Pushback

I suppose The Rational Response Squad targeted Christianity because it's the predominate religion in this country...

I DENY THE EXISTENCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, JESUS, GOD/ALLAH, BUDDHA, PURPLE UNICORNS, ZEUS, GHOSTS, BIGFOOT, CORPOREAL MONKEYBOTS, AND ALL OTHER CREATURES OF MYTHOLOGY......

Is that sufficient?

I also suppose the RRS is taking a stand because in this country people belonging to the predominate cult are actively trying to pass laws and push their beliefs on others...if they did not do so, I doubt any Atheists would care enough to challenge their irrational belief system. WE challenge it because it is affecting us in ways that we deem unacceptable.

Your suggestion that rationality is the height of human hubris I find pretty absurd. Reliance on science and reason instead of faith and superstition is what elevated humankind. It's what gave us the Enlightenment and probably almost all of our achievements since!

There may be limits to "our little minds" as you say, but that doesn't mean we need supernatural explanations to fill the voids.

You're close on the verge of falling victim to a relativistic fallacy here

While I appreciate your bringing the subject to light, your own hedging about the validity of reason reveals much of the state of the debate today. If you got really really sick would you want Jonas Salk on your side, or Pat Robertson?

Furthermore, the degree to which religion poisons the greater good look no further than the fighting going on in the Middle East. It isn't "sectarian" it's RELIGIOUS! Ever since there has been religion, there have been religious wars. If, within the article religions offered hope, it would be a different story. Instead all they really offer are elaborate excuses to hate. They do not sell hope, they sell hell.

It's just too bad there really is no hell because that's where all the bible thumpers belong!

The only good out of all of this, that the public is on the verge of such revulsion toward Bush and his twisting of science to meet his own political and religious purposes, it is going to be a very, very long time before the US suffers a religious president again. Thanks be to the gods!

When the missionaries went to Afghanistan or Iran(I believe Afghanistan-I might be wrong) a few years back knowing it was a capital offense to do so and yet they knowingly did it and bragged about when they returned after being released, I don't remember them being called militant Christians. Every day Christians are trying to convert people to their way of (non)thinking. The interview last night was biased and my guess is the interviewer didn't even realize his bias. In other countries there have been some excellent explorations of religion. There can be no debate at all in the US and it's sad. We pride ourselves on being the best and we lag the world in critical thinking and openness to other ideas.

The only balanced debate of these issues is on the internet
Check out http://beyondbelief2006.org/Watch/
(anything with Weinberg, Harris or Dawkins will be illuminating)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6169720917221820689
(The BBC series Root of All Evil? Why can we see channel after channel night after night bilkin sheeple and this can't make it on the air in this "enlightened" country.

or
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=atheism+%2B+jonathan
Another excellent series from the BBC Jonathan Miller's Rough History of Disbelief

What is getting people on the atheist side of the debate a little tired is that while we have zero influence on the direction of the country, people at the extreme end of the belevers have private meetings and influence policy makers at the highest level and practically own the GOP. This is without question not what the founders wanted nor for that matter what true conservatives would want (check Barry Goldwater).

Please do a better job of informing the people, it's really the only point of having a press.

I also wanted to point out that Buddha is not considered a God. He was a mortal man. It is not irrational to strive to be as honorable as another living person on the planet. But to make up ridiculous fairy tales and then kill each other over them IS irrational. There is no reason to attack Buddhism, Einstein himself once said that the only religion that could stand up to science would be Buddhism. The judeo-christian branch of religions are particularily harmful but certainly not the only harmful religions. We certainly see fault with the Muslim suicide bombers as well as the Jesus Campers (child abusers.) Faith is the destroyer of reason, and leads to much suffering and death. I can say that for me personally, I am an atheist because I care about peoples lives more than I do about fairy tales. I think killing is wrong, I think refusing to believe in the science that provides us so many wonderful life saving and enhancing products is also harmful. If we put an ounce of the faith we put in a so called god in ourselves we could do amazing things for humanity. I am also very disatisfied with the fact that religion is a tool commonly used to mislead so many naive people, particularily in politics. I have been to RRS website many times and can attest that it is definitely all irrational belief systems that they oppose, not just christianity.

RRS targeted Christianity because they target youths. So in response we target youths to show them that there is another side to the argument. It is completely unfair to only show one side of an argument, we are the other vantage point.

What can't be changed is that God will always have his people. This is His world and He will save those whom he calls. Some He saves through logic and some thru circumstances. The atheists are denying God because He doesn't exist, they deny Him because they are spiritually dead and don't have spiritual eyes to see. www.bethinking.org has some great stuff any athiest would love.

I trying to figure something out about your "faith matters" segment about the Athiests who are challenging people to blaspheme God.

Now since when did faith matter to the mainstream media?

The whole segment was skewed against the athiests. This is comming from someone who believes in God.

I understand why they (the athiests in your segment) do not believe in God.

The young lady said something about there being no hell. I agree and it isn't in the Bible. There is death on the other hand, which is if one where to study the Bible would find out that death is the literal hell. Seperation from God.

I have come to believe that "people of faith" are arrogant and ignorant. They are puritanical and purient at the same time. They will point 1 finger but have 3 pointing back at them.

For Terry Moran to try and frame the issue as somehow the athiest are doing harm to "people of faith", maybe the people of faith need to get a new and stronger God.

I can tell you this today, that those Athiests I see will gain eternal life before most "people of faith" will.

Why? because God is reason, and one of the first doctrines of the Christain faith is burning in hell and/or purgatory niether of which are taught by the Bible. So reason would lead someone to believe, that if God is reason, then God would be reasonable and not torture people in hell forever just because they rejected Him.

The Bible says God is love, so if that is a fact then he would not want anyone to miss out on eternal life and would not burn people in hell forever either.

The athiests were correct in thier reason, how they see it, Christianity and other religions are based on fear and superstition.

So I ask "people of faith", to reexamine thier faith and go back to the Bible, and would pray that the athiests who are correct on everything except thier being no God, would judge God's character based against themselves, instead of predjudicing themselves against Him based on what some of his so called followers say!

In Islam, Jesus is considered just a good man. There is no schizophrenic trinity. God is God, Jesus is Jesus. Two bodies cannot occupy the same space.
Hell in Islam is not neccessarily eternal. It is a place to do time. To account for your wrong-doing. You do time commensurate with your sins, and then you are released into paradise.
Islam also does not advocate the killing of innocent people. Muhammed said: He who saved one life saved all humanity. He who took one life killed all humanity.
It may surprize you that Islam is more rational and scientific than Christianity. Islam is very middle of the road. For example, a marriage is just a social contract, and can be broken of neccesssity. Islam is pro-life, but allows abortion in cases of rape, incest and threat to maternal life.

While people still have freedom of speech and choice of religion in this country, I'm not sure why the media has to only report on the non-believing side of faith. It's as if the non-believers are trying to make us believers question our faith. It is their choice to believe as they choose, their choice being detrimental to their afterlife; but it's not to late to set things straight with the Lord! And as far as the media is concerned, you should equally report on stories from those of us who DO believe in the Lord, those that would NEVER deny him. If you can spread the unfortunate word of atheists you can definitely spread the joyful word of Christians!

What a joke these people are. They claim there is no God yet they quote the Bible in order to deny the Holy Spirit (go to their blasphemy site).

That tells me they firstly believe God does exist in order to deny the Holy Spirit. If they are denying the Holy Spirit, then that is a form of acceptance of God's existence.

Also, they believe this will damn themselves to hell. If God does not exist, then they believe the devil does.

Some form of atheism, they have a complete belief system that makes them a religion.

Could these people actually be Christians bringing God to the forefront in a very different manner? They sure do seem to espouse religion.

My heart aches for Athiest's but one day every knee shall bow and every tounge confess that JESUS is the CHRIST. He was the only perfect being to ever live on this earth, because of that he was able to perform the Atonement for every soul that ever lives. He performed miracles and the world denies it. Everyone needs Faith in our Savior Jesus Chirst. What do athiest believe about life after death?

My parents took me to Sunday School and worship services every time the doors were open at their church for many years. At a certain point in my young life, I felt called into Christian ministry. I attended Baylor University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary as a ministerial student. During this time, I had many occassions to observe that much of organized religion did not make particularly good sense and that there was no small amount of hypocricy among the leadership. Actually, the goofy theology was more offputting than the practical atheism of the "Christians." Not wanting to be a hypocrite myself, I gradually slipped into a position of profound skepticism regarding all things religious while simultaneously trying to find some reason to hope for spiritual reality. This went on for 14 very long, painful years.

It was while Margie and I were living in a cute little log cabin in the Colorado Rockies that the sheer magnificence of nature in those mountains convinced me that there had to be a thinking, loving, personal Creator behind all of that superabundant, indescribable beauty. I also knew that my only hope of finding reliable information about Him was the Bible since everything else I looked into had proven to be low-level gibberish.

To my great surprise, when I began to understand the Bible without seeing it through the eyeglasses of organized religion, it began to make sense to my reason and also work wonderfully in my life.

I went on to be dismissed from an evangelical seminary for developing a rational biblical theology that totally contradicted their irrational, profoundly unbiblical theology. What I believed then and now made good sense biblically and in every other way. What they believed was and remains ludicrous twaddle, but they concluded, of course, that I was the heretic (or hairy tick, mountain variety if you will). Since then I remain a thoroughly convinced theist and an honestly biblical Christian but am not connected with apostate organized religion in any way, thank you God.

Well, the upshot of it all is that there really is a personal, living, loving God who created the universe, and the proof of that is found in several recent books concerned with Intelligent Design or ID. Dr. Gerald Schroeder has three Ph.d degrees from MIT and is brighter than all of us put together. He has written two excellent books demonstrating the reality of God as discovered by contemporary science. They are: (1) The Science of God, and (2) The Hidden Face of God: How Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth. I challenge all of you atheists, skeptics, and agnostics to read these books before you manage to accidentally commit the unpardonable sin out of sheer stupidity and stubborn bone headedness. You will not be dissapointed.

Also, we deny all other religions as well. We don't attack them because they don't attack us. Christianity forces itself upon people by using fear tactics. We want to show them that we are not afraid. It is there one counter-countermeasure and it doesn't effect us, and that is why they fear us, because we do not fear death as they do. We simply deal with it.

"It's easy to blaspheme the Christian God these days. If Brian "Sapient" and his fellow atheists on-line REALLY wanted to show their commitment to principle, would they be willing to take on other religions and their gods? Would they take on Buddhism? Islam? I doubt it would be anywhere near as popular an idea."

Certainly Terry Moran realizes that the monotheistic Abrahamic religions (in particular, Judaism, Christianity and Islam) share the same god?

And that there is no 'god' in Buddhism?

Touche!

a-theist = not a theist.

not "anarchist" as it is most frequently confused with.

What is the difference between being a mystic and being religious?

I think it is that a mystic can enjoy a question, but someone religious must ALWAYS have an answer. Such is the path to dogma.

Sometimes maybe there isn't an "answer". It takes an adult to accept that not everything is put here by somebody "just for us".

Some people feel a need for santa claus. Others, a few perhaps, recognise that all the goodness and caring and interpersonal sharing that makes us human doesn't die just because one day we can accept Santa Claus doesn't really exist.

What is the difference between a childs belief in Santa Claus and any human's need to believe that someone/something must have created it all?

oddly, the question rarely comes up: "Where did they come from?".

Accept it on faith we are so often told in answer. I recall my mom telling me that when I was about 5 and questioned her on christmas day.

Oh yes christmas trees. A pagan symbol of making it through midwinter. And wasn't that the original purpose of christ's Mass as well?

Too many need their religion. Good for them. When "they" decide to "save" those who are happy to enjoy unanswered questions without being in fear about it it crosses the line.

Didn't someone once suggest that the people needed opiates?

Not an anarchist here!

I find people, though certainly not dumb, to be deaf as well as vagrant in the other senses. This is nothing new and is wrapped up in the history of belief or the denial of it. All, are found wanting and this will go on till the end.

Still the Christians feel persecuted, even by your story on Nightline. "Why would anyone willingly be atheist? They are lying because they quote the Bible. If they quote the Bible they are secretly believers!"

It is precisely this patronizing attitude for which atheists stress our antipathy to Islam and Christianity most strongly. Christianity is the pre-dominant religion in this country and in most of western society, and so this is where we concentrate our objections. Were we to make public statements against Wicca or other pagan religions then the Christians would join us and say "Hear, hear!"

Finally, if I were to be convinced of the existence of the creator by the magnificence and beauty of the Rockies; then what can I say about God when confronted with a tidal wave that kills hundreds of thousands, about the ugliness of a red tide, about the remains from strip-mining in Western Kentucky or the flat plains of the Llano Estacado? Like Francis Collins being convinced of God by a waterfall, it is all well and good to believe in God in the face of beuaty, but what about being faced with ugliness?

The Blasphemy Project is how we say with full commitment that "This is all nonsense." And targeting teens is not new; after all how old are Catholics when they are Confirmed?

This is almost funny stuff, since it's hardly anything new or newsworthy.

So what was the deal - this RRS site wasn't generating enough traffic on its own? ABC had to be sure they got plenty of exposure? Nothing better to do? Just curious.

There's a global consensus regarding the existence of God. Some folks are just natural "deniers". :-)

"Militant atheists"? Funny, I didn't see any weapons in those videos. Why are the Christianists getting their chastity belts in a bunch over a few atheists harmlessly declaring their atheism?

Oh, and atheists can't really "spit in the face of god" since they don't BELIEVE IN A GOD!

IF THERE IS A GOD

If there is a God,

Not everything is permitted to man.

He is still his brother's keeper

And he is not permitted to sadden his brother,

By saying there is a God.

"If there is no God,

Not everything is permitted to man.

He is still his brother's keeper

And he is not permitted to sadden his brother,

By saying there is no God."

I'm saddened when people say there IS a God, especially when they decide to ballyhoo that fiction as though I don't exist (i.e., "In God We Trust"). The sadness is mine, though; and if others are saddened by far superior reasons against theistic belief, that, too, is their own problem.

The Milosz poem is an example of theistic bigotry. It masquerades as fair consideration of atheism ("If there is no God") but ignores the fact that declared belief in a God also saddens people. According the poem's conception of brotherhood, theism should also not be articulated.

I don't believe in atheism...

All kidding aside. I am a believer, and I am 100% sure that Jesus is coming back again. This is written in God's word. I believe in God and believe that he sent his son to conquer death and give life to all people. God is real. He has been in my life since I was born and has proved himself to me day after day. Everyone has the opportunity to choose him freely. I challenge anyone who is not a believer to ask God into thier life. You may be surprised in what you find. God is Love.

May God Bless all Atheists