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Parliamentary democracy.

We elect parliamentarians, who's job it is to took at the issues and make decisions. They've managed for every other major issue we've faced so far, even taking us into war. For an interesting take on this by Professor Richard Dawkins, see Richard Dawkins: Ignoramuses should have no say on our EU membership—and that includes me

But, as you say, we have voted to leave the EU. But what exactly does that mean? My preferred option would be the Norwegian model, where we continue to be a member of the Single Market, contribute to the EU Budget, and maintain the principle of free movement. In other words, exactly the same as now, but without the influence. (Apparently the reason Norway takes this approach is to be exempt from the Common Fisheries Policy. We could do similarly once out - great for our fishermen). In a way, I like this approach. We can be 'out', yet as far as the rest of the EU is concerned, due to lack of influence, we won't be able to make to make things difficult for the rest of them.

However, I don't know what will be negotiated or agreed, as we weren't asked in the referendum. No dount as soon as I am told, I will 'deal with it'.

Here's a start for you

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
http://old.richarddawkins.net/...

You might also be interested to know that atheists commit LESS crime than their religious counterparts

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/1...

And their divorce rate is lower

http://www.alternet.org/belief...

Meanwhile shall we look at all the wars, murder and mayhem conducted in the name of religion/god? Not sure what the character limit is on /. posts, might exceed it...

I thought some of you might be interested in Lawrence Krauss' response on this article, which was not published by the WSJ. https://richarddawkins.net/201...

Matthew Parris: As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God

it wasn't that long ago that there were unofficial death sentences for not embracing Christianity, at least for natives sent to the residential schools here in Canada.

Color me skeptical.

On the other hand, persecution of Christians around the world, including murder, is well known. The record of the officially atheist communist regimes was often quite bad.

Why I won't debate creationists:
http://old.richarddawkins.net/...

I couldn't agree more.

YES! From TFA: (Dawkins)
Some time in the 1980s when I was on a visit to the United States, a television station wanted to stage a debate between me and a prominent creationist called, I think, Duane P Gish. I telephoned Stephen Gould for advice. He was friendly and decisive: "Don't do it." The point is not, he said, whether or not you would 'win' the debate. Winning is not what the creationists realistically aspire to. For them, it is sufficient that the debate happens at all. They need the publicity. We don't. To the gullible public which is their natural constituency, it is enough that their man is seen sharing a platform with a real scientist. "There must be something in creationism, or Dr So-and-So would not have agreed to debate it on equal terms." Inevitably, when you turn down the invitation you will be accused of cowardice, or of inability to defend your own beliefs. But that is better than supplying the creationists with what they crave: the oxygen of respectability in the world of real science.

Why I won't debate creationists:
http://old.richarddawkins.net/...

I couldn't agree more.

This guy is a personal hero of mine. He's one of those people "out there" you hope somehow never dies but just is always there, like a star.

For people interested in giving your kids an experience which will ground them as rational, free thinking individuals he runs a summer camp which teaches self reliance, and a respect for science and facts.

http://www.richarddawkins.net/news_articles/next_article?article=5214&category=&videos=

You've gone wrong on a couple of points there. First, al Qaida and company do indeed want the entire world under Islamic rule. It is their goal. The Middle East is just closer to it since it has a majority of Muslims, a number of the countries already implement Sharia in some form, even if imperfectly. Indonesia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are also high on the list. You may have noticed that they are subject to various troubles as well, not to mention India.

The Future of Terrorism: What al-Qaida Really Wants

They plan to take back lands formerly controlled by Muslims. Just one example: Spain

Alarm in Spain over al-Qaeda call for its "reconquest"
HAMAS Targets Spain

As to the US, there is no such thing as "Christian" rule. The US is a secular democracy. It is a nation of primarily Christians (of various flavors and piety) living in a democracy. There is no theocracy, there is no meaningful movement towards theocracy, and it is unclear what one would even look like since there doesn't seem to be a biblical model for it this side of Christ's return. So your post on that is nonsense.

Christian missionaries have been greatly beneficial to many lands. This is only one example.

Matthew Parris: As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God

If you look into the history of the last 100 years, you will see that officially atheist regimes were one of the great scourges of the planet. In their communist form they killed 100,000,000 people and brutalized and oppressed many more.

Jesus lived his life as an observant Jew, is recorded to have fulfilled many prophecies associated with being the Messiah, and made statements declaring himself to be God. Many of his followers preferred to die painful deaths rather than denounce him.

Matthew Parris: As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God

Are Savages Noble?

The Effect of Cell Phone Coverage and Political Violence in Africa

Between 40 and 50 percent of everyone believes in the Genesis story as literal truth depending on the poll. It's been that way for 50 years. The last Gallup survey had it somewhere around 46-48 percent.

What is striking is that over the decades, this number has not budged much.

1 in 5 adults and 1 in 3 under 30 aren't enough to stem the tide of derp.

http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/706

Although the mean score on the Index of Genetic Literacy was slightly higher in the United States than the nine European countries combined, results from another 2005 U.S. study show that substantial numbers of American adults are confused about some of the core ideas related to 20th- and 21stcentury biology. When presented with a description of natural selection that omits the word evolution, 78% of adults agreed to a description of the evolution of plants and animals (see table S2 in SOM). But, 62% of adults in the same study believed that God created humans as whole persons without any evolutionary development.

Death throes of religious conservatism? I think not.

--
BMO

Your question is very good, but I think Professor Dawkins has already answered it extremely well in the video linked from the summary...

The summary of the conclusion being that in his (well backed up) opinion (which I personally agree with), we're biologically wired to be essentially good and moral. Therefore doing away with religion would likely not influence us negatively - the religion is only the "excuse" that is often found to explain the reasons for the behaviours that we'd do anyway.

Note that in the video he of course goes in to the explanation of why, which I won't try to summarise here, as I'd probably butcher his rather excellent explanation were I to try.

Sam Harris has a very good post on the freedom to offend an imaginary god. It was written with a focus on the unrest in the Middle East, but it's equally applicable to this particular case.

has been known about for years...

http://richarddawkins.net/news_articles/2012/9/11/pat-robertson-blames-atheists-and-those-who-hate-god-for-wisconsin-temple-shooting

I was under the impression that "private contractors" had something to do with "shrinking genitalia." Which would also be somewhat effective.

Indeed.

Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital
Benin alert over 'penis theft' panic
Journalist Tracks Rumors Of Penis Thievery

---
As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God
"When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing -- they believe in anything." -- GK Chesterton

Check out what lack of religion did to the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, and others.

No doubt totalitarian socialism had nothing to do with their outcomes, though.

(an all-powerful State can't tolerate any parallel power structures, such as a Church)

But Marxist Socialism is caused by the very same doctrine that today is advanced by Richard Dawkins.
The ideology if Richard Dawkins has at least two tenets:
1) Materialism - that is, reality (including the human mind) can be explained by the laws of Physics (see http://richarddawkins.net/articles/490048-the-blue-brain-blues-materialist-ethics-and-simulated-minds)
2) Anti-religious intolerance: religion is irrational, superstitious and must not be tolerated. It must be wiped out. While it still exists, it must be contained to the private sphere - that is, the political rights of people of faith must be curtailed.

And these two tenets are at the core of Marxism. Marx took the idea of materialism and developed it into his "materialistic conception of History", which is the root of Marxism. And he fully incorporated anti-religious hatred.

Therefore, the ideology of Dawkins (which of course existed centuries before Dawkins) is a clear cause of Marxism, and therefore 100,000,000 deaths, torture, general suffering, terror, repression, censorship, bigotry and societal decay.

In other words, Dawkins is the *last* person that can complain about the "evils" of religion.

There is a wise analysis about the ideal relationship between state and Church, which must be balanced to avoid oppression. See http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/ratzinger2.html (Why Church and State Must Be Separate, by Benedict XVI)

True religion at work.

Superstition is slavery.

And materialism is much worse.

(Supposing you are one of those Dawkins acolytes) The ideology of Richard Dawkins is not simply a negative lack of faith in God. It is actually a positive ideology, consisting of at least two positive tenets:
1) Materialism: all reality (including the human mind) can be described by the laws of physics - see, for example, http://richarddawkins.net/articles/490048-the-blue-brain-blues-materialist-ethics-and-simulated-minds
2) Anti-religious intolerance: religion is always evil and must be wiped from Earth. While religion still exists, it must be restricted to the private sphere - that is, the political activities of religious people must be restricted.

This ideology caused Marxism. Marx simply developed materialism into his "materialistic conception of History", which is the root of his philosophy. Combined with anti-religious hatred and the labour theory of value, Marxism is born.

In other words, Dawkins ideology (which of course existed centuries before Dawkins) caused Marxism, which is responsible by 100,000,000 deaths, torture, general suffering, terror, repression, censorship, societal decay and general darkness (see a satellite photo of the Korean peninsula for a physical portrait of that).

Oh, indeed. I was originally alluding to the fact that people who call themselves Christians don't actually read the Bible. It's like they got the Bible, said "tl;dr" and ticked "I accept the EULA."

that is why... http://richarddawkins.net/articles/495770-official-vatican-does-compare-child-abuse-with-ordaining-women

I guess the first of those two dominoes fell, so when is the second one?

that is why... http://richarddawkins.net/articles/495770-official-vatican-does-compare-child-abuse-with-ordaining-women

When you write "denies", or "disbelieves", or "holds", you are essentially expressing some sort of qualification on believe. So, to be more straight forward, and I think accurate:

Atheist - A person who believe there is no god, or supreme beings.
Agnostic - A person who believes we don't know or can't know if god or supreme beings exist.

Once confronted with the question, "Does God exist?", there are pretty much three options: Yes, No, I don't know.

Saying no, means you believe that God doesn't exist, since you can't really prove that in any rigorous, universal way. Realistically you can't know that.

"Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative." - G.K. Chesterton

Richard Dawkins: I can't be sure God does not exist

There was surprise when Prof Dawkins acknowledged that he was less than 100 per cent certain of his conviction that there is no creator.

The philosopher Sir Anthony Kenny, who chaired the discussion, interjected: “Why don’t you call yourself an agnostic?” Prof Dawkins answered that he did.

An incredulous Sir Anthony replied: “You are described as the world’s most famous atheist.”

Prof Dawkins said that he was “6.9 out of seven” sure of his beliefs.

“I think the probability of a supernatural creator existing is very very low,” he added.

Collins: Why this scientist believes in God - Dr. Francis Collins

THE RELATION OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION - Some fresh observations on an old problem - by RICHARD P. FEYNMAN

The Public Face of Religion in America

Matthew Parris: As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God

I recall reading about these sort of opinions before with regard to both climate change and evolution, and the common thread seems to be the amount of attention given by the American news media. Differences of opinion, although common in every field, don't quite seem to get that kind of attention unless someone conveniently benefits from giving them press. Would be interesting to find out years later, if this latest opinion-piece was somehow published in response to the recent interest by the NCSE to start educating people about climate change, also explained further here.

For a fascinating insight into how intelligent minds can be lured into religion read the expose of Lisa Bauer / Layla Nasreddin:

The Subversion of Lisa Bauer.

There are lots of fundie Muslims.

Muslim believes saying merry christmas worse than murder

We are all Africans!

Now please calm down, and stop crediting continents with the inventions of ideals (yes, I'm an African anonymous coward!).

Famously, Dawkins recently backed out of a debate with him.

Dawkins never agreed to debate him, so he didn't back out. As he makes clear, he turns down "hundreds of more worthy invitations every year." And I just can't resist including this:

I should point out that it isn't only Oxford that won't see me on the night Craig proposes to debate me in absentia: you can also see me not appear in Cambridge, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and, if time allows, Bristol.

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/520621-hitler-s-election-poster-uses-the-concordat-of-pius-xii

Kentucky is footing 25% of the bill according to this article.

http://richarddawkins.net/discussions/557021-kentucky-creationist-theme-park-gets-government-funding

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40460324/ns/us_news-life/

"Ark Encounter developers seek to recover under state tourism development laws up to 25 percent of the project's cost by recouping sales tax revenue paid to the state on tickets, lodging and other goods."

Seems shady, but it's Kentucky, go figure.

sexual assault on a child is sometimes less damaging than teaching a child to follow Christianity

Interesting proposition considering that the Catholic Church does both.

I don't see how that makes it interesting, but OK.

I believe Dawkins never actually said that as such

OK. But he did say this explicitly:

... reports of child abuse cover a multitude of sins, from mild fondling to violent buggery ... just because some pedophile assaults are violent and painful, it doesn't mean that all are. ... Phrases like 'predatory monster' are not discriminating enough, and are framed in the light of adult hang-ups. ... the mental abuse constituted by an unsubstantiated threat of violence and terrible pain, if sincerely believed by the child, could easily be more damaging than the physical actuality of sexual abuse. An extreme threat of violence and pain is precisely what the doctrine of hell is.

No getting around that quote.

Still, is he more vile than the people actually abusing children or the institution that protects the abusers?

Nope. Good thing I am not a Catholic, as it would be very difficult for me to figure out what to do: stay with the church and try to fix it, or move on to a different sect.

Unlucky for Dawkins, however, is that most people in the world don't play the game of "not as vile as," but simply consider a vile person to be avoided, whether or not there are more vile people out there.

Attempts to use him to brand a single unified atheist movement ...

As I said, "That says little, if anything, about atheism itself, of course."

you can no more do a disservice to atheism, that is "not religious," than you can do a disservice to "not small" or "not a number" or "not bowling" or "not evil."

Not true. Atheism is a philosophy (or set of philosophies), not a mere negatory statement. And philosophies can be damaged by bad arguments supporting them, just as Catholicism was damaged by the pedophile priests and the protection of them.

Not damaged in fact, of course -- just like Catholicism cannot be damaged in fact by the pedophile scandal -- but in perception, in the attempts of its advocates to win people to their side, or even to convince people of the reasonableness of the position.

People could be forgiven for not understanding much of philosophy.

But what to say about people who know what ontology is, but don't understand that atheism is itself a philosophy? Or worse, about people who take a very common phrasology and take it to mean something it doesn't? ZOMG.

"Spread atheism," my ass. They encouraged fucking pilgrimages to observe the corpsicle of Lenin! Know what they didn't encourage? Skepticism, rationality, or reason! The three cornerstones of atheism.

They created a goddamn religion around themselves and the state, complete with holy relics and faith-based "science." That's not atheism, so stop repeating that drivel.

Ah, this is where you pretend you can disown the "bad atheists" as not really atheist... I mean, it's not as if modern day atheists would have modern day shrines where worhippers can buy idols of their gods.

It is a hobby if you go around talking about how great it is to not collect stamps, and join not collecting stamp clubs, and read Not Collecting Stamps Monthly. I get where that sentiment is coming from, I really do, and have to say I agree with it, but I don't think that it is always the case anymore.

Brian Cox has presented loads of stuff on British TV. Richard Dawkins needs no introduction. Simon Singh has written lots of books and presented many TV shows.

Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist of some note

See http://richarddawkins.net/ and his youtube channel for many fascinating videos of interviews / debates etc..

Fuck Louisiana. They passed the Science Education Act which mandates that creationism, er..."intelligent" design, must be taught alongside evolution.

Fuck the south, and FUCK RELIGION. Hmmph. Talking to a fucking invisible man in the sky. Pure and utter stupidity.

> it isn't the magic of having "human" tissue that gives anyone rights - it is our intelligence and self-awarenes.

So when do we start giving out intelligence tests? After all there are many very stupid people around.

Young chimps have beaten uni students in memory tests:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,1949,Chimps-beat-humans-in-memory-test,BBC

It seems a big difference between humans and chimps is "understanding other humans": http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14224459

So maybe many slashdotters wouldn't qualify as human? :)

Anyone who wants more information on how these scams and others, like psychics, work should check out Richard Dawkins interview with Derren Brown.

http://richarddawkins.net/article,3414,Richard-Dawkins-interviews-Derren-Brown,RichardDawkinsnet-Richard-Dawkins-Derren-Brown

It might help your argument if you actually, you know, knew the substance of the Dawkins lecture in Oklahoma before commenting on it. But then you wouldn't have much to say, because Dawkins' lecture wasn't nearly as controversial as you'd like to think. Or hope. I'll go into that more in a moment, but first...

I don't remember a ban on Dawkins, I remember a censure statement criticizing the lack of equal time for competing theories and stating that Dawkins is too polarizing for public funded venues. Of course I see the freedom from religion in the same light as the freedom of religion which does question the state or any state resources speaking about it at all. Dawkins does speak about religion and he does call people names.

Again, you might want to actually read the text of the resolution so you could actually be well informed as to what the resolution said. It was a resolution, not a censure statement -- and no, that's not hair splitting, it's a difference with meaning. The resolution says nothing about time for "competing theories," in fact, although it calls for an "open, dignified, and fair discussion of the Darwinian [sic] theory of evolution and all other scientific theories" and then proceeds to tell OU how it ought to be conducting the business of science.

The resolution does explicitly state that the Oklahoma legislature opposed Dawkins' visit because of the statments he's made about evolution and the opinions he's expressed about those who do not agree with his viewpoint. That's awfully "noble" of them, until you start to question why the Oklahoma legislature hasn't condemned any fundamentalist Christian clergy for the patently offensive statements they've made about the theory of evolution and its adherents. The difference here seems to be that the Oklahoma legislature thinks that mob rule serves as justification for asymmetric treatment.

Then there's the little detail that after the lecture, the legislators who engineered the aforementioned resolution weren't satisfied, and decided to go on a witch hunt because the university had the audacity to not bow to political pressure. Doesn't this response seem just a bit lacking in proportion? Or is that "justified" because you think Dawkins is a dirty name-caller?

Anyways, not wanting a polarizing person speaking on the public funded dime isn't really an attack on science, It's an attack on a polarizing person. His message is secondary to say the least. Especially when the school already teaches evolutionary biology. SO obviously, it wasn't evolutionary biology that was the problem, it was his "deliverance" of it.

The sad thing is, people like you actually believe this crap that you spew, and think it makes a dandy justification. Fortunately, Dawkins and some of his apologists actually addressed this issue. But before I touch on that larger issue, I want to point out that despite your characterization of the man giving the lecture, the substance of the lecture was far less polarizing than you might imagine, and it was very well received by the audience with the exception of one man. You can read a summary of the lecture here and here (although I think PZ Meyers would have been better served by avoiding the kind of editorial comments he made in that second link, even though it's his blog and he can say whatever he damn well pleases). The one man who made a scene may or may not have been the only creationist in attendance, but he didn't do a good job of repre

Dude, have you seen that web site? I'd want to ban it too, at least until it got a serious redesign... ;)

What, you think that site isn't intelligently designed?

Marcus Brigstock said it best.

The Now Show rules!

Dude, have you seen that web site? I'd want to ban it too, at least until it got a serious redesign... ;)

Not now the sun is quiet.

What this quiet time is doing is failing to pressure us into hardening the electrical grid against electromagnetic storm events. So in 5 or 10 years when we pull up out of this point we will all have electrical cars pulling power from desert and off shore wind farms over long lines. Then the electromagnetic storm will take out the continental electrical grid.

http://www.niburu.nl/index.php?articleID=20577
http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=76911

Fun times.

Dawkins supports the idea of creationism, so long as lifeforms myseriously grew on the back of a fucking crystal, or an intergalactic bukkake fertilized the planet.

Um... no.

Toward the end of his interview with me, Stein asked whether I could think of any circumstances whatsoever under which intelligent design might have occurred. It's the kind of challenge I relish, and I set myself the task of imagining the most plausible scenario I could. I wanted to give ID its best shot, however poor that best shot might be. I must have been feeling magnanimous that day, because I was aware that the leading advocates of Intelligent Design are very fond of protesting that they are not talking about God as the designer, but about some unnamed and unspecified intelligence, which might even be an alien from another planet. Indeed, this is the only way they differentiate themselves from fundamentalist creationists, and they do it only when they need to, in order to weasel their way around church/state separation laws. So, bending over backwards to accommodate the IDiots ("oh NOOOOO, of course we aren't talking about God, this is SCIENCE") and bending over backwards to make the best case I could for intelligent design, I constructed a science fiction scenario. Like Michael Ruse (as I surmise) I still hadn't rumbled Stein, and I was charitable enough to think he was an honestly stupid man, sincerely seeking enlightenment from a scientist. I patiently explained to him that life could conceivably have been seeded on Earth by an alien intelligence from another planet (Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel suggested something similar -- semi tongue-in-cheek). The conclusion I was heading towards was that, even in the highly unlikely event that some such 'Directed Panspermia' was responsible for designing life on this planet, the alien beings would THEMSELVES have to have evolved, if not by Darwinian selection, by some equivalent 'crane' (to quote Dan Dennett). My point here was that design can never be an ULTIMATE explanation for organized complexity. Even if life on Earth was seeded by intelligent designers on another planet, and even if the alien life form was itself seeded four billion years earlier, the regress must ultimately be terminated (and we have only some 13 billion years to play with because of the finite age of the universe). Organized complexity cannot just spontaneously happen. That, for goodness sake, is the creationists' whole point, when they bang on about eyes and bacterial flagella! Evolution by natural selection is the only known process whereby organized complexity can ultimately come into being. Organized complexity -- and that includes everything capable of designing anything intelligently -- comes LATE into the universe. It cannot exist at the beginning, as I have explained again and again in my writings.

If you would like to help advance public understanding of science, try volunteering at
http://richarddawkins.net/volunteers

For instance, Ben Stein asked Richard Dawkins about the origins of life in the universe and the possibility of intelligent design. The best answer that a practiced scientist and atheist can give on the spot is that some higher form of life evolved and then populated the earth with life. That is, aliens evolved & put life on earth. But, the aliens themselves would have had to evolved through some natural process. THAT is his answer to intelligent design. He answered NOTHING, but merely moved the issue to another planet.

As Dawkins himself answers here, the entire question at that point was nonsensical. Stein was asking a man who emphatically believes that Intelligent Design is nonsense to construct a scenario in which Intelligent Design might have happened. And as ID proponents so often point out when asked about the religious implications of their position, "they're not necessarily talking about a deity." Well, what does that leave, apart from aliens? The entire exchange in question is basically a believer getting a scientist to describe Intelligent Design's own belief structure, and then crucifying him because he didn't mention God. It's ID that's nonsensical, Dawkins was merely repeating your own words back to you.

Your Guardian article confirms that he wasn't misquoted at all. Mind you, I don't believe for a minute that he's a creationist, but his attitude to the issue was wrong. As you can see from the links below, there is more than one side to the issue, but on balance, I'm glad he's gone.

For more diverse and in-depth discussions on the topic than you'll find on Slashdot (mainly because they have been going on longer) have a look at for example:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/09/michael_reisss_big_mistake.php
http://richarddawkins.net/article,3100,n,n
http://richarddawkins.net/article,3119,n,n

Your Guardian article confirms that he wasn't misquoted at all. Mind you, I don't believe for a minute that he's a creationist, but his attitude to the issue was wrong. As you can see from the links below, there is more than one side to the issue, but on balance, I'm glad he's gone.

For more diverse and in-depth discussions on the topic than you'll find on Slashdot (mainly because they have been going on longer) have a look at for example:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/09/michael_reisss_big_mistake.php
http://richarddawkins.net/article,3100,n,n
http://richarddawkins.net/article,3119,n,n

Emotion is certainly part of religion, but not its sole component. To claim so is to ignore thousands of years of work by those that have labored over religious texts.

Oh, please.

-jcr

True enough, but be honest with yourself. If there's are books about not collecting stamps, organizations dedicated to not collecting stamps, and websites all about how to not collect stamps, and movements to preach the greatness of not collecting stamps, guess what not collecting stamps has become?

"anonymous coward".

Many people frown on that. I don't care. Even if you'd written your name and you were (the) George Bush, Julia Roberts, Stephen Hawking or the local greengrocer that wouldn't have mattered for the weight of the arguments. They are right or wrong irrespective of who says it.

I don't care whether your example is flawed. Analogies usually go wrong at some point anyway, so do big deal. What is important that science is a method of operating, of increasing knowledge, and of weeding out what is not correct. As a scientist you can get famous (and funds!) by discovering something new, by proving that something is true, but also by proving that something is wrong. In fact, if someone were to prove that the earth is . Scientists are used to shift if reality requires that of us. You probably know the saying that the tragedy of science is that a beautiful theory (hypothesis would be a better word) is that it can be killed by an ugly fact. For scientists, humility is taught the hard way in that you cannot bend reality. Oops, I'm sidetracking a bit. The important thing is that science has a powerful set of tools, and we can do experiments to figure things out (both for real and by logic in our heads) . Perhaps god(s) exist(s). So far, no evidence for that.

No religious books exist that contain knowledge that couldn't be known to the people at the time. It wouldn't have been too hard to write a passage in the bible/qu'ran/thora/whatever that spiral-shaped strands of life exist, in mammal made up as pairs of strands having 4 building blocks. When a man and a woman get together each provides half the strands. Now, that would have been something that couldn't be known and would show that the book indeed has non-human-only influences.

To educate yourself on the non-creation of mankind, you may want to check out this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUxLR9hdorI
With a modicum of high-school biology you'd see that at best god created us by evolution, not by mucking around with mud.

As to what why I don't believe in a particular religion, you could check out this link:
http://www.jhuger.com/kisshank.php

"I'm merely practicing defending my faith."
Just to be sure, I'm not attacking it. I'm a "truth first" guy, and if your religion is at some points at odd with that, it is nothing to be ashamed of and it is in good company with other meme-based religions.

If you don't agree and want to do more practicing, you may want to visit http://richarddawkins.net/forum/

Have a nice day,

Bert

Chat with some atheists here:

http://smallpophypothesis.net/

The site is a part of the Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) network. http://richarddawkins.net/

The book itself is a very good read, and is really eye-opening.

Richard Dawkins' website (The God Delusion) http://richarddawkins.net/ also has a chat feature for atheists.

Visit http://smallpophypothesis.net/

You'll need to register. Some mods there are assholes, but otherwise it is OK.