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The postal service is self-supporting, or at least it is supposed to be.

Nope, not since Nixon, Reagan and Bush reconfigured it to fail, I'm afraid. It's supposed to die, as part of the ongoing campaign to eliminate middle-class employment.
You might like to read these:

The USPS is still turning a profit and hasn't been funded by taxpayers since 1971

What kind of nation wouldn't fund a post office anyway?

Or you could skip all the a- bits and go with "Post Theological". First reference I saw was here,
    http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/Umbrella-Niose.html

From the link:
      This question of atheism, and specifically how the public's poor image of atheists makes the advancement of humanism difficult, became a topic of discussion with a friend at a recent conference. Her response pointed to a third way to address the issue: "When people ask me about atheism," she said, "I just tell them I consider myself post-theological."
      How brilliant, I thought. Rather than discuss and debate the existence of God, she focuses attention on the concept of theology itself. She dismisses not God, but the entire notion of theology as an area of inquiry that is worthy of consideration. By calling herself post-theological, she isn't making the rejection of God-belief the key ingredient in her identity; she is pointing out that, from a historical perspective, theological inquiry itself is no longer a valid means of finding truth or morality.
      In fact, my friend's historical view of theology is accurate. Before humans reached the level of intelligence necessary for theological inquiry, our ancestors were in what might be called the "pre-theological" stage. Like other animals, our distant ancestors lacked the intelligence necessary to achieve theological thought. But at some point in our historical development humans became intelligent enough to ask deep questions about the world, such as: How did we get here? Who made this place? Why does the sun rise, and why does lightning strike? What happens to us when we die? These are big questions that can only be asked by an animal with remarkable intelligence.

Dude -- The "a" in "atheist"means without or lacking. I'm an atheist the same way I'm amoral. ...(snipped)

Or you could skip all the a- bits and go with "Post Theological". First reference I saw was here,
    http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/Umbrella-Niose.html
Interestingly, I was turned on to this by a 97-year old relative (my father's cousin).

Because religion has things to say about the fuzzier aspects of life - ethics, beauty, community, wonder, and love, to name a few examples - that science doesn't have much relevance to.

Al the above can be appreciated without religion. For anyone thinking about atheism who doesn't like that term, consider this alternative, "post-theological" http://thehumanist.org/humanist/Umbrella-Niose.html
I was raised without attending any formal religious services (both parents had given up church-going at an early age). It was pretty confusing when my grade school peers tried to pigeonhole me as agnostic, atheist or something else--I really didn't know what they were talking about.

Science IS a Faith.

Science is not faith. Science is inductive, while faith is deductive. That is a key difference. Now when you get to theoretical science, that more or less does require faith. Science involves critical thinking (does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions), while faith more or less does not. You should read what Richard Dawkins wrote here: http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/articles/dawki ns.html (or you can just brush that off and say you don't need to).

As noted many, many times on Slashdot, faith is "belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence," while the scientific method involves "systematic methods used in scientific investigations of the natural world, which include designing controlled experiments, gathering data, and developing and testing hypotheses." Might I ask, in light of this, how is science faith?

The error in the way you have approached the question is here: you have made the assumption that matter precedes, and dictates, human behavior, human free will, and that human spirit is its subject. However, if you'll read some philosophy books, Kant or Descartes, for instance, you'll soon recognize that psychology got scooped by philosophy. The epistemic divide, as professor Johanna Seibt (of U.T. Austin) used to call it, is a well established breach in the capacity of any of the scientific / empirical fields of study to claim descriptive dominion over anything except a portion of the "phenomenal world".

Yes, I have assumed that matter precedes, and dictates, human behavior, but as I annotate below psychology shows that everything psychological is simultaneously biological.

And Kant and Descartes assume that God exists.

And again, that matter does not precede and dictates human behavior is an assumption - and it is an assumption that spirits exist and people have spirits. Now maybe spirits exist and people have them, and maybe we cannot prove that, but why believe that spirits have anything to do with human behavior without sound supporting evidence? Because philosophy says so? Well if you believe that science is based on assumptions then how is philosophy any different?

The conscious experience you know as daily life is, in fact, not EXPERIENCE OF THE WORLD, it is EXPERIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. The world is not a thing that CAN be directly experienced. Smells, sights, sounds, senses, etc... ALL of it must be PRESENTED to the mind, which is then able to churn on the sum on them, assimilating them into a unified thing called consciousness, experience, awareness, what have you.

Are these not mere theoretical ideas and assumptions? Where is the evidence that these things are true? The field of psychology has, IMO, offered much more trustworthy and a more solid view of the world. As my psychology 101 book (Psychology Eight Edition in Modules by David G. Myers) says, "everything psychological is simultaneously biological." The book goes on to show how every human behavior affects the brain, and whenever the brain is affected human behavior is consequently affected. In light of this, what reason is there to believe Kant's Fundamental Categories as they pertain to perceiving reality?

Kant separates reality into two fields of knowledge: the Noumenal (nonrational. nonlogical, paradoxical, symbolic, untestable, unverifiable, suprahistorical, imaginative, religius) and the Phenomenal (rational, logical, historical, factual, real, testable, empirical, scientific). There are problems with this manner of believing:

• Using this method of understanding Christianity becomes weakened.
• This nullifies Biblical accounts of God's/Jesus' miracles and the Bible's prophecies as basis for obtaining faith. It implicitly asserts that they are unimportant, pointless, and useless.

For example, Russels Why I am not A Christian is much less idiotic. Richard Dawkins Is Science a Religion is also pretty good, so it's not like it's impossible for you to find such things.

I think it's sad that so many of the people who oppose religion so vehemently clearly have motivation other than seeking the truth. I know a lot of people have been damaged by those calling themselves Christians, and in America I can imagine that rationalist types feel oppressed by the religious literalists, and here on slashdot there must be lots of people who think that their trendy rationalist philosophy will give them the ability to look down on the rest of the population and make them feel good, but really, try to find a more appropriate target for that hurt, frustration and arrogance.

Religion is not the enemy of science, dogmatism is.

1 - You can be devoutly religious and also logical/rational/scientific.

No, you cant. Religion is the belief in in the supernatural.
Science only only concerns itself with demonstratable conjecture to describe a natural phenomenon.

Most people who construct the "Choose religion or science" frame do so (as I do) because I believe that once someone accepts that a supernatural world exists, they abandon their ability to pursue science. If your willing to accept the supernatural -- what purpose does reason and logic have in the pursuit of science (that which is natural)?

2 - Some "scientific" and anti-religious people are just as bigotted, and illogical as the religious nuts.

This is essentially the "science is a religion" argument, and I will have nothing to add beyond Richard Dawkins excellent article you can read here.

As for the anti-religious being 'bigotted', yes, I can assume some are. I will admit to it myself. I will not apologize that I agree with Denis Diderot when he said "Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."

Destroying religion as necessary to civilization as plumbing and not cohabitating with one's livestock.

Religion is (to put it mildly) a bother and a bore, and Im tired of a world populated by masses who believe their supernatural deity is The Most Great. Religion keeps us from taking ownership of Humanity's OUR OWN PROBLEMS. Keeps us from realizing that WE ALONE are responsible for the state of our community. Religion is a manner of absolving oneself of responsiblity ("I give myself to you oh lord").

This life is all we have. There is no second chance to get things right "next time", or reward in an afterlife. Please consign these fantasies to ancient history where they belong.

The quote in your article summary 'more effective, 24-hour propaganda machine' looks like it's quoting Rummy, but in fact it looks like those are the words of the BBC author. I checked a few different news sources, and could not find Rumsfeld directly quoted anywhere using the word 'propaganda'.

Not that propaganda wouldn't be a good idea. Something like the spiritual arms control suggested by Richard Dawkins might be useful.

"departments paying journalists to endorse their positions, it begs the question, how much more can they possibly do?"

Begging the question does not mean what you think (despite the common misuse). Use "raises the question" in this context.

Saying something is true because statistics show that something to be true most of the time is, in fact, a stereotype. What you are saying is that because a vast majority of the african-american people at my school are loud-mouthed and annoying, I have the right to say that (please noone take offense, I don't believe this at all) blacks being big-mouthed fucktards is a statistical reality.

I wasn't making a claim about christians from personal anecdotal data. I successfully refuted my parent post's claim that "it's just the loudmouth conservative wackos who perpetuate the stereotype that a Christian believes the world is four thousand years old." It's actually pretty mainstream.

One more thing, you seem to be trying to say that noone's answers are any more real than others, so why should I listen to you?

I most definitely did not say that! Cultural relativism is bunk, and science is not just another faith.

Also, does this mean every person ever should recreate ever experiment required to *prove* something to be true, because we shouldn't believe that anyone has the credentials to tell us what's true and what's not? Thats an awful waste of time if you ask me.

No, but they should be able to!

I believe that's child abuse and it's a shame the censors were cowed by the subject matter into neglecting an NC-17 rating to stop people like you. Ultimately it is the duty of the state to compensate for parents with exceptionally poor judgement so that the rest of us don't have to live with their screwed-up children.

Of course I also think it's child abuse to expose your children to any religious dogma whatsoever, so you should probably just ignore me as someone who has an extremely different viewpoint from your own.

IMHO, the only way the idea of God can stand up to any rational scrutiny is to have it pared down to first principles, like a prime-mover of God or a necessary being, that is basically unprovable. Even science relies on the basis of first principles that we take for granted but are not provable (like induction, verifiability, falsifiability...). Consider Dawkins argument on why science is not a religion and you see him lapsing rather unscientifically on his conviction and intuition. The existence of God rests on a similar insight, something you either accept or you don't, based on your intuition. It is not that philosophers have not untangled it. It is fundamentally untangleable.

I am an atheist, but that does not mean I would not be able to appreciate the position of other point of views. So why don't I accept science, but not religion? My reason is simply Occam's razor: do not make unnecessary assumptions. Given all these transcendental insights, I must draw the line on what I will believe (induction) and what I will not believe (unicorns, God). Induction and science further my knowledge of the world and is required for the world to function. As for God, to quote Laplace, 'I have no need for that assumption'. The world can get by merrily without assuming Him or Her. But not gravity. And as for the retort that God created gravity, I've no need for that assumption either. :)

[ To cover bases: argument that God is the simplest assumption you can make about the world, is a misunderstanding of Occam's razor - which does not argue on simplicity, but on neccesity. Positing a God will still require the laws of gravity to be laid out. Is God a necessary being? The jury is out there! ]