Vague, and potentially misleading. In the past 200 years, we've had precious few evangelical presidents and congressmen. Until the 1970s, politics was widely considered the domain of man, and the church stayed out of it, at least publicly. In any case, this would be more correct if it said that for the past 200 years, a majority of the U.S. population professed belief in the Christian god. That is true.

And since the 1950s, the United States has been falling steadily behind Japan (atheist) China (non-Christian) Germany (secular) Sweden (atheist), etc... in education, innovation, technology, etc... Interesting what happened in the 50s... led by the likes of McCarthy, the U.S. became openly hostile to non-Christians, and began promoting a more "Christian" political agenda. Despite the protests of scientists, America still resists the teaching of evolution, and we're something like 37th overall in public education, now.

If only they would stay on their asses! True, Christians have accomplished a lot. The Creation Museum is a monument to stupidity. Judge Moore in Alabama fought tooth and nail to keep the 10 Commandments displayed in his courtroom... millions of dollars of fighting. How many abortion clinics have been bombed? How many doctors killed, harrassased, or driven out of business? Stem cell research is effectively banned in the U.S. Over the counter abortifacts are virtually impossible to get. I could go on.

As has often been pointed out here, the percentage of evangelical Christian biologists, cosmologists, astronomers, etc. compared to non-theist or agnostics? Miniscule. Belief in god goes down proportionally as education level goes up. Yes, there have been scientists who believed in god. But, their science left god out of it.

I have never said atheists do all the work. But... we do a lot of it!

Well, since the scientific method was more or less invented in a culture where atheism was punishable by torture and death, it's not surprising that few of the surviving scientists openly embraced it. This is a straw man, and a diversionary tactic. Science has ALWAYS come down to empiricism, whether the scientist harbored personal beliefs about faith or not. It has always been separate from theism if it was verifiable and falsifiable. It's a red herring to try to compare theist scientists to atheist ones.

Fine. You work on your list. At least it'll keep you out of abortion clinic protests for a while. When you're done, I'll point out again that science has always been based on empiricism, and that your list doesn't mean anything.

Duly noted.

(Turning towards God

"NAH NAH NAH NAH NANNY NANNY NANNER!!!!!!!"

Ok. I have mocked god.

(Turning towards Theists

"NAH NAH NAH NAH NANNY NANNY NANNER!!!!!!!!"

My statements still make sense and are founded on historical facts. You go away now.

I don't think you're too far off.  Technically, if you were a "scientist" anywhere in Europe during the Middle Ages, you were a Christian, or you risked getting sent to hell earlier than planned.  Not coincidentally, there wasn't a lot of good science in those days.  Not called The Dark Ages for nothing.

Actually, a lot of our modern science was discovered by Middle Eastern cultures... before Islam became a fundamentalist political force.   It's damn instructive to notice how few scientists come from the Middle East now.

Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians were also noted for their scientific ingenuity.  It's also instructive to notice how quickly science took a back seat once Christianity took over as the dominant religion in Europe.

 I'm curious if that poster has any peer-reviewed scientific journals documenting a scientific discovery attributed to divine revelation...

It is human arrogance to place a "label" as the advent of or "first" of science, when most "discoverys" come throughout history, not as a result of a "label", but out of human curiosity. It is arrogent for the Muslim, Jew, American or Europien to claim, "We were first" when all you really are is one step amoungst many and those steps are not dependant on where you are from or the fictitious dad in the sky you believe in.

Humans seem to falsely atribute a contribution as being justification to cheerlead for a nation or a religion when the reality is that what was stumbled upon or diliberately found is an ongoing building block.

Humans at the same time also fail to see all the misses, or bad guesses throughout history.

Again, and I have stated in a couple recent threads, that merely making an observation doesnt mean that you know what is causing what you are absurving.

No sane person today would assing miosis to Thor or Apollo. No sane person would atribute "mountains moving" to Isis.

No sane person should claim that Henrey Ford could have built a modern Lamborginni back in the 1930s because his company built a Model T.

The labels, and nationalities are irrelievent to the discoveries and are mere bystandars. This is nothing more than propaganda devaluing the individual.

We can know why it is irrelevent simply by putting a Muslim, Jew, Christian, and atheist all in the same biology lab side by side and conduct the same experement and have all, use the same scientific method regardless of the wishes of any partisipant.

These "acompleshments" ignore bad guesses such as alchemy and cronology and "faith healing" and for every tangential observation someone in history makes their are far more bad guesses as to cause that retard or hinder progress because the species has not had a widespread practice of good methodology. 

Algebra, is claimed by many Muslims as proof of Allah. Whatever middle east contributions to that math science made in ancient times still works outside a mosque. If' Allah's intent was to use Algebra as proof for his existance, I dont see the efficancy in reality. It is a universal math used by students and scientiests worldwide.

"The stars" I've heard Christians quote verses saying that the bible proves this or that about the universe. Yet no mention of Super Novas, or Black Holes or even galaxies.

So when modern Christians quote biologists who believe in Jesus I say so what? Where is the ancient greek or hebrew word for miosis? Where is the ancient medical explination for diabeties or cancer? "God did it" "God can do what he wants" "God works in mysterious ways". Is the ultimate answer once you strip all the junk science away through inquery.

The theist dresses up their myth with buzz words out of science to make it sound lagit but the end goal is still the same. I like what I believe and will defend hocus pocus Superman vs Kriptonite claims at all costs.

It is unfortunatly a natural side effect of human evolution. The "group dynamic" of "safty in numbers". The more people around you that think like you the more oportunity at physical and emotional resources the more oportunity to spread your own genes. However, as Dawkins and many other skeptics are begining to rightfully challenge, is that this side effect of evolution, once precieved nessary is really not.

In other words, we must be brave in our inquery and not seek comfort "just because" we've always done it that way. For the same reason it was bad to think the world was litterally flat, it is bad to think that gosts knock up girls and slamming planes into buildings will get you a purple heart in the after life.

What we "think" might be good for us often times is not. We must be willing as a species to face the unknown without fear and attack it with open inquery and stop incerting comic book claims in "Just because" we like them.

People used to like the idea of Apollo, but he died. Not because he was real. He died because humans moved on to incerting different myths in as answers. Why humans today think they are doing things differently is not suprising, but at the same time very sad.

We live in a great age where we have the oportunity to solve huge problems to humanity. Insted we are still stuck in tribalistic narrsicism in an ego driven "us vs them" alpha male mentality that may help us spread, but at the same time we ignore the harm it causes.

There are those who will read this and accuse me of being hatefull to religion. It is absurd knowing 6 billion people will never always agree on all issues, to assert some global dominance or one world goverment.

The Jew and Christian would fear a one world Islamic goverment and vice versa. I would fear one rule of any of the three as well. So what is the issue then?

The issue is to promote a reprioritizing of human thought. No one is going anywhere. No one should suggest a goverment forced end of those outsiders. That should be an acceptable agreement.

Then what? I say it is way past time to put ideology and religion where it belongs. Last in line to more important issues such as hunger, desease, famine, genocide, war. These issues have been around long before the modern big three.

That should say something. THAT WE do have the ability to stop the madness and that comes through knowing that everyone has the same biological needs and that WE let our differences divide us when we dont have to.

I will not "go quitely into the night" as once stated in a poem while fellow humans invent reasons to kill in agression or defense of their dads, if one were to assume to exist, should be kind enough to leave us mortals out of their beefs.