Quote Originally Posted by Toothpick
thats a good way of looking at it but i noticed that most of the atheists hear seem to be really intolerant of other religions which if you ask me should change
Hmmm, you're new here aren't you?

You probably haven't come to the realization that you DON'T have to believe in anything. Like Oneironaut before me, I believe in mankind, in humanity, in our potential to surpass and transcend any petty squabbles. I believe in the Here and Now, I believe in Power, because it's something we can all attain, but most importantly I believe in Reason and Intellect and Knowledge and Resposibility. Those are my gods.

What I don't love is submission, ignorance, the will to nothingness which most religions (i.e. the big three monotheistic ones...) preach and force upon their congregations. For the past 2,000 years we are consistently being told by religious authorities that to have too much knowledge is bad for us, that scientists really shouldn't dig too deeply because they might find things that refute religious doctrines. The major religions want you stupid and docile, they want you to go where you're told to go, do what you're told to do, and think what you're told to think.

Like somebody else said, it strikes me how only atheists ever read the Bible the carefully, because chances are that if you do just that, the entire religious edifice will collapse under the weight of its own faulty logic. So let me ask you, in this day and age, don't we owe ourselves at least a little logic? Shouldn't we use our so-called god-given gifts of reason and logic to transcend, to go beyond religion?

A medieval German mystic, named Master Eckhart, once said, "I ask of God that he rid me of God." Today we can do just that.