What's your problem with christianity?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I understand perfectly, any atheist that discusses and is taught theorys associated with atheism is according to the dictionary a person of religion. and therefore religious.

What theories are associated with atheism? Please inform us. I've been an atheist all my life and I've never once come across one aside the lack of belief in god(s).

[downbeatplumb]

Not another ATHEISM IS A RELIGION thread.

Why must they try and drag us down to their level?

[Whateverist]

Religion
Noun

2. Details of belief as taught or discussed.

Atheism
Noun
The lack of belief in any gods.

Yeah, it doesn't quite fit the bill of being a religion, you know..

2. Details of belief as taught or discussed. in other words a system of belief, sorry but atheism fits here.

Saying its so doesn't make it so. This isn't a flock of christian sheep you're talking to. Try to remember to use the word "..because.." and give reasons for your assertions. Otherwise, why bother? No one here on the atheist site agrees with you and you've given us no reason to think otherwise. Oh wait is it what you really, really, really believe? Well that doesn't cut it either.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Not another ATHEISM IS A RELIGION thread.

Why must they try and drag us down to their level?

You just haven't been reading your atheist holy book enough.

Consult page...9? I think that's got something on it. Or failing that, talk to your local minister, she should be able to perform a ritual that gets you closer to atheist god.

[The Grand Nudger]

Not another ATHEISM IS A RELIGION thread.

Why must they try and drag us down to their level?

Because they realize that "their level" is equivalent to dogshit- just as easily as we do...and they want to insult us.

[Whateverist]

Discussing = 1. exchange opinions about 2. debate / atheist forum's
Taught = 1. instruct 2. educate 3. train 4. impart knowledge of / evolution theory

Is Dawkins not your teacher/Grand Master/Pope of sorts, why have some attained levels on this Dawkins scale etc etc

Ahah, then you are a troll. This is not something a reasonably bright person could reason to in earnest. Ergo you misrepresent and are correctly called a troll.

You deserve no further considered responses unless you can convince me you're not just a troll on a lark (i.e., an asshole).

[Sal]

I understand perfectly, any atheist that discusses and is taught theorys associated with atheism is according to the dictionary a person of religion. and therefore religious.

What theories are associated with atheism? Please inform us. I've been an atheist all my life and I've never once come across one aside the lack of belief in god(s).

The closest people that do that are the Atheism+ crowd. But they themselves say that their agenda and ideology are atheism plus humanism and skepticism and whatnot, hence the name.

[festive1]

It's called the Council of Nicea. Let's assume the books of the Bible were devinely inspired by god. The Council of Nicea decided which books would be included in the bible. This happened in the 7th century. There were many books that didn't make the cut. How do we know the entire Council was devinely inspired? What if they chose the wrong books? Were the books they left out devinely inspired? If so, isn't that bad? If not, how did they differentiate between which books were Devine and which were not? Then the Church decided to destroy all the other books that didn't make the cut... Why? If they weren't Devine, how would they pose a threat. This is, in part, why the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls was so important, they are parts of one of these books that didn't make the cut. Furthermore, this was for the original Church, which split into Catholic and Orthodox, many Protestant sects deny the "Christian-ness" of these churches, yet they are the ones who chose which books all those Protestant sects were eventually based on. That's just problematic.

Makes alot of sense but i've been told they had a process to determining the books that got in called canonization. It's something i was told about a while ago but one of the rules i remember was that for the new testament a book had to be written by someone who had seen jesus = the disciples + paul for the new testament.. this is with the exception of mark and luke who never saw jesus at all however that pointed to the second rule which was correspondance that it would agree with the other books however im not to familiar with the process so i'll have to recheck it but i think the first point makes sense cause imagine some guy who was'nt even there to see jesus writes an alterrnate story to talk about his life yet it totally contradicts what the people who were actually there saw.. i think those would be fair grounds for removal...But one thing i'm extremely curious about is that everyone iv'e met complaining about the "missing" books havent even read all the ones that are there.So why does it bug them soo much? infact most christians i know rarely if never mention
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi
if i removed these books from the bible i don't know how many people will even realize there missing...if anything fewer books makes our work easier. kinda makes it more effecient in a way. unless you want a religion with 900000books of which can be (possibly) summarized in 66books..even catholics have more books than protestants but from what i hear there's not really anything that would warrent a paradigm shift in christianity

The Kudos is for actually tackling the question.
How to say this politely...
Read what you wrote...
You were "told" they had a "process" for figuring out the Canon... I'm not one to develop a complete system of belief based solely on what one person tells me. If I'm going to make the leap of faith that god exists, I want to know how we know about him => the bible => how was the bible created? Simply saying they had a "process" doesn't explain said process or explore possible problems within that process. Exploring possible issues with a system is necessary for rational thought. Only when these issues are brought to light can one discern if they are negligible or truly problematic.
Your response, while I give you credit for actually tackling the issue, is unsatisfactory.

[Bad Wolf]

Atheism is not a religion in any way at all. Every atheist arrives at their disbelief by themselves. In fact, atheism is more of a side effect of higher education and intelligence. It is not taught in any capacity. Critical thinking and evaluation are taught and they are used by atheists but these techniques are also used by many other people, they are not exclusive to atheism. And what exactly is this crap about Richard Dawkins being our leader. There is no leader in atheism, there is no governing body of any kind. There is no high authority when it comes to atheism. The only thing that every atheist agrees on is that there is not enough evidence to support the claim that there is a god.

[goodnews]

If you atheists do not like being called a religion , your dispute is not with me, but with the interpretation of a dictionary suplied by one of your own bretheren. I have given my views on religion, being the same found in the scriptures, many times, but oddly, it would seem that, it helps not your cause, when you learn the scriptures reffer to religion as the abomination of the earth, mens doctrins as plagues, the mother church as the Great whore and all the churches that came from it harlots. If there is anyone on this forum who should be opposed to being called religious its me, however I dont get offended, its only a word and many of the atheists here call me names far worse, for no reason, but then I used to steal, pouch and deal drugs on the streets of Cape Town and spend time in dark places where profanity is a language and pure evil a means of survival, so my hide is prehaps not as soft as some go figar