So this is the first time i've blogged on here. First of all, I'd like to introduce myself. My name's Sam and I live in north Mississippi. I first came out as an athiest in the seventh grade as a result of influence from my family and the contradictory behavior I observed from my Christian classmates. I have never recieved more ridicule in my childhood than I did in the proceeding weeks after I first shared my non-belief with some teammates after football practice. It is noteworthy to establish that I didn't grow up in MS, but central Oklahoma, an area that seems like the secular center of the world in contrast with where I currently live.

I have (not unlike most southern athiests I would presume) lied to myself publicly. Proclaimed that I did believe in God and actually participated in prayer. This is not something I am proud of. I do, however, think it indicitave of the cultural reprecussions that come from being an athiest, especially in the south.

Needless to say I've had my fair share of religious debates. The three consistencies I have discovered with regards to the arguments Christians have presented me with is the use of speculation, psuedo logic, and the unwavering effects of self-deception. My most recent conversation stemmed from a comment I on an event bulletin one of my middle-school teammates had invited me to. The minister of the church hosting the event (a 24-year-old from Missouri) engaged me through a message. To summarize, he asserted that man's propensity for evil proved the existence of a higher power. I did not employ the argument made by Sam Harris in Letter to a Christian Nation(and in countless other books by various authors) that to have a creator, you must have had a creator for him, by the logic that there must be a creator. One of his main (and most fallible) points was an analogy of a yo-yo in contrast with a rocket launcher. He contended that, if used improperly, a rocket launcher could cause great destruction and a yo-yo could not. This is a poor argument for obvious reasons, but I'll let yall come up with your own retaliations.

It has taken me a while to find the necessary time to respond. I help publish a paper and I'm trying to get the hell out of community college so I'm stretched a little thin.

To be as unoffensive as possible, your logic reminds me a great deal of a yo-yo that is tangled so badly it's hard to know where to begin to unravel it. What you are saying about man's propensity for evil is quite true however your yo-yo-rocket launcher analogy is not applicable. To be very specific, wouldn't if be possible to, for instance, strangle a young child with a yo-yo string? You're going to say 'but a yo-yo wouldn't do that on its own'. Well technically neither would a rocket launcher. You'd have to press a button but if it shot a rocket and destroyed something, wouldn't it still be fufilling its purpose?

What I want to know is why you believe that it is impossible that we evolved from apes? Is it so terribly hard to believe that we developed intelligent, problem solving brains as a result of having grown less body hair and were forced to learn how to make fire?

My major problem with religious minded people is the arrogance by which they defend their faith. Have you taken courses in evolutionary science? Do you have a science-based degree? What of astro-physics? What do you think an astro-physicist would think of your yo-yo theory? I'm simply a humble journalist and, admittedly, am not well versed in evolution or astro physics. What I do know however is that they support their statements with evidence. You make your assertions based on mythology and psuedo-logic. What if you were born in say, Afganistan. Let's say you were a Sunni Muslim who was raised in a fundamental home. One day you turned 18 and your priest whom you've known your entire life told you it was your obligation to God to walk down the street with a bomb strapped to your chest and kill hundreds of innocents because they interpret a book differently than you do. "But I'm a Christian, we don't practice Jihad". Whoa whoa, I'm getting there. This person that told you this was probably formally trained. In fact, odds are he's got a college degree. He was sent to a Muslim seminary(I don't know the exact term) and to be candid, is not wrong about the teachings of the Koran and its philosophy of Jihad. My question to you is: What makes him wrong? He believes in God, you believe in God. There are just as many Muslims as there are Christians. The Koran and the Bible fly under the same flag of infallibility. There is no way to prove or disprove the existence of Jesus or Allah.

As far as the Bible being used as a historical reference, honestly I don't buy it. I'd really need to see where your evidence is for that claim but in an advanced response, what about the Bible's historical significance(yes it was written by men and therefore probably contains accuracies about the time in which it was written) proves that there is a God? Or that Jesus existed?

It's really hard for me to accept anything you say because it flies under the flag of religious self righteousness. But I'll try to find time to read whatever it is you recommend. I'm a broke college student so buying a book will be quite out of the question(I didn't have the money to buy a paper-back copy of "On the Road" last weekend, which really pissed me off) Here is what you should read: Go to truthdig.com and search for Sam Harris' 'An Athiest Manifesto'. Also samharris.org. and myspace.com/rationalresponsesquad. And I meant to say the Earth revolves around the sun, which is a theory, much like evolution.