I think we've crossed the rubicon into the land of generalizations. Some atheists may have a faith and others don't. Some atheists call themselves agnostic. Some atheists go out of their way to attack religious people, some don't. Some religious people are fundamentalist in their view that the bible is meant to be taken literally, not metaphorically. Some claim that Jesus existed and others say that it doesn't matter, what matters is what he stood for. Some claim that Jesus was not a pacifist and others claim he was. Some religious people accept Darwin and others don't. Some like the Old Testament and others prefer the New. Some atheists decide not to express their view in order to convince religious people that they are wrong. Some special religionists decide not to deride atheists for not believing, being able to empathize with that point of view.

This is the nature of warfare, the insistence on generalizing and making people wrong.

It has to stop. Otherwise as we see in the world today, the generalizations and enemy posing of countries, tribes, cults etc. lead to bloodshed and no resolution to basic human problems such as will we exist in fifty to one hundred years? Will some in the world go hungry while others are wealthy at their expense? Will we stop building weaponry that can exterminate the human race? Or certain members of it?

I see no resolution to the arguments that have been presented here. I don't see an attempt on the part of the people here to try and understand why others think differently from them. I come back to this thread looking for new information that is enlightening and all I find is hurled insults and self-righteous lines in the sand.

Surely there are intelligent people on this thread that can present their personal points of view which apply to them only. That would be interesting. A little history, background on how you arrive at the conclusions without speaking for others would be enlightening. I think Joe Offer did do this and although I come from a different point of view, I found Joe's expression interesting and I could understand it without trying to make him wrong.

This post is already too long but I might try to give you some background in the future as to how and why I arrived at my conclusions in hope that you might find that interesting.