Open letter to all Atheists.

If you are offended by prayer in public places, or government institutions, that offends me.

I agree with most of the replies here, very good points. I am NOT offended by atheists. I am grateful for them. They help clean up crony religion and I believe are actually doing God's work. I am offended by hypocrisy. You don't want prayer because it offends you and you feel like religion is being forced on you. However, in telling us how not to be, you are telling us how to be and doing the same thing you don't want done to yourself. That logic offends me, not that you don't believe in God.As far as separation of church and state goes, that should not be used to take God out of government. That's not what it was meant for. Our very first document states that our rights are endowed by our creator. God has a place in government. So does atheism.

Sounds good Diomedes, so long as true representatives of each religion are leading the prayer. Other religions do not offend me.

Religious leaders have no place in our government, but government leaders can be religious. To stop that is an infringement on many rights. The Declaration of Independence mentions a diety more than once. That is the foundation of the bill of rights and our constitution. You want to eliminate every religious thing, but that envokes your own belief, unless you can prove God doesn't exist. So it is absolutely 100% hypocritical.P.S. we don't need religion to start wars. Look at Russia. It's people not religion that start wars. Get over it already. I am also offended by several labels that were placed on me in this thread. So the hypocrisy continues..... religious bigotry. You guys have no right to anger. You won't stop name calling with name calling. That's how wars start.

Or to paraphrase . . .

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No worthy religion would seek the power of the state to coerce its beliefs.

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~Thomas Jefferson

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Who's looking to do that? I am merely trying to keep freedom of religion alive. If I can't pray in a court house, am I free? I don't even pray a lot publicly, or do I particularly care for it. I am just concerned about the freedom of doing it. That means all religions, and atheism. We have a right to express ourselves where ever we stand. To say you can't pray in a particular spot is unconstitutional. Then to replace it with your own beliefs is hypocritical.Either way, you all have dragged this off-topic and made it into whether or not there should be prayer in places. You all who are offended by my statement are looking to justify your own hatred toward religion and God. It's hypocritical, and you all just proved my point. Stop telling me about the toothpick in my eye, and take the plank out of your own. I made my point.

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Well, since I also can't prove that party-hat-wearing-unicorns don't exist, I guess we need to include those too.

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Come to think of it, I can't prove that flying-purple-gorillas don't exist either . . .

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Or nazi-abominable-snowmen . . .

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Or, or, or, . . . gosh, your god is in a folder with a lot of silly infantile fabrications, isn't it?
  —dronester

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No it isn't. That is an old illogical comparison. It has no substance. You'll have to do better.

Atheism not taught in schools? That's a good one.

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That would be hypocritical only if dronester and the rest of us wanted atheism to be an exception. But we don't. We agree, for example, that atheism should not be taught in public schools. Town hall meetings should not be kicked off by an official announcement that there is no God. Money should not bear the legend "IN GOD WE DON'T TRUST (BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ONE)". The principles of humanism should not be displayed in courthouses. No atheist advocates for such things to be done. Where, then is the hypocrisy?
  —"Dr.Adequate"

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Those are your beliefs. You are forcing them on the rest of us. There's your hypocrisy.

This was an open letter to Atheists who are offended by prayer. Are you?This was not an open letter against logical arguments against prayer, see the difference? But everyone assumes I am some bible toten sob, and that's where the name calling is. There's a lot of good points in this thread, and a lot of bad ones. Regardless, being offended by prayer offends me and IS hylocritcal.Edited by riVeRraT, : No reason given.

Awesome!The bible is not the inherent word of God. It is just words written by men inspired by the Holy Spirit. I think I remeber reading that in the bible. I believe the words to be inspired because once I experienced what I believe to be the Holy Sipirt the words took on a different meaning. You can just call me crazy, I would have to.Also who is to say God didn't create all religions for his purpose? There is a lot of short sighted comments about God and His ways in this thread from atheist. No surprise as it happens in religion too. People always seem to confuse God with religion and people with God. Sad. I think the founding fathers knew the difference though.

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I am not offended by prayer, and I am an atheist. The only thing I am offended by is the use of government time, money, and resources for prayer and the pushing of one religious view over another. I am offended by teachers in public schools using public funded classrooms and classtime as a means to proselytize. I am offended by my tax dollars being spent advertising for religious views I don't agree with.

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I am not offended by teachers leading after school prayer meetings. I am not offended by churches leasing schools for church services.

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Do you understand the differences?

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But this shouldn't offend you. You are offended mearly because you don't agree with it, not for any logical reasons. This exemplifies my OP. There are plenty of things in governemnt which I do not agree with, but it doesn't offend me. Thanks for supporting my statement. Your atheism does not offend me at any time.

Isn't this the whole crust of this forum? Evolution vs Creation?I want to say to believe in one or the other is very narrow minded. Could we have been created to evolve? Does the bible explain exactly how he created us from dirt? Does evolution explain where we came from?To all you Christians, and atheists. If God is the creator of the universe, and at a certain point in time He decided to have us believe in Him by faith (John 3:16) then it is most likely He removed/masked all objective evidence pointing directly to Him, or how He did things. This is why creation science is stupid. Even if we were created, we would never be able to show it. We are like ignorant little children compared to the Creator of the universe, and it is probably very amusing to Him watching us trying to figure it all out (or maybe not).Everything requires faith. But believing in God requires much more faith than believing if the sun will rise tomorrow.I have 5 kids, and all of them once they started going to high school started coming home with the notion that there is no way a God can exist based on what they were being taught. So while schools do not openly teach atheism, their way of teaching leaves anyone with a rational mind no other logical conclusion. As if we knew everything. I tend to think that most atheists base their non-belief on there education. So yes, I think schools are teaching atheism. Been there, done that. I was agnostic for most of my life. The reason? Church made me that way, and so did my education.

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I'd argue that is not so much a consequence of "their way of teaching" as it is the consequence of critical thought.

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Faith is not taught in schools (and you don't want it to be), at least not in the manor that it should be first off, secondly, critical thought is based on current knowledge/teaching. You say it as if critical thought is superior to any other way of thinking. I am sure scientists have felt that way throughout the generations, until proven wrong. All I see are close minded people angry at religion. Hence the offense.

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Well yeah, that's because we don't violate your first amendment rights.

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You seem to think that saying this sort of thing gives you the high road, but actually it's a sign that we've already taken it; in America today a Christian boasting that he's not offended by atheism is like a serial killer saying to an origami enthusiast: "Hey, I don't criticize your hobby."

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Yea that makes no sense.

Faith writes:

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Not according to the Bible, which gives time indicators that show the age of the Earth is not long enough, as well as the information that the original couple lost their immortality when they sinned against God. Evolution can't exist where there is no death, and since death entered there hasn't been time.
  —"faith"

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Time indicators?Firstly, you need to ask yourself what is the bible. It is a book written by men inspired by the Holy Spirit. They did the best they could with what they knew.Secondly, I'd say they did an excellent job because the bible says the earth was created in 6 days, but a day to God is like a thousand years and vise versa. So once again, tell me how old is the earth based on the bible?

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I don't know what you mean here. If you mean that we are blind to God apart from what scripture reveals about Him, that is true, but that's the result of the Fall or our first parents' disobedience of God. The death that resulted was first a spiritual death. The intimacy they had experienced with God before their sin was lost and they could no longer experience His presence as they had before. God became remote to them at that point and we've all been born into their spiritual deadness. You have to appreciate the whole context of scripture to get an appreciation of all this, you can't just know a few verses.

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Before Jesus there was lots of objective evidence to show people God's existence. After Jesus that all seemed to go away, and our body's became the temple, and we were to believe by faith, and faith alone. Everything happens by faith. Faith is subjective therefor you can never prove "God". To do so is going against the bible IMO. As Christians our only "proof" of God's existence is to love people the way God love's us. It's still a subjective proof.

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I suppose so, but scripture was given to us to build our faith, that's its purpose as there is nothing outside scripture that can overcome our fallen blindness.

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Yes and NO. People who have never read a single word of the bible know God. God will pick and choose when and how He goes to people. We are NOT to judge that. Our only job is to save.I lost my faith at age 8 when a nun hit me for asking where in the bible were all the saints prayers. That was after she taught us the "Our Father" prayer. At 8 I read before and after that prayer, and it says Jesus says this is the way to pray. Jesus is the Son of God, so where did all this other BS come from? At 8 I knew that particular religion was not from God. If God is a just God, this is not how it would be. But it works for some people I guess, I don't want to judge it.So I lost my faith to religion, and school increase that lack of faith.