[jgallardo]

If I came across as putting you down or inferring you were less intelligent than an atheist, I apologize. The thing is, it PAINS me to hear people claim that they KNOW there is a God or Gods, and based on their experience(s) there's no way a supreme being couldn't exist. I think it's extremely dangerous to truly believe in something that has not been proven as fact. For example, a person of faith, believing he will go to heaven for eternity, if he commits a terrible act which kills thousands of people that don't believe in the same exact thing he does. Who are you to tell him that he won't go to heaven if he can find the specific passages in his text that justify his actions?? A text that was written by man, and much like all the other texts of the time, follows the same "pattern", if you will, of all the myths made up at the time. How can you tell him that he's wrong and that what he's reading and doing, is not what God intended...when you wholeheartedly believe in the text that precedes his?

I was brought up Roman Catholic, and I had a friend who was a born again Baptist. When we were young, he'd invite me to his Bible school during the summer, and we'd learn about how amazing heaven was and how it was necessary to be good and spread the word of God, everywhere, so that life would be good here on Earth.

Around the age of 15, I began to question everything I had learned in religion and from what I had learned in school. My questions were met with very vague answers of "Believe it, or not - and go to hell!" by those with "religious knowledge." Things began to make more sense to me, and the creationist theory began to fall apart. As I learned more in the sciences and math, I began to find the answers of how things actually worked, in high school, and also in college (I'm going into my senior year of college now). I've informed myself very much on contradictions in the Bible, and various other religious inconsistencies. Science doesn't explain "why" but it does explain "how." As technology advances more and more, more how's will be explained, and if more people were listening and learning, their brains would start to click. I'm not saying people of faith are stupid, but I am saying that the majority think they already have it figured out, and that everything that makes sense is found in one book. On top of that, the people that have all the power, are people of faith, and this hinders the productivity of scientists as faith-based people, and the majority of the country (which has the same view) believe that they are right on all things ethical.

"I want an answer for that too, but can ultimately only accept that God is supreme and all knowing and that he's the creator of everything."
-You don't have to just take what you've been spoonfed your whole life and believe it. Find your own answers, read everything, study, and learn more, and you will figure out the truth. If you already think you've found it, then your ignorance is helpless.

"I've been a believer since I was 5 because my Grandfather tought me all about the Bible and where he was ultimately gonna end up one day, and there is nothing an atheist could do to convince me otherwise."
-You are Christian, because you were born to Christian parents. You were BORN an atheist. Had you been born a few thousand years ago in Greece, you'd believe that Apollo got in his chariot and brought the sun up every morning... Believe it or not, you're also an atheist. The difference is only that I believe in one less God than you.

I'm going to finish this reply with a quote, which I find to be humorous. Thanks for reading everything I've written (if you did). It's only out of love that I wrote this, as an atheist. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] But don't worry, not in a gay way!

"The religion of one age, is the literary entertainment of the next."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson