You may be rights Gem but in a hundred years time the number will be greater - it is a little dull to call aetheists ignorant - if they were ignorant they would'nt be aetheists - that belief is made as an informed decisison.

Why do u feel the number will be greater threead/ Because as far as I can see with all these catastrophes -which show no sign of abeting nor have shown any since the beginning of the world itself- i would have thought more people would turn to God,something to believe in. Because thats what religion is all about, isn't it? People need something to believe in, to revive their hope. And without hope u have what? You may be surprised to hear this but the main question of whether there is or is not a god is actually quite immaterial. The point is, should people believe in something, and the answer to that s definitely positive

i agree with threead in that the amount of atheiest people is bound to increase. If we observe the middle ages, almost 100% of the population was religious. Human beings, since our begining, have been trying to explain natural phenomen. The greeks and romans did it by claiming that there were polytheist gods controlling every aspect of nature. After the Enlightenment, theories like heliocentricism and Newton's natural laws shaked the foundation of theology. Hence the development of deism and later, atheism. As science progresses, humans have less need for "fairy tales" to explain natural phenomen. More than 1/4 of the worlds population r offically athiest currently. Although this number is not completely accurate due the religious oppresion in former communist countries. It does show a dramatic decline in religion in the last mellineum. Scientific knowlegdge is sumthing that grows exponintially. So there is no doubt that as the amount of scientific knowledge grows, it will have a inverse relationship on religion.

I think preaching, whether Religious or Athiest, is a silly waste of time in which "Hey, I'm right and you're wrong" is what it all comes down to.
Nothing is that cut and dry. Not even my state that nothing is that cut and dry, isn't cut and dry.
It all comes down to, do you want to believe?
Threead, I like the color green. If you don't, you're wrong.
Cornbread, I like the smell of cantaloupes. If you don't, you're wrong.
How does that help anything? Where does that get us?
Draw your lines in the sand, but when it comes time who's gonna be right and who is gonna be wrong? WE HONESTLY CAN'T PROVE IT EITHER WAY.
By not accepting that someone else has a different viewpoint than us and that it is okay, we cut our noses off to spite our own face.
I hope, beyond hope, that one day the rift gets so big we ruin everything we have right now. That we get so absorbed in this never-ending debate that we wipe ourselves from the face of existance. Maybe then we'll learn our lesson..But what will it matter then if we're not around to act on it?
Look at it this way, Cornbread. Does your God want you to preach and persuade? Or would he rather someone worship him/her/it/they/we/she/he because we believe in our hearts?
Hey Threead, are you any better than a hellfire and brimstone preacher?
You're both wrong. You try to convince, charm, cajole, then turn to force, persecute, demand..
What, your voice isn't strong enough, threead..that you have to rally people up? You must not be happy to believe in the fact you don't believe. You need more people to shout about it. You want capital, you want power..Why? Because you're tired of the majority of society being religious and having control?
Why should the MINORITY control the majority? Maybe one day..(and most likely)..you will be in the majority, but until then..Stuff a sock in it.
Cornbread, same goes to you. Just because you have faith in a supreame being doesn't give you any right to preach to others. Shut up and worship on your own time.

One last thing for both sides of the scales: If a God does exist, how is it God's responsibility to babysit us? Athiests want to blame tragedy and accidents and "bad things" on the lack of a God. "Where was GOD when this bad thing happened to me?"..If that isn't a cop out attitude, nothing is.
Religious Believers also have the "You gotta have faith cause that's all we got"..That's about as unconvincing as Jacko's defense.

Be happy in what you believe in. If you're right, in the end, you will be proven so and with that comes whatever satisfaction you seek.
Stop being a malcontent. You'll only convince "intelligent" people that you're out to screw everything up for the rest of us.

-Have a nice day.

I like all the arguments for and against these ideas. All I have to say is scripture tells me to go and preach the word to all. Not just believers and not just non-believers. I feel as if God is telling me to do this. I don't care if anyone agrees or disagrees. This isn't an I'm right your wrong type of thing. It's I want everyone I meet to know of Jesus before I die. It's what is called discipleship. It's a great thing to be a part of. And, to be honest I think that in the end the world will be half and half. My only problem is that I don't know when the end is and I want to atleast know taht I'm standing my ground. By the way I like the smell of cantaloups.
All I have left to say for now is...
...Capt. over and out!

hmmm... i admire ur dedication to ur cause even if i dont believe in it.... although its that same dedication that forces me to publish under a pseudonym whenever i criticize religion just so im not harrasssed. (those southern baptists r PERSISTENT)

"Further I'm willing to wager that all atheists who hit their thumb with a hammer either cry out "Jesus Christ!" or "Goddammit!""

Hey now, hey now. I'm a practicing non-Christian - and I say such things too. Saying something like that doesn't imply a belief in the Judeo-Christian ethos - they have become common exclamations in the English language.

Maciavelli_inc.: "The greeks and romans did it by claiming that there were polytheist gods controlling every aspect of nature."

Perhaps you should also read up a bit on Roman and Greek sciences, since you're so keen on mentioning the increasing rate of the sciences. You might be surprised to discover that scientifically, technologically as well as intellectual, the level of civilization of the Romans surpassed anything else to be seen throughout Europe for centuries. In fact, many common-place things of Rome weren't to be seen in the world again until the 18th & 19th centuries.
(One of these things, people might be interested to note, was a reasonably accurate clock-work model of a heliocentric solar system from Greece.)

Let people do whatever the hell they want. Let us all point out each others hypocracies and instead of getting irrate lets look within ourselves and see if those things said are true. If they are lets not place blame on anyone or anything. Let us work to fix the things that our wrong with ourselves before we try and fix others. Freedom is the ability to live with your religious and/or moral rights intact without conversion. I have nothing against christians. I think as a whole they need to be accountable for their past before they will ever be able to move on. I am the only male in the family who is not a chaplain, pastor or minister. Perhaps if there were more and better examples I would be but that is not the point. If we are all right then we should accept and love people for who they are and just deal with like a mature race. And that should not be hard for religions that preach loving thy enemy all they need to do is follow their own doctrine.

" Scientific knowlegdge is sumthing that grows So there is no doubt that as the amount of scientific knowledge grows, it will have a inverse relationship on religion."

-Machiavelli_incorporated.

Although I respect your opinion I want to challenge the idea that science is somehow "doing away" with a belieft in God. I've got a friend that I went to high school with who hold a Phd in physics. Although he doesn't claim to be "religious", he showed me an article written by a collegue of his which suggests that there is some "Designer" behind creation.

Did it happen in 7 days or through a big bang. It doesn't matter. The fact of the matter is... even top scientists are saying the world didn't happen by chance. They may argue over exactly what the designer is... but are beginning to agree that there is indeed some sort of design.

well... i guess it all boils down to the fact that none of us can really prove it either way. I never realli attacked the idea of whether or not there is a creative design behind the universe. I attacked the way humans have insitutionalized this belief and used as an excuse for atrocities, scientific inhibitions, hypocrisy, etc.

Ya know, it never ceases to amaze me. Bring up God and all of a sudden people are ready to battle over it.
If you believe. Great. If you don't. Great. The fun thing about the whole thing is this....No one is 100% right.
You can have your theories, you can debate your point. But in the end, the only person we really have to answer to is that person staring back at you in the mirror. If you can live with that person. Fantastic. If you can't, you have no one or thing or being to blame, but you.

That's just my two bits.
Carry on.
Ali---The Misfit Chick

Exactly, MisfitChicks.

Hi it's me again. I just thought I'd keep this post growing by adding a religious person's opinion. No I am not going to try to preach to you all. That's not my job and I never should have tried to make it seem like it was. I am, nonetheless, going to say that for some strange reason I believe with most of you. We aren't 100% sure of which side of the argument is right. But, if you don't believe 100% in what you're saying is true than what's the point in having chosen a side? If you haven't chosen a side that's about like saying you'd rather let someone else choose what happens to you rather than yourself and I can't imagine letting that happen. If you can, well I guess that's ok with me, but I feel really sorry for you if you can't even decide.
Like I said before I don't want to preach to anyone because that's not what I'm here for. I'm here to do one thing in my life and since none of you believe in God I might as well just not mention it. I believe, unlike the usual beliefs you might or might not here, God didn't just create everything to be easy to explain. He know that humans would try to explain why things are how they are, but since he gave us the power to decide if we want to follow him or not then it should be just as easy for man to not believe in him as it would take for him TO believe in him. He gave us an option and so he gave us unexplainable events that have we will run into that will almost make us have to chose. For example: evolution...did man evolve from a single celled organism or was he put on the earth as he is today? There is no definite answer yet and I think that's what God meant to have happen.
If you need another example, how about blackholes? We know almost nothing about them. They defy laws of gravity and yet still some believe that they are created by implosions. Why not but I have another feeling. Maybe, just maybe God made them that way.
Everything can be explained through science now adays and God in my religious opinion made sure that it happened. Christians and other monotheistic religions basically just say,"Because God made it that way." And some times I can except it but not when it comes to scientific exploration. Sure, there could have been an explosion but why couldn't God have made the explosion? Why would the gases be there in the first place? Is time infinite forward and backward? Was there only a begin of life not time? Something has to explain it and I think it was god being the little chemical engineer he is.
I don't know if you guys understand what I'm saying but if not let me try to sumarize.
God made everything to be explained scientifically, whether it's right or not doesn't matter but there is something that links everything to everything in science so that you can make a desicion to believe or not or to not even know where to stand.
Am I the only one that forgot what the whole article was about? Go back. It's time for this argument to end so that someone can do what he origanlly set out to do when starting this article. If you want to keep arguing/discussing THIS topic why don't we just submit a new article and let this one go where it was intended to go in the first place. Sound good to you? Here I'll do the honors. I'll post an article titled Aethiests Of The World Unite Replies. Ok? If you don't want to reply on there then don't but that's what I'm going to do. I'll probably keep coming back to see what happens but for the most part I'm done here. Good-bye!
Capt. over and out!

I've never understood why some people feel the need to become evangelical over atheism. As somebody said on Adequacy.org: "As my young [atheist] friend refuses to accept the existence of demons, much less the idea that he is sparing my bottom from the prongs of their infernal tridents, I can only assume that his motive is to annoy."

just out of curiousity Cornbread do u interpret the bible litereally or figuratively?