What about the atheists?

Who's the author?

As for Sam's book, I personally don't like his purely atheist attitude. I agree with his reasons for not believing in God, but since there is no proof for God or the lack thereof, I'm not going to pretend that I know that answer.

Sitting on the fence when the probabilities are essentially 0 vs. 1 is absurd.

Oh, and regarding the OP:

People who have faith: 97% of all human beings.

People who don't: a tiny fringe minority of wackos.

End of faith?

Let's not pretend you've got it on the ropes just yet, eh?

:lol:

Oh, and regarding the OP:

People who have faith: 97% of all human beings.

People who don't: a tiny fringe minority of wackos.

End of faith?

Let's not pretend you've got it on the ropes just yet, eh?

:lol:

Still flogging that old untruth, huh?

Oh, and by the way, I take it you haven't read the book?

Depends on your definitions. Unless you're totally atheistic and include no supernatural component of any kind in your worldview, you have faith of some sort. The number of people falling into that category is very, very small.

A book by an atheist about why faith is dangerous? Sounds startlingly original and ground-breaking, but no.

I have to read "Niggers Are Taking Over the World" by the Klu Klux Klan and "The Global Jew Conspiracy" by the Neo-Nazi Alliance first. They contain about the same level of bias but at least have the distinction of not hiding the fact that they're on a crusade.

Where's yours?

Typical inflammatory, prejudiced Tradman.

The same page you posted, and I was being generous. The notes further down the page on atheism say this:

"Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: This is a highly disparate group and not a single religion. Although atheists are a small subset of this grouping, this category is not synonymous with atheism. People who specify atheism as their religious preference actually make up less than one-half of one percent of the population in many countries where much large numbers claim no religious preference"

And goes on to state:

"In most countries only a tiny number of people (zero to a fraction of 1 percent) will answer "atheism" or "atheist" when asked an open-ended question about what their religious preference."

I decided to give atheism the benefit of the doubt and put in a large margin of error to avoid exactly this kind of pointless wrangling over figures. But, since you pushed the point, there you are: people without faith are a tiny, tiny fringe minority of wackos whose numbers are so limited as to be almost nonexistent.

Hmmm. You're plugging a book which is a 336 page attack on others' beliefs, and which actually says,"the very ideal of religious tolerance... is one of the principal forces driving us toward the abyss" - and you claim that I'm the one being inflammatory and prejudiced?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!

:lol:

And... "wackos"?

So, in your mind, questioning the rationality of somebody's beliefs is on a par with violent racism and anti-Semitism?

Still flogging that old untruth, huh? Seriously, this is starting to look like carelessness:

Non-religious, non-theistic worldwide: 8%.

Non-religious, Australia, 1996: 16.5%.

Non-religious, Asia, 1996: around 20% (or 700 million) :shock:

Non-religious, Canada, 2001: 28%

Non-religious, Europe, 1998: 14.8%

Non-religious, US, 1998: 9% (up from around 3% in 1950) - ZOMG, they're multiplying!!! :shock:

Non-religious, UK, 2002: 21%

Just because someone is "non-religious" doesn't mean they are an atheist.

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.

I think it's sad that guys like Dawkins and Harris have made "atheist" synonymous with "anti-religion". Atheism isn't necessarily about hatred, bigotry and intolerance, so it's unfortunate to see what I presume is a small minority even of that small minority drag its values down to that.

That all changed when I read the Bible.


At the time, I'd never heard the above quote, but that's pretty much the effect it had on me. What I found was a hodgepodge collection of stories, a few fairly nice, many utterly barbaric, and some just plain infantile. More to the point, the God described throughout its pages, apart from being jealous, bloodthirsty and tyrannical, was self-contradictory in many, many ways, making him either utterly insane, or (more likely) non-existent. This was the point he went the way of all those other mythical creatures I read about growing up.

it's not going to make them any more true.

He wrote: "Atheist: literally, non-theist: one who does not believe in the existence of a god. Usually separated further into weak atheist: one who simply lacks belief (this often gets lumped together with agnostic: one who does not believe it is possible to know whether there is a god), and strong atheist: one who actively believes there is no god."

Interesting to note that, like many religious folk, an atheist (as defined above) is believe-driven, no knowledge-driven.