I just think it is silly when anyone pretends to know anything about spiritual things or the lack thereof or whatever. I have my beliefs which through maturity and a lot of thought, I now have not need to convince anyone else of. I don't even feel compelled to share them.

Ever heard the expression used by the Bible thumpers "you have a God shaped hole in your heart?" I don't think that hole people have is shaped like God as much as it is shaped like some sort of need to belong to an us-against-them faction with a pecking order they can rise through the ranks of.

So you see this in people claimin atheism just as you see it in Bible thumpers, cultists, etc. There was a thread a while back titled something like "lets celebrate our atheism." That's as worthless a concept as I can think of. Ridiculous. I don't believe in the Santa Clause, but that isn't something I need to celebrate, and definately I don't need to go out in search of people who still believe in Santa so I can convince them they are wrong.

Any type of religion discussion on a forum like this one is basically a disaster of intellectual honesty. Especially when so many liberals are involved. That's why I generally stay out of religious discussions here - they generate heat, but no light. Religion, whether talking about denying it exists, promoting it, or whatever is just a way to score points and convince yourself you are better than "them."

Look at your average liberal - they hate admitting, much less confronting the fact, that Islam today has a lot of problems. They'll pander and make excuses for people who go against everything they believe in and save their guile for Christians who *gasp* want to erect nativity scenes. There are people in the world - millions of them - who hate the idea of a woman wearing shorts in public, but lets start 5000 threads a day on how horrible it is some people believe God created the Earth.

Boggling.