Lets see how you do...

You can't "believe" in nothing. Nothing does not exist...hense the reason it is "nothing." Do you believe in no toothfairy or do you just NOT believe in a toothfairy? We do NOT believe in a God. Hense, we don't believe.

That isn't to say we don't have beliefs in other things. Or as some people put it, we have a "reasonable expectation". For example, it is pointless to believe that we will wake up tomorrow. In fact, for many people, they won't wake up tomorrow, even if they believe they will. Belief is simply a word, defined, and has no true bearing on reality. The same thing goes for faith. However, we can make have a reasonable expectation that tomorrow will come, as it has come for us the past, it is also important to have a reasonable expectation that it won't come. This should not be confused with being paranoid, as a reasonable expectation is based off probability.

For example, it's probable that tomorrow I will wake up like any other day, but a very small percentage says I won't, for any reason that you can think of (or can't think of) which may prevent my rising tomorrow. But I can still reasonably expect to rise tomorrow, so I can still make all the preparations for tomorrow. The difference between you and I, however, is that I take into account the small percentage too. Get it?

No, it's human nature to be gullible. This is why infomercials do so well.

Prove it.

Yes you are, don't lie.

Oooo...he used the absolute word "definitely" which means it MUST be true!

Wrong. Christmas was a pagan holiday first, used to celebrate the Winter Solstice, and the births of several Greek, Roman, and Celtic Gods - the main festival of course being Natalis Invicti (Also known as the solar-feast), and holds the claim as being the most seductive reason for moving the date to December 25th.

In fact, the first four centuries consisted of Christians putting Christs birth in the SPRING, and sometimes even in the fall. Clement of Alexander (second century - 150 years after Jesus' supposed death) placed the birth of Christ in MAY in the year 28 of Augustus out of "curiosity". (Strom., I, xxi in P.G., VIII, 888) and others during April and even March! (Cyprian; P.L., IV, 963 sqq)

It isn't until the forth century, where Jesus' birth is placed in the winter months, still ignored the winter solstice, even though it was the most widely celebrated month in the winter seasons. In fact, most early Christians MOCKED the Greeks and the Romans for celebrating the birthdays of Gods. (Origen)

The date of December 25th did not come about until the mid-forth century under direction of a Ecumenical Council.

Yes, the Christians got the meaning of December 25th completely wrong by repressing all other beliefs save their own on a world which had been celebrating the solar-feast for hundreds of years - and the births of Gods on this date for even longer. Not to mention the changing of seasons, which dated back THOUSANDS of years before Christian bishops ever voted to claim the patent.

Mainly because these dates were stolen from other people, and then forced down other peoples throats?

Santa Claus, or St. St. Nicholas of Myra was a REAL person, whom was also known as "Father Christmas." There is a lot of myth to the real person, but Nicholas of Myra died on the 6th of December, in the mid forth-century. New Advent, or the Catholic Online Encyclopedia states, "In Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, they have the custom of making him the secret purveyor of gifts to children on 6 December, the day on which the Church celebrates his feast; in the United States and some other countries St. Nicholas has become identified with Santa Claus who distributes gifts to children on Christmas eve. His relics are still preserved in the church of San Nicola in Bari;"

So, Santa was really a man of God. And the name "santa" is a mispronunciation of the Dutch Sinterklaas, which is a contracted form of Sint Nicolaas (Saint Nicholas). Santa has nothing to do with Satan.

You mean, folks dressed up as a Saint try to pull the kids away from the Solar-Feast, or the rebirth of Dionysus - the Greek God? Is this what you're getting at? Because based on the reality of Christmas, your comments make no sense in any other context - other then to prove how little you know about a holiday you celebrate yearly.

False, false, false. Read the following:

Whenever the Supreme Court makes a decision that in any way restricts the intrusion of religion into the affairs of government, a flood of editorials, articles, and letters protesting the ruling is sure to appear in the newspapers. Many protesters decry these decisions on the grounds that they conflict with the wishes and intents of the "founding fathers."

Such a view of American history is completely contrary to known facts. The primary leaders of the so-called founding fathers of our nation were not Bible-believing Christians; they were deists. Deism was a philosophical belief that was widely accepted by the colonial intelligentsia at the time of the American Revolution. Its major tenets included belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems and belief in a supreme deity who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws. The supreme God of the Deists removed himself entirely from the universe after creating it. They believed that he assumed no control over it, exerted no influence on natural phenomena, and gave no supernatural revelation to man. A necessary consequence of these beliefs was a rejection of many doctrines central to the Christian religion. Deists did not believe in the virgin birth, divinity, or resurrection of Jesus, the efficacy of prayer, the miracles of the Bible, or even the divine inspiration of the Bible.

These beliefs were forcefully articulated by Thomas Paine in Age of Reason, a book that so outraged his contemporaries that he died rejected and despised by the nation that had once revered him as "the father of the American Revolution." To this day, many mistakenly consider him an atheist, even though he was an out spoken defender of the Deistic view of God. Other important founding fathers who espoused Deism were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, James Madison, and James Monroe. (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/farrell_till/myth.html)

To back up this claim, here are some quotes from these men on religion and founding the nation:

In a letter to Adams, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" (April 11, 1823). These were hardly the words of a devout Bible-believer.

In Notes on the State of Virginia, he said of this religion, "There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites" (quoted by newspaper columnist William Edelen, "Politics and Religious Illiteracy," Truth Seeker, Vol. 121, No. 3, p. 33)

This is also from the above-mentioned link, "James Madison, Jefferson's close friend and political ally, was just as vigorously opposed to religious intrusions into civil affairs as Jefferson was. In 1785, when the Commonwealth of Virginia was considering passage of a bill "establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion," Madison wrote his famous "Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments" in which he presented fifteen reasons why government should not be come involved in the support of any religion. This paper, long considered a landmark document in political philosophy, was also cited in the majority opinion in Lee vs. Weisman. The views of Madison and Jefferson prevailed in the Virginia Assembly, and in 1786, the Assembly adopted the statute of religious freedom of which Jefferson and Madison were the principal architects. The preamble to this bill said that "to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical." The statute itself was much more specific than the establishment clause of the U. S. Constitution "Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise [sic] diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities"."

The Reverend Bird Wilson, who was just a few years removed from being a contemporary of the so-called founding fathers, said that "the founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected [George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson] not a one had professed a belief in Christianity" (Remsberg, p. 120, emphasis added).

Dr. Wilson's sermon, which was published in the Albany Daily Advertiser the month it was delivered also made an interesting observation that flatly contradicts the frantic efforts of present-day fundamentalists to make the "founding fathers" orthodox Christians:

1. When the war was over and the victory over our enemies won, and the blessings and happiness of liberty and peace were secured, the Constitution was framed and God was neglected. He was not merely forgotten. He was absolutely voted out of the Constitution. The proceedings, as published by Thompson, the secretary, and the history of the day, show that the question was gravely debated whether God should be in the Constitution or not, and after a solemn debate he was deliberately voted out of it.... There is not only in the theory of our government no recognition of God's laws and sovereignty, but its practical operation, its administration, has been conformable to its theory. Those who have been called to administer the government have not been men making any public profession of Christianity.... Washington was a man of valor and wisdom. He was esteemed by the whole world as a great and good man; but he was not a professing Christian (quoted by Remsberg, pp. 120-121, emphasis added).

The publication of Wilson's sermon in the Daily Advertiser attracted the attention of Robert Owen, who then personally visited Wilson to discuss the matter of Washington's religious views. Owen summarized the results of that visit in a letter to Amos Gilbert dated November 13, 1831:

1. I called last evening on Dr. Wilson, as I told you I should, and I have seldom derived more pleasure from a short interview with anyone. Unless my discernment of character has been grievously at fault, I met an honest man and sincere Christian. But you shall have the particulars. A gentleman of this city accompanied me to the Doctor's residence. We were very courteously received. I found him a tall, commanding figure, with a countenance of much benevolence, and a brow indicative of deep thought, apparently approaching fifty years of age. I opened the interview by stating that though personally a stranger to him, I had taken the liberty of calling in consequence of having perused an interesting sermon of his, which had been reported in the Daily Advertiser of this city, and regarding which, as he probably knew, a variety of opinions prevailed. In a discussion, in which I had taken a part, some of the facts as there reported had been questioned; and I wished to know from him whether the reporter had fairly given his words or not.... I then read to him from a copy of the Daily Advertiser the paragraph which regards Washington, beginning, "Washington was a man," etc. and ending, "absented himself altogether from the church." "I endorse," said Dr. Wilson, with emphasis, "every word of that. Nay, I do not wish to conceal from you any part of the truth, even what I have not given to the public. Dr. Abercrombie said more than I have repeated. At the close of our conversation on the subject his emphatic expression was--for I well remember the very words--`Sir, Washington was a Deist.'"

In concluding the interview, Dr. Wilson said "I have diligently perused every line that Washington ever gave to the public, and I do not find one expression in which he pledges him self as a believer in Christianity. I think anyone who will candidly do as I have done, will come to the conclusion that he was a Deist and nothing more" (Remsberg, pp. 121-122, emphasis added)

In February 1800, after Washington's death, Thomas Jefferson wrote this statement in his personal journal

1. Dr. Rush told me (he had it from Asa Green) that when the clergy addressed General Washington, on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation that he had never, on any occasion, said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion, and they thought they should so pen their address as to force him at length to disclose publicly whether he was a Christian or not. However, he observed, the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly, except that, which he passed over without notice....

   I know that Gouverneur Morris [principal drafter of the constitution], who claimed to be in his secrets, and believed him self to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more in that system [Christianity] than he did" (quoted in Remsberg, p. 123 from Jefferson's Works, Vol. 4, p. 572, emphasis added).

And to hammer the point home:

Dr. Moncure D. Conway, who was once employed to edit a volume of Washington's letters, wrote an article entitled "The Religion of Washington," from which Remsberg quoted the following:

In editing a volume of Washington's private letters for the Long Island Historical Society, I have been much impressed by indications that this great historic personality represented the Liberal religious tendency of his time. That tendency was to respect religious organizations as part of the social order, which required some minister to visit the sick, bury the dead, and perform marriages. It was considered in nowise inconsistent with disbelief of the clergyman's doctrines to contribute to his support, or even to be a vestryman in his church.

In his many letters to his adopted nephew and younger relatives, he admonishes them about their manners and morals, but in no case have I been able to discover any suggestion that they should read the Bible, keep the Sabbath, go to church, or any warning against Infidelity.

Washington had in his library the writings of Paine, Priestley, Voltaire, Frederick the Great, and other heretical works (pp. 128-129, emphasis added)."

That should clear up all that mess with the fathers of our country being Christians.

Here is what the First Amendment states on Religion:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

That's all it states. That the Government of the United States cannot make a law which deals specifically with ANY religion, nor can it make a law which effects the freedom of following a religion or NOT.

And, last but not least, the whole reason we started a war of independance was because of RELIGIOUS TYRANNY!

Way to completely get the facts all wrong. Not looking so good for you, is it?

Wow, you really don't know a thing about your holidays histories do you? Easter has been celebrated for thousands of years, long before your Christian bishops ever took the patent and locked it away during the first Council of Nicea in the forth century! (Again, forth century = hundreds of years after the death of your supposed savior)

To explain the "bunnys and eggs" thing to you, lets look at the history. This is derived directly from the celtic God Ostara. (You can read more HERE) In ancient Anglo-Saxon myth, Ostara is the personification of the rising sun. In that capacity she is associated with the spring and is considered to be a fertility goddess. She is the friend of all children and to amuse then she changed her pet bird into a rabbit. This rabbit brought forth brightly colored eggs, which the goddess gave to the children as gifts. From her name and rites the festival of Easter is derived. Ostara is identical to the Greek Eos and the Roman Aurora.

Eos, Ostara abd Aurora were all Goddesses of the Sun. Just as the Solar-Feast in December, the Christians wanted to personify their Gods, and in doing so wanted them to be the "light of the world." The Sun-Gods/Godesses already had been worshipped for thousands of years by various other cultures, and both fell into the changes of the new seasons. Christians adapted these dates and myths into their cultures, and Christians today celebrate Christmas and Easter as a mixture of both Pagan and Christian traditions.

This has nothing to do with atheists or pagans, but a church trying desperately to bring in more money and blind followers 1700 years ago.

You can also learn more on Easter from New Advent HERE.

I can sit here and teach you things for hours, and I hope you come away from this a little less arrogant then you came into it. The fact is, most Christians are blind and ignorant about the history of their religion and it's dogma and practicies. You were no different. It must suck being out-witted and out-learned by somebody who doesn't even worship your God, participate in your feasts, celebrate your holidays, or believe in your Bible, and who knows that your savior is a myth.

So what's the final count? Atheists: 10; Christian: 0

Damn, that really must hurt, brother.

Hope you gain some rational prespective,

Rook Hawkins

"we all beleive something"
I don't "beleive" something"
however, I do believe that Christianity is stupid. so many biblical contradictions

"in a god, in no god"
actually, I'm neither. I don't believe there is a god, but I don't "believe there is no god"
I just lack belief in any gods.
However, I do hold that the probability of any god existing is so small that it's about a bee's dick from zero.

for a lot of people, yes. but really, there's no rule against people having a christmas and not believing in a god. for us who do not believe in a god, it's just a holiday where people exchange gifts, as a reward for a year's hard work. we don't have to believe in god just because we want to exchange gifts one day.
oh, most people know the original meaning. it's just that a lot of us don't care what it's original meaning was. again, to a lot of us who don't believe in a god, it is simply a reward at the end of the year.

"the true meaning" itself means absolutely nothing if the religion it's based on is false, which it is very likely to be (especially with all those biblical contradictions)

have you actually read the first amendment?
what part of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" don't you understand?

actually, it's about Jesus's alleged resurrection. the eggs are there as a symbol, because new life forms from them.

which of course still means nothing with the lack of evidence to support the story (Jesus's resurrection)

no, it doesn't make sense at all to believe in god and be a christian 'just in case'.
FYI, this idea you've thrown in is a common one, it is known as "Pascal's Wager".
we are perfectly capable of living our lives as good people without christianity, just as much as a christian is perfectly capable of being a murderous, child molesting necrophiliac.
happy day!

Not Pascal's wager again.

Ok first to add to the flawed logic of Pascals Wager, here are more people responding to the same question.

Additionally I'd like to draw your attention to the magical teapot that orbits around the sun. The magical teapot will commit you to a lake of fire (hence the orbitting of the sun) when you die if you don't believe in it. So based on your logic, I assume you now believe in the magical teapot correct? If you don't, why don't you?

Wouldnt it make more sense to live for the magical teapot and be a teapotist, then die and find out that there was no teapot but still die a good person than to live your life not for the teapot and die finding out that you were wrong and go to teapot hell?

Friggin' "holidays" brings them out of the woodwork.

Too bad there isn't a reading comprehension test before registering as a member.

Why is it that Christians can't spell and have no knowledge of how to structure sentences? You can't try to act smart and spell coincidental with a q, Kwaza with a q, and completely mangle the word Hanukah which has two spellings! I have honestly never heard of a Christian who knows English. I'm not even joking or trying to insult them. Maybe I need to get out more, but maybe Christians need to learn English or at least some other language. I'm sick of gibberish!

I have gotten so much enjoyment reading this thread! I especially love all of the quotes from the founding fathers! Thanks for those!