I'm not quite sure I said anything along those lines so I find it hard to answer. If I had you would be welcome to my reasoning, but as I didn't I'm not quite sure what to say.
Do you have the exact quote from the book, or at least a link? I cannot find it readable online. Same goes for the Atheist Experience. Link to a specific video, ideally with a timestamp where to start watching from? Anyways, I do not see how these back up your specific claim about specific people. Anecdotes are not data [Which is why I removed a part about personal experience, btw] . A verbatim quote from this thread surely would qualify. Not to mention that none of the above seems to qualify as hard scientific evidence at first glance. Just like this http://notalwaysright.com/preaching-to-the-converted/27548 does not support the claim that all atheists are belligerent and have no manners (yes, I do NOT approve of the behaviour demonstrated there. Same rules for everyone, remember?).
Ah, my apologies. Definitely made a mistake there by reading things into your post that aren't there on second read. Redacting this post:
That's fine, for what it's worth I subscribe to similar feelings to the redacted post anyway, so wouldn't argue that rationale.
Because that's not what the OP wanted they wanted each persons views not a religious debate. I took it as wanting to see what other people's different religions or non religious beliefs were and leave it at that. Try to be civil people
Thanks for seeing some of my good points I appreciate that and I don't agree with the insults thrown by both parties. People always are going to get defensive about their beliefs and some don't handle it right. Regarding the good outweighing the bad like I said in a previous post you always read or hear about the negatives about religion, that's what makes the news! So how you can justify and say there is more bad then good from it, you can't. Religion can positively effect many lives and thus those peoples goodness spreads to others. Sure there are extremists and wrong doings just like everything else but I think it's impossible to prove whether it's overall had a positive or negative effect. I don't think you can lump a whole religion based on the bad actions of a few. Anyway this is my last post on this matter because I don't believe this is how the thread was meant to be.
@Jcman7: Agree to disagree then? I think you made two very good posts to close this off for now, and will join you in leaving things be. Could I ask a moderator to move all our debating posts to a separate thread? We should have moved a lot earlier, sorry for that to everyone. In hindsight you are always wiser. Almost forgot: Despite the tone getting rougher towards the end, I had lots of fun and immensely enjoyed sharpening my wits against my esteemed opponents. So, thank you for making it possible.
Totally agree - Pattern recognition, but pattern recognition gone mad. We confuse what looks like correlation with causal connections... There was an earthquake, we sacrificed some pigs to the gods, now there is no earthquake.
