JohnB

What if in the future it became scientifically proven that God (creator) exists? By this I mean a self conscious entity that had the ability to create this Universe that we live in. What if it was possible to communicate with this entity? What if when asked about scripture and the "Revealed Word of God" It replied that It had nothing to do with it, It never revealed anything to anyone. How would the Theists and Athiests react to this news? Since both parties would be shown to be both right and wrong in their beliefs? Yes, there is a "God" which makes the Theists right and the Atheists wrong, but at the same time "religion" has no basis in fact, making the Atheists right and the Theists wrong. Thoughts?

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned "Publish or Perish". If a gov has been pouring money into a "Cancer Research" centre, then that centre had better be producing some sort of results or the money will dry up. If you can't find a cure, then a new treatment will do as a substitute. If you can't work out a new treatment, then a report "linking" something, anything to cancer will still get a pass mark. If you can't show some progress somewhere, the money ends. Govs think that "long term" funding is about 4 years, in reality they generally don't think past the next budget and will always have an eye on the next election. Some areas of research are not compatible with this timeframe.

John, if you have smarter unions where you are it's because you shipped all the fools down here. It has not gone un-noticed that the worst union agitators have pommy accents. (They tend to call each other "Comrade" a lot too) Personally I've been a union member once and that was because it was a closed shop. I have always been able to negotiate a better deal for myself than any union hack could. People who are good at what they do and know they are valuable don't need unions because companies bid for our services. Unions are for those who know they aren't valuable employees and can't negotiate on the merits of their work ability. WH&S is a different kettle of fish. Yes, safety has improved in most industries a lot. However in the drive to avoid any accidents we have lost sight of the simple fact that there will always be accidents. Humans aren't perfect and will make mistakes. Also you reach a point where the WH&S officer is reduced to coming up with more and sillier regulations and rules simply to justify their own existence. (And I can give some great examples of this sort of rubbish.) As to the OP, I think that there is one factor that is always ignored. The unemployment rate. When unemployment is high there are many applicants for any given job and the employer can pick and choose. People are so keen to get the job that they will accept worse working conditions than they normally would. However in times of low unemployment, under about 3%, then all the good people are already working and the pool contains mostly the deadheads. This reverses the situation and the employer must now offer more money and better conditions to attract employees. Note that this has a flow on effect because if you need to pay more to attract the people you need, then you will also have to raise the wages of the staff you already have to keep them. While I dislike thinking of people as a commodity or resource (and I refuse to work for a company that has an HR Dept) in this respect there is a fair comparison. The fewer good people there are available in the work pool, the more a company will pay to get them. It's simple supply and demand. So the effect on the middle class of the existence or lack of unions depends totally on the economic situation of the nation. BTW, most "smart" Unions know this too. Chronic lack of good people in the work pool will destroy the union movement. Who's going to join a union when the non union workplaces are paying higher wages with better conditions? Unions need high unemployment for their very existence.

The effects of clouds is probably the biggest unknown in the climate system. We simply don't know. Clouds may be a positive feedback or a negative one. If Dr. Spencer is right, then they can act as both a forcing and a feedback. I doubt that anybody in the field would claim to have a definitive answer.

The short answers are "No" and "Yes". The crust is far more flexible than most people think. North america is still rising in areas due to the rebound. Southern England is sinking while Scotland is rising. Scandinavia is rising. (It was depressed some 800 metres at the LGM) Meanwhile the sea floor is sinking due to the extra weight of water. On top of all this there is the usual rise and fall of the slowly moving continental plates. The bottom line is that the Earths crust is a tremendously dynamic system and I doubt that anybody could give a more than WAG as to what effect all these factors will have on sea levels.

I think it more likely that as we travel out around the Galaxy we will modify our DNA to suit the conditions of the planets we find. It would depend on the final methods of transportation that we use. If some form of instantaneous "Stargate" type travel (or very fast Hyperspace) then there would be little change to the DNA. Communities on opposite sides of the Galaxy would be in close contact with each other and divergence would be minimised. However if the hypothetical travel while much faster than light, only logs say a light year per day then the human population will diverge. Even at such speeds a trip from one side of the Galaxy to the other would take 273 years. Assuming that relativistic effects have no place in hyperspace then this is far longer than the human lifespan and direct communication becomes impossible. Even at a light year per hour it would take more than 10 years to cross the Galaxy. In such a case the development of the human creature and his morals, ethics and governmental concepts would diverge rapidly from the central systems. It would be like the spread of Europeans during the age of sail but with longer travel times and very high tech. In this situation, as we spread around the Galaxy (and assuming we don't find anybody else) then in many thousands of years time, somewhere on the opposite side from Earth we will finally meet aliens, and they will be us.

Maybe you should just spend the money you have more wisely rather than spending more money? The US already spends almost 3 times as much as anybody else on healthcare for sub standard results. If you aren't getting value for money then throwing more money at a problem won't work.

Police have that discretion down here. They have three options, ignore you, give you a "warning" or give you a ticket. A warning is like a ticket but with no penalties, however it is recorded so that if a person gets too many warnings someone will drop around to his house for a quiet "chat". There is a very simple reason why it can't be left to the opinion of the individual driver and that is that most drivers (cyclists, etc) have a quite inflated view of their abilities. In a poll a few years ago some 85% of australian drivers considered themselves of "Above average" driving ability. As this is impossible, the only conclusion is that many drivers are fooling themselves. I don't care if somebody elses delusion kills them, I do care if it endangers me and mine. Simple really, play by the rules or don't play the game. I'm not sure you understood my point. You have the green light and a car runs the red because in the opinion of the other driver it is safe. Your opinion doesn't enter into the equation. Scary way to run a road system. There could be a national difference concerning the next bit. Kids here ride bikes too yet the 18-25 age group are three times more likely to have a fatal car accident than anyone else. The figures down here demonstrate quite clearly that they aren't "experienced enough". Way, way too many are dying. Unless they were hit by the hoon, I can't remember the last time somebody older than 25 was involved in a high speed smash. It concerns me that this question is even asked. If you are drunk you are impaired and have no place behind the wheel of a car. Of course you should take a taxi. There are always problems with laws, sometimes due to the politicians being over protective and sometimes simply due to the fact that you can't write a law for every eventuality. We have a blood alcohol limit of .05 which I find silly. Someone who .049 is considered a safe and responsible driver but someone who blows .05 is a menace who must be removed from the road? This makes no sense. Personally I think just make it zero and be done with it. If you drink, don't drive. Similarly we have laws against smoking in footpath cafes. Why? It's not as if you can even smell the cigarette over the deisel exhaust. However those are the rules and I'll play by them. The bottom line of this discussion is the principle involved. My attitude is simple "Play by the rules or don't play the game". This is morally sound and consistent. Whereas the concept of only following the rules if you feel like it is morally unsound. Does this attitude only apply to road laws or all laws? If only road laws then why are road rules a special case? Can you play soccer or any other sport on the same basis? If not, why not? If you play Monopoly on this basis will people play with you again? If not, why not? If you accept that you must play by the rules at all times in these rather safe and frivolous things, on what logical basis do you exclude road laws when people are dying every day on the road? Unfortunately you are talking to someone whose relative was knocked down and killed by a cyclist, so as a statement of fact you are endangering the lives of other people. The body mass of the average cyclist travelling at 40 kph is quite sufficient to kill a pedestrian on impact.

Very true. I think it's just a result of the complexities of the English language.

imatfaal, but large chuncks of the British Antarctic Territories are disputed by Argentina and Brazil, so your total goes down. dragonstar. Canada, Canada....... Maybe if we add in those little Pacific nations we control? *mumble, mumble, carry the 2, mumble*, nope still not quite enough..... Wait! I've got it! At least half of the population of the Oz Antarctic Territory are Russian. Since we don't require them to have visas they must be Australian citizens! So we can add Russia to the Australian total and we are once again on top! The ads were from a program called the "Gruen Transfer". They had a segment each week where two ad companies were asked to sell the unsellable. Invading New Zealand was one, there was also "Compulsory Euthanasia for the over 80s","Drinkable Urine", "Ice to Eskimos", and heaps more. Grab a cup of coffee and head to youtube for some chuckles. On the education bit, the only way a fundy could get control over the curriculum would be to become Minister for Education. Where you have "Secretary of......" we have "Minister for ........". Ministers are politicians from the party that has the most seats in the Parliment and their areas (known as Portfolios) are assigned by the Premier, who is the leader of the party with the most seats. Ministers can be sacked by the Premier at any time so as soon as the fundy tried anything he/she wouldn't be the Minister any more. They could try a "Private Members Bill" to introduce changes but these are traditionally voted on as a "Conscience Vote" and not along party lines by the Parliment. So unless there were a majority of fundies in Parliment, again it would go down in flames. Assuming that it did pass, it would be refused "Royal Assent" by the Governor due to it introducing preferential treatment for a particular religion and would die there. There is also the provision in the Queensland Constitution that since Ministers are technically "Minister of The Crown" the Governor as representative of The Sovereign can dismiss Ministers at any time. The way the system is set up, it's very hard for a radical or extremist anything to get into and keep a position of power. A feature of our system that yours doesn't have is the "Double Dissolution". This power of the Governor (in the case of a State) or the Governor General (for the Federal gov) allows them to dissolve Parliment entirely, both Lower House and Senate to call a complete general election. This power has only been used once in our History but its threat is very real. It resolves a deadlock. Put in American terms say the Democrats held a majority in Congress and the Republicans held control of the Senate. For some reason or other neither side would compromise and Bills simply can't get through both Houses, the gov is deadlocked. It's as if the President had the power to say "Bugger this for a lark, you're all out and we'll let the people decide." So every Representative and every Senator would face the polls. That is a very scary prospect for politicians and it tends to keep them in line.

dragonstar, I never said we were bigger, I said that our States were bigger than yours. In a roughly comparable land area we only have 7 States and Territories. Except for the ACT, Victoria and Tasmania, every one of our States is bigger than Texas. Think of what America would be like if instead of the lower 48 there were just 5 States, each the size of Alaska, that's the sort of situation we have here. This is why we don't have Districts like you do, there simply aren't enough people to make it worthwhile. Imagine an area the size of Nevada, but with a population of maybe 2,000 people and 4 schools, why would we have Districts? That was the point I was trying to make. Another point is that I reread my initial post and I'm wondering if it gave you the impression that I think the majority of Americans are fundies? I don't. I was originally going to write "Anti American Fundamentalist Filter" but I thought it would imply "Anti American" so I left the word out. The filter I was referring to was the one we sensible people use when a fundy starts to talk. When talking to these people we can't even admit that there is historical truth in the Bible because that will open the door to all the rest of their outragious claims. "Give an inch and they'll take a mile." Where it goes wrong is that religion is a strong force in the US and American atheists especially seem to respond to any comment in support of the Bible or other religious work as if the original comment came from a fundy. Belief in a creator doesn't make someone a creationist. Just because I think the Universe was "created" doesn't mean I think it happened in 7 days about 6,000 years ago. Nor does it mean I think the creator to be omnipotent, omnicient (sp) or able to grant wishes and be desiring of worship. Similarly, if there was some proof of the existence of a creator it would not validate any religion except for their fundamental belief in a creator. So the beliefs of a New Guinea head hunter are just as validated as the Catholics. Oddly enough in my view, it wouldn't make the Atheists wrong either. Now this bit is totally tongue in cheek. imatfaal I must protest! The land area figures you quotes were for all American States and Territories, but the Australian figures were for our two main island only. If you include all Australian States and Territories the figure is 13,588,524 square km, beating Europe by over 3 million square km. You forgot to add in the 5,896,500 sqare km of the "Australian Antarctic Territory". It might only have 1,000 people and be the arse end of the planet, but it still counts. Now if we'd ever managed to get this ad campaign off the blocks, you could add New Zealand by now as well.

There is some kerfuffle in Oz at the moment with the Prime Minister wanting to bring in a carbon tax, something she categorically ruled out just 24 hours before the last election. Many people are not happy and there is much name calling and gnashing of teeth. Since the end of the Keating era I have worried that our pollies had become a rather boring bunch with little fair for the dramatic and not really worthy of exposure on the world scene. I now have new hope in Senator Mary Jo Fisher from South Australia. http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2011/03/02/3153400.htm Watch the video and see how political debate is done in the Land Down Under.

dragonstar, how many things started is lost in the mists of time and we'll never really know unless someone invents a time machine. The most probable development was this way. (I think) The early paleolithic tribes had specialists, spear maker, bow maker, jeweller so it would be logical for them to ascribe different things in the natural world to specialist gods. So they had a God of Thunder, God of Rain etc. But tribes also had a heiracy, there was a tribal leader. From this is would be sensible for there to be a similar ranking of the Gods. This gives rise to the Zeus type figure as King of the Gods. (Somebody has to be on top) From there it is a small step to deciding that the Zeus figure must have created the lesser Gods simply because the lesser Gods couldn't reasonably be expected to create a greater God. We are talking here about well before the rise of any stable civilisation, purely tribal. As one tribe conquers another the Gods get mixed up. If my tribe beats yours, then my tribe must have the better Gods and so your tribe would start to follow them too. There would be holdouts though and some facets of your Gods would be introduced into the worship of my Gods. It's a very dynamic process. Gods might also have been discarded for practical reasons. Around 3,000 BC the climate shift forced the oasis dwellers to the east where they became the pharonic egyptians. They (mostly) discarded their old Gods because 1) They had failed them and the people had had to move and 2) because they weren't living on an oasis any more but on a mighty river. It's only sensible that the river would have different Gods to theose of the oases. People can also be elevated to Godhood. The great pyramid designer Imhotep was elevated in this fashion. In thought if not in practice it still happens today. For many today Einstein is as much a god as Imhotep was to the early egyptians. As to spelling, I couldn't remember whether it was "whos" or "whose" and was frankly too lazy to check. Seriously though there are many mysteries as to the whys and whens. My favourite is this one. The potters wheel was invented around 3,800 BC yet the wheeled cart wasn't invented until around 3,200 BC. How did these people watch a wheel go round and round for 600 years before someone said "You know, maybe if we put it on its side it would roll".

Yes, it does get confusing, doesn't it? In many ways I'm still trying to understand your system. The Commonwealth of Australia is a Federation of States where the US is a Union of States. The main difference being that if a US State succeeded from the Union, the Union would not collapse whereas if an Australian State did the Commonwealth would. Your individual States are similar to independent nations where our States are parts of a greater whole. By "State" I mean you have Texas, Carolina etc and we have Queensland, New South Wales, etc. So in this context, I mean the government of the "State of Queensland", where you might say the "Texas State Government". The Feds supply a lot of money, but have very little say in how it is spent and virtually no say at all in the curriculum. While we have "Regions" within a State, they have no say on the curriculum being purely administrative. So we don't have "Districts", the curriculum for the entire State is set by the "Education Dept. of the State of Queensland". Does that make it a bit clearer? Those fundies in the clip are yours, not ours. Westboro Baptist Church is in the US. Our comedians just thought it worth the laugh to send someone to the US to poke fun at them. Get thee to an Atlas my lad. The US can talk about "big" when they get States you can't walk across in a day. Queensland is 2 1/2 times the size of Texas and we aren't the biggest Australian State. Hell, we have cattle stations bigger than some of your States. We have Local Councils bigger than half your States. As for Europe, a collection of piddling little principalities, I fly the distance from London to Moscow just to go to a birthday party. As to the fundies. Religion might play an important part in American politics, but it doesn't here. To quote from my thread on the last Australian Election; Consequently I might speak without a left/right religious/atheist bias but it's heard as having one. For example if I say "The Bible is a historical document" it's often interpreted as saying "The Bible is literally true" thereby painting me as some sort of fundy. This is not the case. When the Bible was written it was the distillation of hundreds of years of oral history. That this history is true doesn't mean the bits about burning bushes are as well. Put another way the historical facts contained in the Bible do not prove the religious aspects to be true and the rejection of the religious aspects does not make the historical parts false. That's what I meant about a "filter". So amny atheists are so against religion that they simply cannot accept the idea that some parts of the Bible are in fact, fact. For some reason their worldview is that it must be a total work of fiction, nothing else will satisfy them. I find such illogical needs coming from people who say they base their views on logic to be both amusing and informative.

I really don't follow your use of the term "Democratic relations". If the other party isn't a democracy, how do you have democratic relations? If you mean "Diplomatic", then I can only recount Clauzwitz. Nor does violence "always" prolong bad relations. I doubt the Carthaginians harboured any resentment at all towards the Romans. Nor could one reasonably argue that there is any bad blood between Germany, Japan, Italy and the Allied nations. You can theorize all you want to excuse the actions of the pirates but it frankly doesn't wash. Profitability for piracy is a risk/benefit game. Since, as you say there are no jobs that will pay as much the only option left is to increase the risk to unacceptable levels. Occasional incarcerations in western prisons in exchange for even a share in one multi million dollar ransom will not do this will it? The danger level must be raised. The other very real part of the equation is that the interim Somali government simply doesn't have the manpower to retake control of the ports and shore towns. (and that is assuming that corrupt government officials aren't part of the problem.) Unless the pirates are denied safe harbour they can continue to act with impunity. I understand that you are unwilling to sacrifice the lives of pirates, but I am unwilling to sacrifice the lives of innocent people travelling in internation waters on their lawful business. But I have to ask, how long and how many innocent lives need to end before you agree that more forceful measures are acceptable? Give me either a timeframe or a number of lives, either one will do.

I agree with the second case and the law would be wrong. However in the first there is a problem. At lonely crossings the lights should change to flash, but if they don't you must stop. You cannot legislate for every individual circumstance. It's easy to use the extreme case to make the point, nobody around, clear view and raining. (Although if it's raining how do you have a clear view?) Let's take the first part, nobody around. What if there is an approaching vehicle 400 mtres away? 300? 200? 100? Where are you going to draw the line? Why on a bike? Why can't a car or truck do the same? Why would rain or shine make a difference? Your argument boils down to "I shouldn't have to stop if I consider it safe to proceed". You might be a careful and safe operator but would you want 18 year olds driving by those rules? Feel like riding up to a green light and having some young twit drive through the red because "in his opinion" it is safe to do so? It's done the way it is because it gives no leeway to your or anybody elses "personal opinion" about the safety of the action or otherwise. The law is the law. It is logical and reasonable for the reasons I've outlined.

It's really quite simple. If you don't intend to follow the road laws then you have no right to be on the road. The vehicle you are controlling at the time is quite irrelevent. Car, bus, bike or electric wheelchair, break the law and expect to get booked. A red light means "Stop" it doesn't mean "Go through if you think you can do so safely". Here in Queensland we book cyclists for not following the laws. They pay the fines and the demerit points are taken off their drivers licence. We also have provisions for confiscating the vehicles of those who repeatedly flout the law. Sorry Mr Skeptic but you wouldn't last long around here. We'd take your money, then your licence and then your bike. The operation of a vehicle on a carraigeway is a privilige, not a right. Abuse the privilige and it will be taken away.

If all wants are satisfied, there is nothing left to strive for. In a similar way the death of any science will come when it runs out of questions.

Sisyphus, would it surprise you to find that many who believe in magic actually hold the same view?

Lemur, I get what you're saying to a point. The thing is that there is a point where playing nice simply doesn't work and violence is required. You can get much further with a kind word and a 2 x 4 than with just a kind word. The problem is rather simple. The Somali government is a joke and the country is a basket case. The other African nations have repeatedly asked the West to "Do something" about Somalia and it's reached the point where only one solution is left. Give the Somali government 90 days to stop the rot or face invasion. At the very least a withdrawal of International recognition for Somali Territorial Waters and the introduction of "Q" ships. If there is going to be a "War on Piracy" then make it a bloody war, not some half arsed "Intervention Program". In a war you sink the ships of the enemy and ignore the territorial waters of belligerents. By providing safe haven and succour to the pirate Somalia has placed itself in the position of belligerent. Somalia is not neutral, but actively supporting the enemy. They should be dealt with as such. Note that under the current arrangement if the pirates make Somali waters they are safe from attack. By ignoring Somali borders no place is safe for them. Having bugger all in the way of Navy or Air Force the Somali government couldn't do anything anyway and if they did they are only defending the pirates which places them in the "Hostile" category. Where your earlier post fell down was "Democratic discourse". How do have such discourse if the other side isn't a democracy? Like it or not, violence has solved more problems in human history than anything else. (Personally I don't like it, but I can't ignore historical facts.)

Considering that per 100,000 the US has less doctors, nurses and hospital beds than the other developed countries I would think it rather obvious why infant mortality and death rates in general are higher in the US than elsewhere. The bizarre part is that the US spends more per capita than anybody else for a worse outcome. A point for clarity. "Infant Mortality" is defined as live births that don't reach their first birthday. People can argue semantics all they want, but the simple fact is that baby born in Cuba has a better chance of survival than a baby born in America and has a longer life expectancy.

The concept doesn't only apply to religious holidays. Australia is a Constitutional Monarchy so we get a day off for the "Queens Birthday". Republicans (as in those who want a Republic, not the American kind ) are quite happy to have the holiday along with us Monarchists. We have "Labour Day" to celebrate the 40 hour work week which means all the communists crawl out from under rocks to express their joy. I really, really hate being called "Comrade" by these people but what the hell, it's only one day. I'm sure other nations can supply a similar list. WRT the OP, I think it's not so much a case of should Atheists enjoy or take religious holidays but a more general "Should people take advantage of holidays for things they don't believe in?" My answer is "Why not?" If it's a general holiday the chances are that anybody you want to talk work to isn't at work, so it's pretty pointless going yourself.

I don't care. How you mismanage your nations education is your business. get used to it no one is going to memorize Australian television personalities to not seem like an American idiot. as far as religion goes the usa is behind the rest of the world so what? Americans know the usa well and most will never leave the USA so no most don't care and no one should expect otherwise You miss the point. Unless you learn to listen to and understand what another person is saying without running it through the "American Christian Fundamentalist" filter first then you cannot converse with another. Try a novel approach. Talk about ideas and concepts rather than whether you agree with some parochial talking head or not. Fundamenalists are your problem, not ours. It is wise to remember that. Their opinions are simply not relevent to the ROWs viewpoint. Here's how we treat your fundies. (We aren't as nice to ours.) Moontanman. Our education system is very different, we don't have school boards for one. The majority of schools are "State" schools, although there are private and religious schools as well. All schools in a State, whether public or private have to cover certain curricular and teach to a set standard. There are "required" subjects. So a religious school can teach the Bible all they want, but they must teach the required subjects or their students won't get a high enough grade to make the cut for University placement. You can't study medicine without High School biology and you can't study biology without evolution. And the textbooks to be used are designated by the government. A school can add textbooks to the curriculum, but they cannot remove or substitute for the set ones. This cuts down on the fundies because a believer in special creation simply isn't going to score high enough to get past High School. Different subjects have different weightings. A "Top" score in "Religious Studies" isn't worth as much as a top score in Maths or any of the sciences. A creationist might score well enough for a Humanities or other fuzzy subject, but they are locked out of Law, Medicine or any of the sciences. If a creationist can't get into Law, he can't write laws. Solves the problem really. We are nominally a "Christian" nation but less than 10% go to church regularly and I suspect a fair percentage of those are our 1.6% Muslim population. The rest of us just don't care. There appears to be a very fundamental difference between our religious persons and yours. I say "appears" because it could be a media thing and the truth is something else, but this is how it appears. American Christians seem to be big on God "doing this" or God "doing that". It's all about what God will or won't do. Whereas ours (except for the fundy minority) generally have the view that the main thing God did was to give us a brain, after that it's up to us. We, not God designed and built the Snowy River scheme. We, not God designed and built the dams and weirs that changed the Murray River from a sometimes dry and sometimes flooding river into a constantly flowing source of water. We, not God designed the "Stump Jump" plough that helped tame and farm this land. This isn't pride but a statement of fact. The Christians I know are thankful for our bountiful and dangerous land and are thankful for the brains and intelligence that allows us to make good use of that land and to build a dream of a better future for all. That's not to say we don't have problems, we do. One of those is that the very education system that keeps the fundies out of positions of power also puts those with low knowledge of science into the teaching profession. Where you have a problem with fundies trying to influence the curriculum, we have rabid greenies and the very "politically correct". These people don't understand science and dislike it if it disagrees with their previously decided position, in their own way they are as stupid and intractable as any fundy you can find. I can see a battle shaping up in the future between the "Greens" and "Non Greens" and it will not be pretty.

Not quite. The religions of the early civilisations grew from the more animistic beliefs of the shamans and tribes that preceeded them. It's no coincidence that the early Gods had animal characteristsics. What many fail to see is that the early shamans were probably the brightest and quickest thinkers in the tribes. The magic they made was important to the survival of the tribe. They had to know when you can use magic and when you cannot. More importantly they had to be able to very quickly explain why the magic didn't work or else suffer a spear to the belly. The thing to understand is that in those early tribes, magic worked. A shaman whos magic didn't work found himself very quickly dead. Now before anybody jumps up and down about the magic working back then, think about what magic he was doing. Healing magic; He wore special clothes with magical impliments and spoke in language nobody else understood. (Not too different from Doctors today really) But the shaman had a knowledge of herbs and herbal remedies too which put him above the tribe and he could heal where others could not. In this respect, the magic worked. Hunting magic; By his wits and knowledge he knew that every time the summer came a bit late, the elk would be found two valleys to the west, but if the summer was early they were two valleys to the north. So he would put on a show (ritual) and make his pronouncements. Remember that this was very important stuff, if he was wrong the tribe might starve or he personally might get killed for failure. The magic worked or else........ The tribes that survived to become the early civilisations were the ones whos shamans were more often right than wrong, or put another way, whos magic worked. Given that long history of magic working, why is it so difficult to understand how the early religions developed and were viewed as "right" and "working"? Given the long history of magic working, why would anybody call "BS" on it in the early civilisations?

imatfaal. Good, my point was that the vast majority of people arguing have never read the Bible, let alone the works of other religions, thereby making an informed comment impossible. You can't do a book review without reading the book. As to the content of those works we might have to agree to disagree. It depends what you are looking for I guess. Certainly true. No philosophy is perfect. A quick check shows that both Oxfam and ActionAid were started by Cecil Jackson-Cole who is quoted here as being "a devout Christian", hardly "atheist" organisations. MSF would classify as neither an atheist nor religious organisation, they simply don't care. I have no idea as to the religious convictions of the founding members, do you? Andrew Carnegie was certainly an atheist and did much good work. He was also a member of the South Forks Fishing and Hunting Club which was pretty much responsible for the Johnstown flood of 1889 which killed 2,209 people. So in answer to the question "Where are the ateist organisations?" you provided 4 examples, 2 were started by a devout Christian, 1 doesn't care (and there appears to be little about the religious views of the founders anyway) and an individual whose negligence as part of a group killed over 2,000 people. Would you like to try again? Can you find a group that was formed by a bunch of atheists? I'm not too sure what you mean here. The SA? Being willing to stand beside them in a fight doesn't mean that I won't argue against certain practices and beliefs that they hold. I'll defend my family too, even if I argue with the members in private. Why does it have to be an "all or nothing" affair? As I said, most philosophies have good and bad points. I'm trying to get across the point that people should accept this as a starting point. Laud the good and argue the bad instead of the constant practice of ignoring the good and decrying the bad. Honestly it's sometimes like that scene in "Life of Brian", Cheers.