I'm surprised that you haven't seen this addressed on the site.  Did you miss all the threads on people killing in the name of God - even their own children!?  Religious thought is dangerous... People aren't just living delusional happy lives in the privacy of their own homes.  Their irrational thought leads to acts of terrorism and hate.

Crayons are non-toxic.  Religion is not.  Would you take the orange crayon away from the autistic kid if it was laced with arsenic?  Or would you just let him die because you don't want to be inconvenienced with his crying and yelling?

Now fast-forward a thousand years or so.  Would you take the orange crayon away from the autistic kid if it was an explosive and would take down the entire building, including yourself, if he keeps chewing?

I would suggest to you to read The End of Faith by Sam Harris, or his shorter book, Letter to a Christian Nation. Excellent books which clearly lay out the case for why it is necessary that we tackle this problem of faith head on, even if it makes a few moderates uncomfortable. They need to be made uncomfortable because complacency is deadly.

Except when they vote all the officials into office that prevent possible life saving science by opposing Stem Cell Research, push Pro-Life bills, and teaching ID in schools.

They do bad too my friend.  And all because of that sick little fairy tale.  My fundy mother has always been a supporter of Bush because he pays lip service to the Christian god. 

Look how much good that's done for us.

It's always refreshing to hear a theist disavow the minority that poisons the perception of the majority. However, it takes more than just saying I do not agree with what the minority says and do nothing about it. If we as a nation believe that we are all equal why not allow gays to marry? Why did it take so long for women to attain the same rights as men in voting? Why do some states discriminate against atheists over religious couples in adopting children?

If the majority of moderates would have the fortitude to tell the evangelicals that the USA is a secular country most of these perceptions may go away. Secularism seems to be a dirty word anymore, but in many other developed countries it shows that it need not be. I won't go into much detail about this because I do not know how you feel about this topic and not sure if it is relevent to this discussion or not.

Atheists are a clear minority and very few theists want to even try to understand our points of view. I can't understand why this is. If I didn't trust a group of people wouldn't it be best to understand why I don't trust them? If I hated jews, maybe I would want to understand the reasoning behind my belief. Unfortunately, our perception of the world is often based on our upbringings and the influence of important social institutions like the church instead of critical thinking.

I have had a similiar event take place when I was at the barber shop recently. I get my hair cut at the same place I have for 10 years now, but I never had an opportunity to air my atheism because the topic never came up. However, when it did recently, I stated that I was an atheist the whole shop got dead quiet. I got the usual questions of why and it shows such a lack of understanding that I feel is all too prevalent in our society. The idea that I could not believe what someone did was foreign to them. It is just an irrational fear of what we do not understand and even some atheists fall into the same trap. Faith can blind people to the truth. I do not believe you are totally closed-minded. You do qoute yourself as "right" so there still leaves some room to question rather or not I am right in this assumption, but you have the decency to admit you're not perfect. If you has said I believe that we are correct instead of the absolute you used I could always give benefit of the doubt. You warn us not to judge the actions of some and place that judgement on the whole, but go on to claim an absolute that shows hubris.

Hey... You're the one that started the flawed crayon analogy.

'wholesome Christian families,' huh?

Will the Moderates Please Get Pissed?  Please?

SillySqueeze, while I can sympathesize with where you're coming from (I don't like to offend and upset otherwise calm and complacent people), there is something here that I think you need to consider more carefully:

The word 'healthy'. Certainly, the average family of Christian moderates are happy. But not by a wide margin should they be considered healthy. They subscribe to a magical world view, believe in an omniscient and omnipotent being that not only created everything that is but also answers their personal requests, and flagrantly - though claiming the contrary - ignore the scientific method and it's demands for evidence.

A man who has fabricated a devout family and wonderful career while living on his own and taking-in a very typical income through typical means may be very happy while immersed in his fantasy life - but would you argue that it's best he's just 'left alone' to relish in fictional enjoyment? Or should he be helped professionally, so that he accepts who he is and where he is, and can find more genuine happiness and campanionship for himself?

I do believe the RRS is definitely needed with all the misinformation out there.  The unfortunate thing is that, like starting young kids off learning more than one language, adults' mindsets are already laid in stone by the time RRS comes around to show them the facts.  Religion is something your form your whole life around, and when they become of a ripe age where some Atheist comes around to convince that person that they've misshaped their entire life it's really hard for them to swallow. 

I just came across this name the other day, I know he's kind of famous but If no one in this discussion knows about Benny Hinn the scam artist, celebrity evangelist then chech out this to familiarize:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUyPjeIFKug

If narrow-minded Christians dont tick me off, then it's scum like this that really get me boiling.

You guys are making yourselves largely unapproachable. When you call Christians stupid because of what they believe or tell them they have some kind of disorder, whatever truth there is to it, and have guns on your front page, you yourselves appear very angry, which translates to some insecurity about your own opinions, and may want to consider revising your tactics.

It's like the kids in grade school who wear all black with black lipstick, and make themselves unique in more than one way because they think differently. Point being, you can do so much better if you worked on blending your activism to where it's taken seriously among locations that the influential ears are among the theist community.

Activism is GREAT, but you can't be unapproachable. I'm not telling you how to dress, either. Like I said, you guys need to set your sights away from the soft targets and work on improving your image to members of significant standing in the churches, and the riff-raff will disperse if you can do that.

Young atheists, demographically speaking, 18-25, are more numerous than ever before.

I'm seeing a lot of black lipstick type of comments, for example members quoting their own bits of wisdom. That's arrogant to a lot of folks on both sides of discussion.

Also, the front page has an AK-47. again, unapproachable. theists are to expect on this forum FUCKTHESYSTEM types who can't offer much advice besides "your beliefs are dumb". If they didn't think that already, they wouldn't have visited/registered on your forum to get a 2nd opinion.

Sillysqueeze, the point here is that the bible DOES teach very bad things, such as stoning children who don't obey and such... In fact, even assuming there aren't bad things in the bible, what happens is that EVERYONE interprets it differently and acts upon their own interpretations.

Those who are NOT good Christian families, and ARE hurting America and others around them, call themselves the same thing as you do! Christians! So why not drop the bible belief, drop the 'christianity', and just have your own personal beleif in a god, instead of Jesus Christ? Why call yourself a Christian and let these people act on your behalf? If there is such different interpretations of this book, get rid of it and write your own. The whole organized religion thing is the problem here, if all the "Good Christians" weren't part of it, they would still be good people, could still teach good morals to their kids, could even still ridiculously beleive in a God, BUT they wouldn't be supporting these outrageous Christians who want to make laws based on the bible, and do hurt people around them.

In essence, if the "good christians" drop themselves from the total number of christians, we are left with a singled out group of people who are doing very bad things, and who would then stand out for the bad things they are doing. Instead what happens, is that we have Millions of good people supporting a BAD cause, based on a bible that isn't true and everyone can interpret how they want... This means a politician can say he's doing christian things without really having the support of all the other Christians, but it doesn't matter because they are still Christians so everyone assumes they are behind him.

On a side note, if you could drop the organized religion part and have your own personal connection with a God, instead of following a book that someone else wrote... You'd start to realize how fantasized it all feels, and learn that without all the re-inforcement of the preachers and other Christians around you attributing the good things in their life to Christ... It's all bullshit! Take the blinders off and stop going to church for a year, start listening to both sides, stop listening to preists who will twist the bible to sound good either way, and start realizing reality.

"Don’t take the orange crayon away from the autistic kid even if he likes to chew on it right?"

Even though crayons are "non-toxic", they are still unhealthy and can ultimately lead to a stomachache. It's not about "taking it away" from people as much as it's about showing them the healthier alternative, such as eating crackers instead of wax.

I understand where you are coming from, but understand that letting religion live and let live is a lot like saying "Women can't vote and don't have equal rights, but there are plenty of women who don't mind or feel happy being socially and financially controlled by men."