Do you beleive in god OT ?

Go and read the Bible guys, don't get me wrong, you who don't believe will be left behind to suffer the final years before The Lord Jesus Judgement Day! I know He exists, He saved my life countless times and He also saved my father's life countless times. He provides us with knowledge by reading and knowing the Bible and being One with The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit! JESUS RULES!!!! And if someone is gonna try and prove me wrong, I'm not gonna judge you, Jesus will! I'm a huge gamer and a WWE fan! I listen to great music, especially Twisted Sister, Bon Jovi etc etc...but I know God in all of my decisions in Life!!!!! He is our savior!!! He WILL RETURN!!!!!!

This is some really lazy trolling

Miracles don't prove Jesus was divine. Afterall Jesus warns us of false profits performing miracles.

And yes, Muslims do believe Jesus was Crucified.

Section/Ruku Ruku 22 [Verses 153 to 162]: Transgressions of the Jews:

Chapter Chapter 4: (Al-Nisa’: The Women)(Revealed at Madinah: 24 sections; 176 verses)

157 And for their saying: We have killed the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the messenger of Allah, and they killed him not, nor did they cause his death on the cross,^a but he was made to appear to them as such.^b And certainly those who differ therein are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge about it, but only follow a conjecture, and they killed him not for certain:


They do not doubt that he was nailed to the cross, they doubt that he expired on it. This is the same translation that is in my personal copy of the Quran

That verse doesn't really support what you're saying. Pretty much all Muslims doubt that he was ever nailed to the cross.

And I don't see the relevance of your comment about the miracles that Jesus allegedly preformed. The fact remains that the bodily resurrection of Christ is integral to Christian theology. You are of course free to believe whatever you want to believe, but realize that what you are saying is extremely heterodox and contradicted by biblical and other Christian materials.

"If Christ was not raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your trust in God is useless"

Lol, did Jesus work for the IRS or something?

"Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar"

It's never a bad idea to take tax advice from the Jews.

Yeah, i'm not a bible thumper but I believe

I believe in the possible existence, but I do not have faith

The bible is true because it says it is true. What more proof do you need?

Seems ridiculous to just believe in something for no reason. I'm open to the possibility of a creator, but there's no reason to believe in one at this point. Nobody actually believes in the bible, otherwise we would basically see super heroes, when you consider the power that faith is supposed to give you.

I do believe in a infinite creator, not sure I believe in the biblical version of him though. Although the bible really doesn't specify who or what god is.

People do believe in the bible. that's what this whole Christianity thing is about.

And, behold, I come quickly; - Revelations 22:12

2000 years later...

I'm gonna takes a stab at what he's trying to say. I believe he's trying to go into the realm of fate. If we're talking about heaven and hell or life after death, then no matter what happens in life, your destination is pretty much fixed. We have free will in a sense, but ultimately, our destiny is pretty much set in stone in what we will do in life and where we will end up afterwards. Kinda like re-watching your favorite movie, once you see it the first time, you can pretty much tell what's gonna happen from start to finish. Characters in that movie won't just suddenly do something new the second time you watch it, they continue to do everything that was scripted in that story and recorded on video. So you're pretty much a character in a movie that was already watched. You're just simply playing your role out.

Of course, I don't believe in God, fate, and all that other nonsense. However, I personally don't believe we have ABSOLUTE bonafide free will. I believe the governing principles behind cause and effect prevents us from truly enjoying the luxury of having true free will. Cause and effect is kind of like someone dropping a pebble in a pond and that pebble produces ripples, we are able to make choices but our choices are influenced by actions of others....

@toast_burner:

I wish that someone would speak some real sense into your mind!!! For those who don't believe...all I can say is, strongs, because in the last days you won't live a happy life...hopefully that isn't soon or in our lifetime, I still want to live for at least sixty more years...then I'll be 78 years old...now that's a good long life on earth before ascending to Heaven to our Father The Lord Jesus Christ!!!!!

@tocool340: I understand what you're saying. Me and a couple others were just arguing that just because God could supposedly guide all your actions, doesn't mean he does. On one hand, it would be possible for him to move you like a chess piece all your life (fate/divine plan/God's will) and on the other hand that he might just be all seeing with disregard for the timeline, in which case the future would already be known to him, which doesn't mean your free will was taken away. Obviously these are just simplistic opinions (I don't think any of us cares enough to take a lot of time thinking about this topic XD) and there are way more variables that would need to be taken into consideration in we were to have a deeper argument.

the name just ruins it

Amen.

mhm

DonQuixote, first of all Sam harris has been destroyed so many times by William lane craig that I stopped counting. Harris believes there is no free will because he is a naturalist, and naturalism is slowly starting to crackfrom all directions.

Veridical near death experiences give compelling evidence that the mind is not the brain and that the soul (consciousness) can live outside the body. Sam Harris and other atheists like him can attack regular Near death experiences but they avoid veridical nde's like the plague. Notice I said veridical NDE's not NDE's. An example of a veridical NDE Pam Reynolds. Doctors found a brain aneurism deep inside her brain and the only way to get to it was a very dangerous operation where the doctor would need to drain all the blood from her head so she would basically be clinically dead for a full hour. She would have no brain waves and no heart beat. she had her eyes taped shut so she couldn't possibly see with them, and she had specially fitted ear plugs molded to be put in her ears and she had a loud clicking device inserted into her ears so it would have been next to impossible for her to hear anything outside that loud clicking device.

When she was in that no-brainwave no heart beat state, she felt a very weird sensation like her soul popped out of her body. She then found herself floating above the operating table in the vantage point of being above the doctor's shoulder. She saw her own operation as they were operating on her. She even heard a nurse saying that there was a problem, that one of her arteries was too small and heard the doctor say "go to the other leg"

as she went further and further into death she saw a vortex open up and she was drawn into it . When she came out the other end she was surrounded by deceased relatives and other people she did not know and they were now beings of light. She also saw a bright light in the distance and asked these beings if that light was God. They answered "no, the light is what happens when God breathes, and she remembers saying that she was standing in the breath of God", but her uncle told her that she couldn't stay because it wasn't her time so he took her back through the vortex and threw her back into her body, even though Pam was fighting him every step of the way. When she came back to she told the doctors that she had witnessed her own operation and described to them what was being done to her and what was being said, and even describing the saw being used to drill into her head, which she had no access to before the operation. The doctor was astonished and said there was no natural way she could have seen or heard what was happening in that operation while she had no brain activity or heart beat.

This is the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNbdUEqDB-k

Now my question is, if the regular nde (in which pam went through a vortex into another dimension) flowed right after her veridical nde, there is no reason to think what she saw when she went into the vortex was false or an hallucination. Remember she was brain dead with no heartbeat during this time. This is called clinical death.

Sam Harris avoids these questions like the plague, and I don't blame him because they have very unsettling implications towards his atheism.

Also Donquixote, and Nuck81 if your really interested in some honest seeking about God, maybe you would do well to study one of the most scientifically studied objects on earth and that is the shroud of turin. The shroud has brought many on their first steps towards faith in God and the technology used to create that image is way beyond even 21st century science to replicate. Many have tried and all have failed. the one who came closest to replicating the image was former agnostic Doctor August Accetta who was a believer until his twenties when he started to think that religion was acrutch to help people deal with death.

Doctor Accetta came closest to replicating many of the of the unique features of the shroud but he needed to ingest radioactive material into his body and pass gamma waves through it. Even though he replicated quite a few of the shroud's features he couldnt produce them all. He knew what happened to cause that shroud image to appear could only be best explained with a supernatural explanation. The image on the shroud fits the description of the historic Jesus with the passion and crucifixion down to the letter. So many evidences point compellingly to it being the bural shroud that wrapped around the historic Jesus but its the image itself that points towards only one event that could have most reasonably caused that image and that is the resurrection of Christ.

The image has xray information on it of the hands, wrists, left femur, head, jaw, gums and teeth. It has 3d spatial topographical information on it that was found when passing it through NASA's vp8 image analyzer, a device that was used to analyze 3d topographical information of the terrain of the moon and mars, which also convinced forensic experts that this burial shroud had to have wrapped an actual human body. Then you have to explain the absolutely pristine blood clots that are unbroken and anatomically accurate. If you wrap a bloodied body with a burial shroud the blood forms a light bond between the body and the burial shroud and once someone steals the body off the burial shroud or the body gets up naturally off the shroud those blood clots will be broken as well as the underlying cloth, yet there are no signs of breakage or smearing which means that the man of the shroud had to leave the shroud in an unnatural way. There are many other clues that tell us that what happened to the man of the shroud was a supernatural event, and it would take much more then 1 post to explain them all. I have researched the shroud for 5+ years so I know a lot about it from both the pro and con side and let me tell you that that there is much more pro then con to the shroud of turin.

that's not even counting the pollen found on the shroud that come from plants that only grow in Jerusalem and only bloom in the springtime ;), plus the rare travertine aragonite limestone found on the shroud that can only be found in the burial tombs of Jerusalem.

A good starter video would be this one in which a doctor is giving a presentation on the shroud to a group of high school seniors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcKTkjWkqEU

When I wake up I feel like I am burning in a lake of fire so yes God is real.

Nein

Those of you who said that you believe in God you are just being delusional because there is actually no evidence for the existence of any God.

The problem of evil and suffering proves that.

If there was a God then good people will not have to suffer needlessly and then die. If there was a loving God then extreme pain, suffering and eternal death will not exist because God would have prevented those things from existing in the first place.

But fact is it doesn't happen and good people still suffer needlessly and die prematurely and apparently God does nothing to prevent the suffering and death of good people.

God doesn't help good people who suffer extremely to do things and improve their life and their living conditions so in my opinion this just demonstrates that he doesn't exist.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Epicurus

A great question people ask when tragedy and natural disasters happen is where is God? Religious theists can not answer this question adequately as it provides a great problem with the theory of a "good and just" God.

-Why does God allow terrible things to happen to good people?

-Why does God allow innocent children to die of starvation in Africa?

-Why does God allow natural disasters like earthquakes to kill both sinners and innocent people indiscriminately?

There are four flawed religious answers to these questions

1) God gives man freewill. We shouldnt Judge God based on what man does with his freewill!

-A natural disaster has no freewill and there is nothing man can do with his freewill against an earthquake (except run/help survivors)

-An omniscient God can not give freewill. Such a God knows everything- what will happen and when it will happen- predetermination!

2) God is punishing the wicked (Gays destroy society false argument )

-Worse things even happen to those people who worship him and innocent children.

-An earthquake doesnt care if you are good or bad.

-Such a God can not be just. Why not Judge people individually rather than kill indiscriminately with floods and disaters?

3)God is doing in for a greater good! We are not omnipotent and so we can't judge

-Really? God couldnt find a better way of achieving the greater good than to let children drown in a tsunami

-Greater good for who? The societies ravaged by earthquakes? The dead victims?

4) God is not involved in these tragedies!

-Erm, he impotent or selfish not to help.

Library Of The Best 40 Atheist Arguments Against God/religion (NOW WITH PICS):

http://www.nairaland.com/1150005/library-best-40-atheist-arguments

Actually, who says that God has to be good? He is God, he can do whatever the hell he wants.

I believe there may be some greater force in the universe. Some sort of organized power, but I have little belief in the gods that others hold faith in.

But every definition of God that I have seen in Christianity, God is good and benevolent and merciful and not evil.

Also if God is actually evil, then why would anyone want to worship a cruel, sadistic God?

Not evil, but sometimes Gods wakes up a little grumpy and says "**** it, let me send a hurricane over there". But then he feels bad so he gives us another GTA game.

@christiaan1996: Reading the Bible convinced me that God is an asshole.

I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things. - Isaiah 45:7

@pariah3

I replied to your question regarding the problem of evil once before:

"when your lord said to the angels: 'I am placing on the earth a caliph (viceroy) , ' they replied: 'will you put there who corrupts and sheds blood, when we exalt your praises and sanctify you? ' he said: 'I know what you do not know."

But it seems that does not convince you because you said:

First regarding natural disasters: God gave us this earth, this world, a world of chaos. He protected us and sheltered us from most of it's harms (with things like the Ozone layer, our atmosphere that burns most of the asteroids entering it etc.) but he also gave us a mission. To conquer this world and be his viceroy on this planet. Earthquakes floods etc. they can all be prevented or at least handled with the power of science. God blessed us with the power to think and solve our problems on our own. WE HAVE THE POTENTIAL, THE "CAPABILITY" TO PREVENT EVIL IN THE NAME OF GOD AS HIS VICEROY BUT MAYBE WE ARE YET TO ACQUIRE THE "ABILITY" TO DO SO. That is our mission. If harm is done to an insect, if an ant is stomped ignorantly it is our sin. It may seem a little idealistic but I rather believe in humanity than to give up all hope. Although God is merciful:

"And we do not lay on any soul a burden except to the extent of its ability, and with us is a book which speaks the truth, and they shall not be dealt with unjustly."

The concept of freewill has been explained in this thread well enough. I suggest you read Korvus and LJ_basic's posts.

Pariah, there is lots of evidence for God, I just showed you the shroud of turin which you conveniently ignored, and then you blindly assert that there is no evidence for God. there is also the prime mover and first cause argument.

You also said here ""The problem of evil and suffering proves that.

If there was a God then good people will not have to suffer needlessly and then die. If there was a loving God then extreme pain, suffering and eternal death will not exist because God would have prevented those things from existing in the first place.

But fact is it doesn't happen and good people still suffer needlessly and die prematurely and apparently God does nothing to prevent the suffering and death of good people.

God doesn't help good people who suffer extremely to do things and improve their life and their living conditions so in my opinion this just demonstrates that he doesn't exist.""

First of all where do you get your concept of what is good and what is bad? To do that you need to leap from atheism to theism to do that because in a worldview without an objective moral lawgiver Good and Bad become just opinions. In that worldview a man that butchers a billion people is no more objectively good or bad then me helping an old lady across the street. Throughout the Bible God's greatest saints have suffered and have grown spiritually because of this. Your looking at God through the finite eyes of a materialistic paradigm. If God is who he says he is then he can see past present and future all at once and he can plot the best outcome for us, but because we can only see the present he can look very evil to us. Name once saint who didn't suffer in the bible .Christ himself came as the suffering servant. He is our example . Much of our suffering in this world we as human beings cause to each other because of our greed and selfishness and the others are part of this fallen world.

Now how do you know that the death of good people is bad or good? Again when looking at the world through lense of a finite present day materialistic paradigm you simply cant and God would appear evil to you. The good people that die, where do you think they are now? I think that partially answers your question.

Also please study the shroud of turin, that relic alone has converted many to Christianity. The honest atheist will be amazed at what the shroud shows and the dishonest atheist will run away from it. Mark Antonacci , A lawyer from Missouri was this way. He was a satisfied happy go lucky agnostic who had no need for what he would call fairy tale religions, but he had a relationship with a Christian woman and the arguments would keep getting worse each day and they were over religion. Finally one day he had enough and decided that he would go out on a mission and investigate Christianity and prove to her that her delusional beliefs were based on a fairy tale.

His biggest mistake was starting with the shroud of turin. What he thought would take 2 weeks to debunk and move on to another area of Christianity to debunk took him over 25 years and at the end of his investigation of the shroud not only could he not debunk the shroud but he himself converted to Christianity because of his research into the shroud.

To say there is no evidence tells me pariah that you haven't studied all the evidence. Why not look honestly into the shroud and then tell me if you can debunk it :) The last person I debated the shroud with was an atheist but he was willing to look at any evidence. At the end of our debate 5 months later he converted to agnosticism just from the shroud with an open possibility of more. I don't know if that MORE has come because I haven't seen him for a while but im sure his Christian girlfriend is thrilled that eh is now more open to the possibility of faith.

The shroud of turin was confirmed to be fake years ago. So do you have any actual evidence?

Toast burner you said ""The shroud of turin was confirmed to be fake years ago. So do you have any actual evidence?""

Are you sure you wanna go there? I have researched and studied the shroud for 5 years. Again im asking you if you want to go there? If you do please show me the evidence that proved it was a fake , and ill say it once again toast burner so that you don't tell me that I didn't warn you. I have studied the shroud for 5+ years and and I know almost every evidence for and again it. Now since you made the claim show me the evidence that shows it was a fake. This wont take too long for me to debunk you on this. The second option would be for you to say that "opps sorry , I just made an assertion without studying any of the evidence beyond the pseodoskeptical atheistic sites I visit and not the actual evidences from the scientists and the peer reviewed papers"

If I were you toast I would go with option 2. The last atheist who made bold claim is no longer an atheist.

@foxhound_fox:

You will be judged! Remember that, and don't come crying and say you didn't pay attention to Jesus and The Bible!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_14_dating_of_the_Shroud_of_Turin

It was dated to be from sometime between 1260 and 1390CE. Do you have any evidence that it as not only around at the time of Jesus' death but also used by him?

@Christiaan1996: How old are you? Based on your username, I'd assume 18. That, and you present with the assuredness of a teenager/young adult. That arrogant claim that you have all the answers and if someone does not agree, they are wrong.

How did you arrive at your faith? Were you convinced by a spiritual journey you undertook, looking at all the world's religions and determining which one was right? Or were you born into a Christian family, brought up in the religion and never given the opportunity to actually explore the world?

Given your fundamentalist attitude (and I know you might just be reveling at the fact that I will burn in Hell) I'll take another wager and say no, you haven't explored anything else and had Jesus rammed down your throat from a very young age.

Don't feel sorry for me, feel sorry for yourself. You've missed out on a great deal of spiritual insight. Hell, I doubt you've even read non-canonical Christian scripture like the Gospel of Judas and Mary.

lmao

"It has further been stated that Roger’s vanillin-dating process is untested, and the validity thereof is suspect, as the deterioration of vanillin is heavily influenced by the temperature of its environment - heat strips away vanillin rapidly, and the shroud has been subjected to temperatures high enough to melt silver and scorch the cloth.^[43] Rogers’ analysis is also questioned by skeptics such as Joe Nickell, who reasons that the conclusions of the author, Raymond Rogers, result from "starting with the desired conclusion and working backward to the evidence""

And yet still no evidence that it's older. You're also ignoring that it was tested numerous times by different groups.

And you're ignoring all the other evidence to go along with it. Granted I have no horse in this race but your post about it being a "confirmed fake" is just wrong. There is no definitive answer as of yet.

No there is no definitive answer. There is also no definitive answer whether the universe is a computer simulation or not.

However the fact that there is evidence that it is fake and no evidence that it is real, does say a lot.

nope

Destroyed by the career hack Daniel Lane, I'm a fucking imbecile, Craig? Its a mere admission to a lack of critical thinking when you agree to the sophomoric ideas of Craig.

If you didn't have 8 posts and weren't clearly a hack robobot intent on strengthening the intelligent design movement I'd respond more. Craig is a hack and merely a step above Kent Hovind.

There is only

it is always possible that there is a god but there is no way it is anything like the spoiled vain immature genocidal maniac the bible portrays it as.

@wallstreeter43:

......and there have also been claims from people being reborn with memories, seeking out people from past lives, knowing all about them and their history with them, with never having know a single thing about them prior.

.....but something tells me you'll simply dismiss these stories outright as garbage.

Mirko, I don't dismiss them as outright garbage. When I was in my twenties I looked at many different religions including Buddhism which I respect very much because of the way that they value all life, including animals. Im an inclusivist Christian and if you don't know what an inclusivist is I suggest you read a little and educate yourself.

Now unless I study and research them I wont simply dismiss them as outright gargabe, remember, im not an atheist. That is the mark of an atheist not an open minded person. What the shroud does do is that it points to the ultimate reality which is the historic Christ and the most reasonable explanation for that image as the resurrection of Christ, and that is the ultimate of ultimate realities. and for me the ultimate reality of the first uncaused cause (God ) is the only real one I have to concern myself with.

The bible says there are many different dwelling places in God's kingdom and that can mean a lot of different things, but what all these things really do is leave the atheist/materialist as the odd man out and leaves the logical people such as spiritualists (new age Etc etc ), Catholic Christians, Protestant Christians, Muslims and Jews to debate the qualities of monotheistic God, but like I said, it leaves the atheist as the odd man out.

What you didn't do was address my statement at all and it shows me that your not interested in seeking truth, only to validate your atheistic FAITH.

What inclusivists believe is that as long as any man or woman is searching for God (the truth) with all their hearts honestly they can be saved even if they aren't Christians. I know that this seems like a novel belief, but its what the earliest Christians going all the way back to Justin martyr in 160ad onward believed. heck im sure you heard of the Phrase Good Samaritan? If you did you historic readings you would have known that the Samaritans were pagans and not Christians. Not only that but they were more antichristian then any atheist today. they wouldn't even let Christians into their villages. Ever heard of the parable of the good Samaritan? It was put forth by Christ himself. It tells us that God can even work in peoples hearts who are from other religions.

Atheists are a different story because they preach hatred for anything that has to do with God or the supernatural no matter how good the evidence is or not. This is dishonest seeking and it shows a hardened heart, and when it is their time to be judged they are not going to be all arrogant and prideful once they find out to their absolute horror that God is in fact real, and by then it will be too late for the dishonest seeker.

If lets say an honest seeker says hes an agnostic and is trul;y trying his best to seek God honestly with all his heart, God is going to take that into consideration heavily.

I know most evangelicals don't believe this but if they read the writings of the earliest Christians they will see that what im talking about isn't so novel.

Mirk, don't assume things before you know , and oh, by the way , in typical atheistic fashion you avoided the shroud of turin like the plague, but then again I have seen this so many times that its no longer a shock to me,

God bless

What a dickheaded thing to say.

My answer would probably be "yes". The way I figure it there's most likely some kind of higher force ultimately responsible for existence, in some way. But if we ever truly discover the absolute origin of existence I'm totally open to it.

That said, I dislike organized religion myself, but have no issue with people who follow it. If you're not an awful person and following a religion makes your life better then I have no inclination to stop you.

hoolahoopman, your assertions about WLC are just that and if you had bothered to feel the pulse around your fellow atheists they even have a respect for him. In fact it was Sam harris himself that said William Lane Craig is the only Christian apologist that puts the fear of God in me and my fellow atheists. If Sam harris admits this I don't think im gonna go with your assertion from sheer ignorance and agree with it will I?

Doctor Antony Flew also had the same respect for WLC, and Flew as an atheist would have made mincemeat out of Harris and this breed of new atheists. Flew came from a time when Atheists actually used to put up great intellectual arguments against theists. Im talking about people like Bertrand Russell, AJ Ayers etc. These were well respected philosophers who may have been atheists but weren't fundamentalist atheists like we have today with the 4 horsemen. Flew was respected by both sides and he was right up there with AJ Ayers and Russell, and when he announced in 2004 that he changed his mind and now believes in a creator, the way his fellow atheists attacked him would have made Ayers and Russell ashamed to call themselves atheists.

Aljosa23 - That's exactly what I was telling Toast_burner and the fact that he didn't back up his claim that its been proven a fake from the 14th century tells me that Toast burner wants it to be a fake emotionally and he wont even do any honest research into it. He believes its a fake without looking at the evidence. This is what we call blind faith, the exact thing that Toastburner accuses believers of doing, he is doing right in front of us. The shroud has this effect on dishonest people.

Skootles and I have no problem at all with your belief or anyone elses that is honest about their belief. This is what I love about being an inclusivist. Before I even knew what an inclusivist and before I knew that this is what my church taught I had many stressfull days worrying about my hindu, Buddhist, new age spiritualist, muslim and other friends, and I had to ask someone what my faith believes as far as whether it believed if they were going to heaven or hell. I got the answer from a very sweet old nun that I was on a retreat with. After this I looked into it and was very relieved and happy for my friends. When I make a friend they are usually a friend for life and my concern for them is always genuine. Now I know my prayers for them count and have meaning :)

Riverwolf007, that is your opinion and I used to get worried about the statements atheists said about the God of the old testament .... until I actually dig deep into study of the old testament which entails not only reading the old testament but understanding the original Hebrew meanings as well as the culture of the times. I may have been born into a certain religion but I also had to go through my journey of seeking which entailed studying many different religions, and my Dad who is my angel who passed away last month encouraged me to do this. The God I believe in isn't a God that will send someone to hell who is from a different religion who is honestly seeking him with the best of their ability. Now I got a lot of flack from my fellow Christians for saying this but when I show them that this is what the earliest Christians believed in also, they usually ignore it and switch the subject.

of their Foxhound im sorry but if that shoe fits. Like I said before the atheists of say 50 or more years back were respectful and won the respect of their opponents. The atheists of today are more in the line of a cult that if you don't agree with them they will ridicule you as being beneath them. Hitchens was this way, Lawrence is this way, dawkins is this way as well as Dennett and harris.

Michael Ruse who is an atheist himself even commented on this and talked about how childish their arguments are and how disrespectful their attitudes towards believers are , no matter what faith they are .

Ive never had a problem with a new age spiritualist, muslim, hindu, pantheist, panentheist, Buddhist etc etc etc, but constantly what I see of most atheists these days is the complete opposite of all these groups.