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It sounds to me, Farmgirl, like the specific element you require of godhood is an afterlife. An alien with an afterlife may as well be god; an alien without an afterlife has gypped you.

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If there is nothing after this life, Tom.... then none of this matters at all, does it?

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I’m not threatened by evolution. I just know it’s wrong.

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2.) The theory that aliens "seeded" the earth with the beginnings of life requires evolution as a part of the theory also, doesn't it?

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"For one thing, find me an atheist who doesn’t believe in evolution."

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Its harder to find one that believes Pi does not equal exactly 3.0

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You stated a bunch of facts except for the first one. The theory of evolution.

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There seems to be a growing consensus around the globe that godlessness is in trouble.

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"Atheism as a theoretical position is in decline worldwide," Munich theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg told United Press International Tuesday.

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His Oxford colleague Alister McGrath agrees. Atheism's "future seems increasingly to lie in the private beliefs of individuals rather than in the great public domain it once regarded as its habitat," he wrote in the U.S. magazine, Christianity Today.

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Writes Turkish philosopher Harun Yahya, "Atheism, which people have tried to for hundreds of years as 'the ways of reason and science,' is proving to be mere irrationality and ignorance."

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As British philosopher Anthony Flew, once as hard-nosed a humanist as any, mused when turning his back on his former belief: It is, for example, impossible for evolution to account for the fact than one single cell can carry more data than all the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica put together.

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The stunning desertion of a former intellectual ambassador of secular humanism to the belief in some form of intelligence behind the design of the universe makes Yahya's prediction sound probable: "The time is fast approaching when many people who are living in ignorance with no knowledge of their Creator will be graced by faith in the impending post-atheist world."

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A few years ago, European scientists sniggered when studies in the United States – for example, at Harvard and Duke universities – showed a correlation between faith, prayer and recovery from illness. Now 1,200 studies at research centers around the world have come to similar conclusions, according to "Psychologie Heute," a German journal, citing, for example, the marked improvement of multiple sclerosis patients in Germany's Ruhr District due to "spiritual resources."

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Atheism's other Achilles heel are the acts on inhumanity and lunacy committed in its name. As McGrath relates in Christianity Today: "With time (atheism) turned out to have just as many frauds, psychopaths, and careerists as religion does. ... With Stalin and Madalyn Murray O'Hair, atheism seems to have ended up mimicking the vices of the Spanish Inquisition and the worst televangelists, respectively."

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John Updike's observation, "Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been is drastic uninterestingness as an intellectual position," appears to become common currency throughout much of the West.

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The only exceptions to this rule, Zulehner said, are the former East Germany and the Czech Republic, where, as the saying goes, de-Christianization has been the only proven success of these regions' former communist rulers.

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Zulehner cautions, however, that in the rest of Europe re-Christianization is by no means occurring. "What we are observing instead is a re-paganization," he went on, and this worries Christian theologians such as Munich's Pannenberg and the Rev. Gerald McDermott, an Episcopal priest and professor of religion and philosophy at Roanoke College in Salem, Va.

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Observing a similar phenomenon in the United States, McDermott stated that the "rise of all sorts of paganism is creating a false spirituality that proves to be a more dangerous rival to the Christian faith than atheism."

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Pannenberg, a Lutheran, praised the Roman Catholic Church for handling this peril more wisely than many of his fellow Protestants. "The Catholics stick to the central message of Christianity without making any concessions in the ethical realm," he said, referring to issues such as same-sex "marriages" and abortion.

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In a similar vain, Zulehner, a Catholic, sees Christianity's greatest opportunity when its message addresses two seemingly irreconcilable quests of contemporary humanity - the quest for freedom and truth. "Christianity alone affirms that truth and God's dependability are inseparable properties to which freedom is linked."

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As for the "peril of spirituality," Zulehner sounded quite sanguine. He concluded from his research that in the long run the survival of worldviews should be expected to follow this lineup:

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"The great world religions are best placed," he said. As a distant second he sees the diffuse forms of spirituality. Atheism, he insisted, will come in at the tail end.

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Probably, but not because of any innate inferiority. Hire 100 employees for your business, and give them a rule book. Watch how many follow it to the letter, how many follow it for the most part, how many know about it but break the rules anyway, and how many work just fine without it because they can see what needs to be done and how to do it without guidance. I'll bet you the percentages break about the same way, and the self-starters will always be the smallest number.

Edited to add: actually I do believe that atheism is irrational. That's why I'm agnostic

[ March 03, 2005, 05:37 PM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]

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Evolution says nothing about how life began, right? That's a different theory.

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Maybe because it’s a good story about the hopeful future of our planet.

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But then again, as an amillenialist, I don't believe there IS a hopeful future for our planet.

In fact, my theological beliefs are that things will get much, much worse, not better.

Just thought I'd throw some other wrench into the discussion.

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I'm just disappointed that us agnostics never get mentioned...it's always Christians this, Muslim's that, atheists there.

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The popular perception, HT, is that agnostics are either atheists without a backbone or Christians with a nit to pick.

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Those are just vicious lies spread by atheists hoping to inflate their numbers artificially. And also by Christians who will never give up on us. Never.

[ March 03, 2005, 05:49 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]

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For much the same reason we don't teach "Because God Wills It" along with the notion of Gravity in Physics class or because "Allah deems it so" along with exothermic chemical reactions in Chem class.

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Plus there's the its been happening forever approach, also known as the "its turtles all the way down" approach.

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Yep. We're considered clueless and are entirely disrespected by true believers and true nonbelievers alike. Sheesh.

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Hey, I have respect for agnostics. But then I tend to group you guys in with Athiests. As long as you don't have a strong belief, s'all good

That said, I may as well dive in with what I've refrained from saying earlier:

I'm atheist. Why? Becuase there is absolutely no evidense what so ever for the existance of a god aside from the fact that people say there is one and use the lack of evidense in some things as evidense of god being there.

There is however, plenty of historical evidense that religion is a human creation used to explain what we don't know, to hold people together, and to validate governments. Added to that, our penchant for story telling and fiction is well expressed in it.

Do I, as an atheist want the world to become more atheist? On some levels yes, and on others no. I think the world might be a better place with out religion in a lot of ways. People will be dicks with or with out religion. However, remove religion and in the case of religious dicks you remove their easy fall back rationalization for their actions. "God willed it so." is pretty all encompassing and "they are godless heathens" has done a ton of damage. The amount of slaughter perpetrated in the name of this supposedly loving god is appalling, and the amount that the congregations of it have supported it is equally apalling.

On the other hand, it can also do a lot of good. It does hold people together and give them somewhere to go. So how do I feel? People can practice their religion however they want, however much they want, and however vervently they want, I don't care. Just so long as they don't mess with science (removing evolution from schools), don't use those beliefs to remove/prevent other peoples rights(gay marrige), and don't try and force those beliefs on me or anyone else(all too common).

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