(October 10, 2013 at 5:54 am)Sword of Christ Wrote:(October 9, 2013 at 9:43 pm)Stimbo Wrote: Would that it were. Unfortunately, as $cientology, 9/11 Truthers and Moon Hoax Believers demonstrate, people are often desperate enough to cling onto anything that appeals to their sense of self-aggrandisement and desire to belong to some exclusive in-crowd.
An exclusive in-crowd like atheism? It's worth pointing out that not all (or even the greater majority of people) who believe in God or a greater purpose in the universe are even Christians anyway. It's possible for people to have a genuine belief and be wrong and this applies to atheists just as much as everyone else.
Since atheism is, ideally, the emancipation of people from the shackles of dogmatic belief, then no it's not an exclusive in-crowd. You're quite correct that a person's belief is as likely to be wrong as right; that's why I and many others endeavour to ensure that such beliefs as we choose to have are as correct as we can possibly make them, not merely adopted out of hand and against all evidence to the contrary.
(October 10, 2013 at 5:54 am)Sword of Christ Wrote:Quote:As a for instance, consider how many people will tell you that the USA was founded as a xtain nation and as evidence toss you the 'One Nation Under God' thing. Then do a little digging and find out how recent a tradition that actually is.
By keeping Church and state separate you could say they were following Christs teaching of rendering to Caesar what is Caesars and to God what is Gods. Christianity was never intended to be some kind of a theocracy.
Read what I said again, presented here for your convenience. You answered a point I didn't make while missing the one I did.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
