no, it's her fault that she entered into employment with a church. that wasn't the brightest idea.

I'm honestly with you on this one. Is it shitty? Absolutely. Is it even remotely surprising that it happened? No. (And since they told her way back in October that it was extra super important for her to get married by now, it's not like she didn't know this was coming well in advance.)

No, YOU'RE fucking stupid if you're a part of that religion or employed by a religious school and don't take their shit seriously.

I know I'm in the minority on Jezebel about this but...I don't really care. She works for a church-based organization. It's far from shocking that they would care about this and fire her for it.

Arsenic
Botulism
Cyanide
Datura
Ergot
Formaldehyde

Ok I got bored, but this could be a fun alphabet to finish later.

The big thing that made me jump to atheism finally was the realization of what religion was. It became painfully obvious to me that it was simply a tribal societal framework. It was the beginnings of medicine, the purveyor of knowledge, the settler of debates, the law, the judge, the jury, the executioner.

Arguments over the existence of God are a huge set of moving goal posts. God is an interventionist deity that does miracles, answers prayers, talks to people, and generally interacts with the world in pretty much all the various Holy Books.

Because depending on what supreme being you're talking about, usually there ARE reasons to NOT believe it.

Doesn't sound like you understand atheism. Atheism isn't a belief and makes no claim. Atheism is the ABSENCE of belief. It's simply the response to the claim that a God or gods exist. "I don't believe you."

"Atheist" simply means lacking belief in higher powers. It's not a statement on what exists, simply lacking any religious belief. What you are thinking of is not an atheist, but an antitheist.

It irritates me to no end that people equate atheism with "god does not exist". That's not what atheism means. It simply means "I don't believe god (or gods) exist". That's all. You either believe or you don't. You are either a theist or an atheist. The word does not provide or claim proof. It is a statement of…

What reason have you for asserting the existence of (a single) god(s)?
What have you got?
Ignorance, or something else?
And I have noticed that for all your talk of "science" you haven't addressed the null and alternative hypotheses. Do you know what those are? Or is NOMA enough for you?

It's wishful thinking?
So, you do have evidence of god? Btw, why one god and not n gods? Since you don't know, how come you know there to speak of one?
And, really, assertions require all the knowledge in the universe? Do you possess that level of knowledge?
And, not knowing somerhing doesn't give you reason to say god…

I was referring to the easily refutable and refuted arguments for god (like the ones presented in this article). They're settled in that they've been refuted, so we don't need to give them additional credence by talking about them over and over like they're somehow great mysteries we have yet to solve.

If religion for some reason never existed I guarantee the world would still be as crappy as it is today.

Well, as per Occam's Razor, the burden of proof is on those who are multiplying entities unnecessarily.

Oh, boy.

Because, of course, you've got the empirical studies that point to gods, right?

Good thinking involves assessing an idea's validity then moving on to something else, not continually rehashing settled issues.

A 40 year-old man offering explanations for how Santa might actually exist such that his parents were lying when they said he wasn't real isn't "good thinking," it's something rather more sad.

Well I know that's not true because I'M the one who is real here, not you.