Here are a few interesting sites:

You may be a fundamentalist atheist if....

(An amusing little list in the tradition of Jeff Foxworthy's "You Just Might be a Redneck if..." was sent to us by a reader and we have expanded it since. See how many of these you can apply to people you know!)

*You believe that planes, computers, calculators, compasses, etc, were "all obviously designed," yet the human body, being intricately more complex was "obviously a product of biological evolution." It seems the more complex the apparatus, the more obvious the "fact" that it was not designed.

*You descended from apes.(Think about it.)
*You think that humans are products of chance but when it comes to human reason we can believe in logic! (Think about it !)
*You think you arrived at your position because you are a free-thinker who rationally weighed the evidence, and then freely chose atheism over theism. YET, you also believe that your thinking and actions are nothing more than the FIXED reactions of the atoms in your brain that are governed by the Laws of Chemistry and Physics.
*You love to castigate Christians for being "anti-science" if they deny evolution from goo to you via the zoo, and to preach that they should adapt their thinking to the "science" of our day. But you also castigate the Church of 400 years ago for being anti-science, when it DID adapt its thinking to the science of ITS day, i.e. Ptolemaic cosmology, then joined with the Aristotelian scientists of the universities in rejecting Galileo!
*You have recently stuck a Darwin fish on your car in the hopes the people with the Jesus fish on theirs will be offended.
*Concerning the origins of life, you feel that though the chances of life forming without an intelligent creator are small it DID indeed happen that way. And yet you don't believe me when a rock, coming from my direction, hits you in the back of the head and I tell you, "I didn't throw it. There was a sudden shift in the earth's gravitational pull and the rock levitated into your head...Sure the chances are small but it DID happen that way."
*When you're shown that your view of origins is silly, you can only respond, "Well...at least it's better than believing in some invisible SKY DADDY!"
*You are a person who absolutely believes that life came from nonlife, yet absolutely deny the possibility of anyone rising from the dead.
*You contend that no war in history has ever been created by non-belief. Yet, when you are told that 176 million people lost their lives in wars during the last century, created by non-believers like Stalin, Lenin, Mao and Hitler, to name only a few, you reply that those wars fought were fought in the name of ideology and not ‘atheism’ as atheists “…don’t fly planes into buildings or start wars.”
*When you use a historical point to prove Christianity is false (i.e., pagan parallel to Christianity), history is objective truth. When a Christian uses real historical scholarship to prove you false, history was written by subjective men and therefore cannot be trusted.
*You think that religious wars have killed more people than any other kind of war, even though the largest wars of the last 200 years (World War I and II, Civil War, etc.) had no discernable religious causes.
*You're convinced, despite evidence to the contrary, that Christianity was responsible for the Jewish holocaust because, dang it, that just SEEMS like something Christians would do.
*You assert that the crimes and failings of some Christians (acting inconsistently with the teachings of Christ at that!) disproves the whole edifice of Christianity but that the crimes and failings of some atheists (acting consistently with the fact that atheism can provide no basis for objective morality!) should on no account be held against the philosophy of atheism.
*You are disgusted with Doctor Paul Vitz’s book “Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism” because an educated person with a degree has linked atheism as a psychological condition. Yet, you have no remorse when you tell believers that they are a product of brainwashing, psycho conditioning and wishful thinking.
*You think God was cruel for killing all of those innocent babies in the flood, and that Christians are cruel for opposing a woman's right to abort her baby.
*You decry Christian missionaries for denying cultural relativism; denouncing their efforts to reform cannibalism, slavery and fear of animist spirits as judgmental intolerance. But your attacks on the Bible merely comprise anguished cries of "how barbaric" rather than reasoned arguments; and ignore all considerations of ritual cleanness, the evils of the Canaanites and the fact that ancient society was always one step from anarchy.
*You think religious tolerence does not applies to Christians.
*You really "believe" that many human beings actually believe things they know aren't true.
*You believe that if something cannot be touched, seen, heard, or measured in some way, then it must not exist, yet you fail to see the irony of your calling Christians "narrow-minded".
Oh there's lots more:

http://www.tektonics.org/fundyath.html

Learning to think spiritually isn't about accepting the supernatural. I am referring to that part of the human intellect that allows the mind to understand things that are not readily made obvious or explicitly stated. It is the same skill involved in interpreting poetry or in detecting the nuances that are present in higher literature. Most people already have this ability; they just need to learn how to apply it when it comes to the issue of God.

If you are an atheist who is interested in seeing if he can tune into God, I recommend that you first read "The Tao of Pooh" by Benjamin Hoff. It's short, sweet and easy to understand. Atheistic in its philosophy, this book will put you on the path to understanding truth in paradox. A paradox is that which appears to contradict, but upon closer examination, really does not. "The Tao of Pooh" removed much of my arrogance and knocked the owl right out of me, effectively diminishing two barriers that had allowed me to shut God out of my perception. Read more:

http://www.ex-atheist.com/Learning%20To%20Think%20Spiritually.html

Exerpts from G.Z. Jordan's testimony:
I did not like Christians, and I would have nothing to do with someone once I learned of their Christianity. Then in 1992 I met a man named Jim. I learned of his Christianity, but I liked him anyway. I respected his honesty, intelligence, and good character. We became friends despite our disparate theistic positions. He made an example of not condemning, but trusting his light to shine onto me. That shocked me because I had grown accustomed to "religious fanatics" attempting to force other people to conform to their religiosity or spewing forth condemnation on dissenters. Jim accepted me as a friend and left the rest of the work to the "Holy Spirit." His attitude and obedience to the Lord opened the door for someone else who would show me just who Jesus Christ really was, is, and will always be.

1. Unconstitutionally, Secular Humanism is America’s governmentally established religion despite the "wall of separation" value secularists espouse. I devoted years of support to organizations that professed to be protecting that wall, while in practice were actually forcing a non-theistic religion onto the public.

2. Humanists control mainstream media, politicians, and the entertainment industry.

3. Religiosity was a factor in America’s history. That history has been re-written or omitted in some public [government-run] schools. For example, some public school texts omit George Washington’s religious references from his Farewell Address.

4. Currently, American governmental entities have grown totalitarian and coercive, whereas Jesus still seeks voluntary hearts.

5. Jesus endured attacks from His corporeal visit through today yet survives. Christianity flourished against all odds.

6. Jesus’ teachings do not support the Christian atrocities I have condemned throughout my atheism. Jesus should not be charged for those atrocities. Further, atheistic regimes have committed equally and worse atrocious acts in the name of "the people." Both atrocious histories merely demonstrate just how much Christ’s teachings are needed.

7. I reject the idea the apostles allowed themselves to be persecuted over something they knew to be false. I also reject that the apostles and the 500 witnesses to His ascension into Heaven experienced joint hallucinations. Science has yet to prove such hallucinations are possible. The apostles had everything to lose by practicing their faith and nothing to gain. Cultists are convinced of a future happening; W.W.II Japanese kamikaze pilots (similar to other religious and political martyrs) were youth indoctrinated from birth regarding the Empire/God unity concept. The disciples were neither cultists nor kamikaze styled religious fanatics, for they were steadfast over something they personally witnessed.

8. If Jesus and His apostles (authors of the New Testament) existed and were truthful, His absent body is beyond secular explanation if kept in harmony with secular explanations for His followers’ visions. If Jesus and His disciples did not exist, who wrote the New Testament and why? I reject that some loonies wrote it, then ignoramuses followed their insanity for 2000 years. There had been other virgin births and saviors in actual religions that died. Why would a fantasy version live on? Why would lives be changed by it?

9. Bible prophecies have come to pass against enormous odds.

10. Women are not the subjugated male-inferiors that non-Christians perceive the Bible teaches. Husbands are to sacrifice themselves for their wives as Christ did for the church (Ephesians 5:25).

With those 10 points in mind, I further determined that, even if Jesus had been a mere man, I could support His teachings with vigor and zeal, if the supernatural aspects were applied figuratively. Later, I questioned whether I was correcting the teacher by omitting the supernatural of which He spoke. Still fighting it, I owned up that following is following, whereas tailoring is tailoring. Deep down inside I knew He actually deserved to be accepted and followed by His standard, not mine. I questioned that millions of people have accepted Him via a sinner’s prayer of admitting guilt and repenting. Was I the insightful sage who knew what millions of others did not? I thought not.

What I want Christians to know is that your walk, your example of living the faith, or swaying, is crucial to the salvation of others. If you live in hypocrisy and duplicity, a lost person will see our Lord Jesus Christ as phony, impotent, and useless. He shed His blood on a cross that all may have eternal life. How will you serve Him -- by making a poor example?

Albert Einstein’s words, "We should take care not to make the intellect our God; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality."
More from G. Zeinelde Jordan:

http://www.theism.net/authors/zjordan/docs_files/birth_files/02birth.htm

General Tests for Historicity

Historiography is a branch of study which focuses on the logical, conceptual, and epistemological aspects of what historians do. Critical historiography studies, among other things, the different tests which should be applied to a document to determine whether or not it is historically reliable. [4] When many of these tests are applied to the New Testament documents, they show themselves to be as reliable as, or superior to, most other ancient documents.

For example, apologists have often appealed to three general tests for historicity: the bibliographical test, the internal test, and the external test. The internal test asks whether the document itself claims to be actual history written by eyewitnesses. More will be said about eyewitness testimony later. The external test asks whether material external to the document (in this case, archaeology or the writings of the early church fathers) confirms the reliability of the document. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to delve into the external test. But it should be pointed out that the New Testament has been remarkably confirmed time and again by external evidence. This is not to say there are no problems; but to the unbiased observer, little doubt can be cast on the statement that archaeology has confirmed the historical reliability of the New Testament. [5]

The bibliographical test seeks to determine how many manuscript copies we have of the document and how far removed they are in time from the originals (see table 1).


Table 1
Author, When Written, Earliest Copy Time Span, and No. of Copies
Caesar 100-44 900 A.D. 1,000 yrs. 10
Livy 59 B.C.-A.D. 20
Plato (Tetralogies) 427-347 B.C. 900 A.D. 1,200 yrs. 7
Tacitus (Annals) 100 A.D. 1,100 A.D. 1,000 yrs. 20
also minor works 100 A.D. 1,000 A.D. 900 yrs. 1
Puny the Younger
(History) 61-113 A.D. 850 A.D.. 750 yrs. 7
Thucydides
(History) 460-400 B.C. 900 A.D. 1,300 yrs. 8
Suetonius
(De Vita Caesarum) 75-160 A.D. 950 A.D. 800 yrs. 8
Herodotus
(History) 480-425 B.C. 900 A.D. 1,300 yrs. 8
Horace 900 yrs.
Sophocles 430-406 B.C. 1,000 A.D. 1,400 yrs. 100
Lucretius Died 55 or 53 B.C . 1,100 yrs. 2
Catullus 54 B.C. 1,550 A.D. 1,600 yrs. 3
Euripedes 480-406 B.C. 1,100 A.D. 1,500 yrs. 9
Demosthenes 383-322 B.C. 1,100 A.D. 1,300 yrs. 200*
Aristotle 384-322 B.C. 1,100 A.D. 1,400 yrs. 5**
Aristophanes 450-385 B .C. 900 A. D. 1,200 yrs. 10
*All from one copy. **Of any one work.
From Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, rev ed. (San Bernardino, Calif.: Here's Life,1979), p. 42.

(I couldn't get the above chart to cut and paste properly, but if you click on the link at the end of this section, you will go right to it )

A brief perusal of the table indicates that for a representative sample of ancient historical works, we possess only a handful of manuscripts which are, on the average, one thousand years removed from their originals.

In contrast to this, the New Testament documents have a staggering quantity of manuscript attestation. [6] Approximately 5,000 Greek manuscripts, containing all or part of the New Testament, exist. There are 8,000 manuscript copies of the Vulgate (a Latin translation of the Bible done by Jerome from 382-405) and more than 350 copies of Syriac (Christian Aramaic) versions of the New Testament (these originated from 150-250; most of the copies are from the 400x). Besides this, virtually the entire New Testament could be reproduced from citations contained in the works of the early church fathers. There are some thirty-two thousand citations in the writings of the Fathers prior to the Council of Nicea (325).

The dates of the manuscript copies range from early in the second century to the time of the Reformation. Many of the manuscripts are early-for example, the John Rylands manuscript (about 120; it was found in Egypt and contains a few verses from the Gospel of John), the Chester Beatty Papyri (200; it contains major portions of the New Testament), Codex Sinaiticus (350; it contains virtually all of the New Testament), and Codex Vaticanus (325-50; it contains almost the entire Bible).
Read More:

http://www.apologetics.org/books/historicity.html

Also check out this site...
http://www.rationalchristianity.net/index.html

OK. It's been a quiet summer so far on the Religion Forum front, So I guess I'll have a crack at this behemoth. I might . however, have to pause for the occasional meal, sleep, etc.......here we go…

Just call me "ek"....

You may be a fundamentalist atheist if….
ek.....(Fundamentalist atheist? I think this might be a redundancy. It doesn’t get much more fundamental than a total lack of belief.) Now I realize this is purported to be Christian humor, but holy cow (sorry), I hope for your sakes that this isn’t the epitome of such. I suspect this is more of a verbose sly dig than humor.

*You believe that planes, computers, calculators, compasses, etc, were "all obviously designed," yet the human body, being intricately more complex was "obviously a product of biological evolution." It seems the more complex the apparatus, the more obvious the "fact" that it was not designed.
ek..Now right off the bat I've got a problem with the language purported to be quotes from "FA's" (who exactly is being quoted?) I can't conceive of any atheist considering it a belief that electro mechanical things are all obviously designed. I'm sure we have better things to occupy our waking hours than contemplation of the obvious. Regardless, degree of complexity in any system in no way reveals the source of manufacture, much less indicates a divine nature to that source. One simply does not follow the other.

*You descended from apes.(Think about it.)
ek... Ah yes, that ol' "descended from apes" fallacy. This is ancient history, RR's. You need some new PR. This must be in the secret RR underground bible, it pops up so often. It's a favorite claim of the RR. And it's a bald faced lie, and most of them know it. No atheist I've ever heard of believes we are descended from apes. Apes and mankind are descended from a common ancestor, according to current theory. Heck, we're probably descended from a lot of entities more distasteful than apes. This is typical of the lengths some in the RR will go in their desperate attempts to defame atheists. We forgive them, though. We know the truth can sometimes hurt.

*You think that humans are products of chance but when it comes to human reason we can believe in logic! (Think about it !)
ek…Man, I sit here shaking my head. Repeat after me...Natural selection, natural selection. No chance involved. White moths on a white tree. An occasional gene mutation produces a black moth. Black moth, highly visible on white tree, gets eaten by predator, white moth all lovey-dovey, lives to reproduce. Bunch of new factories move into neighborhood, spew smoke, trees turn black, white moths, highly visible get eaten, black "mutant" moths now invisible, thrive and reproduce. Soon no white moths left to reproduce, only black. Odd gene mutation produces white moth that promptly gets eaten. Now we have only black moths. Get it?. Got it? Good. The second half is a thing of beauty. Read it out loud and savor the, yes, logic...here we go...."...when it comes to human reason we can believe in logic!" followed by the bonus crowning touch of "think about it". So the RR stand would be...what? for human reason we can believe in illogic? Well, yes. I guess, in a nutshell, that is what you believe.

*You think you arrived at your position because you are a free-thinker who rationally weighed the evidence, and then freely chose atheism over theism. YET, you also believe that your thinking and actions are nothing more than the FIXED reactions of the atoms in your brain that are governed by the Laws of Chemistry and Physics.
ek...Fixed reactions?? Do you think atheists incapable of changing our minds? Do you think we believe our brains to be hardwired? I'm having a little trouble getting the gist of this one. Just yesterday I read of experiments on rat brains where no matter the portion removed, the rat still remembered pre-taught functions, indicating universal memory storage. The above RR claim sounds like one of those things that they would like to convince people that we believe with little or no basis in fact.

*You love to castigate Christians for being "anti-science" if they deny evolution from goo to you via the zoo, and to preach that they should adapt their thinking to the "science" of our day. But you also castigate the Church of 400 years ago for being anti-science, when it DID adapt its thinking to the science of ITS day, i.e. Ptolemaic cosmology, then joined with the Aristotelian scientists of the universities in rejecting Galileo!
ek…No, no, Aristotle was science of c.350 CE, Ptolmy, c 150 CE. Hardly science of the day, the day being c. 1616. And it wasn’t science that Galileo butted heads with. It was the Inquisition. You probably don’t want to get into that nasty little chapter of religious history too much, though. On 31 October 1992, 350 years after Galileo's death, Pope John Paul II gave an address on behalf of the Catholic Church in which he admitted that errors had been made by the theological advisors in the case of Galileo. He declared the Galileo case closed, but he did not admit that the Church was wrong to convict Galileo on a charge of heresy because of his belief that the Earth rotates round the sun. Idiocy. Pure, unadulterated pig headed stupidity.

*You have recently stuck a Darwin fish on your car in the hopes the people with the Jesus fish on theirs will be offended.
ek…Never seen either one. Would I recognize a fish on a bumper as a Jesus fish? Would it be wearing sandals and a halo? Would there be a bunch of loaf stickers next to it? Would I run out and buy a “dead body on board” sign ‘cause I think “baby on board” sign are tacky? No.

*Concerning the origins of life, you feel that though the chances of life forming without an intelligent creator are small it DID indeed happen that way. And yet you don't believe me when a rock, coming from my direction, hits you in the back of the head and I tell you, "I didn't throw it. There was a sudden shift in the earth's gravitational pull and the rock levitated into your head...Sure the chances are small but it DID happen that way."
ek…Actually, I feel that the chances of life forming without an intelligent creator are an absolute 100%. I think you need to rephrase that first sentence.. And you leave yourself wide open to abuse with the second half vis-à-vis scientific accuracy, intent to injure, and willingness to lie.

*When you're shown that your view of origins is silly, you can only respond, "Well...at least it's better than believing in some invisible SKY DADDY!"
ek…Hey, I like that, “Sky Daddy” But you forgot to mention pouting, foot stomping and other outward manifestations of a childish tantrum, which I would guess is the intent of this attempt. And name me one time that science re origins has been shown to be silly. C’mon. Just one.

*You are a person who absolutely believes that life came from nonlife, yet absolutely deny the possibility of anyone rising from the dead.
ek…The first half of the above is being done now, today, in a number of laboratories (It’s ALIVE!!! It’s ALIIIIVE!!!), As for the second half, well, if you believe in that possibility in one case, you cannot logically deny the possibility in any other case. Night of The Living Dead, anyone?

*You contend that no war in history has ever been created by non-belief. Yet, when you are told that 176 million people lost their lives in wars during the last century, created by non-believers like Stalin, Lenin, Mao and Hitler, to name only a few, you reply that those wars fought were fought in the name of ideology and not ‘atheism’ as atheists “…don’t fly planes into buildings or start wars.”
ek…Aside from Hitler, what wars? And Hitler was a Christian who apparently dabbled in Mythology. Lenin was a major architect of the Russian Revolution which resulted in a number of deaths, but the Russian peasants and workers were dying of starvation and bullets prior to the revolution. Stalin and Mao were nasty pieces of work, responsible for millions of deaths, but atheism was not their reason d’ etre, though I would bet that religion had its role in the formation of their characters.
Edit How did I forget this little gem of irony? Joe Stalin was a product of seminary school. From http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSstalin.htm

Behemoth you say... you ain't just a-whistlin' dixie...phew...I had to cut and paste, so I could read this again, along with your response, over my bed-night snack...I'll get back to ya later, pertater...

_________________
cg
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
-Mahatma Gandhi

Ek, Ek, Ek!!!
You are so not typical in any way ... I always learn something new when I read your posts...And I have to say, that in spite of the differences in our beliefs, I always find you to be fair...
Now...I hope you have taken sustenance, and rest, and I look forward to further comment on the rest of the sites...
Though you are right...I hadn't realized just how much there was in my original post to check out...
it IS rather behemoth-ic Ek...hehe...

_________________
cg
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
-Mahatma Gandhi

No rush, CG. Note the edit /p283287-You_may_be_a_quot_fundy_atheist_if_quot_and_more.html#283287
(If your comp is as slow as mine, it'll be quicker to scroll up the page.)

Hello enegue

"Variation" and "mutation" are basically synonymous. Mutation is neutral, neither good nor bad, merely change.

Hi Ek, long time no speak.
I think that the point that Enegue is trying to make is that the gray, white and black moths all have the same genetics but are able to use them to adapt to the environment around them. The only difference in them is the ratio of colors. BTW they also produce a variation which doesn't have to change colors because the shape of their wings mimics another moth which is not eatible. Any of them is able to produce the other and does.

As a Christian, I do not have trouble believing the life on earth changes to fit the environment. That is not the issue. Moths change color or wing shape. Birds develop longer or shorter beaks. They are still moths and Birds. I see variation and "mutation" as an indication of the forsight of God to build in this flexibility. Nature as God Created it has obviously changed. Just not for the better. Death is the natural course of sin and this world is dying. I don't think that extinction got started with the Dodo, it has been going on since sin entered the world. We have no way of knowing how many "species" (a man made distinction, I might add) have been lost since that time. I am sure that what we have now is degraded to the point of not being recognizable today as what it was in the past. Thus they are "related". It seems that so much of what we "know" about the past life on the Earth can not be known. My children and I have watched many dinosaur programs on TV which present a complete world of prehistoric creatures. They are depicted as colorful vibrant living creatures. The voice over uses words like, " we think" and " it is believed" but no where is it stated that this is mostly conjecture derived from the observation of living creatures that may (or may not) represent this form of life now and the fossil record which may be represented by a small number of bone fossils found in fragments and glued together. Is this science or propaganda??

Before I get blasted, let me say that I understand the classification of life on Earth. I use it all of the time and am comfortable with it but it is a tool which is flawed. Mankind has a general tendency to want to put things into neat boxes and the Classification of living things generally makes it handy to keep things straight. Straight but not necessarily right. So it is a handy tool but certainly not absolute.

Why do Science and Religion have to be seperate? The idea of creation gets kicked aside because it is "religion". Science tells us what may have happened but it isn't sure, yet christians (or any religion) are laughed at because we believe an alternative "may have happened". Why is their view correct and not mine? I at least look at the todays accepted point of view. Most Christians do, if only because they have little choice. Why not the other way around? Fear? Lack of understanding?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/biology/variation/mutationrev2.shtml

And my response to your PM (let's keep discussion of the topic public).....

I don't believe genetic mutations are neutral, I have never stated that I believe genetic mutations to be neutral. Where could you have possibly picked up this idea?
Edit Whoops, you're right . I did say that. However, I was speaking of definition, not the result of individual mutations.

And the two sites you recomended.........
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/medicine/assist.shtml#disorders
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/posters/chromosome/diseaseindex.shtml

......Are sites that address the topic of genetic disorders. One could hardly expect reference to genetic benefits.

Lo Ek,

Sorry, enegue, That was Zippy.