Interesting that you say that, yet God can be proven by science, manuscript evidence, statistical probability and archeology. Get a darn good lawyer, a historian, a scientist, a philosopher and have them study all of the materials available and watch what happens.

The chances of our universe being created by chance is a nearly infinite number and this can be proven by science alone so now something had to create the universe for purpose, interesting.

”Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color”

You have to have faith in order to believe there is no God, that is a religion.

No, I get what roz is saying. Militant atheism can be like organised religion in the respect that militant atheists (not all atheists, mind you,) do try to ‘convert’ people with faith to atheism because they believe their way of thinking is right or better (very much like some Christians believe their beliefs to be morally right, and try to convert atheists or people of other religions.) So the doctrine of the militant atheists is that religion is sin.

And I can’t help but feel that there are similarities between organized religion and the more extreme form of atheism when I get the same sort of abuse from both a Christian and an atheist.

also how can a lack of belief be anything but a lack of belief.

there are no dogmas or doctrines attached to atheism. thats the point.
you can have irreligious atheists, or you can have ones who dont care, or even some who think religion is good or at least useful
but then you can have irreligious agnostics or irreligious people of belief (william blake believed but was irreligious through his hatred of organised religion)

its not set up as parrellel to religious beliefs; its that there arent any.
you cant believe in atheism

IMHO, from my pagan viewpoint, i always thought it was.

oh my, is that gonna piss off derren or what! :0

One thing I do have to question is the Santa comments above – obviously Santa is entirely real, (go on – prove he isn’t… but remember, you won’t get any presents…)

So, naturally the rates of religiosity aren’t going down, they are simply becoming things that are not otherwise defined as religious. The new militant atheism, for instance, is rapidly becoming a religion, complete with doctrine and dogma.

Unless people recognize what’s going on, we wont actually alleviate the problems of religious thinking, we’ll simply pass them on to new systems of faith.

My mum is an atheist who comes from a Catholic family, and my dad is a believer who comes from an Evangelical family….and I’m a pagan. I think I’m a pretty impressive blip.

P.s. LOL, it’s the Jesus statue from Dogma!

luv the jesus picture, tho…hehe.