What do I mean by peoples freedom – well for one thing I’m not referring to the US alone. Look at ANY islamic nation and look at what people have lost in terms of common freedom (esp women). As for the US the so called seperation of church and state is getting blurrier by the year, and that’s not acceptable. Look at some of the cases of problems with education boards wanting creationism in and as a science, because of the religious influence. The right to fornication? – Its not a right to fornicate, it’s a right for two people to use their natural bodily functions as they please – if they use the proper birth control methods (which of course some parts of the christian church is against) then there is no risk of pregnancy etc. What about the rights of homosexuals, which the churches are constantly trying to undermine, because the bible says its bad. (The same bible that says the punishment for rape is to get the rapist to marry the rapee – but I wont go into that).

As for the morals in the bible – many of the world religions teach the same morals, if not better ones in some cases. Certainly Buddhism is the first “religion” that I have heard of where women’s equality was promoted. So why not follow many of the upteen other religions? And the question remains – if I’m wrong, you could be wrong about a thoussand other religions, most of which claim the same punishment for not accepting that religion. No, the fear of being wrong is not a valid reason to believe something.

Let me clarify my position, I am open minded – I cannot say there is no god. But, using logical deduction, one can say there can be no god of the bible, if the bible is to be believed. The god mentioned in the bible is a logical impossibility – and rather than the word of a flawed 1900 year old book, I’d rather follow where rationality leads. Here’s the big problem with the bible. IT claims its the perfect word of god (and mostly that’s the only proof of god there is – circular argument much? – anyway). But if it is the perfect word of god it cant be wrong, and it certainly cant be inconsistent. All it is, is a bunch of book written by different men when they saaw something or wanted something, or even in some cases were simply nuts. There are many “lost books” from the bible, that were rejected because they would introduce inconsistencies to the bible, even though most of them were a lot older than the current bible – and still the bible has inconsistencies. While the bible might not be ALL wrong, most of it isn’t “right” because it was in the end a bunch of random people writing about whatever they wanted really. And anyway, a book saying something doesn’t make it true. If I wrote an entirely self consistent book claiming a giant pink elephant was responsible for the entire universe doesn’t make it true.

As for the rest of your argument – religion, especially Christianity/Islam looks to influence politics and policies of governments. The freedom of all people get targeted because of false beliefs, and that’s why rationality and logic must be promoted. The human race benefits from rationality and logic, to say “what good is it to me? After I die it wont matter anyway” is selfish to the highest degree! I can see you have a very selfish point of view (how does it benefit me etc etc) – my goal is not to help myself, but to promote rationality for the good of the human race. Yes, after I die there is nothing more, but more people will be better off for what I have done. And you say you have less to lose if you are wrong, and that’s not true, what if its an Islamic god… then you have just as much to lose as me… of course that wont be a problem because it doesn’t exist either!

To answer your question – why does anyone profess the truth? I’m trying to promote rationality and logic. And hopefully free people from irrational decisions etc. If someone had convinced the 9/11 bombers that there was no god, I think that would have benefited a lot of people, dont you think?

Ronilb, you have no logical argument, all the “logical” counterpoints that have been presented FOR the side of religion has been thoroughly shot down… so is unless your definition of “an open mind” is “a mind devoid of logic” there is no point in bringing it up. And if you mean that then you are an idiot. Scientific info hundreds of years in advance? WTF? No, there are vague references that people have manipulated to make them seem like scientific info. Similarly the Quran, Torah, Bhagavat Gita and othe Vhedic texts also contain “scientific info” hundreds (or in the case of the Vhedas, thousands) of years in advance… and so does a childrens fairytale book.. if you look at it right… what a ridiculous thing to say!