Who?

LOL

I love the part where Tim Wildmon says, "It's a stupid ad," he said. "How do we define 'good' if we don't believe in God? God in his word, the Bible, tells us what's good and bad and right and wrong. If we are each ourselves defining what's good, it's going to be a crazy world."

He hasn't seen the change in right and wrong throughout the bible and society, even among Christians?

Example:
Slavery was good, God even gave instructions for how much you could beat them. Now it's bad.

From what I've gathered, "God's Word" is not to be trusted.

sweet! where's the rocks!?

How are we NOT each defining good for ourselves already, anyway? I've always found the religious presumption that a person without "god" was a person without morals ridiculous, and am glad to know I'm not alone in that.

Not sure how many times I have engaged in this discussion, too late to start counting now

Ah the believers, so eager to get into the morality pissing contest with not a clue that it is one they cannot win. The godless or religiously indifferent do not do the right thing because they fear punishment or wish to procure reward. They do the right thing because it is the right thing. Abrahamic religion contains the basis for some of the most slippery and sloppy relative morality ever put on paper. To rape, pillage, and plunder is not only encouraged, it is mandated with explicit orders. But what about killing, stealing, and coveting? The big guy said it's ok this time! Even his own commandments are not to be taken that seriously. God is a big fan of genocide providing you are slaughtering people that he is not very fond of.

The same assumption is made about charity as well. Religious people give more to charity that nonbelievers according to heavily quoted statistics. These statistics also include money given to churches. If that was taken away, I wonder how much different the results would be. I give freely of my money and my time. When someone's house burns down in the middle of the night, I get out of bed, find them a hotel room, and make sure they have food and clothing. I don't do this because God told me so. I do not do it out of guilt, fear of eternal damnation, trying to keep up with the Jones's, or under any other sort of duress. Again, it is simply the right thing to do. I am able to help those who cannot help themselves, so I do.

As of 2007, Bill Gates has given over $28 billion to charity.
As of 2007, Bill Gates still does not believe in God or subscribe to any religion.

I'm a queer and I'd love to be stoned right now.

The herbal way, obviously.

Be queer for goodness sake!

I would love to be at my best friend's bible college right now, seeing the reaction to this. I'm betting it's just as hilarious as the reaction to me wearing a "Barack My World" t-shirt on campus to pick her up.

I'm surprised it took this long. That's pretty tasteful, too. It could have been much more, in your face. Down here, we have all of the: - don't make me come down there - God. signs.

very amusing but..

i've been an atheist for a few years, pretty much due to my mother's ever wonderful negative outlook on life.

last night i had a dream about my dead grandmother, and i swear it didnt feel like a dream. and there was a heaven type thing...only she said something to me that reaaly made me wonder-

our conversation went this way:
me-"grandma...is this heaven?"
grandma-"well, sort of."
me-"but...its just a forest. and a forest by ben's [my ex boyfriend's] house. if this is your heaven, how come its a forest, and a forest i know?"
grandma-"in heaven, everyone is equal. we all have the same abilities, the same things. we're even equal to nature. and, i guess its what you pick for me because your uncle was a jew and..."

she trailed off because i woke up to my bestfriend removing the blankets from my body. its quite cold in new york today.

Huh?

I'm confused now. Your mother's negative outlook on life is a horrible reason to be an atheist. This is NOT an attack. It's important though.

Atheism is based on the lack of evidence. Being atheist (non-theist) has nothing at all to do with the outlook of someone else.

This is an important distinction. While you may have been an atheist in the sense that you don't believe in God, you haven't been an atheist because of a lack of evidence of God. If evidence isn't important, then what are the chances that you'd change your mind if good evidence that there is a God turns up?

The difference between atheists and theists is that atheists WILL change their minds without hesitation, based solely on the evidence.