Hey everyone – I’m new to this site.  Been viewing posts for a few days and thought I might as well join in the great discussions. 

First – I consider myself a theist.  However, I would say that I have more questions than answers.  (just thought I’d get that out of the way)

You say teaching Christianity to children is "child abuse" and "brainwashing" yet your BlasphemyChallenge.com website also states that it particularly wants to target the youth because the youth are the easiest to be indoctrined. Isn't that a bit hypocritical?

    I've often mused over this question: What would have to occur for you to change your beliefs?

    For example I'll go first, and I will give my answer to the question.

 Current belief: The Christian God exists.

What would it take to get me to change that belief?  

The following are what immediately comes to mind:

 1. Successful human cloning. By "successful" I mean essentially that a human clone would be indistinguishable in all aspects (physical, mental, emotional, psychological, etc...) next to a naturally bred human being.

 2. Undeniable evidence that aliens exists.  By "undeniable" I would have to qualify this as me either touching one and attempting to communicate with it, and/or the entire world concurring that aliens exist i.e. they invade our planet or something at that level. 

I know I've only come up with silly ones, but I really do believe that they would have the power, if manifested, to do what I claim they could.

I look forward to the antics and hopefully lighthearted discussion.   

My girlfriend and I have had off and on arguements about religion in general.  She does not follow a specific religion, she nitpicks certain things she feels are true about whatever pops in her head.  She believes Jesus existed and was ressurected but also believes in Karma and energy guiding everythings purpose.  As soon as I start to critique what she says, and ask for some sort of evidence or definition, it quickly turns into the "you do not respect my beliefs" nonsense, as if her imagination and the things it creates have some form of universal respect granted to it.  It gets rather heated at times, and I am afraid it is putting my relationship with her in jeopardy, because we both lose our temper and result to getting mean and walking away.

I have been searching the forums and google for articles/essays in regards to the absurdity of respecting religious beliefs, and have come up with nothing solid.  I thought I had seen a thread on these forums a couple months back that had some very nice posts about this.  Can anyone point me in the right direction?  I would like to print something out that she can sit down and read, and hopefully realize that she can believe whatever she wants but it does not warrant respect.  I have tried to get her to read specific chapters in various books, but refuses.  She's read a couple articles I've had laying around and has found them interesting, so I am hoping I can get her to read something small.

On a Catholic forum I have been debating on, they just won't quit with the idea that Atheism means a positive claim that there are no gods.  What do  you think of their argument:

Phooney:They are related in their common usage, it is true. However, even your dictionary hints at their meanings in wider applications.

As _A_ has already pointed out, Atheist merely means without belief in a god, due to the "A" in front of "theist", which negates the "theist" part of the word.

You'll notice that Agnostic also has an "A" in front of it, this time negating "Gnostic", which is derived from some old word(s) regarding knowledge.

Here's what this means for all of us today:

Agnostic Atheist: "I have no knowledge of a God, and I don't believe in a God"
Gnostic Atheist: "I know there is no God"
Agnostic Theist: "I have no knowledge of a God, but I believe in a God anyway"
Gnostic Theist: "I know there is a God"

So, just recapping "atheism" and "theism" are 2 different ranges on a scale of belief, "agnosticism" and "gnosticism" are two different ranges on a scale of knowledge.

Hastrman:Wrong.

I stongly approve of the RRS and what it does

 I live in the UK and the problem of religion isn't as big here, but even 1% of a population being theists is far too much in my oppinion. What can we, as average joes do to help in our daily life?

Hey Atheists, theists and other people of isms...

I have a story to tell. It's quite long, about 5,000 words, and it's about a guy called Tommy Gunn (Yes, named after the real star of Rocky 5...I'm not sure why, maybe cos i always saw that film as a theist(Rocky) Vs an Atheist (Tommy Gunn) made by a theist for an audience of theists. Discuss) who runs with an (actively) active group of atheists who use liquids and needles to inject a whole load of atheism into theists. But something's not quite right with Mr. Gunn...as u will see...

Basically, I want your feedback, good and bad...esp. the bottles and what you would put in them, or perhaps your own ideas on how the whole deprogramming process should be done. Also, i'm not sure about Mr. Puncher...

Anyway, here it is...enjoy, skim, endure, burn, whatever...

Hey Jesus People:
Neither Jesus nor any of the "saints" condemned slavery. 
What authority, then, gave xian abolitionists back in the day the right to declare it unjust?

This is just a little thinking (the only type of which I'm capable) I've been doing about the first cause argument lately. I realize that many objections to this argument exist, but I thought I would look at it from a different perspective, or at least one that is different from any way I have seen the argument approached before.

In the first cause argument, theists often argue that in order for anything to exist there must be a first cause, or a cause from which all other cause and effect relationships stem. If there were not a first cause then there would either be nothing or we would be left with an infinite regression of cause and effect relationships which could never be traversed, from the infinite past to the moment of the universes coming into existence, in order to bring about our present state of the universe existing. Not arguing against the idea that everything necessarilly must be caused, or relying on multi-verse theories, or even pointing out that requiring any particular possible first cause is the actual first cause is special pleading, I have another problem with this line of thinking.

I haven't poked the bear in a while so here's one.

Seems to me that a meme is not a real "thing". In the spirit of materialism (a little irony - spirit? materialism? Get it?), just what is a meme? The damn things don't really exist. They are more like Platonic forms than a real objects. The whole concept of a meme is an invention that is nothing more than an attempt to shoe horn evolutionary theory into the realm of abstract ideas. Seems more like pseudo-science to me.