Lula, I am no more interested in your Idea of an atheist ... than you are of mine concerning theists ... grow up.

Now … does anyone want to actually demonstrate their professed knowledge and tell us who are waiting with baited breath … what is the “Religion of Atheism”? I for one just cannot wait for this jewel.

If you were at all interested in atheism … you would simply ask. You are out to lunch when you start out a communication by telling the communicator what they really are and what their real intentions are. I still find this amazing if quite foolish. All it took was for me to tell you I was an atheist … and magically … from that point on you had my complete life story laid out for me including my desires and intentions, hahaha. But did any of it come from me besides my free admission … hardly … it came from all the hate literature you love to read and devour … hook, line and sinker. Are you so lipless and thoughtless that the bible is your only support mechanism and defense? Has your mind really succumbed from the real world … to that extent? Lula, I have no use for the RCC at all ... period, not one word ... but it would seem that it is in fact all you know or care about. All you bring here is hate and bigotry as only a Catholic can! You are the only ones who need a god and now I know why.

The term 'militant atheists' needs to be redefined in terms I can at least tolerate ... don't you think. All this nonsense is just about giving you someone or something to hurl your curses at. I didn't realize that was actually an explanation of anything but your bias, sorry. OK ... since you insist (what a fool I am @$%##) ... Maybe we should discuss 'militant theists' ... just to be fair, hahaha.

AN ATHEIST: A PERSON WHO DOES NOT BELIEVE IN A GOD OR GODS ... END OF STORY ... the end of the religion of atheism ... and end of the line. Don’t even begin to tell me I haven’t repeated this several times already.

What comes after atheism is decided (it’s only a decision for sure) … is the only thing left, silly girl ... religion free secularism or what you seem to call militant atheistic (whatever). Now the only way my personally wanting to live a free life can possibly be conceived as some militancy towards you or the RCC is because that is the way you guys want it. You guys are trying to break into the PSS through back channels and via dirty politics where you (and you alone) desire to pollute reason and discredit science. You are the ones trying to rewrite the history of the universe and everything in it. You are the ones who have condemned all of mankind for the mere audacity of not believing your BS to within a gnat’s ass as ordered. Yours is the party of hate … as in everything un-Catholic … the choice was always yours to make, so get a grip and suck it up.

Concern #1: The RCC has been pushing people around for thousands of years ... I hope they whip you bigoted church at every turn, sorry but paybacks are just plain hell on earth.

Concern #2: You have to talk about ‘the modern atheist’ because there are no old ones, hahaha. The term wasn’t even used until the 18th centure, go figure. Are people just supposed to stop being and acting like people because they don’t believe whatever you do? Have nothing to do with society … to become hermits on the hide, hahaha. Or do you think it more likely they will just get on with their now merry lives. The rest is just mumbo-jumbo.

Concern #3: You are just plain crazy on this one. All I will say here is … bye-bye RCC, RIP. The intelligence party is continuing and you are not invited.

Then you'd be a biggot like they are. It all comes back to that chart again...

Its not which side of the theist line you fall on that matters, its the "gnostic" (or to be more accurate to replace it with dogmatic) side that seems to determine when man will do terrible things to his fellow man. Everyone's faith (or lack of) has had morally repulsive things done in the name of it, thus ideology does not matter. Its only when people begin to get dogmatic enough that they think that their ideology justifies them to impose that ideology on others when conflict and problems arise.

Thank you!  May I have another?  Right on time.

These troll cookies are tasty!

@Goa--that's exactly the point.  It doesn't matter if it's theist, athiest or religious--human beings do human things.  Nobody owns the whole business.  They all fail.

Corrupt popes were bad people.  Communist and fascist dictators were too.  Power--and the lust for it--is the problem.

That's why you need a free, plural society that is mutually consenting to being tolerant.  I've never asked or suggested that any atheist or non-Christian ever have their rights taken away or for their freedom to be restricted.

People often assert that Atheism is a religion, which of course it isn't. Saying that atheism is a religion is rather like saying 'not' collecting stamps is a 'hobby'. Atheists are often associated with scientific thinking and Critical thinking, while religions demand belief without supporting empirical evidence. Scientists have shown how scientific thinking leads to atheism but besides brainwashing, they are clueless as to what leads one to theism.

You missed the point of my post completely. That point was that ideology is completely irrelevant. If at any point you impose a belief (especially ones that have no worldly influence) on someone else, you've crossed a line.

I've heard this argument plenty of times, and I won't say it doesn't have relevance in a few particular cases. But I think this is highly misleading of most atheists. You after all believe that humanity and the material worlds exists, atheists simply do not believe in anything else. But that does not mean they automatically think that humanity or the material world is any more important than you do.

Unfortunately you just proved Hitchen's to be correct by stating "within the limits of Divine Law". That is exactly what he is talking about. The concept of "Divine Law" takes away certain freedoms from the individual.

@Boobz...I'm pretty stunned actually.  You go an a rampage that all people religious are total asses, your partner comes on with an occasional cynical smartass put down--and I'm a troll?

This thread wasn't, "Listen to atheists rant about how bad Christians suck."

You make off-hand comments with your facts wrong, misspeak yourself and make broad statements out of resentment and if you don't get an affirmative  reply, "it's trolling".

Trolling is more like when you weren't in the conversation to start and then jump in to make a sardonic and personally insulting comment to "get your score up".

Go back and read everything you have posted, insert "atheist" where it says "religious", "Christian" or "RCC" and tell me how you would respond.  Simply getting contradicted or confronted with an angle you don't want to examine gets you in a tiff.  I don't think you could handle the reversed position at all.

It's plain and simple--you're here to rant.

I think you guys have an issue with associative thinking.

I'm not calling Hitchens Mao or Mao Hitchens or anything else.  I'm pointing out that every person who thought they could bring about an "age of enlightenment" by creating an organization to rise up to empower it brought instead the opposite--no matter how well intended they were.

There's an inherent problem with the approach of making people think like you and believing that your ideas are so correct that you're entitled to.

Atheists aren't going to save the world by superior thinking.  Many are following the exact same sort of thinking of some of the examples I gave--just dressed in a different philosophy.

So far what I primarily get from you guys is, "Once stupid people like you religious nutjobs are removed, smart people like us can make the world right.".

There's quite a bit of hubris there.

Without darkness there can be no light. Sight works by contrast, pick whatever color you wish, if that is all you see you can make out nothing. Opinions are the same way. Everyone has an opinion, beliefs; but the type does not really matter. If you cannot even let yourself see why others believe as they do, then you truly see nothing at all. Just the blinding light of your own beliefs. And even once the universe ends if your beliefs turn out to be right, you still have nothing to be proud of. If you're of the believers, then you failed the test of your existence. And if you're not, you failed to see anything during the one glimpse of the universe given to you by astronomical chance.

I do not believe in god, but I know that faith and perhaps even religion of itself is no threat. It is dogmatism, the self inflicted blindness to the ways of thinking of fellow human beings, that is threatening. Its practitioners cannot even see grey, let alone color. If peace on Earth is truly desired by people of all faiths and lack there of, we must stop caring about the faith of others, and instead about the excessive strength of our fellow believers convictions. Then... maybe... we may have a chance.