Expressing Atheism

[raddicks]

I used to be a diehard Nietzsche/Dawkins fanatic, and vehemently praised rationalism and loathed the idea of God...

Now, I found God, God isn't a book, its every walk I make, every flower I ponder, every cloud I look at under LSD  :o hehe...

I guess I'm a pantheist now, and after looking back at Nietzsche I realised Nietzsche was himself a pantheist too (the clue is 'we have killed him' - which meant that society and religion had murdered the basic spirituality with dogma and ignorance).

So its your choice if you want to be atheist, but I will tell you this... I am 5 times happier a pantheist then I was an atheist, I'm not saying atheists are unhappy, but I'm saying they will miss out on the simple joy of acknowledging the existence of the 'well I'm here'. You don't have to pray, just act loving in every action you do, realise that the world needs more love, and that love can set you free. I don't really care for an afterlife, why should I be afraid of death when I should be afraid of not living?

[space boy]

So its your choice if you want to be atheist, but I will tell you this... I am 5 times happier a pantheist then I was an atheist, I'm not saying atheists are unhappy, but I'm saying they will miss out on the simple joy of acknowledging the existence of the 'well I'm here'. You don't have to pray, just act loving in every action you do, realise that the world needs more love, and that love can set you free. I don't really care for an afterlife, why should I be afraid of death when I should be afraid of not living?

Why do you assume that an atheist can't appreciate reality? I don't believe in god, but that doesn't mean that I don't value nature. Quite the opposite. I worship reality as it were. I don't think you value existence anymore than I do(and vice versa). The only significant difference between our views seems to be that you just decided to call everything "god". If that's your view, fine. I could easily do just the same, I would have a god which would be testable and all. But I don't think tacking the word "god" on everything around solves the question of whether a god exists. Reality is reality. Based on laws that let us predict and control it in some degree. When I think "god" I think of all the deities humanity has ever created. I think all of them were sentient, unpredictable and uncontrolable by humans. That's my image of a god.

[Stupot]

When I was a lad, before the whole love-christians-more-than-your-own-family turn-out, I was invited to a  special Christian camp by my friend who was being taken there by his grandmother.  She was (and still is) a lovely old gal, she's a devout Christian and when we were at this camp she asked me if I wanted to be converted, properly.

OK then I said, and I stepped up to this bloke who grabbed my shoulders, whispered some stuff and played with my head for a bit... I started to feel a strange sensation, a happy euphoric feeling that I'd never felt before and when the routine was over everyone asked me "Did you feel God?"... I just said "well I felt something"..."that was God!" they assured me and I was officially a Christian.

I was was never entirely convinced.  I couldn't explain the feelings I had felt that day, but even though at the time I believed in God, I wasn't ready to say that he had "spoken" to me or anything...

It's easy to understand how people like to put things they can't explain down to works of God, but it's a naive and primitive way of thinking...

Before meteorology was invented, primitive people couldn't explain thunder, lightening and snow.   Before astonomy was invented primitive people couldn't explain the sun, the moon, solar eclipses scared the shit out of them.  They made up their own explanations for these phenomena.  They made up Gods... this was the birth of Religion.

Then some people started thinking, hmm maybe a god for each unexplained thing is a bit far fetched, wht if there was one God that was in charge if everything... fuck yeh he must be some powerful motherfucker, we should like, obey him.  And so the one God religion was born.

One cold night in December,  woman called mary had  baby... she could not for the life of her remember having had sex with Joseph or anybody else... So she couldn't explain it... and what do people do when they can't explain something?.....

You're catching on... GOD!!!... only this time she went a step further and claimed that God was ctually the father of her son... She brought him up telling him this.  She told everybody else this. She probably genuinely believed it herself.

Jesus grew up thinking he really was the son of God, but he didn't have any powers, which is why we don't hear from him in the bible between his birth and the age of 37.... It took him 37 years to work on his magic tricks.  The water into wine turnout, feeding 5000 people... don't get me wrong, these are awesome feats, but nobody in their right mind thinks David Copperfield is the son of God, he's just a brilliant illusionist.. as was
Jesus Christ.

People were awed by what he could do... and they (all together now) couldn't explain it.  So they followed him, hung on his every word.  And so Christianity was born.

But in this day and age, we can explain most of the previously unexplained phenomena and  there are people working very hard to scientifically explain the things we can't.... putting it down to God is such a backwards notion that I will never subscribe to unless I have 100% definitive proof...

As for the strange feeling I sensed at the Christian Camp... I still can't explain it, but I would bet my bottom dollar that Derren brown could.

[space boy]

You're catching on... GOD!!!...

Either that or she was drunk like a fish.

[Moox]

If you are going to criticize Jesus at least get his age correct. Most theologians agree that he died at the age of 33 which makes it impossible for him to start preaching at 37...

[Redwall]

Why would an atheist care about a theologian's perspective on a historical issue?

(I'm not getting into this debate, that just struck me as an odd thing.)

[Moox]

Why would an atheist care about a theologian's perspective on a historical issue?

(I'm not getting into this debate, that just struck me as an odd thing.)

No, however when someone uses it as a point to belittle the acts of Jesus they should at least know what they are talking about.

[Stupot]

I'm not belittling Jesus.  He was told he was the son of God.  He had to believe it and he had to take measures to live up to it.  Poor guy.  He probably felt like Brian from The Monty Python movie.

His exact age is still debated by the highest people in the theology game so telling me off for (possibly) making a mistake is really irrelevant.  The point of my last post was that God was our ancestor's way of explaining the unexplained.  And that now we can explain those things God is irrelevant.  If, hypothetically, he did exist, what the hell does he do anyway? Nothing, so what's the point in worshiping him.

[Redwall]

Science tells us how things are.
Religion tells us how things should be.

(FYI: I'm a religious atheist.)

[raddicks]

So its your choice if you want to be atheist, but I will tell you this... I am 5 times happier a pantheist then I was an atheist, I'm not saying atheists are unhappy, but I'm saying they will miss out on the simple joy of acknowledging the existence of the 'well I'm here'. You don't have to pray, just act loving in every action you do, realise that the world needs more love, and that love can set you free. I don't really care for an afterlife, why should I be afraid of death when I should be afraid of not living?

Why do you assume that an atheist can't appreciate reality? I don't believe in god, but that doesn't mean that I don't value nature. Quite the opposite. I worship reality as it were. I don't think you value existence anymore than I do(and vice versa). The only significant difference between our views seems to be that you just decided to call everything "god". If that's your view, fine. I could easily do just the same, I would have a god which would be testable and all. But I don't think tacking the word "god" on everything around solves the question of whether a god exists. Reality is reality. Based on laws that let us predict and control it in some degree. When I think "god" I think of all the deities humanity has ever created. I think all of them were sentient, unpredictable and uncontrolable by humans. That's my image of a god.

An atheist can appreciate reality, but not in the same conviction. Call it like you will, if you wittle everything down to the firing of neurons and into material realms and lie your thoughts of rationality I'm afraid your algebra will be caused to fail. None the less, I think an atheist is much more meaningful then those who blindly submit to a human-God (the guy in the sky with a stick).

In Quantum mechanics there really isn't so much of a law, research in the psychical has demonstrated there is phenomena which we can influence. And anyway, if you say everything is predictable and can be verified, I disagree. Just because there is material explainations for lets say falling in love does not deny the reality on another level, or if there is a material process of death does not deny that the spiritual interacts with the mental.

I had a remarkable experience whilst under acid once... While many people are confused about LSD (and largely ignorant) its not a case of seeing the world in a hallucinatory delusion, but rather, you see the world for what it REALLY is. The brain has a funny way of filtering information, and when a few key molecules fit into a few neurotransmittors (hallucinogens are in the same family of conciousness, very similar and sometimes identical to seretonin etc) you see the world as it REALLY IS in holographic splendor.

And there is no way I will convince you on this point, but on that day I was telepathic, and talking to plants, I had picked up a stone (everything had a living consciousness I could witness) and asked it 'So if you are God? show me a vision I won't attribute to hallucination'. At that very moment, I had a vision of a very old friend who I hadn't seen in 6 years knock on my door, and I then immediately write it down in my trip journal what I had seen in the future... The very next 2 days, the same old friend knocked round offering a business card as a landscape gardener. Needless to say, I was completely gobsmacked. I don't care if such an anecdote doesn't bode well with scientists, who will dismiss the journal page and will come up with explainations like I am self deceiving myself or wrote it after the event in question, or that it was a 'coincedence'... It's not their validity I seek because 'reality' made itself known that day, and this is partly why I lost my faith in science, I still love science, but the paradigm needs a serious change. Just like laws and politics are ruled by the ignorant, so are some of the academic foundations in the world... Especially Psychology that seeks to impose order where there should be none.

And I've experienced Ego-death whilst on the throws of a very powerful Ayahuasca experience, yes its a 'trip' its a 'hallucinogen' surely I am just setting myself up to believe in a delusion? I don't know? It was the most REAL experience, I felt psychological dead and then reborn, pain and then unimaginable bliss (afterwards... it wasn't an MDMA bliss but spiritually loving bliss),strong ayahuasca has been compared to a pseudo-near death experience.

And read the evidence for the near death experience, there is no material explainations for why the completely blind (destroyed ocular vision due to womb conditions) are able to see colour, shapes and movement in amazingly clear detail (often describing objects they shouldn't see unconciously in hospital). My dwelling into science now confirms my suspicions.

Of course, I still hold my skepticism, but ego-death is such a powerful, powerful experience. To feel as if you died you experience unimaginable love of the infinite, ever since those few experiences I have made it a priority to volunteer in my community every week and I would never have considered it if I was an atheist. The sad thing is my experiences are only subjective, but then Its ok for it to be so because 'being in the dark' really makes you appreciate every moment of the human condition.

And oh yeah, to you people debating about Jesus... havent you seen Zeitgeist yet? The bible is based on astrological myths, and so is most abrahamic religions (which were just a bastardisation of Egyptology). Early religion was sun and nature worship.

[Meowster]

So its your choice if you want to be atheist, but I will tell you this... I am 5 times happier a pantheist then I was an atheist, I'm not saying atheists are unhappy, but I'm saying they will miss out on the simple joy of acknowledging the existence of the 'well I'm here'. You don't have to pray, just act loving in every action you do, realise that the world needs more love, and that love can set you free. I don't really care for an afterlife, why should I be afraid of death when I should be afraid of not living?

Why do you assume that an atheist can't appreciate reality? I don't believe in god, but that doesn't mean that I don't value nature. Quite the opposite. I worship reality as it were. I don't think you value existence anymore than I do(and vice versa). The only significant difference between our views seems to be that you just decided to call everything "god". If that's your view, fine. I could easily do just the same, I would have a god which would be testable and all. But I don't think tacking the word "god" on everything around solves the question of whether a god exists. Reality is reality. Based on laws that let us predict and control it in some degree. When I think "god" I think of all the deities humanity has ever created. I think all of them were sentient, unpredictable and uncontrolable by humans. That's my image of a god.

An atheist can appreciate reality, but not in the same conviction. Call it like you will, if you wittle everything down to the firing of neurons and into material realms and lie your thoughts of rationality I'm afraid your algebra will be caused to fail. None the less, I think an atheist is much more meaningful then those who blindly submit to a human-God (the guy in the sky with a stick).

In Quantum mechanics there really isn't so much of a law, research in the psychical has demonstrated there is phenomena which we can influence. And anyway, if you say everything is predictable and can be verified, I disagree. Just because there is material explainations for lets say falling in love does not deny the reality on another level, or if there is a material process of death does not deny that the spiritual interacts with the mental.

I had a remarkable experience whilst under acid once... While many people are confused about LSD (and largely ignorant) its not a case of seeing the world in a hallucinatory delusion, but rather, you see the world for what it REALLY is. The brain has a funny way of filtering information, and when a few key molecules fit into a few neurotransmittors (hallucinogens are in the same family of conciousness, very similar and sometimes identical to seretonin etc) you see the world as it REALLY IS in holographic splendor.

And there is no way I will convince you on this point, but on that day I was telepathic, and talking to plants, I had picked up a stone (everything had a living consciousness I could witness) and asked it 'So if you are God? show me a vision I won't attribute to hallucination'. At that very moment, I had a vision of a very old friend who I hadn't seen in 6 years knock on my door, and I then immediately write it down in my trip journal what I had seen in the future... The very next 2 days, the same old friend knocked round offering a business card as a landscape gardener. Needless to say, I was completely gobsmacked. I don't care if such an anecdote doesn't bode well with scientists, who will dismiss the journal page and will come up with explainations like I am self deceiving myself or wrote it after the event in question, or that it was a 'coincedence'... It's not their validity I seek because 'reality' made itself known that day, and this is partly why I lost my faith in science, I still love science, but the paradigm needs a serious change. Just like laws and politics are ruled by the ignorant, so are some of the academic foundations in the world... Especially Psychology that seeks to impose order where there should be none.

And I've experienced Ego-death whilst on the throws of a very powerful Ayahuasca experience, yes its a 'trip' its a 'hallucinogen' surely I am just setting myself up to believe in a delusion? I don't know? It was the most REAL experience, I felt psychological dead and then reborn, pain and then unimaginable bliss (afterwards... it wasn't an MDMA bliss but spiritually loving bliss),strong ayahuasca has been compared to a pseudo-near death experience.

And read the evidence for the near death experience, there is no material explainations for why the completely blind (destroyed ocular vision due to womb conditions) are able to see colour, shapes and movement in amazingly clear detail (often describing objects they shouldn't see unconciously in hospital). My dwelling into science now confirms my suspicions.

Of course, I still hold my skepticism, but ego-death is such a powerful, powerful experience. To feel as if you died you experience unimaginable love of the infinite, ever since those few experiences I have made it a priority to volunteer in my community every week and I would never have considered it if I was an atheist. The sad thing is my experiences are only subjective, but then Its ok for it to be so because 'being in the dark' really makes you appreciate every moment of the human condition.

And oh yeah, to you people debating about Jesus... havent you seen Zeitgeist yet? The bible is based on astrological myths, and so is most abrahamic religions (which were just a bastardisation of Egyptology). Early religion was sun and nature worship.

Dear me, dear me... can we not use our experiences of being on hallucinogenic drugs try and prove points or convince people that atheists can't appreciate the world the same as you do? Possibly I appreciate the world more than you, in fact, because I don't need drugs to "see things for what they really are".

Once, though, I was really stoned and thought that the fourth teenage mutant ninja turtle was called "russell harvey" and was pink.

[raddicks]

Must you be so holier-than-thou just because you DONT?

It is unnecessarily demonised, and no you don't need it to have spiritual experiences, however it puts the experiences into a larger context. Need I remind you, I choose not to drink alcohol (only occasionally) and don't take cocaine or ecstasy or any other 'fools gold' substance.

It shouldn't be illegal anyway, what did all the kids in the 60's do? Oh yeah, quit the military, protest against Vietnam, defend womens and civil rights, encourage the message of peace and love, does that sound like a bad thing?. The government got scared, made it illegal and spread disinformation such as it destroying chromosomes or making you go blind in later life...

with the right intention, hallucinogens can be insightful, with the wrong intention, you would lack a real mystical experience. It's good you appreciate nature, but if you look around there is a serious vaccuum in todays worlds, a real disillusionment. There isn't room for spiritual freedom amongst intolerance and people are confined to the streets and homes, of course they're going to do drugs, if not mostly out of boredom. All I'm saying is that LSD really does 'open your mind' if I dare use such a cliche, and for me to describe how it does that is pointless. It's like trying to explain what zero gravity is like, you can talk about the actions of zero gravity but you can never know the experience. And there is more then one path to spirituality, Shamans love their drugs, buddhists love their ascetism, but they all lead to similar conclusion no?

[voh]

It does, really, open the mind. It creates such big holes of dead tissue in the brain that stuff could fall free.

How much more open does a mind have to be before you realize you're ruining it?

But let's not get into drugs here. This is about religion (atheism in specific, really), and not a place for shamanistic stuff (because basically that's what your story is).

And also, let's not get into personal attacks. They detract from a so-far enjoyable discussion which has yet to turn into what all the other threads about religion turned into - pages and pages of personal attacks and unrelated discussions which people just had to drag into it (which is mostly the fault of people responding to such unrelated issues and not letting go).

So, yeah.

Hail Tyr!

[Meowster]

I'm not taking a holier-than-thou attitude because I don't take drugs. Because I have taken drugs before and I know the immense feeling of contentment and "open-mindedness" they can give you (depending on what drug you take).

But to take those hallucinations seriously is ridiculous.

LSD is a mind altering drug by the way. It doesn't simply "allow you to see the world as it really is".

Arguing that there is a god because you were told so by a voice in a drug-induced hallucination is pretty poor. My friend once met a pigeon in her LSD-induced hallucinations, the pigeon started sizing her up and then asked her if she wanted a fight. She said she didn't, because it was so much smaller than her. The pigeon then said it had very many rows of razor sharp teeth with which to bite her, so she should be very afraid indeed.

Pigeons, of course, do not have teeth. No matter how convincingly the pigeon may have told her so in her hallucination, pigeons just don't have teeth. The reason it said it did was because a) it was a liar and b) it was a drug-induced hallucination and they're not real.

[Meowster]

Must you be so holier-than-thou just because you DONT?

It is unnecessarily demonised, and no you don't need it to have spiritual experiences, however it puts the experiences into a larger context. Need I remind you, I choose not to drink alcohol (only occasionally) and don't take cocaine or ecstasy or any other 'fools gold' substance.

It shouldn't be illegal anyway, what did all the kids in the 60's do? Oh yeah, quit the military, protest against Vietnam, defend womens and civil rights, encourage the message of peace and love, does that sound like a bad thing?. The government got scared, made it illegal and spread disinformation such as it destroying chromosomes or making you go blind in later life...

with the right intention, hallucinogens can be insightful, with the wrong intention, you would lack a real mystical experience. It's good you appreciate nature, but if you look around there is a serious vaccuum in todays worlds, a real disillusionment. There isn't room for spiritual freedom amongst intolerance and people are confined to the streets and homes, of course they're going to do drugs, if not mostly out of boredom. All I'm saying is that LSD really does 'open your mind' if I dare use such a cliche, and for me to describe how it does that is pointless. It's like trying to explain what zero gravity is like, you can talk about the actions of zero gravity but you can never know the experience. And there is more then one path to spirituality, Shamans love their drugs, buddhists love their ascetism, but they all lead to similar conclusion no?

might I also point out that you're being terribly presumptious. not only have you assumed that atheists don't have as great an appreciation for life as you, but you're also assuming that I'm demonising hallucinagenic drugs and that I'm taking a holier-than-thou stance because I don't "do" them.

You seem to be immediately jumping to the conclusion that everybody who disagrees with you obviously hasn't experienced being in that frame of mind before.

My point is simply that trying to prove there is a god simply because you were told so during an hallucination, is really not a good idea.

[space boy]

An atheist can appreciate reality, but not in the same conviction. Call it like you will, if you wittle everything down to the firing of neurons and into material realms and lie your thoughts of rationality I'm afraid your algebra will be caused to fail.

I don't see what's wrong with calling things by name. The text you are reading now is the result of electrical signals interacting in my brain. Sounds unromantic but it is a scientific fact.

In Quantum mechanics there really isn't so much of a law, research in the psychical has demonstrated there is phenomena which we can influence. And anyway, if you say everything is predictable and can be verified, I disagree. Just because there is material explainations for lets say falling in love does not deny the reality on another level, or if there is a material process of death does not deny that the spiritual interacts with the mental.

I didn't say anything of that so you have nothing to disagree with. I said we can control and predict nature in some degree. Also I did not say that a materialistic explanation rules out a metaphysical one. If you wanna adress the things I said make sure they are actually the things I said.

I had a remarkable experience whilst under acid once... While many people are confused about LSD (and largely ignorant) its not a case of seeing the world in a hallucinatory delusion, but rather, you see the world for what it REALLY is. The brain has a funny way of filtering information, and when a few key molecules fit into a few neurotransmittors (hallucinogens are in the same family of conciousness, very similar and sometimes identical to seretonin etc) you see the world as it REALLY IS in holographic splendor.

And there is no way I will convince you on this point, but on that day I was telepathic, and talking to plants, I had picked up a stone (everything had a living consciousness I could witness) and asked it 'So if you are God? show me a vision I won't attribute to hallucination'. At that very moment, I had a vision of a very old friend who I hadn't seen in 6 years knock on my door, and I then immediately write it down in my trip journal what I had seen in the future... The very next 2 days, the same old friend knocked round offering a business card as a landscape gardener. Needless to say, I was completely gobsmacked. I don't care if such an anecdote doesn't bode well with scientists, who will dismiss the journal page and will come up with explainations like I am self deceiving myself or wrote it after the event in question, or that it was a 'coincedence'... It's not their validity I seek because 'reality' made itself known that day, and this is partly why I lost my faith in science, I still love science, but the paradigm needs a serious change. Just like laws and politics are ruled by the ignorant, so are some of the academic foundations in the world... Especially Psychology that seeks to impose order where there should be none.

So basically "I reject your reality and substitute it for my own"(adam savage) Just because it felt good it must have been "more real"? Totally fallacious thinking.

About the clairvoyance thing. One case doesn't prove you right. Why do you rule out coincidence? Because you like the thought of being able to look into the future and you don't want science to get in the way? That's not skeptical thinking. I had some prophetic dreams myself(not kidding, I had some detailed dreams of what actually happened a few days later) but I'm not saying I have the power to look into the future. Coincidence is a reasonable explanation. I mean, if it was happening constantly every couple of nights there might be more behind it. But you have to look at the whole picture. The number of my prophetic dreams is minute compared to the number of my normal dreams. Ignoring the misses while only seeing the hits is called confirmation bias.

And you were telepathic you say? Nothing easier than testing that scientifically. Too bad you don't like scientists anymore.

And I've experienced Ego-death whilst on the throws of a very powerful Ayahuasca experience, yes its a 'trip' its a 'hallucinogen' surely I am just setting myself up to believe in a delusion? I don't know? It was the most REAL experience, I felt psychological dead and then reborn, pain and then unimaginable bliss (afterwards... it wasn't an MDMA bliss but spiritually loving bliss),strong ayahuasca has been compared to a pseudo-near death experience.

And read the evidence for the near death experience, there is no material explainations for why the completely blind (destroyed ocular vision due to womb conditions) are able to see colour, shapes and movement in amazingly clear detail (often describing objects they shouldn't see unconciously in hospital). My dwelling into science now confirms my suspicions.

Just like stupot said before. You can't explain it so you jump to conclusions about it being of metaphysical nature.
Again, not skeptical thinking.

Of course, I still hold my skepticism

In this post you have shown that you are not skeptical at all.

but ego-death is such a powerful, powerful experience. To feel as if you died you experience unimaginable love of the infinite, ever since those few experiences I have made it a priority to volunteer in my community every week and I would never have considered it if I was an atheist. The sad thing is my experiences are only subjective, but then Its ok for it to be so because 'being in the dark' really makes you appreciate every moment of the human condition.

Like I said before, just because it feels good or feels "realer than reality" doesn't mean it's true. It's what's happening in your brain. Your brain can deceive you especially under the influence of drugs. Reality is not based on the experiences of a single person but on a general agreement of many people who constantly test claims about reality.

This post has gotten longer than I want my posts to be but I just had to adress these things.

[Wellington]

One difficulty is that the definitions of atheist and agnostic are debated. Generally speaking, people treat agnosticism like a state of indecision. However, a more precise definition of the terms would be that atheism/theism refers to whether or not you believe in God, and agnosticism/gnosticism refers to whether or not you believe that knowledge of the truth of this matter is possible. An agnostic theist could VERY strongly believe in God, but also believe that no evidence one way or the other can be found - in other words, that it's strictly a faith-based position.

I'm a gnostic atheist when it comes to at least some versions of God - I think absolute power, wisdom, and goodness are simply incompatible with eternal damnation. Many theologists have said otherwise, but many theologists would argue that a dog is really a young cow if their religion demanded it.

[space boy]

Diagram time!
http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/Agnostic.gif
http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/atheist_chart.gif

[Nacho]

Everybody needs something to wake up with energies... For me, it's my girlfriend, relatives, and sport... For some others might be finishing a game, or inking their final comic page. Someone needs to believe in God?

If it helps... Great!!!

But no one should label the other' s reasons as ridiculous or silly... Or try to convince the others that "your reason" is better than others.

I think I am moving to be a bit more "pro-religious" than "pro-atheistic" (being 100% atheistic as I am), because I "sense" a feeling of the "atheistics" to reply to "believers" in a too disturbed(*) way.

((*) Correct word? I am using AltaVista... I mean "Unmeasured" manner... hope it makes sense)

I go on with my argument...To be honest, guys, what would you do if I post something like:

"I like living. I love to wake up, make 3 or 4 hours of sport, coming back home, kiss my mum, take a shower and pick my gf up to come home and finish some sprites for an AGS game!"

I think you would reply something like: "Oh, great for you!" or "Congratulations for having such a productive life" or "Great! I want to see those sprites asap!"? Kind words, to summarise.

Now, imagine:

"I like living. God gives me strenght to wake up, make 3 or 4 hours of sport, coming back home, kiss my mum, take a shower and pick my gf up to come home and finish some sprites for an AGS game! I really love God and Jesus!"

Would you think I am the "healthy guy" of the post above, or would you think I am a religious zealot from Waco? I really, honestly, think that the replies wouldn' t be the same than in example "a".

Why this over reaction? Because "believers" want to "convince me" of their "Truth"?   No one  tried it with me in this forums...  :o

Some people tried it in the street (Jehova's Witnesses and simillar), but they have never been to lame or unpolite.

I can even tell that there are more people trying to convince me that Tarot works... And those annoys me inmenselly much than "believers", because I  think that they know Tarot it' s a swindle. I honestly think that "Jehova' s Witnesses" believe in what they say. Why don' t we focus our anger to those CRIMINALS (Tarotists) than in (IMO) wrong/innocent believers?

So, "atheistics" and "skeptics"... relax. I think WE are right, and God does not exist, but being RIGHT does not necessarily mean BEHAVING CORRECTLY, if we go too further with our arguments.

[LimpingFish]

One difficulty is that the definitions of atheist and agnostic are debated. Generally speaking, people treat agnosticism like a state of indecision. However, a more precise definition of the terms would be that atheism/theism refers to whether or not you believe in God, and agnosticism/gnosticism refers to whether or not you believe that knowledge of the truth of this matter is possible.

I agree. To the hardline agnostic the actual existence of God is irrelevant, a view that can frustrate both the theist and the atheist equally.