[Sliver]

Originally Posted by peter12

I must say that I find the atheists on this board sometimes as unconvincing as Kirk Cameron. Not in a theological sense, but in a philosophical one.

Atheism can be a frustrating position to argue sometimes because it is entirely based on logic and evidence. This is going to sound very belittling and condescending, but I'm an atheist and I find arguing with religious people like talking to my three year old about monsters. She has never seen one and there is no evidence they exist save for what she hears from her friends and sees in movies/reads in stories, but she is 100% certain monsters are real and I can't convince her otherwise.

Religious people are exactly the same. The difference is, my daughter doesn't really approach anything rationally. She applies her fata'd up toddler pseudo-logic to everything she encounters. For instance, she thinks a baby can't walk because its feet are too small. Well that isn't true, you can see how it kind of makes sense to her.

Unlike a three-year old, a religious person usually does approach the rest of their life logically, except for this one area. It is hard to comprehend why the critical-thinking component of their mind shuts down when it comes to the absurd claims of their religion, but it does.

Religious people make unsubstantiated, preposterous claims. Atheists follow logic and our claims are backed up by evidence. If we don't know the answer to something, we don't make something up and we don't turn to out-dated, ill-informed, mistake-riddled books and teachings with a dubious agenda. Our agenda is truth. That is not the agenda of a religous book, although it is what they claim.

In an atheist's mind, the jury isn't out on this issue. In the same way a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu and a Buddhist all know a Christian has it wrong, an atheist has only taken it one step further and dismissed all the religions as being wrong. For the Christians reading this, how can you see this as such a wild jump in logic? It's exactly what you do when you think a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu and a Buddhist are wrong, with the exception that you don't dismiss those other religions on any fundamental logical ground, you just believe your fairytale is superior to their fairytale.

Frankly, it's ridiculous and this is an issue of right versus wrong and it is not okay for us to pander to the hurt feelings of religious people that don't think their asinine beliefs are fair game for criticism.