophy. For example, there is significant disagreement on who qualifies as a "Christian".

There are certainly plenty of atheists who hold that there is no god, and I think that your reasons for not liking that philosophy are sound. Personally, I have yet to meet one of these "strong" atheists who had a philosophical leg to stand on.

I prefer atheism in the literal sense of the term (a-theism, or without religion). If I were to call myself an agnostic, I feel that this would be defining my personal beliefs in religious terms when the whole point is that I don't have religion. I also would feel uncomfortable with what might appear to be an "undecided" stance, since that is not at all how I feel -- I make no decisions based on the possibility that there are deities, so I don't want to define myself in terms of the possibility deities exist.

You mention atheists who say "I don't agree with Christianity or the bible, therefore I'm an atheist." This type of atheism is incredibly philosophically weak and, as you pointed out, is another example of defining one's self in terms of something you say you don't believe in. In this category I would also put those who say they are atheists because they are mad at the church for some reason or are just rebelling against their parents. I don't even like being associated with these people, but I'm kind of stuck there because I choose to use the word "atheist." One of my goals is to show people that not all atheists are like that.

The most important point in all of this is that we generally won't get anywhere just being "anti." An atheist who condemns all Christians -- even those whose goal in life is to help the needy and comfort the sick -- is taking too narrow a view of too wide a subject. In my opinion, religious people in general are not stupid or ignorant. They are, at worst, incorrect. And since I could be incorrect, too, I can't condemn them for that.

For many people, there are a lot of benefits, in terms of community and comfort particularly, in religion. I do not seek to deny anyone these benefits, or to assert (as some atheists do) that they do not exist.

You ask what check there will be on "capitalist greed" if we dispose of religion. Well, a libertarian might say that "capitalist greed" is just what we need, but I don't even want to go there . I believe that attempts to eliminate religion wholesale, such as has been attempted in the aftermath of Communist revolutions, leaves exactly the kind of moral gap that you fear. I also believe that there are far too many people today who say that they are living a moral life because they are religious without really practicing (or, in some cases, understanding) the morality their religion preaches.

What is the solution? I believe that strong morality not based on religion is a worthwhile goal, and I do my best to push people in that direction. In fact, I argue that non-religious morality should be practiced by everyone, whether they are religious or not. If we were all practicing the same morality, it wouldn't really matter if some people still needed religion for comfort and some did not. We would all be, in a sense, on the same page. And if someone's religion added an additional layer of morality for them (requiring them to eat certain foods, follow certain rituals, refrain from certain practices, etc.), that would be fine.

The big difficulty I run into here is that many religious people equate "morality not based on god" as either no morality or god-excluding morality. I have been told, repeatedly and in so many words, that if there is no god you can't say that murder is wrong, so you can't have morality without god. To me, this is just as foolish as an atheist who rejects everything related to religion because it's related to religion.

You talk about atheists needing to accept thinking agnostics. I would take this a step further and say that everyone should be respectful of anyone who has a deeply felt, well-thought-out philosophy. I'll take a thoughtful Christian over a knee-jerk atheist any day of the week.

Finally, the "fairies" question. Arthur Conan Doyle might have disagreed with you that there is no serious debate about the existence of fairies, but he was kind of a nut . Your point is well taken that there is more meaningful debate on religious topics than on fairy topics. However, I do not feel comfortable defining my beliefs based on how much worthwhile debate there is. Currently, there are a lot of subjects (such as communication with the dead, visits from extraterrestrials, and homeopathy) that are hotly debated but that, from my perspective, have significantly insufficient evidence on the "pro" side. I would not want to say that I am agnostic about, say, dowsing because there is a lot of debate on this ancient subject and some people believe that it cannot be objectively tested. I'd rather say that the evidence for dowsing has not convinced me.

Thank you again for the enlightening correspondence.

In the past, I've related to this website by making smart-assed remarks in connection with it. At this time, I just want to assure you that I am deeply impressed by your lucid and highly logical responses to the comments you get. At the same time, as a former evangelical Christian (I was NOT turned away from those teachings by your website!) I am appalled, but not terribly surprised, by the hatred I see in some of those comments from people who claim to be followers of Christ.

Your very obvious tolerance for the beliefs of others, along with your forebearance for the attacks of some obviously vicious people have been an inspiration to my own way of thinking and responding to those whose beliefs I do not share. I see the need to be a lot less resentful and a good deal more gentle with those who for whatever reason, choose to accept beliefs for which I personally am unable to find any good evidence. I am highly appreciative of the philosophic insights gleaned from reader's comments and more particularly, your gently humorous responses to them. Please keep up the good work.

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/atheist - definition Atheist

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/agnostic - definition Agnostic

The definition for Atheist is narrow wherever you look. It is an active and certain belief that there is no god. There is no "type" of atheist who says "they don't have sufficient reason to believe in god." That is an agnostic statement.

You cannot have it both ways. You have faith there is no god. I am unsure. I do not assert that proof is impossible either way. I just have not seen proof. Sounds to me like you are agnostic and want to have your rebel cake and eat it too. You say you don't want to define your "belief" (insert faith here) by what you don't know. What is it that you know that you define your belief by?

I really hate argument via Web links, but here we go.

You are incorrect that the definition of atheist is "narrow wherever you look." Dictionaries, for example, are not in agreement about the definition of atheism, and many include those who disbelieve in the existence of god as well as those who deny the existence of god. Examples:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=atheist
http://www.answers.com/topic/atheist?method=22
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atheist

Personally, I would avoid dictionaries in this case, because they reflect what the majority thinks, and atheists are not the majority. Far better is to look at what atheists themselves think, and there are plenty who think as I do.

You are incorrect about there only being one form of atheistm. I suggest that you read the articles on atheism located here:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/atheist4.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist

There is also a very useful passage in the Encyclopedia Britannica, which is interesting even though I would quibble with some of the wording:

Instead of saying that an atheist is someone who believes that it is false or probably false that there is a God, a more adequate characterization of atheism consists in the more complex claim that to be an atheist is to be someone who rejects belief in God for the following reasons (which reason is stressed depends on how God is being conceived): for an anthropomorphic God, the atheist rejects belief in God because it is false or probably false that there is a God; for a nonanthropomorphic God (the God of Luther and Calvin, Aquinas, and Maimonides), he rejects belief in God because the concept of such a God is either meaningless, unintelligible, contradictory, incomprehensible, or incoherent; for the God portrayed by some modern or contemporary theologians or philosophers, he rejects belief in God because the concept of God in question is such that it merely masks an atheistic substance--e.g., "God" is just another name for love, or "God" is simply a symbolic term for moral ideals.

I do not have faith that there is no god any more than I have faith that there are no fairies. Do you consider yourself agnostic on the subject of fairies in that there is probably no way to prove that they do not and have never existed? If not, why do you give god special treatment?

As for having my "rebel cake" -- I do not consider myself a rebel. I am not acting against anything or rejecting anything. I simply have not been convinced that there is a deity.

What is there that I know that I define my belief by? I know that the world would be a better place if people treated each other better and took responsibility for their own actions. I know that it is more difficult to deceive a group of people if that group knows how to think scientifically. I also know that you will win more friends and change more minds through thoughtful discussion than through attacking beliefs.

You may have gotten the hint that I find your correspondence truly annoying. Why? Because we really should be on the same side in this, but you choose to write to me in what I perceive as an inflamatory tone because you disagree with my definition of atheism. Personally, I think it is, in general, a bit silly to call yourself an agnostic, but that's not a big deal to me so long as the philosophy behind the belif is sound. What is a big deal is that you are waving your ignorance like a club, and that doesn't do anyone any good.

You have made a fatal mistake! You placed an e-mail on your site that made clear that you are having discussions against religion with someone who is under age in the U.K. By the terms of the European Union Internet Privacy Act, it is illegal to solicit or record personal information from a child over the Internet. Religion is DEFINITELY personal information!!

I know that America will do nothing that can be done about your attempt to corrupt children, but you are certainly in violation of European law and I am circulating a petition that I will forward to your ISP and have you BANNED before you can do more harm. Religion is not a joke. Damnation is not a joke. You are a joke.

This is the petition I'm sending.

There is a revolting blasphemy on the internet called iamanatheist.com. Don't visit it because we do not want to gie it advertising revenue, but instead listen to what I have to say. This site claims that anyone who visits it is automatically an atheist. This is not true! But what will children say if they visit the site accidentally and belive that their Lord has been taken from them?

Even worse, this site publishes "conversations" with people about why the Bible is not holy and why they should not believe in God. Some of the people who write to the site are children -- yes, children! -- but the site goes right ahead and tells them that they should defy their parents, reject their god, and simply live as they want to live. The site claims that there is no morality in God, is this what we want our children to believe?

Because this site is clearly in violation of the European Union laws against soliciting personal information from minors (in this case, religious information), we need to have it shut down as soon as possible. I ask that you help me in this effort by circulating this online petition. The way to do this is to add your name to the end of this e-mail, and then forward it to as many people as you can. Every time there are 100 names, forward it to the site's ISP (Internet Service Provider) at [e-mail address deleted] and demand that the site be removed. Then clear the names and send the petition along.

It will not take long for the ISP to get sick of hearing from us and SHUT THIS BLASPHEMY DOWN!!!!

Thank you and God Bless.

Herbert Roosevelt
(Add your name here)

Wow, our first threatening letter! Thanks! I hope it will surprise you that I'm going to ask my loyal readers (both religious and not) to go ahead and forward your petition to their friends, along with whatever comments they'd like to make on it. I think I'll get more benefit from the publicity than harm from the pointless petition.

And in any case, this site violates no law. I gather no personally identifiable information, and anyone who wishes to discuss religion or atheism with me is more than welcome to do so and will be treated with respect (so far as it is deserved) regardless of their age.

I am ignostic. I can say that I have absolutely no proof there isn't or is not a god. You also have no proof there is not a god.

Extreme belief in the absence of fact is faith. Aethiests, whether they like it or not, have faith that there is no god. Strange position to take.
Good luck with all that.

There are two kinds of atheist -- those who say that there is no god, and those who say they don't have sufficient reason to believe in a god. I am of the latter sort.

I agree with you that there is no proof that there is no god. Where we differ is that I allow the possibility that there is proof for the existance of god that I have not thought of yet. From my perspective, it is you who are making a statement of faith -- that there is no possible proof for the existence of god that you have not thought of.

That -- plus the fact that I don't want to define my beliefs by what I don't know -- is why I don't call myself agnostic.

First, I must ask you some questions. Since you seem to acually think things through and not just believe something someone tells you, I must ask you these questions in order to answer your questions.

What is right and wrong?

That is a complex subject, which is why so many discussions revolve around it. I always begin any discussion of right and wrong by introducing my two rules for acceptable philosophy -- that a philosophy must not contradict itself, and that you must not mind if others think as you do. I think most people would agree that any morality (or other system of belief) should at least follow these two rules.

With that out of the way, I'd say that if you want to do right you should, at a minimum, treat others as you want to be treated and avoid doing harm, particularly to the innocent. If you want to be truly good, you should also try your best to make the world a better place so far as you are able.

For example, I'd say that a Christian who writes to me in the hopes of convincing me to accept Jesus as a personal savior and save my soul is doing good, because in their mind they are trying to help me. I'd say that someone who writes to me full of foul language and damnation is not doing good because they would object to having their beliefs treated in that way.

Why do you believe there is no God when evidence, no matter how feeble you believe it is, has been placed before you?

I don't believe there is no God, I just don't believe that there is a God. It's a subtle but important point. God might be out there for all I know, I just don't see sufficient evidence. You need to have some pretty serious evidence if you're going to convince me that there is a supreme being whose existence should impact my behavior for the rest of my life.

Another important point is that while there is less-than-convincing (to me) evidence for the existence of the Christian God, there is also less-than-convincing evidence for a lot of other religious concepts. If I say that God must exist because there is evidence, however feeble, then by my second rule of allowable philosophy I must not think less of those who have different beliefs based on equally bad evidence. For me, that just causes too many problems. Also, it begs the question of why I should accept Christianity's evidence as opposed to another religion's.

You also posed some questions in your last letter about different religious motives. Lets go into history to figure out the truth.

The Isrealites did indeed go into war with many different enemies throughout most of their history. God told them to so they could destroy the evil people that was trying to destroy them. God said to destroy all the evil people from the land and they did so. Back then it wouldn't have seemed wise, but now we can see that if the Isrealites hadn't of done so, they would have been wiped out, destroyed. You might think that's a bit harsh, but isn't our law when it says to lock up people and carry out the death penalty to those who deserve it?

This line of argument doesn't work for me. First, "evil" in the context of some of the people who were wiped out by the Israelites seemed to be based on worshipping the wrong gods or occupying land God had promised to the Israelites. That's not enough for me. Second, arguing that if a race isn't destroyed it will wipe out your race in the future should not be allowed. There are people in the middle east today who believe that Israel should be wiped out for just this reason, and I find it unacceptable. Third, I would say that it is never right to kill babies, no matter who their parents are. And finally, I don't think that putting people in prison or giving the death penalty to dispose of those who commit heinous crimes is even on the same playing field as genocide.

When you referred to the man who was commanded by God to kill his own son, you are referring to Abraham. It was a test of faith. If you read the last part of the story, you will find out that God sent an angel to stop Abraham and sent a ram to sacrifice instead. There was an instance however, where a man promised God that if God would allow him to win the battle, anything that came out of his house to greet him he would sacrifice to God. And who should come out but his daughter. This is the only known child sacrifice in the Bible other than the idols and Jesus the son of God being killed.

Yes, I was referring to Abraham, and you are correct that God's asking Abraham to sacrifice his son was a test of faith. The point here is that, even though he did change his command later, God did ask Abraham to kill his son and Abraham was going to do it because God asked. This makes it difficult for me to accept your previous statement that God would never ask a follower to do something that would harm another. At best, you could say that he'd never ask you to harm another without a good reason, and that you might not know what that reason is, but if this is the case then I am left with no criteria for determining if God is asking me to do something or if I am being deceived.

There was a case many years ago when a man (who was apparently rather imbalanced) killed his son because he thought God had asked him to. Afterwards, he said that he thought God was going to stop him as he had stopped Abraham. How could this man have known he wasn't obeying a command from God?

Again, back to the Isrealites, they did not steal from the Egyptians, the Egyptians gave them things to get them out faster, maybe God's way of providing the Isrealites enough supplies to survive the desert.

I don't like to get into exchanging Bible quotes, but here goes: "And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: And the LORD gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required. And they spoiled the Egyptians. (KJV)" What we have here is God convincing the Egyptians to loan things to the Israelites -- not give them things -- with the intent that the Israelites won't bring the stuff back and therefore will cause the Egyptians financial hardship. To me, borrowing something without the intent to return it is stealing. In any case, this doesn't sound like stuff that would be a lot of use while wandering in the desert.

And religious people doing bad things in the name of God? Didn't Germany do terrible things under Hitler who promised that it would Make a better Germany and world?Some people make up excuses for their motives, occasionally using God as their excuse. Just by using God's name doesn't mean that the work is good.

I completely agree. What I need is a way to tell the difference between people who are really following God's commands and those who are not. If the only way to tell is that people who are really doing God's work are doing things I would consider good or charitable, then I'd suggest that we can "cut out the middle man" and just be good and charitable without waiting for a command from God.

Okay, now that we have discussed that, back to proving God exists. The Isrealites, since you obviously know a lot about them, traveled in the desert for over forty years. How then, could such a large group of people live so long there with limited water and food without help. They certainly weren't friendly with the people surrounding them.

You're right, there is apparently no way that such an enormous number of people could live in the desert with limited water and food. However, before I used this as proof of a deity, I would question whether it happened at all. For the record, I also doubt the story of the Tower of Babel, Adam and Eve, Noah's ark, etc.

A part of believing is a little bit of faith. A long time ago people didn't really understand what a heart was. They had very little proof of it's existance. Yet once they started believing, they saw more evidence that there was a heart. The evidence had already been there, but because they so forcefully believed that there was no heart without proof, their minds turned away from the proof. Same with you. You can look at all the proof and if you don't want to believe, you won't. In a way, you can turn that statement back on me, but I feel that in my research, such as talking to you, I have opened up and seen things yet I can always counter attack it because of what I believe. Such as you have to believe that I am a young Christian girl who is doing this because she cares for someone that she has never seen, or you can believe that I am a computer designed to create trouble.

I am skeptical that there was a time when people didn't believe the heart existed (as opposed to just not knowing what it was for), so I'm going to swap in another example that I think makes your same point. There was a time when simple farmers came to scientists and said, "rocks have fallen from the sky!" The scientists didn't think this was possible, and speculated that the farmers were mistaken, that the rocks had been thrown into the air by volcanos, etc. However, as more evidence was gathered, the scientists eventually were convinced that the rocks had fallen from outer space.

Some people have condemned these scientists for not recognizing the truth. I have read a number of Christians using this as an example of science turning a blind eye to evidence. However, what we see here is not science ignoring evidence, but rather science requiring significant proof before an extraordinary claim is reached. To these scientists, it was much more likely that meteors came from volcanoes rather than outer space, so they favored that explanation. But when there was enough evidence, they went ahead and changed their conclusions. That's how science works.

So for me not to believe in God because I don't see enough evidence doesn't mean that I don't want to believe in God, it means that I don't see sufficient evidence. In fact, at this point, I really see nothing that I would call strong evidence at all since non-God explanations seem more than sufficient for everything. Just think of how much more evidence the scientists in my example would have required if the farmers had told them not that rocks had fallen from the sky, but that God was throwing stones at them.

Let's look also at your statement about your being a young Christian girl instead of a computer. Given the current state of technology, I find it very unlikely that your responses are being generated by a computer, so my thinking you are a person is not a matter of faith, it's a matter of probability. As for your being a young Christian girl, your writing is consistent with that type of person, but for the most part I am just taking your word for that. But if it turned out that you were an old atheist man just yanking my chain I would be, at most, annoyed because I thought we were being honest with each other. I wouldn't call any of this faith.

While we're on the subject, I don't not want to believe in a diety. I think it would be great if someone was out there taking care of me and ensuring justice was done. I would also very much like to believe that my life doesn't end when I die. Who wouldn't want these things? But wanting doesn't make it so, more's the pity.

If you can't prove right or wrong, then the whole world is in trouble. There is an arguement, I don't know what it's called, but it says that there is no right or wrong. Right and wrong is only an opinion. If that is the case, murderers will be able to walk around freely, saying that they are doing what they believe is right. Something like that is going on in the Middle East, and you can see all the problems that are happening over there. I need to go. Please e mail me back. Thank you.

There are going to be some issues of right and wrong that are relative to culture. For example, topless beaches, polygamy, "bad" speech, child labor, eating dogs or cows, and what I'll call "behavior in the bedroom." There are also some issues that are generally universal, such as prohibitions against murder and theft (although the details vary quite a bit). What is important from my perspective is that in a great many of cases when a group of people is bent on doing something I would consider evil, they are doing so with religious justification. Hitler thought he was "destined" to unite Europe. Islamic terrorists believe that they are doing Allah's work and will be rewarded in the afterlife. I'm sure you can think of many more examples throughout history.

This is really the crux of my point. If we can stop trying to define morality in terms of deity, then we won't have these extreme cases of people doing evil because they think it is what God wants. If the basis of morality was the golden rule, it'd be hard to justify suicide bombings. If you believe that those who don't share your religion are evil and that God wants them to be eliminated, it's actually pretty easy to justify such things.

Assuming you're American, thank you... There are some sane Americans then.

Well, that's 3 anyway...

I am not an athiest, but an agnostic, so i see where you are coming from. Today at lunch at school I explained to someone how, according to to catholic scripture, God is a rapist. He starts spazzing at me calling me a sinner and claiming that i was going to hell. He screamed this quite a few time. Calmy I told him that this was not news for me and that Hades had a spot for me in Tartarus. I honestly don't think he got that at all. When all the religious screaming didn't stop, i got up, yelled to the ceiling "your a rapist, a murderer and compleatly illogical...smite me." this boy it boiling over by this point. Then when I ask them about all the other Gods, (one of my favorite questions to ask religious nuts because of the follow answers), This boy and another one began bashing other religions like crazy. I looked at my friend, a fellow agnostic, and fell on the floor laughing. How can they yell at us for insulting thier god and then say that all the ancient pantheons are fake and "stupid pansies" and that Allah, another name for the god they worship "can go F*** himself." It makes me fear for humanity. Sites like yours give me a small bit of hope. Keep it up.

Thanks for writing! It sounds like you are a young person, so I'm going to give you a bit of unsolicited advice. Think about the person you were talking to at lunch: what was your goal in talking to this person? Were you trying to convince him that his beliefs were incorrect, or were you using your superior knowledge to, in effect, call him an idiot? If the latter, then you pretty much got what you wanted, it sounds like, but I'd say that there isn't lot of value in that, although for the moment it can make you feel pretty good.

I personally think that it's better to call yourself an atheist than an agnostic. Agnosticism is the belief that you can't prove one way or another that God exists, and frankly your taunting of God might seem a little odd if your philosophy includes a fair chance that there is such a thing.

So here's what I suggest: call yourself an atheist, and all you're saying is that you're not convinced there is a God. This has two benefits from your perspective. First, it's practically inviting people to try and prove God exists, which leads to more opportunities for you to demonstrate your knowledge. And second, if you call yourself an atheist, live a moral life, and discuss religion calmly and non-judgmentally, it can really freak people out (particularly adults).

Enjoy!

This site is wonderful. I really don't know what I am...but I find it hard to swallow the theory of a supreme loving being who will burn me in hell if I deviate from his path....such deviation made possible by his giving me free will, of course. So it is refreshing to see someone else that can put forth their ideas without resorting to name calling and circuitous arguments...and without forcing it down my throat and making me feel small. Well done. If only everyone, no matter their religion, could learn to accept that not everyone will beleive everything they do, and that for the most part, that is what makes the human race interesting. Salute.

My family, who are all Xians, often berate me for not believing. They say,"God exists because the bible says so; the bible is true because its god's word". Fortunately, I found the 'Excel Argument' that circular formulas are errors. They never mentioned it again.

If that's their reasoning, I feel sorry for them, but they are far from alone. I think the world would be a better place if people spent more time thinking about their deeply held beliefs and why they have them, whether they are religious or not.

Oh, and "Excel Argument" -- I love that.

Just because there is no god (or God, or gods, or Gods....) does not make the universe any less beautiful or amazing, and the freakish chance that sees us here and able to appreciate it and debate whether it is the product of divine intervention or of uncaring natural laws is enough for this aetheist to get by on. Hey! Maybe 'natural laws' IS 'god'!

Which points out something I've long believed -- most people (I don't mean you) really don't know what they're talking about when they use the word "god". "Every religion really worships the same god" and things like that just drive me nuts.

This is one of the funniest atheist websites I've been to in a while. I like your smart answers and eloquence of speech. I'm glad to see that there are some atheist websites that aren't there to argue the existance of a higher power but only to have conversation with those that feel the need to argue. Thanks for the laughs.

god must exist, somethings sucking me off, and i diddnt order a hooker...
-- Goerge Bush

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.

You'd think an all-powerful thingie would give Christians the ability to spell, wouldn't you? You know, so as they appear less ignorant and worth reading.

And let's hear no excuses about dyslexia - a combination of prayer and a spell-checker should sort that one.

I should have said before - thank you for your site. To continue to argue against the world's major fallacy with unswerving good humour in the face of some really foul abuse - why, that's almost Christian forbearance, and just shows you don't need god to be a decent person!

It's true, you don't need a god to call yourself a decent person, but it's a lot more work. An atheist who wants to be good must spend a lot of time thinking about right and wrong. In the worst case, a religious person may just behave as they see fit but "know" that they're good because their religion says so.

I recently came across a real religionist cop-out - it's on a website run on behalf of John Polkinghorne, a well-known British scientist who is also a Christian.This site introduced me to the concept of "limited omniscience".

Apparently, religionists have so much trouble answering the question "If your benevolent god is omniscient and omnipotent, why does he allow tsunamis, storms, eruptions, and so on arbitrarily to kill so many people regardless of race, gender, age, or religion?" - that they now have to say that their god has AS AN ACT OF LOVE (!) limited his omniscience. He therefore doesn't know what's going to happen, so - guess what - can't be blamed.

That's like me purposely not maintaining my car in the hope that I wouldn't be blamed when I killed someone beause the brakes failed. I know what will happen, I know how to stop it happening - but hey, it's not my fault, I didn't know WHEN it was going to happen.

So we have a supreme being that purposely curbs his powers so that natural disasters (possibly resulting anyway from his tacky planetary design) will kill, in pain and terror, thousands of the beings he has painstakingly allowed to evolve? And they want me to spend eternity with him?

I'd rather not, thanks.

That's a bizarre argument, and one that I can't recall having run into before. If the supreme being has limited omniscience, then how can religious people give god credit for those who "miraculously" survive a disaster?

There is a better (but, IMO, still pretty lame) argument that there were no disasters, diseases, or carnivores in the world until Adam and Eve's fall, and that all of these things were introduced as punishment for that original sin. Sounds kind of harsh to me.

Okay, I was hoping to discuss this topic with you. Atheist have always intrigued me because of their unfaith. Maybe you can explain better why while I explain why I believe. Good. Any dictanary can give you a Good explaination. To be better, to be the best. The list goes on and on. The Christian definition means to follow God and do what is right in His eyes. I know you might think that since no one can really agree on one God, there is none. That is not true. You and your friends might disagree on whether or not there is candy in a jar and what kind. You might each think of different things according to what each of you believe, hope and think is in there. Yet no matter how much you fight over it, there is only one kind of candy in there. Not the best illusion I know, but you get my point. Only one person is right, therefore making every one else wrong. You might argue that no one can be good because we don't know what God wants us to do since we have never talked to Him. We'll get to the part about talking to Him later, but you as a child never knew exactly what your parents and everybody wanted you to do, no matter how many times you listened. You might have a good idea about it, but never was it perfect. Same with God. Also, if your parents said that they knew what was best for you and then told you to stab a knife through your hand, that would be wrong. You know that if God wants you to do something bad, such as murder or steal or terrorize people then it is wrong. He is not God. God, as recorded in the Bible did not allow for His people to do things such as that. I need to go now. Please email me your response. Thank you.

P.S. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodnes, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

I'm going to give a pass to using a dictionary definition of "good," since it won't get to the root of what we're talking about here. Your Christian definition is much more useful for our discussion, and I'll get back to that in a minute.

First, let me say that I'd never say something like, "there is no God because people can't agree about God." In fact, I'd never say that there is no God, because I have no way of proving such a statement. You are also right that when people disagree about God only one person may be right, but what I need is a way to tell which person is the correct one.

Your point about a child not understanding exactly what parents want as a metaphor for knowing what God wants is well taken, but I think it falls a bit short of the mark. I may not have always understood my parents as a child, but I certainly knew when they were talking to me. I never had to worry that some natural phenomena migh