Sorry to say Leon, but Atheism is a religion. Just becuase it does not venerate a deific figure does not exclude it from those trappings.

You see, at its core any sect of atheism you find is going to have the same fundamental statement "there is no god'. Because if this they have a thesis on how the universe works and thus claim a state of the universe as an absolute based on that thesis. I.E. "The universe was created by X, thus an outside divine being could not intervene", which frankly is based in opinion just as much as traditional 'god-centric' religion. any attempt to move away from this theory is to allow the possibility of god into the theory, and thus we get to Agnosticism which is a whole other kettle of fish.

So without going into painful and boring detail, Atheism is a religion, because they can't prove their theory of a godless universe any more than religious figures can prove there is a god, and in the end maybe that is what god wants. After all if we knew, where the hell does free will fit in?

Anyways as far as that episode goes, I think you are reading too much into it. Matt and Trey can be funny... ish... when they want to. But South park has stopped pushing any sort of true intellectualism long ago. Granted its funny to see how hardcore fundamentalist atheists react to the idea that they are simply following a dogma that makes them right and thus seeking comfort from the unknown by accepting theory as fact and having a way to look down on their fundamentalist christian counterparts at the same time Its alot like putting forward scientific proof of evolution to a fundamentalist atheist. However South park itself has more or less run itself into a wall where semi-offensive imagery and mildly amusing plots set the backdrop for an overly preachy and uptight moral fingerwag.

Sure it can be funny sometimes. Hell its like the Simpson or family guy where you know the kind of stuff you will get from each episode and you know you probably won't laugh but its still fun to watch anyways to unwind. However any depth to their arguments went out the window about three or four episodes after Hays left. Hell they were going down hill before that, it was just the pain of losing hays actually shook them up enough to get a bit creative, or so it would seem.

As for the idea of god as an imaginary friend, well, I think that is another argument you and I could have at some point, and I really would love to. Intellectual debate is wonderful.

Dammit, forgot to hit reply before writing my post. Here, just click here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/.....6/#cid:8237648

You see, at its core any sect of atheism you find is going to have the same fundamental statement "there is no god'. Because if this they have a thesis on how the universe works and thus claim a state of the universe as an absolute based on that thesis. I.E. "The universe was created by X, thus an outside divine being could not intervene", which frankly is based in opinion just as much as traditional 'god-centric' religion. any attempt to move away from this theory is to allow the possibility of god into the theory, and thus we get to Agnosticism which is a whole other kettle of fish.

Ester, you're straw-manning atheism as badly as the episode did. To say all atheists believe there absolutely is no god is like saying all theists are creationist. They're not. I, for example, am what some would call an agnostic or 'weak' atheist. I don't believe in any gods, because I don't see enough evidence for them. I don't discount the possibility of gods existing, there might be something out there in the universe like Q, or Unicron, or Cthulu, but I choose not to believe in them until evidence is presented for them.
Lots of people make the mistake of thinking atheism is a belief. It's not. It's a LACK of belief. What's more, there is no dogma in atheism, there is no 'you absolutely must live your life this way' in atheism. It's nothing but a LACK of belief. I'm personally in the camp that we should probably throw away the word 'atheism' since it seems rather stupid to have a title for a lack of ideology. We don't call people who lack racism 'aracists,' after all.

So without going into painful and boring detail, Atheism is a religion, because they can't prove their theory of a godless universe any more than religious figures can prove there is a god, and in the end maybe that is what god wants. After all if we knew, where the hell does free will fit in?

It fits in like this: I know that my computer screen exists. However, I have absolutely no compulsion to worship, follow, or obey it. Similarly, if I knew that a god existed, unless that god removed my free will I'd feel no compulsion to automatically worship, follow, or obey it. I might be persuaded to do so, but merely knowing a god exists does not automatically mean I would have to bow down to it.

As for the idea of god as an imaginary friend, well, I think that is another argument you and I could have at some point, and I really would love to. Intellectual debate is wonderful.

Ah, I have a bit of a love hate relationship with debating, but heck, you'd probably be words more fun to debate with than  cigarskunk. Though I'd really like to get you to accept the proper definition of atheism first so we'd be on the same page. It is a LACK of belief, and makes no absolute claims about the Universe. Hell, there're even atheists who don't accept evolution or the big bang theories, or so I'm told. When someone tells you they're an atheist, they're not telling you what they believe, they're telling you what they DON'T believe, and there's a world of difference in there.

agnosticism and atheism are two very different things, and I do not see why people insist on lumping them togeather.

Atheism is by its definition a lack of theism, a belief that there is absolutely no god whatsoever be he/she/it all powerful or not. Agnosticism is a far more practical view that allows for the more scientific statement of 'we do not have sufficient evidence one way or another to prove that there is or is not a god'.

Now people who are agnostic seem to lean closer to the side of atheism by and large, but the two are still very different things by their very definition and nature. Agnosticism as a principal has as much to do with Theism as with Atheism and involves taking a very existential view of the world. It is not claiming an absolute, and Atheism HAS to be an absolute because it is making a definitive statement. I know the argument about a lack of beleif, but it is not. It is a belief because it is not neutrality. It is a firm view of reality based upon the assumption that a principal is Fact. Atheism is not the absence of anything, Nihilism is the only way to have an absence of beleif on anything and even then I have yet to meet a Nihilist that wasn't just trying to look cool by dressing in leather and saying they believe in nothing. I am sorry Leon, I know all the arguments about how Atheism is a 'lack of' something and that Agnosticism is somehow a form of atheism. They are, unfortunately, wrong. I hate to say that in such blunt terms, but if Fundamental Christians have to fave the truth about Dino bones, well...

I agree it would be fun to debate Leon, but I won't 'abandon' the definition of atheism I put forward, because the one you are talking about, the one toted by the atheist fundamentalists as the 'proper' one, is wrong. Adherence to any one specific belief about the cosmos and how they function, even if it is just 'everything is random and we happen to be observing it' is still a belief structure, taken on faith as none of us is omnipotent, and thus faith is turned from a god who may or may not be there to science which may or may not be correct.

Agnosticism is admitting we do not have the answers for sure, and thus is more the bridge beteween divides for 'Faith and religion in God/gods' and 'Faith and religion in Man/observations taken up to this point'. It is honestly the most scientific view to be taken, and the only one that comes even remotely close to breaking past the idea of a religion. Atheism however is not.

so at first you admit to the definition of atheism as being "a lack of theism", and then you can't accept the argument for atheism as being its definition? I do not understand. Agnostic is a word meaning "without knowledge" so it isn't something you apply just to believing in a god or not, but agnostic atheism is specifically "not believing in a god or gods, and not knowing with certainty if there could or couldn't be a god or gods". Clearly, you are talking about agnostic atheism, because your argument pertains to deities, and it is my understanding that agnosticism is part of being an atheist. You can't go around making up definitions for words, and you can't say atheism is an "absolute" just because it is making a definitive statement about what it is not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdOc.....e=channel_page fast forward to 5:50

I already went over this with Leon. If you are an Atheist, a real Atheist, then you beleive in a lack of god.

'Agnostic atheism' is still Agnosticism regardless how close you are to real atheism. Just like Agnostic Theism is still agnosticism. Pure atheism and Pure Theism are indeed absolutes. They are statements equating to fact in the claims of those making them. If you are not stating it as pure unadulterated fact, then you are an agnostic.

I am not making up a defenition either, I am just cutting though the semantic bullshit both sides throw around to explain that Atheism is a claim of an absolute regardless of what many people want to say. Yes many agnostic Atheists would like to claim they are atheist, but they are not, they are agnostics with a bent twards atheism. They still have the reasonable understanding to say "I do not know for sure' rather than claiming their view as absolute fact. Same with Agnostic Theism.

Atheism is a lack of theism, a lack of god, an absolute state of the universe. God is either 1 or 0. yes or no. Anything other than those absolutes, even by a small technicality, becomes agnosticism, the state of doubt, even if it is a small doubt.

my professor went over this in critical thinking yesterday, actually :P people don't have doubt all the time, because it is uneasy and irritating, so they put in its place beliefs after the process of inquiry. So, when a person is agnostic, they still have a belief that there is no answer, absolutely, to the question "is there a god?" (though this i just said is of little relevance, sorry).

I agree, that a person is an agnostic when they say they are an "agnostic atheist", but is it not also true that "agnostic" is being used as an adjective in this term? at wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion ) "agnostic atheism" appears in both "Atheism" and "Agnosticism" catagories. Surely, this tells you something of its connection between the atheist and agnostic view.

Also, there are distinctions within different types of atheists, and these different stresses of atheism are claimed by all sorts of people. So, i find it stereotypical of you to give atheism a black and white definition. So, you can call most atheists agnostics; you can call Kidloose an agnostic, but he's still an atheist because he posits a lack of belief in deities. He is not going out to prove that there is no gods because he knows he won't be able to, but he has not found any evidence to support claims by religions that there are gods or a god. Kid does not believe in a lack of god(s), he lacks a belief in god(s).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt1wDNRkllQ see 1:33 - 5:35

heh, that's very true that you can't force people into non-belief. Society as a whole will have to by-generationally realize how ridiculous the claims of most religions are :)

Are they? Honestly it seems like the attempt to claim god or the concept of a god as rediculous is just as silly as to claim you know for a fact an omnipotent and controlling being beyond our reality cannot be. Its still a security mechanism, still a way to get rid of doubt. Its just that instead of using God as a way to think everything is ok, Its using a lack of god as an absolute to ensure that you have some control over what you do, as if god or gods in any form negate that.

I could really make an argument that kind of atheism, just like I could against Fundamentalist Theism. When people start to assume they know enough to call the other side wrong definitively that is when mistakes are made.

A wise man (or woman n.n) knows that he/she knows nothing.

You... completely misunderstand what the point of belief in gods is. Atheism IS admitting we know nothing, where as the point in belief in gods is to claim we know something that we don't. Who makes the lightning? God did it! Who makes the sun shine? God did it! Who makes the tides come in? God did it! These are all theistic answers proposed through history, whereas before a god was postulated to explain them, they were atheistic: 'a' meaning without and 'theos' meaning gods. Before people tried to explain them with gods they were WITHOUT GODS.
Atheism IS admitting we know nothing, whereas theism is asserting knowledge without evidence and agnosticism is asserting possibility without justification.

No, atheism by definition is a claim that you KNOW there is no god. That you KNOW there is no deific figure. Making the claim of "I am an atheist" is the exact same as stating "I don't believe in any gods" which is the same as stating "I believe there are no god" which from ones point of view is a statement of fact that there are no gods.

Again you are falling back onto teh common propaganda of "you either believe that you don't know and that we can use science to find out, or that god jsut magically does it'. The two are not exclusive, just because many Christians tote one end and many atheists tote the other does not mean that they are inherent in them.

Atheism is the same as Theism Leon. It is claiming you know something. It is claiming you know there are no gods. That is a statement of fact no matter how you want to twist it. Believing in a god in any form does not mean you have to admit you know how he works, or she, or they. It does not mean you cannot say you believe in the big bang or evolution. You are assigning things to atheism and and theism that have nothing to do with them. Yes saying that you are a theist means as far as your views go God is a fact. That does not mean you by extension think that there is a hell or that god throws lightning when he is mad or just poofed adam and eve here fully clothed or anything else. Theism is "Belief in god", any further claims are superfluous and irrelevant to the first.

Likewise Atheism is a beleif in NO gods. It is a statement of 'god is not real in any form'. By its definition that is what it is. It is likewise a claim that it is admitting you know nothing or somehow tied to existentialism in any way is to ascribe something to it which is not inherent. Being an atheist and claiming you know nothing about reality are two different things, and you can make claims about not knowing anything about reality for the most part if you are an atheist, but if you are then you have already claimed the lack of a god as fact. Regardless of what anyone else tries to say or do with the matter to make it look otherwise that is the bottom line.

Atheism is an absolute NO to god, Theism is an absolute YES to god. Both require faith in ones view point as they make a statement that cannot be proven.

Right there is the crux of the argument. Dress it up however you like, but those are the key factors. Anything in the middle is Agnostic.

ATHEISM IS NOT CLAIMING ANYTHING!
can you just stop making up definitions and look at the meaning of the word? atheism does not do any believing or knowing, it does not require faith to not believe in something as it does not make any claims that need to be backed up by evidence.
I also used to think "atheism" meant a belief that there is no god(s), a statement that warrants evidence, during a time in my life when i believed in a little thing called Paschal's Wager. Saying that you are a person that lacks a belief in gods does not require evidence because asking for evidence would be like trying to prove a negative. No one in their right mind would ask someone to prove something isn't there (sadly, it happens all the time). additionally, science does not claim it can know everything, that is the biggest difference between it and religion. You make the misinformed inclination that scientists believe that one day science can tell us everything about the universe. Philosophers can know nothing about science, but still use logic to lower the probability that gods exist; science does not make one atheist.

Theism may be an absolute YES to gods (not God, mind you), but atheism is a THERE PROBABLY ARE NO GODS.

I looked up the defenition, I've danced this dance with Leon most of today, The only thing that is not claiming anything is Nhilism. Atheism is an absolute.

And yes, you do have to prove a negative. Negatives can be proven. That is always the argument that drives me nuts. You CAN prove that something IS NOT, and thus if you can prove it, and you have not proven it, you are making an unproven statement when saying something is not.

Probably equates to Agnosticism, not atheism.

Prove to me leprechauns do not exist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argume.....from_ignorance

I can't. I admit that I can't. I can't prove it one way or the other. For all I know the Tuathe De Danu may indeed have ascended into such immortal beings of magic. I have yet to see any proof of it, but I simply do not know.

Now I think there is far more evidence to support the possibility of god, including such things as the massive underlying concepts that primative the vast majority of world religions not only now but though recorded history. I think the fact that every human civilization has not only had the concept of god or gods, but that they all reached it with so many similarities lend it credence. I also think that the Domino Effect that was the life of Jesus makes it seem rather likely that, if not the son of god, at least some form of 'DM intervention' was involved.

However I don't know for sure, and people don't like to admit that they don't know because it makes their argument seem weak, but its better to admit it than to refuse and continue to plow ahead under an assumption. I have heard the flying Spagetti monster argument, and frnakly we DON'T know for sure if such a race is real or not. We do not have the tools to prove it, and that scares people because for all our smoke and bluster humanity is still in its infancy. We are still flawed, and weak, and stupid and we don't know shit and that scares people. Some people latch on to a faith for dear life because they find comfort in it, some people get turned off by how said faith acts and latch on to the idea that they know, at least in their own hearts, that there is no god based on leaping to conclusions with evidence. These people then fight each other, because subconsciously its easier to fight against someone who has an opposing viewpoint than it is to accept how little we know and to be objective. It makes people feel uncomfortable, but that doesn't mean one side or the other is 'more right' regardless of how they fight and struggle to make it seem that way.

Your second paragraph is just argumentum ad populum; and did you ever think about the term plagiarism?

About the FSM: we can prove that the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't exist (in this case you can prove something not existing), because we know what spaghetti is and we know who created the FSM.
In the case of gods who (that) are supernatural and beyond testing and nature, we can't prove that they don't exist because of the lack of tools, instruments, and data.
I admit that I can't prove that gods do not exist, and by your reasoning, I can't prove that anyone or anything created by some human throughout history isn't real.

we know who came up with the FSM analogy, but at the same time, we do not know if such a creature is in fact real in some form and we simply took a stab in the dark and named something similar to something real.

And again you are right, you cannot prove it is real, the best you can hope for is to go along based on what your conclusions bring you to, respect the conclusions of others when they are not harmful to others, encourage people regardless of their conclusions to push their beliefs as much as they can, and to just accept taht we don't know as much as we would like, and we may never know it.

Humanity is driven by a thrist for knowledge, it is hard for people to accept that we may not be able to know things. It is important to remember that just because we are comfortable with an idea and can rationalize it does not mean it is by default right, and even if it seems likely it is our responsibility as humans to question.

and here is where you and I differ in respects to religion. I believe, along with many other atheists, and it is evident throughout history, that religion is a crutch to human growth and destructive to society. I believe that a lack in belief comes to greater and truer understanding of the universe, and we don't need characters like Allah or Yahweh to muck up our vision.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M21xFVwL8c
you can see what website i get my influence

You are confusing religion with humanity.

People are stupid. People are selfish and lazy. People want to get what they want out of their life without any form of effort. Religion can be used as a tool to help the lazy selfish unscrupulous people get what they want, but then again the same is true of any ideal.

Religion, faith in god, is not something that holds humanity back at all. By itself it is simply one point of view that people can have, and it can be used for good just as easily as for evil.

By making religion the scapegoat of humanity woes all you are doing is transfering blame. If you get rid of religion people are not going to change. Communist Russia got rid of it and fanaticism for god was simply transferred over to fanaticism for the party. These are behaviors that are inherent to people and that will show up in some form or another regardless of what medium is used to manipulate them. In fact blaming religion for it and trying to abolish or disprove it is MORE dangerous because once the 'threat' is gone people have both lost the option to choose religion as a form of self identity and been 'assured' that things can only go up, when they wont.

Oddly enough that was the whole point of the episode in question, so we have come full circle. Lazyness, manipulation and Xenophobia are the easy ways to deal with reality and people will cling to them like a life preserver floating around the titanic. Ignoring all of the pitfalls of class, social standing, Technology level, wealth or countless other factors and putting the blame on religion is not only unfair, its unfounded and dangerous. Yes religious leaders and people thinking they were following a faith, or even following it to the letter have done bad thigns in the past, but so have people driven by reasons unrelated to any god in any way.

Yes Atheists are as capable as any person of doing good things and helping others, but that should not discount the genuinely selfless and pure acts done in the name of god/gods in any form.

You are vilifying one aspect of humanity and calling it a crutch, and it seems to me you are not fully weighing how much of it is religion, and how much of it is humanity.

Besides, how many of the things done in the name of, for example Jesus, actually have ANYTHING to do with his actual teachings (And not the twisted up and distorted teachings you find in the bible in a pew at church)

What of the Dark Ages?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_h18ihfyOB.....rkAges-blk.jpg
This is definitely a gap in scientific advancement due to a religion.

Religion may be a part of humanity, but humanity is not something solid that will never change. 500 years ago, slavery was part of humanity, no? Also, society means we all have to work together in the world to make living better, your view of humans is very negative and this is not productive to a society in which the cooperation of all results in the happiness of the few.

Looks like this did come back around to the point of the journal. But I agree with Leon, in light of the current trend of atheism on the rise, religion will probably fade into the backstories of our history as a kind of embarrassment, and perhaps, yes, people will still fight and vie for control in our world(s) and have very different opinions about how to govern ourselves.

"Pure" done in the name of gods are done because the doer felt charitable, or they just wanted to please the god(s) and be pious? For atheism, there is no pleasing of god(s) or assuring yourself to an improvable place of eternal happiness awaits if you do the right thing. An atheist, ideally, does good deeds out of charity for society and humans. A common argument you may have heard is "Only religion makes good people do bad things". In short, if you need to justify your actions of doing good to others as being in the name of something, would you do the same if you knew that thing didn't exist?

In response to a person doing bad things unrelated to any god, perhaps that person was a Christian, and believed that if he admitted his crimes and asked for forgiveness that he'd go to heaven anyway. Does this seem just to you?

Communist Russia is a very bad model for a population as big as the world, and as advanced as we are. I don't believe that a state could force so many people to abandon their core, core beliefs and it would just be ok, and I don't they did, they just suppressed it to please whatever person was in power.
Now, all I'm saying is, the religions of old will probably wither away as ease of access to information is more available to more people. Less children will grow up with the same religion as their parents, if any.

so, in your opinion: doubt, questioning, and truth are a bad thing? I can hardly call them bad things, because without questions and experiments, how could we be having this lovely conversation in the first place?
and yes, religious claims are very ridiculous. Have you ever had someone else's voice in your head giving you divine inspiration? Have you ever prayed for some thing or event so far fetched and it happened?

no, you are putting words in my mouth. I think doubt, questioning and seeking truth are vital. I am an existentialist by nature. However These are not inharent to atheism nor are they limited to them. If you dobut that doubt or denial of no god then you are agnostic, and many Atheists I have met don't REALLY question their atheism, but rather try to get other people to get their Theism in the oddly hypocritical 'I am right and you are wrong' that I am sad to say most theists are also guilty of.

As for your other questions, while I am going to say they show alot of Bias, I am also going to say that no, I have nothing to really prove absolutely that God in any form is real, but by that same token you do not have the tools to prove he is not. Logic dictates we do not know. Any Theistic or Atheistic claims are, in the end, a matter of faith. Like it or not we cannot prove such absolutes, so they are matters of faith be it in a god of some sort or something else.

ok, i'm sorry about making loosely supported assumptions :)
However, on the point that you make on your atheist acquaintances not questioning their atheism, atheists have been presented with little and insufficient evidence to support that they are wrong about their "claiming that there are no gods" (as you say). So, they have little reason to make any questioning about their belief.

Wouldn't you agree that there is more evidence supporting the absence of god(s) (i.e. no intervention in our daily lives/seeming not to care), than the presence of one? Wouldn't that support a more a-theistic (non godly; not antitheistic) view of the world and universe?

So setting up your argument so it is difficult to contradict is reason to stop questioning?

I would not agree that there is more evidence to support the absence of a god, but I would say that it is easier to justify the evidence as saying such and to rationalize it as supporting atheism. Personally I think the only correct statement we can make at this point from a purely factual standpoint is an emphatic 'we do not have any way to get real proof one way or another.'

To claim that one is correct based on an absence of evidence, and to justify it by saying that ones point is the 'norm' is honestly the same as stating that theistic claims are right in spite of any implicit evidence ot the contrary. Can we disprove many of the claims made by mainstream Christians, many of which don't even know their own faith and who are too afraid of it being false to question? yes. Is there strong evidence that things like Evolution and the big bang are probably fact? yes. Do either of these disprove god? no. They simply prove that the concept of god as rendered by people who lived thousands of years ago is at best a misinterpritation, like children trying to grasp how their parents jobs work, or that god isn't real. Both possibilities are perfectly viable.

Unfortunately many atheists seem to have found themselves in a comfortable place, and its the same comfortable place where too many Christians have been for a long time (I refuse to speak for people of other faiths as I don't feel that is my place). Its this place where they have found reason not to question. its this idea that one even CAN have enough answers to be confident in their position and make a definitive statement. It is taking evidence and accepting at as something that proves the point one way or the other.

Lack of proof is no reason to assume that atheism is correct. Granted it may make it appear more valid but when you step back and take a cold clinical look without any bias in either direction you find that the only rational conclusion is 'insufficient data', and that until Atheists have a way to prove their belief in the absence of any creator/manipulator ext god or gods then they are still making an assumption, a statement based on something that is in their mind most likely.

And its ok to live that way, we don't have all the answers, but it is also not ok to stop questioning simply because we feel comfortable with the conclusions. That is what Fundamentalists on both sides of the fence do.

Jesus didn't damn Thomas for Doubting, and I don't think Dawkins would either :p

Where is the point in which one stops questioning? Maybe one should constantly question every belief one has, therefore leading a life of never knowing for sure if something to be accurate. Everyone has their limits, and they each set those limits up according to their perception of accurate evidence. Something as accurate as "I have never heard the voice of the Lord in my head or otherwise elsewhere" leads a person to disbelief.
By my stating that a god or gods do not intervene based on the "norm", is only asserting that which is observed. Yet, you still deny the evidence for the absence of gods. This is not a proof of atheism, but only an observation. Additionally, you still think that atheism, somehow, is a religion and that people like this believe something. It's not that atheists believe something, it's that theists believe something, and atheists don't believe it. They don't assert that it's not there, but can't accept the claims of theism. I'm sorry that you've heard this hundreds of times, and will continue to.

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

And that is my point, everyone has their limits. At some point people generally have to cut off the questioning and admit to themselves they are taking some things on faith.

The 'fact' that there is no FGS monster is taken on faith in a lack of evidence. That lack of evidence does not prove anything, it simply provides some kind of basis for a hypothesis. The fact that we are real is not proven, we take it on fatih that there is indeed a reality. The burden of proof rests with both Atheists and Theists alike, and it is little more than a convenient bullet-dodge to claim otherwise. We have very little that we can prove, and after a while we end up taking things on faith even if we don't want to admit it.

And yes I do think Atheism is a religion, as it is a specific set of parameters set up in an attempt to explain the universe, and thus has a dogma. That is indeed one of the definitions of religion and it fits. I never claimed that this was a bad thing in and of itself, nor do I think it is. However I do think when people try to deny this fact and make their view out to be 'more valid' it does end up fueling a kind of fervor I usually see in fundamentalist christians near where I live, and its something that can be very very dangerous.

We all have the point at which we take the data we do have, jump to the conclusion that seems most logical and HOPE we are right. That is how the human mind works, because if you keep questioning everything all the time you go insane. We end up taking everything we get in bits and peaces, and rationalizing things as 'fact' or at least near absolutes for our own sanity. Our inability to prove things would honestly be too much to take for a thinking mind otehrwise. In the end there is no real proof to be had either way, and both sides are responsible for it regardless of claims ot the contrary.

Do you believe in Yahweh, god of the Judeo-Christian bible?

Yes, but I also believe in the fallacy and stupidity of man, and the inability to keep things coherent over long periods of time, and in our own inability to know most things.

I ALSO accept that I may be wrong, or that said being could also be other gods as well, or that They could all be wrong.

I have faith in Yahweh, which is something that can only exist WITHOUT proof, and I admit that it is faith. However I do not have faith that the bible itself is not without corruption, and that parts of any interaction with any creator god we have are probably scattered and misunderstood at best.

But yes, I am a Christian, in the most simple statement of the fact.

Thanks

Sure you got it right, Kidloose. Your original post seems completely plausible. As you point out, the producers are smart, and intellectual cognoscenti are frequently poking fun in code at superstition. For their part, morons speak in code through christian terms and parables, a code which political reporters revealed worked in the election and reelection of Bush.

Also, don’t sweat any antagonist in this journal, clinging desperately to illogical superstitions. It must be too scary to that ilk to stand on their own, confess their delusional past, and move on as a moral humanist.

Take comfort in the knowledge that no matter how intellectually 'leet' the superstitious consider themselves in echo chambers with their own kind … no matter how they bleet and shriek that they know some divine truth … these fear-filled condescending morons would be utterly devastated in a logical debate with any of the Four Horsemen of Atheism. Religious cretinism has been deconstructed, and its arguments put to shame—so often—that it takes no effort to find YouTube videos that can destroy Superstitious Nonsense And The Liars Who Practice It.

Its amazing, that sounds EXACTLY like the kind of thing the uber-fundamentalists at my old Christian schools used to say, only reversed... At least we still know that such thoughts are still prominent on both sides of the fence.