A reason why people remain religious

[Polaris]

Polaris, I can appreciate your attempt to challenge us, and by all means. But if anyone is contributing to the "ruin" of "the image of academia," it's your hoc and vulgar personal attacks; true, you're on the receiving end of it a lot (especially from Min) but you're not in any way trying to elevate the discussion. So let's maybe try and do that if your motives are as pure as you claim.

My motives are not pure...my motives are selfish as I stated earlier.

The actions of people make an impact on the perception others have about their academic integrity.

Someone can't be a true Biblical literalist as a Christian since the parables of Jesus were not meant to be taken literal. But take for example, the Flood, I assume it actually happened as numerous civilizations recounted a similar event, but I believe what was seen as the world was just the world that would have been known to those societies....aka the Black Sea deluge.

Down. I hold different views of Christianity than the views people have of Christians on this forum....on the flip side, most of the members on this forum fit the stereotypical definition of an atheist seen in America and England (different than all other atheists I have met, emphasis I have never met an atheist who acts anything like the people on this forum and I wager most of the people I have met have been nonbelievers to some extent or another based upon the conversations I had with them). Even when I go onto Christian forums, the Christians act less stereotypically Christian (per the atheist view of Christian) than people here act stereotypically atheist.