Want this:

Own this:

Your suggestions on other thought (or possibly fight) provoking garb?

Another post I started reminded me of this so, we have these cures for disease, these ways to stave off death. What does "god" think about that? When someone dies and a religious person just says "it was his time". How bout when someone is cured, does that mean man has managed to intervene between god and his uh, judgement call? Does that then make man..god?

Science saves lives. Science cures disease. Science has extended our lifespans. Science fixes "god's" mistakes (conjoined twins etc.)

Prayer has been shown to do absolutely nothing, it's not even a good placebo effect.

Science has taken us to the moon. Science has given us air conditioning. Science has given us an automobile. Science has given us means to travel around the world quickly. Science has given us internet and so many things you could not list them all. Without science we would still live in hovels bowing and worshipping that which can't be seen.

Best of all science does not require daily worship, nor is it a lofty "jealous" god. You need not have faith in science, you can see it in action daily from the time you roll out of your bed that was manufactured by machines.

So what exactly has religion done for us and why?

Atheism is insanity, and theism is sanity.

Likewise, eliminative materialism (including naturalism and physicalism) is insanity, and eliminative (Platonic) idealism is sanity.

The ultimate difference between people is not whether they are theist (including religious and eliminative idealist) on the one hand, or atheist (and eliminative materialist) on the other. The ultimate difference between people is whether they are good or evil. There are good and evil theists, and there are good and evil atheists.

The purpose of human life (the meaning of life) is to choose between being good, and being evil.

Reality is composed of three levels, including the physical universe, Heaven, and Hell.

I was thinking earlier about what faith is, and the more I think about it the more a single explanation makes sense to me. Theists will no doubt find this definition unfair, but I believe I can justify it.

"Faith is the ability to believe ridiculous things for no good reason."

For example. If I were to say that an invisible blind werewolf named Ethel lived in the sky and watches over us, you would of course oppose this idea. You would say that such a being couldn't possibly exist. You would say that werewolves are simply ideas make up by humans and not to be taken seriously. You may even point out that Ethel cannot watch over us because he is blind. My reply would then be "I have faith that Ethel exists." You can see the sort of effect faith can have. If a person has faith, it doesn't matter how stupid the idea is, they can believe it.

Even a quick look at the bibles content shows that it explicitly and without question requires faith of believers. It doesn't just say that faith can help you, or that it is a good idea, but it requires it.

So this is my question to you theists. "How can something that not only encourages faith, but absolutely requires faith, be true?"

[MOD EDIT:  Double and triple posting is against forum rules.  I've deleted the other posting, and am working on the assumption that you accidentally hit send multiple times, or there was a glitch.  Please do not repost the same thing multiple times, especially when you're already guilty of violating the spirit of the ban on "cut and paste."]

It seems like we tend to debate from the religious perspective. The religious rarely come to our level to debate. They don't often point out anything from an atheists viewpoint, yet as an atheist I manage to point things out from their own.

I have never debated with one who could assume there was no god, it is always me having to disprove the myth from their perspective.

This is why I made that "opposite" post a while back. They have a hard time thinking like an atheist, whereas we have no real problem looking at things from their viewpoint.

 One thing I can't stand about certain Christians is their inability to own up to a certain belief, specifically the belief about what happens to non-Christians on judgment day or when they die.  I was raised in one of the very rare denominations that doesn't actually believe in hellfire (or even an immortal soul for that matter), but even then we believed some pretty nasty things would happen to nonbelievers (and even Christians in other denominations, who we called "false Christians" ).

But it seems like whenever I get involved in a conversation with a Christian who believes in hellfire, and I ask them if they think I'm going to hell because I don't believe in their God, very few of them actually say "yes."  They'll hem and haw, and say things like "well, It's not up to me, it's up to God." This, to me, is bullshit cowardice and proof that deep down, they know that their belief system is a house of cards.  They won't tell me that I'm going to hell because they KNOW how crazy it sounds, and they KNOW that I will lose respect for them if they say it.

Step One: 
Assert without evidence a rule about the physical universe. Present this rule as universal and unbreakable. Examples include, but are not limited to "everything in the universe requires a cause" or "everything that is complex requires a designer." 

Step Two: 
Assert without evidence a being or principle that is exempt from the universal, unbreakable law you posited in step one. Examples include "therefore, because everything has a cause, something must have caused it that had no cause" or "because everything complex requires a designer, things that aren't complex require a designer, too!"

Step Three: 
When the atheist points out the obvious flaw in your reasoning (by breaking your own unbreakable law your argument refutes itself), assume they just don't understand the depth and complexity of your argument. Find a new audience--church groups are a good place to start--to present your arguments to. Remember, you don't need facts, logic, or even to address the objections to your argument if you simply repeat it enough times to audiences who have already accepted your conclusion (and have a deep psychological need for it to be true) before you even began speaking.

i am not sure of the best forum, but hi.

in my opinion, the best argument for a personal God, ie theism as opposed to deism, is the moral argument. i don't maintain its demonstrative, but the better argument points to theism. because conscience seems like the voice of god, and because i feel confident that various counter arguments wont hold up, i think its better to say that god really does speak through concience, so that the mystery at the heart of the universe is personal.

anyone intereted in taking up this discussion?

dreems