Bill Gates--"Good"?

"billboards all over the country that say we're going to hell."

Seeing as I'm a New Yorker, I've never seen one of those. Are they common in the South or something?

Inscription on an atheist's tomb stone:

All dressed up and no place to go.

Ok. First off, atheists have every right to put up signs. Honestly, anyone subscribing to reason and morality has the obligation to go against the religious institution in this country every chance they get.

In America today there is an overwhelming flux on fundamentalist christians who believe that the earth is 5000-7000 years old, noah's flood is to blame for the fossil record and in general, science is useless. To them, the bible is all. They're currently trying to put that theology into our schools everywhere we turn. This harms the scientific community, not to mention progress in general in America. Due to this, right now, the US is behind most other developed countries in science education.

Currently, 21 states still have laws allowing and currently practice, capital punishment in schools. This is being held due to predominantly religious reasons. They allow school teachers and administrators to beat their children, often with visible results, and publicly humiliate them in an attempt to teach a child how to behave.

Right now, unless you claim christianity, you cannot make it far in politics and can definitely not become president. How is that different than any other theocracy?

Now, I can go on all day with more and more reasons that the religious institution in america is a bad thing...molesting priests anyone? So, please, tell me why atheists and, quite frankly, any moral human being SHOULDN'T be trying to stop religious organizations from holding power in this country?

And for those pushing that atheists should just ignore the christians and go about their obscurity, a quote comes to mind.

An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not know." "Then why," asked the Inuit earnestly, "did you tell me?" - Annie Dillard

"capital punishment" in schools?

Are they using the electric chair, firing squads or lethal injection?

I meant corporal punishment. I made a typo at 4am. Please, don't crucify me for it. <laugh></laugh>

Good without God? If God exists, how can a person be good if they steer people away from God?

Well considering what God has done I don't see how you can be good and follow him.

He drowned thousands or millions of his own children (Noah's flood in Genesis) when there were other non-violent options that could have reached the same goal he was aiming for, he ordered Israel in Deuteronomy to kill every man, woman, and child in 60 cities, and don't forget the 10th plague in Egypt were he killed every first born. He advocated slavery, stoning people for petty reasons, and treating women as second class citizens. He didn't stop people from sacrificing their own children to him (Judges 11) and killed innocent people quite often - like tens of thousands of Hebrews because their King (David) preformed a peacetime census.

I mean, I don't know how you can get much clearer then that. How can he be considered a perfectly moral being?

This would be a convincing list under different circumstances, but there is far more to the picture than your list considers. Think about the court system that we know. Innocent people have been convicted of crimes and imprisoned. Guilty people have gotten off free. All because of evidence and our understanding of it. The Bible says lean on God for his understanding. Because things are often broader in scope than we know, there is one thing I would not do: convict God of a crime even if the evidence said his fingerprints were all over the murder weapon. Why? Because I know that no one seeks to help a person more than God. God is good all the time. But if you wish to believe differently and steer the world away from him as well, that is your choice.
But if you have wrongly condemned God, do you wish to right it? If God is good, do you want to know him? If so, you will need his Son's help. You are already in too deep to get out yourself. Call on Jesus to deliver you unto all truth and repent of all sins and any wrongful words spoken against God. If you do this and he delivers you, you will know him as Lord and Savior. Peace.

You point out failings in a human (ie, fallible) system. But we're talking about Jehovah, here. Judeo-Christian doctrine is that Jehovah is omnipotent and infallible. Thus, if he "slaughtered innocents", it wasn't "by accident" (as it might be in a human justice system), but by *design* and *choice*.

By design and choice he slaughtered innocent people, and did all those things. That makes him completely immoral, and not a little bit sociopathic.

This atheism ad thing is not necessary in times like these. With the whole world going to hell, the last thing we need is a bunch of atheists going around defying the individual religions of the masses. I don't like this ad campaign at all, we all need a God to make us safe and protected. These atheists need to zip up and take down their poison posters once and for all.

I am what you might call a man deeply imbedded in the Esoteric Traditions, we do not adhere to neither Atheism, agnosticism nor religion faith-based institutions.

I see Atheism (the zealous ones) to be the same as zealous religious 'defenders' in that both adhere to an EXTERNAL AUTHORITY (i.e. a doctrine), neither have or will go anywhere fighting each other over their obsession with an idea, doctrine, or any 'Ism' for that matter.

In a battle between REASON and FAITH, I side a bit more towards Reason but both have no grasp of truth (which like Time and Space is relative).

Just wondering, what doctrine do these zealous atheists adhere too?

Materialistic Science has been (in the last several decades) turn into an infallible Authority (quite the opposite of what Science really is which is uncovering mysteries of nature through experimentation, trial and error etc.)

Science has in fact become an External Authority for these zealous Atheists who only grasp at the form but not the substance (or essence behind it). They uncover Nature from the Physical and with a blind on up.

Regardless I still prefer Science over Faith based doctrines, but both still seek to find an answer from the external world.

Anyway enough babble, this conflict betwen Science and Faith will go on way after we are all gone, I personally have had enough of it.

Funny, they feel the need to convince others to not believe in God.

What are they afraid of? Why do they feel the need to do this? Are they trying to justify their own beliefs? Why do they need to point these things out if they are not already justified about their own beliefs?

because they're afraid of being told and convinced by others to believe in god.

it's the same type of funny that religious nuts feel the need to convince others to believe in god.

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. Mark 10:25 Apparently money can become a god to some people.

Christ is the reason for the season! Keep Christ in Christmas. And let's pray for the atheists... they're in for a rude awakening.....

The Yule season was around and celebrated long before Joshua ben Joseph came around my friend.

Regardless, I still submit Christ is the reason for the season...

Oh GOOD! Another post where people can post about how they think science is the same as religion. Yes, Virginia, there is a Billboard!