How to tell a real freethinker

[Esquilax]

The "historic fact" refers to the fact that the early Christians were persecuted, in case you were confused about that. The Romans, et al, recorded their own widespread persecutions of Christians, until Constantine put an end to it.

Yeah, and the moment christians get into power they hardly do better.

It's on you for reasons given below.

What, because you say so and you can find some smart people in the past who believed? Your entire argument for why the burden of proof is on we nonbelievers is the argument from authority? So, an already refuted argument that is a non sequitur given what we're discussing? Great, I'll get right on that...

As for the silence of God, if the Christian God does exist, then he is a billion times smarter than you or I, and has no reason to talk to a race which ignored his commandments, killed his prophets, knocked off his son and who by the billions, prefer to worship men, like the Pope or Mao. I mean what rational God would bother? Would you stop compalining about him if he did speak to you? No. And he knows that. Which is why he mostly talks to praying grandmothers I assume.

Egross answered this better than I could.

I did? You aren't one of those conspiracy theorists are you?

No, you listed a bunch of names and then decided that because those certain intelligent people were theists, your god is proven. And this is wrong, because even the smartest of individuals can be wrong, and just because a belief is held by a certain group of smart people, does not make it true.

True to some degree, but an excellent reason to stay away from Muslim countries. In fact it was Protestants like Locke and other students of Jesus' wisdom who were 98% responsible for the freedoms unbelievers do have. It's kind of sad you don't realize that. BTW at the same time Voltaire was justifying slavery, the Bible-addicted Wesley was calling it "the scourge of the earth." I guess he read Jesus' mission statement in Luke 4 or something.

Given that the bible has some very clear rules regarding how one should keep their slaves, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that ol' Wesley probably didn't derive his position on slavery from biblical sources. Just saying.

Not at all. The law requires that any statement of defamation be proved, for good reason. It is assuming innocence until guilt is proved, you see.

The law also requires that something be proved to have happened before it's even entered into the record as factual. For example, I can't be sued for defamation if I say something defamatory about a fictional character. See where I'm going with this? Before you can say my lack of belief is "defamatory" then you must prove the thing I have defamed exists.

And if you want to go that route, then fine: your bible calls us nonbelievers fools, and also calls for us to be killed. All terribly defamatory; now prove that there is a god, because otherwise all those calls to murder are utterly unjustified.