[Thor]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

Religion is not a slope down to agnosticism. Agnosticism is non-religious. A better representation might be a sort of U-shaped graph moving from religious extremism on one side down to agnosticism in the middle, and up to atheistic extremism on the other. Atheism and theism are alike in that they are both faith-based positions, agnosticism is not.

Belief in Santa Clause is a faith based ideology. Atheism is debated often on what it truly means, but my and many version of it is we see the world without magical beings dictating our lives and focus our energy on the 'real' world.

I would say religion is more about faith and values. How can you say religion is about not critically challenging things when many of the people responsible for scientific progress are religious people?

Considering the recent 100 or so years are the rise of Atheism, I would say for a long long time some of the greatest minds have never been able to speak their minds for fear of death. Its only recently in human history you can say "there is no god" and not be killed for it.

A great deal of the brightest minds today meet annually in the USA, UK and other western countries to discuss a world from a non theistic viewpoint. Its growing and a great deal of religion is still existing because of tradition, upbringing and societal pressures. We all know that in some countries its still harmful to your own career to be an atheist.

That seems terribly naive to me. World conflicts aren't 'almost always based on Theism' but they are almost always based on resources and dominance.

They are in a historical sense the huge majority of reasons for war. They are currently the major reason for many of the worlds conflicts and tensions amongst nation states. Religious dominance is a massive reason for the crusades, and the bible supports those crusades fully and completely.

Where is this harmful to your future. As I've argued in other threads, greater diversity in programs of education is beneficial to learning. This seems like a terribly prejudiced position.

Evangelicals feel the 2nd coming is near, so why should they worry about pollution or environmental issues. Almost 50% of Americans think evolution is a controversial theory! We have a few museums now showing that the planet is 10,000 years old and that dinosaurs walked recently amongst adam/eve.

Diversity is key. Religion discourages diversity, religion hates reason/logic. They do not want the bible challenged, they do not want historical documents which shed negative light on the church public, they do not want free thinking when it comes to religion. Each relgion believes they are right and the rest will burn in hell. So much for "lets all just get along."

Me thinks you should step on back from some of your stereotypes and reevaluate what people on both sides of that 'war' are really like.

Considering I'm a part of a very small percentage of this world, I think its the 90% of this world that needs to re-evaluate itself. Religion is destroying this world, its divisive, its harmful to scientific progress, and its ultimately something the human race needs to grow up from.

If not, why aren't Catholics cheering for believers of Odin and Seuss? BTW those do exist today. Because each theism thinks they are right, and often will kill/fight to defend it.

While there are no Atheist suicide bombers trying to kill those who don't share our belief. Our crime, is just asking people to think of a non theistic world where we don't separate and hate based on a god that doesn't exist.

The irony of your post is shockingly obvious.

You, sir, are a zealot.

Well, my belief system won't destroy the world with wars, suicide bombers, schools being forced to teach "intelligent design" as a science, etc..

Atheists ask one thing. Question your beliefs, investigate the beginnings of your beliefs, and determine if it holds validity to believe in it.

Your belief asks that if I don't agree, I will be sent to burn in all eternity in hell for even questioning the existence of the holy spirit.

Who's the Zealot?