Hi,

I hope you 're really defending atheism, it need it.
Do you know the french hedonist philosophe Michel Onfray ? He had wrote a book on that subject "Traité d'Atheologie", and it was a very big success in France last year.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Onfray
(in english it's shorter ! ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Onfray
(his site in french http://perso.wanadoo.fr/michel.onfray/accueilonfray.htm )
and also in french :
http://atheisme.free.fr/index.html http://www.atheisme.org/

Another question ...
how does work your semantic interface on your home ? the words size is by the number of comments, the number of hits, the number of words in the text ... or other??? (and did you explain it somewhere?)

Thanks for your approch,
A french atheist,
rouge

thanks for the leads on Onfray.

Mitchell,

I understand your need to affirm the atheist worldview that you ascribe to.

I only wonder, IF you were to discover a reasonable evidence for faith that there is / was a god now or at any time, how would that change your present goals?

Do you in any way at all make room for that possibility? Or would you count your worldview as dogmatic and not subject to change?

Mitch,

I wonder if you woke up tomorrow and Jesus was in bed with you and made you 21 again, would that be enough to rid you of your preoccupation (actually occupation) with heretics?

Knowing your old dogmatic self, I suspect you would role over and go back to sleep.

It may be of interest to some here to know that Mitch and I are old friends, recently reconnected.

I was just out of Vietnam in 1970 when I met Mitch and his buddy Tom in Isla Vista, CA. They had just dropped out of school after their Jr. year (I think because they had high draft numbers), worked as taxi drivers in NYC to earn enough money to be bums in CA for a while, then headed way west to play. We all lived in the same apt complex and had a little band that Mitch played drums in.

He is still the same quiet, deep thinker with only kind words ever coming out of his mouth.

People seem to mold their gods, religions, and philosophies, thus the above comment where the writer observed theists for abortions and deists against it. A mere study of Christianity reveals inconsistencies, doctrines held "then" opposed to "now". The point is, are we without principles when discarding religion(s). Absolutely not. Reason, logic, offers good principles to maintain civility in society and personal tranquility. Yet, even philosophy can run amuck when the acid test of "consistency" is ignored, otherwise, principles are convenient and transistional, leaving survival as the ultimate, potentially justfying the most horrid act. My apologies, I am rambling.