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There is a difference between secular and atheistic (and pagan) teachings. The point I am trying to get to is that when approaching other people's children you really really should only do so with their parents permission. This is something I know that most atheists extend to other's children. We do not approach them and try to teach them there is no God. Pagans likewise (I know many pagans) do not approach children and try to teach them about their beliefs. What I am trying to convey here is the sense of how your approaching other's children will be taken. If I were to sit down (I would never do this) and try to explain to your kids why their parents are mistaken about their beliefs I would expect you to be insensed beyond reason. If I were to try to ply them and sway them from your beliefs I would be amazed if you did not react as a parent defending their children from an attacker. The same goes the other way. I do understand your sense that the love of Jesus is for everyone including the children of nonbelievers. But you have a very real dilema on your hands here. They are not your children. And yes of course you believe they are beloved by Jesus none the less. But we live in a world where you mess with another's children and you are going to have problems. Do you see what I am getting at?

I am curious about what you believe should be done about parents that do not believe. Would you suggest to their children that they should not honor their parents beliefs? I know the bible speaks of not being able to come to Jesus if you don't hate your parents. But doesn't this create a bit of a dilema with the commandments? Let me ask you this also. How would you feel about an atheist or pagan or some other such individual advising your children about their beliefs without your permission. Its the same going the other way.

It is not the Gospel that offends.

The same is true of us. We get angry. Not out of malicious frustration. But because we believe different things. Of course you get worked up. You believe that we are walking in darkness and refusing to see the light. You believe that we are heading towards an eternity of regret. We both care. It would be tradgedy if someone was harmed because of a misunderstanding. I am struggling to eliminate the lack of understanding about atheists that brings us such harm.

I fully understand that. I offer you this promise. I am not here to convert anyone. I am only here to increase the peace.

ChadB said We don't think you are trying to be a jerk. You are simply operating on what you believe to be true. Some of the things you believe about atheists are not true. This has an effect us. We can change this. We care too. Seriously. Ask us questions. Also do not presume that we have not opened our hearts and minds to the possibilities. Many atheists become atheists after pursuing paths in the clergy. They were certainly believers of deep convictions. And yet they changed. BobTriez said I didn't notice much defending of Jesus in this thread. Nor did I notice any assaults on Jesus. Should we make such an assault we would be foolish not to expect a reprise. Of course we understand that this is a Christian board. I personally am not here to challenge your beliefs on that matter. But this thread is exactly the sort of thing that I and I suspect my fellow atheists are here for. To challenge the misinformation and misunderstanding being spread about atheists in our society. If you want to witness and bring Jesus to us don't you think it is in your interest to really learn what we are about? To assume and conjecture in ignorance does you no good. We have an interest in being here to refute the misinformation spread about us. You can take advantage of this in finding out what makes us tick. It would be a shame not to take advantage of this opportunity.

You obviously are very concerned about what atheists are thinking. If you really want to know what we are about then ask us. Presuming you know what we think kind of upsets us. Just as I expect you would be upset if I lumped you in with all the negative stereotypes of Christianity. You have a number of atheists present here who are willing to explain how we see things. We are not here to convert you. We are here to rid the ignorance people have about us. I will not sit here and trade persecution stories but I will simply inform you that I have personally been the direct victim of vandalism on numerous occaisions from people who likely identify themself as Christians. Whether you believe they are really Chrisitians or not is irrelevant. They get their attitudes and beliefs about atheists from attitudes like that presented here. I am not going to challenge your beliefs about God. But I am going to challenge what you believe about atheists. Simply because beliefs such as those do me harm.

And this is why I am here. This is the sort of lies and disinformation that lead to people being hurt. I am an atheist. I will now respond to each of these statements. You of course know this from first hand experience. You are an atheist right? Or were you bearing false witness? Atheists as well as many other religious/philosophical groups have a variety of means of establishing a moral basis on which to live. Some rely on doctrine. Others rely on reason. There are entire nations that have managed to create moral societies without the assertion of the morality coming from God. For myself I base my moral guidelines on principles of shared interest among my fellow humans. I know what I consider to be harmful to me and by reasoning expect that others may share some of these notions as well. There for I can reason that good is treating others as I would have them treat me. I can go on and explain the sense of this further but I expect you may recognise the basic sentiment as the Golden rule as taught by Jesus. Christianity is not the first nor will it be the last to come to the realization that this is an extremely good basis upon which to build a society. I can say quite a bit more. Someone stealing a car severly disrupts social harmony. It severes trust and destroys community. It takes a person's property away that they have struggled to earn. It threatens their very life if they are dependent on that car. It undermines the very fabric of our society. Of course they will be upset about it. We all agree to strive together in cooperation as it benefits all equally. When one person tries to upend the system and cheat it, it harms us as well as everyone else. We are a learning species. If we go around cheating and stealing we wind up teaching others to cheat and steal. And eventually it comes back and destroys us. Socrates even spoke of this when he was being tried unjustly for teaching his students to be evil. This is an ancient principle of society and not something that only came about with the arrival of the Abrahamic God. Actually the first thing a typical atheist will point out about Hitler is that he dedicated his book Mein Kampf to God. Here is a very simple means of discerning why killing six million Jews was wrong. I enjoy life. By reasoning I can conjecture that others enjoy life. If their life can so easily be tossed away because another group of people decide they do not count as human then my life can just as easily be discarded by a sufficient number of people. Thus in defending the life of others I defend my own life. Consider this famous quote: First they came for the Communists, and I didn

People believe things not because they are hedging their bets. They believe things because they believe them to be true. Some beliefs leave their adherants more open and tolerant of others beliefs. Others place its adherants in a more stern position having to comdemn other beliefs. But in general it is fairly obvious that if you have one set of beliefs you are going to believe that someone with a differnet set of beliefs is wrong. For members of the LDS church they have a double hit relative to other Christian sects. On the one hand the skeptic community has a field day with Joseph Smith's background and the historical take on issues. And then from the Sectarian side they take a hit from the orthodox churches that believe the teachings of the LDS church to be heretical.

My reason for being here is to counter the misinformation I encounter concerning the nature of atheists. There are a great many disservices done to us simply because our two sides do not interact on a regular basis. I personally have been the victim of attacks and vandalism due to my lack of belief in a god. Now I could take the attitude of many atheists and come after your beliefs but I see nothing productive in this course. The fact that you believe in a God is not my problem. That mistrust and misinformation about atheists finds it's way into the world is a problem I have to deal with. And that I can do something about. Atheists are kind caring people. We have passions and well developed world philosophies. We are not the heartless antagonistic things that many make us out to be. My purpose here is to present myself as a fellow human being. I may differ with many here on what they believe. But we all must coexist in this world. And ignorance is both our enemies. If you can learn how to better tailor your message to nonbelievers by talking to me it is to your advantage. I am willing to tell you what sort of things reach us and what is discarded by us. You are free to conjecture what you will about atheists but I offer myself as an example. Tensions in US between believers and nonbelievers is at an extremely high level. I do not wish to see harm come from this tension. So for this reason I am not here to debate what we each believe. That is for you to determine on your own. And I will defend your right to believe what you will and hope you do the same for me (even though we both hope for the other to change).

Not all atheists are afraid of dying. Not all atheists are atheists for the same reason. Not all atheists believe the same things. I cannot account for another atheists beliefs. Suffice to say I am not afraid of dying any more than I am afraid of the time before I was born. Death is something I will attempt to avoid but only because I rather enjoy being alive. Do you really think belief is that simple? That simply stating you believe something makes it true. Try this. Say out loud you believe you can put your hand through the desk in front of you (assuming you'r computer is on a desk). Do you really believe you can put your hand through the desk simply because you said so? You cannot believe you can put your hand through the desk. Even if I were to give you a logical explanation as to why you should be able to you wouldn't believe it. Belief takes a bit more to overcomet than that. You haven't talked to a lot of atheists. Of course we understand why there are people willing to lay their lives down for their beliefs. Its because they believe it. Do you think the suicide bombers that kill themself and others for their beliefs believe any less than you? Do you think their beliefs are right? Neither do I. You do not believe that you believe a myth. You believe that you believe in reality. It is the skeptics that believe what you believe is a myth. If you thought what you believed was a myth you by definition would not believe it. I am not here to debate theology. I have been through far to many such debates and have seen the disharmony they cause for groups. I have no desire to bring that to your community. Suffice to say that Geisler's arguments and Lee Strobel

Let me rephrase this a bit so you may see the problem. You have to believe to believe. And that there is the problem. Atheists by definition do not believe. And the bible seems to indicate that it acknowledges that some cannot find their way by faith alone. I would expect that between making the journey with some help is preferable in God's eyes than not making the journey at all. It is not faith in God you are asking us to have. It is faith in you and your fellow believers. You are asking us to believe you and your interpretations of an ancient past. God is not here speaking to us in a way that we recognise right now. We cannot have faith in him because we do not percieve him. All we have before us are the efforts of believers. And as enpassioned as they are, they are not enough for some. Know that the effort is not unappreciated. I would not presume to dictate to God or anyone else that they must perform certain actions to demonstrate their existance. But by the same token I cannot be expected to acknowledge the existance of someone that does not choose to present themself within my frame of reference. I do not insist on believing the things I do just as you do not insist on believing the things you do. We both are defined by our beliefs. We do not define them. They ebb and flow but at all times our beliefs are the result of the summation of our experiences. The summary of experiences that you have inform you there is a God. The summary of experiences I have inform me there is no God. We cannot change our current natures. Over time they may change. For both of us. But right now, right here, neither one of us can change who we are.

The level of tolerance you have to exhibit in a free society is commencerate with the amount of freedom you embrace. Here is the way it works. There are billions of people in the world. None of them agree on everything. We have to get along in this world or there will be endless bloodshed. We gather together in various social organisations. Some value security and rigid social comformity over freedom. We call these totalitarian regiemes. They force people to comply with various methods ranging from brainwashing to torture. If people do not comply they are executed. The people that reject this brutal form of government gather together in loose collections of free people. They form democracies and republics. They embrace the notion of freedom. Recognising that some people may choose to embrace beliefs and ideas that are repugnent to others within the society. I am sorry but this is a bit of a sore point for me. We have politicians claiming that terrorists are attacking us because they hate us for our freedoms. And yet we have citizens right here in America rejecting freedom. It breaks my heart to see people dismantling the very freedoms they enjoy and not even realizing it. Freedom is a beautiful thing. But it is also a very difficult thing. If you expect to live your life free you have to allow others the same. And that means you are going to find yourself living is a society with people that believe and do things that you may find insane or evil. But in free society, if they are not harming or taking anothers right's away you have to tolerate it. If you cannot then you do not want to live in a free society and you hate others for their freedom. Its that simple.

Yes I am an atheist. I have discussed and debated theological issues with individuals and groups from most denominations and beliefs. Some stand stronger against critical analysis and others fall quickly. It is interesting to note though that no matter the ability to withstand such analysis the participants faith remains fixed. It is not logic or reason that guide belief. It is not reason or logic that can undo belief. But reason and logic are the path that some use when they set aside their beliefs.