Arguably going to work,getting mrried,and pretty much anything is wasting what little time you have on earth.It's our lives, and we choose to do this.And unless you are a Vulcan,what's wrong with indulging your emotions?

Generic answer for christians:

So what if  people believe something else. Why not just let them be?

Problem:  Remember the Twin Towers? Want to live in a world were stem cell research could prolong lives? Then speak out against religion. If an adult still believed in Santa, wouldn’t you feel compelled to put them straight? Religion is severely dangerous to our world. Try find a war that didn’t have religious influence behind it. Whenever there is religion, knowledge is shunned and ridiculed.

Most christians think the world would be great if everyone thought like they did. We had that once. It was called the Dark Age, and it set humanity back possibly centuries. The fact is, people will rather vote for someone who has no qualification except believing in god, than a highly capable person who doesn’t.

People once believed demons caused illness and drilling holes in peoples head was considered the cutting edge of medicine. If that’s  the world you want, keep up your religion.

Yes,lead to the dark side hate does.However,I don't agree.Emotions can run high here,and things get said.But we don't hate anyone.If we did,we wouldn't try help them.

My hypothesis gains strength.

Hate is a better emotion than desperation or futility.

Hanging out here gives me a sense that I am not alone. (I'm not, as my wife is also an atheist, but you probably understand what I mean.) I have other folks I can interact with who understand a fundamental truth, unlike the dozens of other folks I interact with every week.

Plus, it's fun. It has a frontier feel, like Slashdot had 8 years ago. There's raw discussion, rather than random interactions. The conversation is intelligent, sustained, and interesting. This is unlike almost any other website I've discovered. It's certainly the first one in a long time in which I'm interested.

And your observation of hate seems a bit misplaced. I've seen very little real hate. Perhaps there's a little anger once in a while, but that's born of the frustration I mentioned. It's frustrating dealing with people who refuse to understand what you are saying, while insisting you misunderstand them, or you'd believe just as they do.

As for the CIA: perhaps the RRS is a CIA front to help distract young, intelligent, vocal people. Maybe they don't want us over on some of the "whackjob conspiracy sites" so we don't discover the real truth of how the CIA hasn't shut down MK-ULTRA, and they are still experimenting on mind control and psychological warfare, and bigfoot and chemtrails are all a part of it.

I'm not really sure what this has to do with anything?

Oh nurse...

nurse?

Did one of you leave the door to the padded room unlocked again?

Is it just me or does this have all the earmarks of a "theist playing atheist" post?

It reads like "I'm an atheist just like you. Because I'm an atheist, my life has no meaning just like yours. Why do we as atheists bother talking to people and putting our positions out there? Gawd, Kelly is HAWT!"

I admit I pared down the patronizing vocabulary a bit but I think I got the gist.

wanting to see future generations unburdened by the ignorance, bigotry, violence and oppression that goes hand-in-hand with most religious zeal  is anything but hateful, nor a waste of a life. if previous generations had tried harder to do the same we might all be closer to a point in human history where the debate is irrelevant.

posting on this site is a mere fraction of my time. the rest is spent living my life to it's fullest with my family. having the knowledge that a wrong is being committed and feeling that typing a few words on a forum is too much to ask? that's the epitome of apathy, and it's pathetic and lame.

don't "hate" the fact that we choose to be more than mindless spectators.

LOL...this seems like an excellent post to start a flame war. As for the content of your critique, Viper, many points are completely baseless.

This quote "People smart enough and strong enough to accept our aloneness in the universe already understand, those adults that have not and cannot embrace the idea of a godless universe will never understand. So what?!" is patently false.

This is saying anyone who believes in God is A. and idiot and B. weak. While that might be true for some fundamentalists, it is incredibly untrue generalizing on the whole. Ultimately, that is what most atheist groups are banking on. That repeated dissemination of information and knowledge to those who were indoctrinated, denied scientific knowledge, or simply haven't questioned themselves on why they believe what they believe is a mixed bag process, but it does work. How well it works using the RRS's tactics, or any other strategy can be debated. Saying this is a worthless endeavor, is really putting your head in the sand. Obviously religion and irrational beliefs have very real, often very negative consequences. I won't rehash them here, but merely state that the reason for the website is self evident.

I assure you,I've seen enough of this to not get riled by it.It makes no difference to my life.

Thanks for sharing your centuries of experience.I have to wonder,if this site is of so little interest to you,why do you keep posting on it?

I fear nothing from death.It's a shame you feel so morbid and depressed about it.

I thought you yung'ns only gained amusement from ridiculing religious types. I say this because I watched Kelly and some old looking guy playing word association games with that English book writing guy, and Kelly and the old guy laughed like ten year olds at the book writing guys associated words.

I get the sense that you all think that you're smarter than all of us pedestrian types...I'll bet you're all political "progressives".

First off, thanks for calling me a young'un. Me, I get amusement from all sorts of things - including people who act like asses when they try to play someone they're not. As an actor, I like seeing that but it has to be done well.

Such an effort to appear disinterested or nonplused is a transparent veil hiding boundless rage. you uber athiests are just one issue short of going postal.

How about a dry sense of humour? Or irony?

Thanks again for that. Duly noted. And do you figure the reaper is a glass-half-empty guy or glass-half-full? If I have to have a chat with this guy, I don't want to get off on the wrong foot and have that awkward joke hanging over both our heads.

"So you're the grim reaper, eh?"

"Well, I'm not really that grim."

*crickets*

"Holy shit, dude. How old are you? Are you going to be that literal through this whole thing?"

"It's just that ... I never learned to read!"

(Did I seriously just give the grim reaper a Wayne's World Oscar? It's time for bed.)

"Hate"? In what context?

I only speak for myself here. I "hate" absurd claims. If someone claimed that Santa was real and they were 45 years old, should I coddle such an absurdity, or should I tell them the truth? Telling the truth without sugar coating life does not mean you hate someone.

Get over your pathetic PC crap. I hate it when theists pull the victim crap and I especially hate it when atheists pull the PC crap.

I hate Osama Bin Laden. I hate Pat Robertson. I do not hate all Muslims or all Christians because I hate certain individuals. I most certainly hate the fact that it is 2008 and most of humanity is still stuck in superstition.

That does not mean that I am blind to the fact that 6 billion people will not be clones of each other. I live with a Catholic. If I hated all believers why the fuck would I live with one?

Just as it is delusional for a Muslim or Christian to expect a utopia where the entire population of the world follow's their god, it is just as absurd to expect your neighbor to always say nice things.

Here is reality. People are not always going to say nice things. That doesn't mean that we are incapable of separating the issue of a person from the issue of the claims that person makes.

You come in here and make blanket assumptions about all the members here, which is just as delusional and ignorant as any theist doing the same.

My advice to you is the same as it would be to any believer. Treat people like individuals. And learn to separate the issue of a person from a claim a person makes.

Getting along is a good goal for humanity, but it comes with the responsibility of knowing that we are all the same, even the desire to express dissent.

Hearing unfiltered opinions that are not sugar coated, does not mean we hate an entire group of people. We do have the capability of likeing and loving people who make claims we may hate.

I am quite sure there are people I know personally who know I am an atheist who hate the fact that I am, even though they love me. It cuts both ways and to expect people to be silent about it is as absurd as expecting people to bow to one god. A verbal smack in the face about an absurd claim does not mean you hate the person making the claim, it merely means you think they are full of shit(ON THE ISSUE OF THAT CLAIM)

BTW, we do accept our "aloneness". But, I am not dead yet and have no choice while I am alive but to care about the actions of people who want politics to be religious based. As long as the major three keep using world politics to play king of the hill on the only planet I have and aim nukes at each other, I think I am entitled to give a shit. Forgive me for caring about the only home I have.

This must be a joke. Most "intelligent design" types couldn't hold an intellectual debate at gunpoint. I learned that quick even before I became a biologist. Hell, most conversations I have with them go like this:

Them: Evolution is wrong!

Me: Do you know the 5 theories which fall under the scientific definition of evolution? And by extension, the three principles of natural selection, the centerpiece theory?

Them:...No

*Akward silence*

Me: Well, you know what I'm going to say to you now, don't you.

Them (slowly):...No

Me: Get out.

As an aside, just because we are on the internet, and hence I don't know you and vice-versa, does not mean that you cannot sit down and take the time to write in proper English. Do you know how ugly it looks when you abbreviate words in writing in the same manner you would while speaking, or when you write in capitals or use no punctuation? Think of it like this. People will naturally prefer more lucid posts, and will pay more attention to you if you write in "English" and not in netenglish.

But a meta-discussion about it isn't a waste of time, apparently.

On what basis do you assume we are all young?

Variation,selection,and repetition? I have learned much from reading DG..

Out of interest,what are the five theories?

Yes. Replication, Variation and selection.

The five theories are

Evolution: Over time, the characteristics of a lineage change.

Common Descent: All organisms have diverged from a common ancestor

Gradualism: Every organism, however different and distant from each other, is  related, some distantly. Radical changes in phenotype and genotype have occured by incremental processes by which lineages diverge from a common ancestor

Gene Frequency: The method by which evolution (the change in lineages) occurs is by changes in gene frequencies of populations. It is the change in proportion of individuals which have certain characteristics that determines the characteristic divergence of a lineage.

Natural Selection: The process by which gene frequencies are latered is characterized by the variations of organisms in a population, and how those variations determine the ability of the organism to survive and reproduce. The selection of alleles over others in a population will accordingly alter the frequency of genetic particles and hence the phenotype of a lineage.

i am sincerely flattered that you have acknowledged my existence. As to my "points", i am not attempting to make points. There are on points to make. You are tryng to prove gravity, sunshine, and Elvis. You are hammering nails in a coffin lid that has been welded shut for years.  Of course there is no god. You are all involved in a specious argument. Don't waste any more of your life proving the obvious. Anyway, what person who values their time gives a flying leatherneck about deity or not?

This website is sad because it is a tragic waste of human effort. Your small community of youthful sensitives is essentially a closed loop of reciprical reinforcement. The choir singing to the choir. You all pat one another on the back for supporting what is to most truthful beings an obvious reality. Athiesm ain't news...it is ancient history.

You feel cheated by religion? Angered by its destructiveness? Saddened by its lingering potential? Get over it...humanity evolves at a snails pace. If you predicate your happiness upon affecting irreversable change within your life time, then you are going to live and die an unhappy camper. Human  reality is that what changes will eventually come full circle again.

Just you wait...wait till you are old, wrinkled, shriveled and been there done that more times than can be remembered, and you are still witnessing the same old shit.  Its just shit packaged on a newer date with new marketing.

You have youth, good looks, and intelligence...why waste it on an obvious reality. Become a Dominatrix, good looking dominas make big bucks and frequently take advantage of blasphemy as a fetish.  You could have it all.

As to the line of underlings waiting for your gaze being long...if you won't entertain the idea of my enslavement,  maybe your earthly deity Mararet could have use for a cuckold? If there is a god, she looks like one of you two.

Okay....ya got me. But who's counting anyway.

To the majority of my countrymen including my mother, father, brother, etc it is not obvious that god does not exist.  They think that there is power in prayer and that god is watching over them.

They also support GW simply because he pays lip service to the christian god.

I seriously think that if our country was not almost entirely christian Bush would have never held office.  And look at what damage that man has done to the world. 

That's why I am here.  If you think this fight is meaningless you are showing us how painfully ignorant you are about the planet we live on.

The fight you of which you speak is not meaningless, simply redundant. The world and how human being behave is not new...it is simply packaged different now with technology creating the illusion that our sum is greater than our parts. You are young and hopeful for a better world for your baby. I understand that desire and need, however, if you want to be a loving parent teach your kids strong independence...don't turn them into wimpy democrats that seek welfare and expect social security.

Thatcher?