I have news for you peeps of AF...

[Jenny A]

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Well you have been having a busy week haven't you JBrentonK haven't you?  I've had a busy week too, but without good web access.  I have been reading you with interest *and a few giggles* though.  You've said:

all rational or thinking or perhaps even all human actions are prayer;

all humans are the sons of god;

belief is a choice;

FSM is pure hypocrisy;

Nazism and disbelief go hand in hand;

And a number of other odd claims.  So from the top:

If all human actions or even all rational human actions are prayer, that the word prayer has no useful meaning.  You have buried both  its worship and phrase aspect and it's plea aspect in a heap of everything else.  You remind me of a teacher who claimed every moment of every day was an education.  Well you might learn something from most moments.  And truly dedicated saints might make every gesture an act of faith.  But not everyone learns in every moment and virtually no one prays with every moment's actions.  Congratulations, you have made the term prayer both secular and meaningless.

If we are all the sons of god means no more than god created man, a little proof of that is in order.  Setting aside striking lack of evidence of the god claim in generally let alone the Christian god claim, or the even more specific are rather unique JBrenton god claim, the Bible does not suggest we are all the sons of god.  In the OT the men referred to as the son's of god, are men specially favored by god.  Adoptive sons as it were.  In the NT Jesus is referred to as god's only begotten son, begotten not made.  That suggest a rather different relationship.  Though in the gospels Jesus is also referred to in the OT sense as a favored man of god.  Interestingly, the son of man invariably means the messiah in either the OT or the NT.

Belief is a state of mind and not a choice.  Given the incredible lack of evidence, I could no more believe in god than I could believe the average American in Muslim.

FSM is pure satire.

As to Nazism, in Germany it was a movement supported by the largely Christian population.  In the U.S. it still goes hand in hand with certain brands of Christianity.  This is not surprising as the anti-Jewish element in Natzism, is a long standing Christian tradition.

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An obvious atheist! Hello!

Well it is in my signature yes.

Yes.... About prayer. I once started a thread on sciforums.com, and it was titled "Arguement from authority". Just forget the title. In the thread I simply wished to pose a question to atheists. My question was: "Why do human beings pray?". Immediately the entire thread could sense that all human beings pray, and it immediately jumped at by atheists.

Well I snared them in didn't I? Because prayer is a rational action which human beings alone are subject to, because it is rational. For example, it is not possible for animals to pray because that is an irrational species, incapable of the action of a rational act.

Not really.  To wish or plea is an action dogs, cats and many other animals indulge in.  I'm not sure it's rational.  We want something, but indulging in the idea that wanting might result is getting is not so very rational.  Nor is worshiping. Not that animals aren't rational.   Just about any animal that hunts, reasons.  They predict rationally what their prey will do next and act accordingly.  That's rational.

Sadly though, because prayer is a rational action, it also bears the weight that every human being prays. When we pray, we simply ask God to take away our sin. We pray for sex. We pray for sex with God.

WTF?  We pray for sex with god?  The idea never occur ed to me.  Praying to take away sin I've heard of, but it's silly.  If you've behaved immorally, no one can take that away.  

Prayer is universal. It encompasses the great realm of the rational. Every human act is an act of prayer. Unconsciously or consciously, it doesn't matter. It really hurts an atheists feelings to come to know that he must pray.

If to pray means to wish or entreat, I do and so does my dog.  But that just subverts the word prayer.

This only means that atheism is just an invented word, and that his "religion" is irrelevant to God's truths. If you wish to argue, find a monkey because he's the least rational of us all (what animal is the least rational?). Find some wall to speak to, mr atheist, because you've finally arrived upon the truth.

Word salad.  What do you actually mean, or do you know?

No, prayer is enough to make any atheist run away from himself. It's enough to cause a total upheaval of his beliefs. It is also enough to convert an atheist to Christianity, God's only religion. And we all believe in God, even if we may doubt that we "truly" do.

If all atheists pray as this is true, why are there atheists?

Sadly though, belief is a choice. You must choose to believe and when to believe. You must choose how to act (or believe), and you must also choose on what you direct you attention towards when you believe. And to believe is not a state of mind either, a simple "foggy aspect" of our every life's day. It is certainly not a part of us that comes to us when we least expect it, because to believe is only to choose that one believes. The reason that your irrational manner of conversation sticks out as abundantly obvious atheist, is becuase you have not made the choice to believe, you believe that all belief is not a matter of choice.

Belief should be a matter of evidence.  If it isn't for you than you are tending towards being that transitional being between ape and man.

God asks us to choose when and how we believe.

When god asks me anything I'll take notice because it would be some evidence of his existence.

As far as your hatred of christians in a NAZI'ist sense, that is rather odd. Because it is the atheists that hate the Christians enough to manipulate the flesh and burn any disbelievers, it is the atheist that desires to disbelieve in God and turn the world into a matter of believers or non believers.

I don't hate Christians generally.  Many of my friends are Christians.  But I wouldn't mind if they ceased to believe.  I have no fear of hellfire for either them or myself.  There is no evidence of hellfire.  I wouldn't want anyone to be afraid of something so unreal.