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If we accept that the contradictions provide evidence of human errors, then how can the text itself be used as anything but a broad allegorical fiction. We can assert that at one time there was a true and unique word of god, but we now see the words attributed to god are error prone. The cited page has one hundred stipulated errors. Some of these are attributed to copying. Even from the beginning, if a man wrote down the words, then there was some likelihood of copy errors. And then we have the endless hand copying over the millennia, the translations, the adjustments to meet political realities, and all we have is a fable based on some ancient truths. The truths are still there is you look, and understand the context, but the literal word is likely lost. The noise after all this time has almost killed the signal.

In any case, the lessons are there for those who want to listen. Three example. First, which ten commandments are we to aspire to. If we live by the meaning then we try our best not to hurt other people. If we take them literally, then we argue over the acceptability of graven images.

Second, my favorite, is the eye of the needle. Does this parable mean that you must relinquish all you worldly good before you enter heaven, or, if your life is dedicated to acquiring stuff, you can't get to heaven. Either interpretation may be extreme, but there is a lesson in the ambiguity, and arguing about literal meaning is pointless.

Finally is the verse in Matthew
6:5 "When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Most assuredly, I tell you, they have received their reward. 6:6 But you, when you pray, enter into your inner chamber, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
If we take this literally, all those who push school prayer and the like are going to hell. However, the underlying meaning of this, as is true of many more passages, is that we do good things because of our relationship with god, and not to impress our brothers and sisters.

Oh please. No law has ever been written perfectly the first time. The Constitution is only a little over 200 years old and it's been ammended 27 times. Shit, even the Ten Commandments have seen a bit of revision.

The DMCA isn't all bad. In time, the parts that are unconstitutional will be repealed and the parts that are vague will be clarified.

You keep saying this but your saying it doesn't make it true.

Your continual denial of it does not make it false.

However:

http://www.atheists.org/

http://www.positiveatheism.org/faq/faq1111.htm#WHA TISPOSATH

Both are or are inspired by a commmon set of beliefs. In addition, Yahoo catagorizes "atheism" under "religion" which, while not in itself existance of a religion entitled atheism, is evidence of my original assertion that atheism is properly catalogued as a religion.

I know the popular thing to do is bash psuedo-sciences, and cold fusion because of its shaky introduction into popular thought quickly falls into this quagmire. But, let the human race dream before summarily dismissing the entire concept.

It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. Obviously those two modes of thought are in some tension. But if you are able to exercise only one of these modes, whichever one it is, you're in deep trouble.

If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything new. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and then, maybe once in a hundred cases, a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and progress.

On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful as from the worthless ones. If all ideas have equal validity then you are lost, because then, it seems to me, no ideas have any validity at all.

No evidence, except that he says that people who are wiccans don't have a "legitimate" religion, and the military should make no accomodations for them. Sorry, but if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's a damn duck, and wiccans are just as religious as anyone else, no matter what the bigot in chief may think to the contrary. here's the information on his position, and his lame ass dodge of "his personal beliefs" doesn't make it any better.

Your arguments are almost completely based upon personal conviction, thus they are difficult to reason with.

However, I must take issue with you on this point:
For over 95% of the inhabitants of this planet, spiritual matters are a factor in life.

This is simply not true. According to Encarta, non-believers comprise approximately 21 percent of the people on the planet.

Just because your broadly defined "organized religions" are a majority in a sense, does not indicate, to me or most others who value the idea of democracy, that they should inflict others with rigid and arbitrary personal morays.

Also, I find this interesting:

People's convictions don't change simply because you change a law

Right. Laws change because societies convictions change.

Also, many of the religions you are putting under the same hat embrace diversity. Even some Christians believe it or not.

I am a christain (who goes to church on Sunday) and normaly I would never post anything on a subject like this, but I have noticed that atheists love these subjects for them to go on about how great they are for not falling for that whole religious crap.

So, I thought I would add this:

1. Why are atheists so anti-religious? Why should it matter what I believe?
2. For atheists, atheistism is their religion, which is quite ironic.
3. It is possible for someone to have an education and still be religious.
4. Some atheists really want famous scientists to be athiests.
5. ANY religion is better than none, for what good are we with out any spirituality?

Atheist's don't exist. If you ask anyone why they are an atheist they will proceed to explain their religion of non belief.
- Monksarnn

An atheist is a man who believes himself an accident.
- Francis Thompson

God not only plays dice. He sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen.
- Stephen Hawking

Some courts disagree with you. like this one, In NY

Being forced into a treatment program that uses religious evangelism is NOT considered justifiable, and "well, you don't have to listen" is not considered an excuse. The key difference is not who runs the program, but rather if the program mixes mandatory evangelism with its services. Catholic hospitals treat the sick: they don't force people to pray before treating them, or subject patients to prayers if they don't want them. But some programs do. In the case I am reffering to, it was an atheist who was sentanced to attend a particularly evangelical sect of AA as part of his treatment. That's just not justifiable: government cannot mandate religious practices.

I just wish they'd stop printing In God We Trust on them.

This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it. -- John Adams

Your John Adams quote is a bit misleading. The full quote, found here, is:
Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!"

But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell.

As an atheist I found that quote surprising because John Adams was a very religious man. There is more about that quote here.

If the experiments are able to produce human-like creatures without coitus and traditional conception, the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn is that the "soul" does not exist

The conclusion to which you refer is already the only reasonable one.

This will, however, provide some backup.

This well alert you to all of the most common errors in logic people use in every day thinking, and will help you detect when someone is using bad stastics, outright logic errors, or other misleading practices to feed you a line of baloney. For instance, a texas lawmaker once wanted to outlaw divorce because a study strongly related divorce and poverty. His flawed logic was that by outlawing divorce, it would end poverty. Many, many thought proccesses like this slip by us today without us really noticing, but by reading The Fine Art of Baloney Detection we can notice them.

... is the Republican party interested in censorship? I thought they were all about less government interference in peoples' lives.

The Republican mainstream is all for freedom of religion - you can be any sort of Protestant you like! They'll even tolerate Catholics and Jews. (Atheists, though, are not really citizens because this is one nation under God. And Wicca is not a religion, so it's okay discriminate against Pagans.) And they respect your right to control your own body. (Excepting having an abortion, performing certain consenual sex acts, putting certain drugs into your body, and other such Satanic perversions.) And they repsect free speech and expression (so long as it's not UnAmerican, or obscene, or pornographic, or disrespectful to the flag).

Yep, under a Republican regime, straight white Judeo-Christian patriotic drug-free Americans who prefer the missionary position (of course, only in the confines of marriage) have nothing to fear.

(Note: none of the above it to be taken as an endorsement of the Republicans chief competitor for the hearts, minds, and votes of Americans, the Democratic Party; which has plenty of problems of its own.)

Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/

What will you do to protect the rights of athiests and those who hold minority faiths, such as Wicca, Santaria, Shinto, et al?

Bush: I am committed to the First Amendment principles of religious freedom, tolerance, and diversity. Whether Mormon, Methodist, Jewish, or Muslim, Americans should be able to participate in their constitutional free exercise of religion.

It seems to me that George W. Bush has purposefully not-answered the question with a careful, purposefully deceptive response. Here is another analysis of Bush's views on minority religions from the context of the decision of the US Military to accept Wicca as a bona fide religion.

Last week George W. Bush, governor of Texas and 2000 GOP presidential frontrunner, was asked by ABC News about Barr's concerns on Wicca in the military as well as the posting of the Ten Commandments in public buildings.

Bush said that he did not believe "witchcraft is a religion," and he hoped "the military would rethink this decision."

have a day,

-l