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First off, please point to three countries in the last 1000 years conquered by a Christian country whose population was forced at sword (or gun) point to convert to Christianity from Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc... There are dozens if not hundreds of examples in Islam.

Second off, the ten commandments were given to the Jews, not to the entire world, and mainstream Christianity has held since the beginning 1986 years ago that choosing to follow Christ was a personal decision that could not be forced. While Judaic laws regarding interpersonal activities (murder, theft, adultery, etc.) have been codified into laws that virtually no one disputes as just,the commandments between man and God and those that involve the heart and mind internally have been relegated by Christ to the personal relationship between the individual and Christ (loving God, Coveting possessions, coveting married people, etc.) This has been true since the beginning of Christianity and has always been true of mainstream Christianity that stays true to the Bible. This is why when the Christian founding fathers of the USA (100% of whom were Christians, based on actual, historical fact) http://www.adherents.com/gov/F... they put into the framework of the country both the freedom to practice any religion and prevented the government from sponsoring any specific religion (though their explicit intent was never to take God out of the public square, that is a 20th century perversion by the atheists.). Your statement is either ignorant or intentionally disingenuous.

Thirdly, the witch hunts seem to indeed be a tragic mistake based on the likely slanted history we have been fed by modern scholars (I wasn't actually there, all we can do is look back hundreds of years and try to judge the activity.) Witches, mediums and demons are in fact very real (if you haven't experienced the real deal, count yourself lucky) and there is good reason that witchcraft and speaking to the dead are death penalty activities in Judaic law. However, I took your term "fanatic" in error; a better, and more accurate term would have been "perfectly practiced Christianity." If the people during the witch trials had been perfectly practicing Christianity, the accused would not have been practicing witchcraft (if they indeed had been) and the witness would not have borne false witness on the witness stand, therefore nothing bad would have happened. The truth of the witch trials seems to be that a few women did engage in witchcraft, were caught and executed for it, but then, much like the #metoo people started evilly using it to extract revenge against people they didn't like, which necessarily involved bearing false witness against the innocent, and the whole thing got badly out of hand. The witch trials had nothing to do with Christianity, they had to do with evil human nature and abuse of a serious law on the books at that time. Oh and before you bring it up, all the medieval tests for witches were based on druidic and Celtic paganism, not the Biblical evidence of an eyewitness required in the Old Testament.

SJW mods, please note: disagreeing with my comments does not make the facts overrated or flamebait, and I am certainly not a troll. Feel free to scream into a pillow instead if you need to let off steam, but don't break the Slashdot mod system simply because you disagree with someone. You claim to be tolerant, live it.

Laws were based on the 10 commandments (it was illegal to murder, steal, commit adultery, tell a lie under oath, etc.) http://www.bibleinfo.com/en/to... While there were other contemporary and historical countries like England with similar laws, they still originate from the 10 commandments. And no Hamurabi's law is not the same thing (and it is actually unlikely that it was first, if you actually want to look at the facts rather than pointed headed professors pet theories aka wild ass guesses).

Here is a list of the founding fathers and their religious affiliations. http://www.adherents.com/gov/F... Notice that there are no Muslims, Atheists, Hindus, Buddhists etc. on that list. The men who wrote the constitution had at their core Judeo-Christian principles and those came through in the constitution. They appeal to God as the source of every person's basic rights in the Declaration of Independence for crying out loud. Everything was centered around ensuring people could live freely and practice Christianity which is why the first Amendment is about freedom of religion and speech. (Note that it is freedom of religion, not freedom from religion or separation of church and state, which does not exist in the constitution at all, the establishment clause only precludes the state from enforcing one religion on the populous).

Regardless of the revisionist BS history lies masquerading as "theories" that have been spread by the progressives as "facts", the truth is there if you are interested in looking, but you must be willing to listen instead of trying to drown out truth and reason with the sound of your own voice.

There are 2.1 billion Christians worldwide, as opposed to 1.5 billion Muslims.

The Pew source is linked upthread; Wikipedia and adherents.com say pretty much the same. 54 is (roughly) the percentage of the world’s population that claims adherence to an Abrahamic religion. You’re the one who pulled the 2/3rds figure from somewhere.

Even if the OT were irrelevant to only 1/3rd of the world, is that supposed to be significantly better? And you appear to have a wild hair about atheism, but I wasn’t complaining that he used a religious text, rather calling out his ignorant statement as to its universality.

http://www.adherents.com/images/rel_pie.gif

That 33% total for Christianity is achieved by lumping several disparate religions together. It's a stretch to group Christians, Catholics, Mormon, Jehovahs Witness, Quakers, etc and call them the same religion. It's also relevant to note that they all use slightly different versions and interpretations of the Bible, which was my original point that the Bible has been changed and altered through the years.

It's currently a majority but the total is actually about 55% to 56%.

http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html
Nice pie chart here.

1.Christianity: 2.1 billion

2.Islam: 1.5 billion

3.Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion

4.Hinduism: 900 million

5.Chinese traditional religion: 394 million

6.Buddhism: 376 million

7.primal-indigenous: 300 million

8.African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million

9.Sikhism: 23 million

10.Juche: 19 million

11.Spiritism: 15 million

12.Judaism: 14 million

13.Baha'i: 7 million

14.Jainism: 4.2 million

15.Shinto: 4 million

16.Cao Dai: 4 million

17.Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million

18.Tenrikyo: 2 million

19.Neo-Paganism: 1 million

20.Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand

21.Rastafarianism: 600 thousand

22.Scientology: 500 thousand

There are probably many more peaceful/tolerant muslims in the world than there are Christians, but it's the "Fred Phelp's" groups that get all the attention, not the Lutherans down the block.

Not likely, as there are more Christians than Muslims, and at least a large portion of the Muslims are not particularly tolerant. Of course, many of the muslims in the west are those who can't stand this religious oppression.

Blood is nutricious

And promiscuous sex can be fun. But that doesn't mean it can't spread diseases transmitted through blood. Nor does it mean that the holy text of two billion Christians doesn't forbid it: "[Continue] to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things." (Acts 15:29, NIV)

So, how many followers does a religion need before it's okay to join them? And what about the people who joined before it reached that tipping point? Were they doing something wrong before, but it retroactively became okay afterwards?

I think the term you are looking for is 'Socially acceptable', not wrong/okay.

This site has rankings for various religions which is a little out of date, but probably not terribly far off. The two at the very bottom, Rastafarianism and Scientology are tentatively 'Socially acceptable' depending on your location, but on average are probably at least tolerated. Rastafarianism more-so than Scientology, mostly because of the age of the religion. So 600 million and 500 million compared to an estimated 5.8 Billion people (in 1997) comes out to 10.3% and 8.6%. I seem to recall there being a post on /. a time back about 7% being the magic number for acceptance of a religion. A little searching tells me my memory sucks and it was about the spread of ideas (close to religion) and the number was in fact 10% (read for yourself.)

So, given what I perceive personally to be the social acceptability of those two religions currently, 10% seems about right. Rastafarians aren't particularly shunned, but don't seem to be gaining much "market share", while Scientologists are currently generally regarded as loons.

Why do you say a blatant politically motivated lie "fits well"? Khrushchev made that up as part of his campaign to enforce state atheism; Gagarin and his family were Russian Orthodox. Many of the people involved in space exploration have been deeply religious; many have felt that their experience has deepened their appreciation for God's creation and that their relation to the Creator was a driving force in their quest for scientific discovery.

Two quotations from Werner von Braun, a Lutheran without whom we probably never would have put a man on the moon:

Science and religion are not antagonists. On the contrary, they are sisters. While science tries to learn more about the creation, religion tries to better understand the Creator. While through science man tries to harness the forces of nature around him, through religion he tries to harness the force of nature within him.

My experiences with science led me to God. They challenge science to prove the existence of God. But must we really light a candle to see the sun?

For more about Von Braun's faith see here.

One of the main people responsible for the Shuttle program was Dr. James C. Fletcher, NASA administrator for 9 years, who was a faithful Mormon.

Atheists who fancy themselves armchair rocket scientists may not like it, but the space program has not only always been wrapped up in this "sentimental nonsense" - it would never have been possible without it. The men who had the vision to lead America to space were men of faith. In today's world, where militant and brash atheism is on the increase and where "spirituality" and saying "Lord, Lord" (cf Matt 7:21) have displaced real devotion and discipleship among many who claim to be religious, this nation no longer has the vision and the willpower to continue to blaze that trail.

There's no reason the robots would need to operate as individual units, they could very well be centrally controlled by one computer system. It doesn't even need to be an "AI" in the classic way of thinking about it.

Welcome to Diaspar!

Not only such a centrally controlled system may tell you when to live and when to die, it also presents a great target for any individual who would like to take control and become the new boss.

And if that leads to Terminator style shenanigans.... I don't see it as a necessary thing.

It is much more likely that a human, not a robot, will one day have the will and the capability to destroy the humanity.

Basically, I disagree that capitalism is a necessary and natural state in a post-scarcity society.

That's OK - we are discussing possibilities here, not preaching. Simply describe how such a society would come around and function, and why it will be stable.

Scenarios that involve the worst of the human nature are the easiest; that's why such scenarios are most likely. People who argue communism need to show why such a society will be stable without massive brainwashing over radio waves. As I pointed out earlier, people readily regress to animals if given half a chance.

You can have a preview of the society of wealth in ghettos of US cities; residents of those ghettos live on welfare, don't need to work, and have enough to eat and multiply. The difference between their lot and that future society is minimal. So what do they do? Do they create paintings to impress their neighbors (and have a passing dragon eat them?) Do they create songs that elves would be envy of? What do they do? Hmm, they seem to be killing each other. Wonder why is that. Perhaps lack of work is not very good for the mind? Can even the homo sapiens exist without working? The theme of such a decay in a society of wealth is well researched in science fiction.

why would we A. be the only ones given his word and B. the only ones given the ability to comprehend it?

Because WE ARE THE CHOSEN FEW, GOD Loves US MORE Than YOU.

As claimed by *each and every* religion that worships *one deity*.

And given that http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html lists 22 religions (of which at lest one of them is "other mystery thingys" I'd say pretty much definitively they cannot possibly all be right.

Peace, tolerance, acceptance, equality, taking good care of your family, critical thought, responsibility.

but

I'm not defending organized religions here. I'm very much against them. Hierarchical organizations are very easy to corrupt. Corrupt the top (which is easy to corrupt, because there's power there), and you've got the rest too

and according to this 2007 graph thats 51% of the population (only including Christians and Islams which I know are hierarchical though some of the other 32% probably have some sort of hierarchy as well) even if we cut that figure in half that's a quarter of the population that are members of a corrupt religion. That's over a billion people and we both no I am low balling here.

Scary people. Don't think for a moment that they represent any meaningful part of mainstream christianity. I completely fail to see how anyone could believe themselves to be christian and do what they do.

Yet it happens all the time justifying killing so its ok with your religion whether its fighting in a war (any war) or being a suicide bomber. Thou shall not kill (unless you join the army then its fine)

That a war is fought in the name of religion doesn't mean that that's what it's really about. Iraq was invaded in the name of WMDs, but nobody outside the US believed that one for a minute.

Your right people outside the US know its a religious war or a war for oil and since gas prices here are still over $2.50 a gallon guess which one is more likely of the two.

Not all. But most. There fix that for you. Though religion has bought some good to the world it has brought much more harm than good. Religion was needed hundred and thousands of years ago to help explain what we couldn't understand and to bring people together to help one another but that time has past and civilization is far enough a long that religion has become a hindrance and is now holding us back from moving forward be it socially or scientifically.

I'm going to have to call 'citation needed' on you there. Einstein was quite clearly a believer in God. Many others have some sort of spiritual belief outside the realm of science. It's not uncommon for a physicist to accept on faith that there is some great intelligence out there and that through physics they may better understand it. I've heard that from mathematicians as well.

They may simply be far less likely to talk about it openly to avoid a bias against anyone in the academic world that professes a religious belief.

Naturally they're not going to bring up religion or faith where it doesn't belong, such as in a scientific paper.

There's a nice list of Nobel Laureates and other influential scientists who are known to have been religious. I'm sure you'll recognize a few.

You ask me How I expect you to refer to people that belive in something other than what your entenched mind believes - How about by keeping your derogatory opinion to yourself.

How many "delusional" people are there who believe in a "God" - Estimated 2.1 BILLION.

How many people who belive as you, less than 150 million (atheist / agnostics). If your just undecided then I will be generous and say less than 750 million (Source 1: http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html) (Source 2: http://www.religioustolerance.org/worldrel.htm)

So if you do not believe in God or aliens, it is your right but I will point out two things about the scientific credo - 1) all beliefs must be supported by observational evidence, and 2) beliefs that contradict observational evidence cannot be tolerated. So, even though observational evidence indicates that the universe itself has a cause that cannot be detected observationally - the lack of observational evidence for a naturalistic cause for the universe contradicts the tenet that all beliefs should be based upon observational evidence. Thats why I say crap shoot.

If you do not see science as an antonym of religion and see science as science then your in a bit of a bind with your own beliefs.

Now I have cited some more of my sources and yet you havent cited a single one to support your own belief. We may agree to disagree but I find the fact I get modded down and my karma suffers because I do not always follow the mainstream again deplorable. If you do not want to be called out then do not make a statement you can not back - I have now backed my statements. If you choose not to respond then I will just assume you are a coward who spouts off at the mouth and should be discarded as a crackpot as you so eloquently have labeled me.

Lastly, I believe that based on the article itself Churchhill again did what he thought was right at the time based on how the world viewed things at that time. I do not say aliens do not exist but I can not say that they do either. I guess I will have to take it on "faith" that they may since their is circumstantial evidence linking to that supposed existense.

Now if I have made myself clear, please feel free to respond in kind and if you want more sources I will be happy to provide them.

Oh, I forgot to correct your other mistakes.

Woodrow Wilson *was* a Christian, specifically a Presbyterian. The KKK is founded on their own twisted ideas about Christianity, and is a de facto Christian only organization. Specifically, the group supports Protestant Christianity. Even the "burning cross" they have so tenderly affixed to the front yards of many innocent blacks, is a Christian symbol. They hate jews, atheists, blacks, Catholics and everyone that doesn't accept Jesus as their savior. If you aren't a Christian, you can not be a member. Period.

I already corrected your mistake about Manifest Destiny in another post.

Brother... I find almost everything you said VERY disturbing. You literally are saying "give up, give everything away, let people walk over you and SMILE while they are doing it!". Time for a reality check. The world is not full of God fearing people... hell most people don't even believe in your god.

See: http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups

Let me be very clear. I will not tolerate history being taught with any bearing on religion. Sure, talk about the facts, how religion was rarely used to promote good as history records but used to exploit the stupid and put the fear of god into the poor so they didn't usurp their masters/leaders. I'm much more comfortable talking about facts of history not bringing into account "facts" from a book that there are over 10,000 versions (here's just the accepted english versions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_English_Bible_translations) written by monks who were listening to some guy who claimed to know the word of a being NOONE has ever seen only "HEARD" in 2000 years.

I'm sorry but I don't want my kids hearing this kind of dribble. If you want your kids to hear it fine... do it in religious studies or sunday school but keep it away from HISTORY. No TRUE historian can every say "God said..." he can say "Supposedly Peter said that god said.... ". That's how history and science works. They have to be provable facts and if not you have to use the words "supposedly".

Sweden is definitely not mostly Christian. In fact, Sweden is the most non-religious country in the world.

Why bother with anal-extraction when you've got google? Here are some much more recent stats: http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_atheist.html It even includes your 1991 study - why did Slovenia and Russia escape your attention?

Catholicism != Christianity for all instances of Christianity. (There may very well be other branches of Christianity that embrace transubstantiation as well, but Catholicism is the only one I know of, off the top of my head.)

The Catholics appear to outnumber the rest, though.

http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations_by_number_of_members

See discussion on their numbers at adherents.com, a site whose main purpose is to track # of adherents to specific religions world wide, where they discuss why scientology isn't on their default charts. The discussion mentions "8 million", which at the time was the number often found in the media, that number is now apparently often 12 million. But the source of this number is the Church of Scientology itself. From this analysis, they conclude the # of Scientologists claimed by the CoS is "the total number of people who have participated in Church of Scientology activities since the inception of the church."

But so many atheists here are blaming Religion.

Arguing in the Internet is all atheists have.

Which is perhaps why it's not surprising that they are a tiny minority in the world. 92% of the world is non-atheistic.

I just happened to come across a small pic of the FSM yesterday and while reading up on that, love the idea/movement/et all, wondered what the breakdown of belief was in the world.

The best I could come up with on the interwebs was: http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html

By those numbers alone Ireland is going to be putting a serious hurting on their tourism. And it's not like they have oil like the other countries that have such draconian laws.

Definitely true:

http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html

So "Nonreligious" is the 3rd largest group. Hindu come in as 4th and then it drops off from there. If Judaism is a major religion, then so is sikhism. Even Chineese traditional and Buddhism each on their own blow the jews out of the water in terms of numbers.

Unless they start finding a few more lost tribes, I think the jews are pretty far out of the running for major world religions.

Though I have to wonder how that pie chart looks when you break it down by denomination. There sure are a lot of catholics but... its quite an odd list that lumps catholics, baptists, seventh day adventists, and mormons onto the same list. Ditto for Suni and Shia.

Of course, comming back to the discussion, I know plenty of jews who have seen the light and eat pork of all kinds.

-Steve

Microsoft employs around 40,000 in and around Redmond.

Mormons represent about 3% of the state's population.

The largest concentration would appear to be in Grant County, a three hour drive east on the I-90. Largest Latter-day Saint Communities

Looks pleasentltly rural and small town, a nice place to go fishing.

"Trimming the fat" is on everyone's mind right now.

I don't think there is any great mystery why a campus bar would seem a little out of place in an environment in which even the strongest of companies are laying people off.

It sucks for the people who own and work at the pub, but in a silently ultra-religious state like WA, it's no surprise that on of the largest local employers bows to the commands of the puppet masters.

Yeah right, puppet masters? What kind of conspiracy are you trying to push around here? A quick search around the net shows only about 3% of Washingtonians are Mormons. You really think the Mormons can push Microsoft around? I'd like to see some real evidence of that. For what it's worth (probably not much) you can be alcohol in gas stations and grocery stores even in Utah.

No, this is another case of someone getting screwed out of a partnership with Microsoft. They weren't the first, they won't be the last. If you go into a partnership in any way with Microsoft, make sure you have the contract nailed down, and nothing is left to trust. Because if they can get an extra dollar from screwing you over, they will. You may say this is flamebait, but it is true: there is a long list of companies who have gone down because of underestimating the dangers of doing business with Microsoft.

Well, OK, so not everyone in the stats is a "true Mormon", whatever that is. Not everyone counted as Baptist is a "true Baptist" either...

But anyway, if you look at self-reported "Mormons" from surveys not related to the church, Utah has 1.2 million or so - so worst case number inflation is on the order of 20%... that is actually pretty good, for a church with no official procedures for leaving it. (You can ask for your name to be stricken from the records, but I mean really, who is up-tight enough to do that. Besides you, I mean ;} )

Odd how Catholicism is the largest Christian denomination in the states: http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#families

U.S. Self-identifying:

• GLB: Not 10%, more like 2%. Twice as many gays as lesbians. Self-promoting, media myth.[2]
• Jews: ~2%
• Mormons: ~2%
• Episcopalian/Anglican: ~2% [1]

[1] http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#religions

[2] "The most widely accepted study of sexual practices in the United States is the National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS). The NHSLS found that 2.8 percent of the male, and 1.4 percent of the female, population identify themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. See Laumann, et al., The Social Organization of Sex: Sexual Practices in the United States (1994). This amounts to nearly 4 million openly gay men and 2 million women who identify as lesbian.[8]" http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/478685.html

Homosexual Groups Back Off From "10 Percent" Myth A coalition of leading pro-homosexual activist groups has now admitted in a legal brief that only "2.8 percent of the male, and 1.4 percent of the female, population identify themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual."[1] http://www.rr-bb.com/showthread.php?t=69577

*Second, sexual behavior researcher, Tom Smith of the University of Chicago authored a study two years ago entitled "Adult Sexual Behavior in 1989: Number of Partners Frequency and Risk." His study resulted in a figure of "less than 1% exclusively homosexual."

You're correct that the separation of church and state is important, and we need to get us some of that back.

On the other hand, as this chart shows here, it's not like we've ever really had a non-Christian as president. I mean, hell, it was a giant thing that Kennedy was Catholic instead of Protestant.

It needs, badly, not to matter... but it mattered 20 years ago too.

I don't think you finished reading my original post, since I think I was pretty clear in my definition of "Creationist". I have no interest whatsoever in debating the existence (or otherwise) of God, nor do I particularly care who created the Universe. I also am not claiming that science knows everything ... but it has determined a lot of things with a degree of accuracy and precision far in excess of anything any known religion can claim. Rational people understand that their is a potential for error in everything: the difference is that scientists attempt to quantify and account for that error, whereas people of faith simply believe that there is no error. Which approach is more likely to correctly answer any given question?

This is what you said:

I lump Creationists (yes, all of them) together with all the other groups exhibiting fundamentally irrational thought processes that have fallen by the wayside in the past century or so.

So, while you may not want to debate who created the Universe, you were certainly quick to insult me and my entire religion based on what I believe about the creation of the Universe. The fact that ignored all the evidence that was so clearly provided for you shows that you are one "exhibiting fundamentally irrational thought processes". That is the process that is required to ignore the facts and stereotype people based on what YOU want them to be. Although, it's much easier to call it bigotry.

I also am not claiming that science knows everything ...

No, but you are claiming that religious people know nothing. You seem to think that "Creationists" like myself ignore reason and understanding. I gave evidence and even provide a link with mathematical evidence of a creator from a PHD in engineering, yet, you come back with the idea that somehow religious people had rejected science. Do you believe in the "Big Bang Theory"?. If you had read my post, you would know who originally thought of the idea, Georges Lemaitre, a Catholic Priest. Do you know who Galileo is? Did you read the Galileo quote I provided? Both of these guys are Creationists. Are you really going to say that Galileo or Lemaitre are "people that are constitutionally unable to accept basic facts, or data that is provably correct to a high degree of accuracy"? Given this, who is it that is unable to accept basic facts, you or them?

On the other hand, if you mean to say that belief trumps reason and real understanding, you have a problem.

I don't think you read my post. You certainly didn't read the link I provided. My beliefs are based on reason, logic and observation. The laws of nature are way too fine tuned to have happened by chance. If you had done the homework I assigned you, you would understand that.

It's not a simply matter of ignorance (mere education can fix that) but a certain inflexibility of mind.

This is the kicker. You are quick to claim that people of faith have a "certain inflexibility of mind". It's as if religious people are incapable of believing in science. Sorry, but as I have shown repeatedly, that is NOT TRUE. Your constantly bringing up shows and incredible "inflexibility of mind" on your part. It's as if you are covering your ears and screaming "NAH-NAH-NAH" and ignoring the evidence as it is presented. In other words, YOU ARE DOING EXACTLY WHAT YOU CLAIM PEOPLE OF FAITH ARE GUILTY OF! You are ignoring the evidence that is staring you in the face.

HERE is a list of many more Nobel Prize winners with their religious affiliations listed. Not to say all these guys were "religious", but some of them were, and still managed to win Nobel Prizes in spite of it. Something tells me that each of them has won at least one more Nobel Prize than you have.

Look. We agree that

today, the main three (judaism, christianity and islam)...

Main three? The top three are # Christianity (2.1 billion), Islam: (1.5 billion), and what the adherents.com refers to as "Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist" (1.1 billion). Skipping over the secular/none of the above category, Hinduism (900 million) would be next.

Judaism is way down the list at number 12 (14 million). Calling it one of the main three is far off base.

He was a scientist, inventor...and devout Mormon.

I know that's a kick in the gut for some here who would prefer to pretend that science and religion cannot coexist, but there you go.

I stumbled upon a website showing all the Presidents' religious affiliations. http://www.adherents.com/adh_presidents.html Enjoy

Read my comment here to see the links that you ignored.

Girl told she cannot read bible at school

Houston we have a problem, students want to read bibles at recess

How about that crow you just ate? Was it tasty?

It can happen in Texas as it already happened

Google is your friend:

Girl told she cannot read bible at school

Houston we have a problem, students want to read bibles at recess

Don't expect the main stream media to print these stories or lawsuits. Digg and Reddit reject them as well.

Well, actually there are three main religions all with denominations built from each other to a degree that encompass the majority of religion in the world(more then half). Both Christianity and the muslum religions build from the Judaism religion for the most part.

I think your stretching the child abuse thing though. The belief in a religion isn't a bad thing. It carries answers to philosophical questions with a relatively pleasant degree of mental surety that can comfort people in their darkest hours. If something changes their minds later, they can choose something else. But if your a believer in something that is harmless but it also speaks of the mortality and immortality aspects of the human soul, then it would be wise to pass this information down to others so they don't escape it's comfort. Religion is more or less a comfort for people in trying times, to barrow a clause from someone I can't remember, a crutch for the weak when they aren't strong.

The interesting thing about religions is that they (the popular ones) give you the tools to attempt to understand the thing yourself. The entire religion uses the same books and so on. Anyone who is brainwashed into it can read the books and make an informed decision of their own at any time. It isn't like they are forced to stay true to it forever. A good majority of people who call themselves religious don't follow or practice their religion regularly, they don't attend ceremonies and rituals, and they more or less use it to their advantage.

1) The FSM was created by atheist zealot[s] and is well known to Slashdot users as a meme of the zeitgeist [buzzword bingo anyone!]. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster.
2) Jesus lived approx 2000 years ago and is know to nearly all people of the world and is believed by at least 50% (according to population statistics on adherents http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html) to be at least a prophet. [argument by majority I know]
3) Christians and Hindus believe him, Jesus, to be God; Muslims to be a prophet; many other misguided souls believe him to be just a righteous man.

That's enough for a "deserves more attention" enquiry.

Interestingly both Jesus and the FSM (may his meatballs be ever spicy!) are well documented but you choose to believe a parody to have equal weight to an historic person. Delusional ever?

I love responding to flamebait ...

the majority of the world is of Muslim faith

How many Atheist killers can you name?
How many Atheists terrorists?

As a Zen Pagan Taoist Atheist Discordian, I'm certainly sympathetic to atheism. However, there have certainly been atheist killers - Stalin, perhaps the champion blood-shedder of the 20th Century, is quoted as saying "You know, they are fooling us, there is no God... all this talk about God is sheer nonsense." If that doesn't qualify him as an atheist, then the term is meaningless.

Mao and Pol Pot are also generally taken to be atheists, though I don't have quotations to back that up.

The Tamil Tigers, leading the league in suicide attacks for two decades, are "adamantly secular".

Googling suggests that Unabomber Ted Kaczynski is an atheist, though that may just be rumor.

So what? "Atheist" is by its nature a negative descriptor, it just describes what you aren't - a theist. It doesn't describe what you are.

Supernatural belief is orthogonal to ethical behavior. Believers who are tempted but refrain from evil because of their beliefs are balanced out by believers who kill in the name of their god[s]; non-believers include both good people and twisted evil fucks.

Who gives two shits what a kook who believes in invisible super-beings things[sic]?
The majority of the human race who are not atheist? The vocal atheists here on Slashdot should realize that everything is not them.

So the majority of religious people are Catholic? Hardly.

>Once a P2P site gets to a certain point, doesn't the sheer size of its membership say something about whether or not it should be legal?

So in Catholic dominated countries abortion is wrong and illegal but where its not its the opposite?

The only thing I see here is a lot of people unwilling to pay market prices for media. If anything this suggests prices are too high or that ideas like compulsory licensing might make sense. Or in most likelihood mean that people are selfish and will do anything for a free lunch.

Uh okay. I found this site:

http://www.adherents.com/Na/Na_44.html

Now even if your figures are correct, which I tend to doubt but lets say they are correct for the sake of argument, I see a minority group.

The US population is over 300mil. That makes the number of Atheists at most not even 10% of the US population.

As for Lewis being from Ireland, what is your point with that statement exactly?

As for your bet. Give me something better than that to work with, that is an unfounded statement until you can give me some reference and then we can work from there.

Remember, from your side it seems one way, and from my side it would seem the other way.

Well, no offence, but Santa's sleigh is a pretty high tech piece of equipment

It can't be that high tech, considering how long he's been in business for. And that in itself raises a few questions that can't be answered by technology (assuming it's the same person; and if not, who the hell is this modern imposter?).

deliver presents to all the children in the world

I think you'll find that claim is vastly exaggerated.

Stop trying to defend this morbidly obese, drunken, discriminating, self-aggrandising home invader.

Well, all of the 3 major religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam consider it wrong to charge interest on loans.

Why would Judaism, with circa 14 million adherents, be considered one of "the 3 major religions" while excluding Hinduism with circa 900 million adherents as a major religion?

What? this group you mean? Or perhaps you mean to talk about the Catholic church's views about Evolution? In any event the about the Church's views of sci-fi/fantasy here is a group that would like to disagree with you. Trying to pick on the Catholics for the lack of support of this sort of thing is either willfully ignorant or pure stupidity.

Well I guess viewing the US's theocracy as an injustice is strictly a problem created by those people who view it as injustice. In and of itself it is not a problem because it still isn't a state-sponsored religion despite everything in your being wanting it to be such. Just because the US government recognizes that God exists doesn't mean you have to do so as well. You may not like what they base their laws on but I think we all agree that murder should be a crime and I don't see why you should be able to pick and choose what laws Man should have that are based on God's laws. You may not like your particular state creating laws that negatively affect you and you can either move to another state that doesn't have that law or attempt to have it abolished but the majority will fight it tooth and nail (assuming in that example the majority want the law). You can fight the fact that the US government and its laws are based on a religion but they are not causing your specific religion (or lack thereof if that is the case) to be altered in doing so. That is a difference you (and many others) fail to recognize. You are free to practice or not practice your religion and you will not be treated differently. You seem to want people to respect your choice but you can't respect the choices made when forming the US government.

What is absurd is that blanket statement. At the least, "Creator" implies something other than an atheist's point of view that no Creator even exists in the first place so the assumption that an atheist would even mention a "Creator" is absurd. It is true that the Founding Fathers weren't all part of the same denomination but they still had a common religious foundation, that being Christianity. Christianity existed quite a few centuries before the country's founding and quite long enough for many of the Founding Fathers to have heard about it and to be a part of that religion.