I know we're getting a pretty big influx of theists after the ABC debate, so I'm writing this post to cover what I think is one of the most glaring errors in many theists criticisms of atheism -- namely, confusing what various sciences, terms, and theories deal with, and what they don't. I'll give my list, and atheists, feel free to add to it if I miss something.

Atheism - the position that states that there is no evidence to support belief in a deity. That's it. Atheism does not deal with: Morality, Politics, The Big Bang, Evolution, Abortion, Environmentalism, Astronomy, Geology, or anything else. It is improper to assume ANYTHING about an atheist's beliefs in any of these fields simply because they are an atheist.

Off topic posts from another thread are being moved here.

Christian fundy straw mans our arguements with speculation.

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I am sad to see that our country has misused vocabulary. People have replaced Christianity as a word with religion, and vise-versa. Christianity is one type of religion. Just because they countries "Brian" named were atheist only means they do not believe in the God of Christianity. "Kelly" and "Brian" themselves agreed that there are different Gods. They cannot possible know what god every person in that country believes. Beyond that, the part that striked me the most in this debate was when Kirk mentioned some "idiots" (which were definately not idiots) and said that they believed in God.

I guess I have yet to see a convincing argument that theism is intrinsically irrational. I completely agree that in practice, theists are often far from rational, but the logic is flawed in extending that to all theists. I'm sure I could find irrational atheists. That certainly doesn't make all atheists irrational. The best analogy I can come up with involves Euclidian geometry. The entire body of theorems in Euclidian geometry are derived from a select few axioms. One of those axioms is that parallel lines never converge nor diverge. Euclidian geometry is considered 'flat' for this reason. But there is nothing to prevent changing this axiom and doing so results in hyperbolic or sphereical geometries. The key in this is that these core axioms are assumed, not proven. And by changing these assumped axioms the nature of the geometry is changed.

I would like to respond to Brian's and Kelly's Question to Krik and Ray on

Who Created God? and Why can't the universe be inifinte?

1st lest deal with Who Created God?

God by definition means -- a spirit worshiped as having power over nature,- the creator and ruler of the universe; the supreme being, uncaused.

Now of course I know you don't believe in the God of the bible, but understand this, No one created God, because God is the Creator. as Ray and Kirk said there can't be an on-going of who made God then who made that God then who made that God.. it would go on forever Plus it's not logical. Check this out

The claim made by an audience member sounds implausible. How did Atheists kill 100 million when Atheists have traditionally been a minority. Sure Christians have killed millions in the name of religion like the Taiping Rebellion (20 million), the Holocaust (6 million), witch burnings (1 million) and right now the Iraqi occupation (650,000).

As Kelly pointed out the questioner was probably referring to Stalin and Hitler. Stalin was Russian Orthodox, Hitler was Catholic but since they were "true Christians" they must have been Atheist. When Brian mentioned predominately Atheist nations like Norway and Sweden the questioner disagreed for some reason but I doubt the questioner was thinking of America, an officially secular nation (like the Soviet Union and China).

Behold,

I present to you: The official probabilities where you are going depending on your faith according to the number of believers, so you can make an informed decision about who is best equipped to scare you into believing.

 HEAVEN ... Blissful existance until eternity

 HELL ... Eternal torture

 REINC ... Reincarnation in some form. May also mean Nirvana (Buddhism) or becoming one with God (Hinduism). Many different schools about this though.

 ??? ... Countless other beliefs by miscellaneous religions

Christian or athiest, with a little work, either side can take something said by the other and mold it to fit their own argument.  I look outside and I see a beautiful creation obviously created by God.  Others look outside and see a manifestation of matter completely controled by chance.

 Personally, my faith did not begin or strengthen by looking at the trees or the stars.  Nor did it strengthen by scientific knowledge or historical evidence.  It strengthened with personal experiences.

 The first time I called out to God I pulled over along side a mountain right off of a very busy road.  I asked that if there be a God, and if He is the God of the Bible, that He would show me a shooting star.  I never did see one.  Instead, I got an overwhemling urge to get down on my knees and pray.  I didn't want to because I was along a busy road.  So I requested to pray in a quiet place.  Just then, the traffic stopped for quite some time.  It was completel silence.  I waited, and waited some more.  Nothing.  So I got down on my knees and I prayed, and although I took my time praying I did not hear a single car off in the distance until about 1 second after I said "Amen."

Hello, I'm new here and i didn't feel like going to every thread and responding so i hope all of you get all the atheists and non atheists in here to have our discussion. Questions about Christianity. Now go tell everybody.

Also, please do one question at a time.