If faith works how every religion says it works......

[RAD]

Whilst I don't agree that theists are stupid, I think that citing people who were theists is irrelevant, as most people were theists for most of human history. Skepticism about religion has always been most prominent among the most educated and intelligent, though.

That seems rather subjective. Special pleading perhaps? Jefferson, who called Jesus' teachings "the most sublime BTW, seems to disagree.

Perhaps, but I have some objections to this hackneyed argument. 1) This was only because they had modern methods of government, which meant that they were better able to slaughter people than, say, the crusaders.

Um, they also had a leader who was completely paranoid, refused anything resembling fair trials if he had any at all, and who said Darwin "changed everything." Stalin made the Inquistors look fair minded. Would you agree? Also is it possible that people who read the sermon on the Mount, and actually think Jesus will judge them accordingly, (whether it is true or not) might think twice about committing wholesale murder?

2) Assuming that you're talking about the Communist regimes, there's no evidence that they did what they did becaue they were atheists, rather than because they were fanatical Communists.

OK except that atheists like Emma Goldman flocked to watch the working people take over the world, as if they were holier and more just than the rest of us sinners. I guess not.

3) If you're also referring to the Nazis, there's little evidence that Hitler was an atheist (and some evidence diectly to the contrary), and most of his followers certainly weren't. In fact, the Nazis capitalised on Christian anti-semitism that had existed for centuries (i.e. the 'fact' that the Jews were 'Christ killers').

That's a rather hackneyed, rhetorical argument itself, which requires us to discuss whether Flew's NTS fallacy came out of thin air and why it doesn't appear in any classic logic book. That said, Luther's writings were used to justify anti-semitism.

Yet it does matter what Jesus said and whether Christians followed it. Obviously Hitler never read Paul's warnings about persecuting Jews, or what Jesus said about his "brethren". And it is simple-minded IMO to just burn all the Christians at the stake, ignore the amazing social contributions of Protestants who hate to brag, and say it doesn't really matter what Jesus siad or who followed it. If Marx wasn't followed by one claiming to be a Communist, then I would say s/he was no true Communist, or an ignorant one. I don't believe everybody who tells me they are a true patriot. Do you?

---

Really? What about Hume, Paine, d'Holbach, Spinoza, Jefferson and Smith, to name but a few?

Way behind the Christians, eg in Paine's case, about 70 years behind the Quakers and 30 years behind the Methodists on slavery. Four Quaker men came out against slavery in 1680, with a Quaker woman objecting about 1670. And then we have Fox, accused of sounding like a walking NT, arguing for whomen's rights in court. BTW Voltaire was justifying slavery about the time Wesley called it "the scourge of the earth."

As for Jefferson, any idea why he called three Christians "the greatest," leaders "in the moral sciences."?

There's a reason that mutiple dimensions and parallel universes are not considered scientific fact: there is no evidence for them. They are merely hypotheses which we cannot yet verify or falsify. They are, at least in principle, falsifiable, unlike God. That's why no-one claims to believe in them, though they can be put forward as a possible explanation.

Fine. But other theories of the universe, dark matter, particle theory don't work without 11 dimensions, which means you can understand less, not more, than you did before. No?

You can define science how you like. Just don't expect anyone to listen to you, though.

I don't, although I get along well with people who can actually think.

It does amaze me what most atheists will refuse to discuss intelligently though, and how many logical fallacies they themselves commit. Maybe this site is different.