Lalam, you are a hypocrite. You are telling everyone to stop preaching, and even mentioning, their beliefs. Then you preach your atheism to us and why such a minor thing such as praying before eating is so stupid. Something isn't right here.
That is one of the reasons why I don't identify with atheism is the hypocrites.
"Yeah, religion is oppressive and stuff."
"My parents force me to go to church."
and then...
"forget religion, science explains everything."
"Religion is outdated and should be removed society."
"Religion is for the simple minded, however we have class and knowledge."
How about respecting other people's beliefs and letting them practice what they want. Not
"Oh my belief is clearly superior because blahblahblah, so go red x book."
I'm prompting the absence of something. I'm not forcing you to do anything against your will, neither am I saying you have to believe X or what have you. When I'm in a religious debate, I use the religion against itself, and I inform people of mistakes that their beliefs hold, NOT the mistakes in their belief based on my personal preference. Just so we're clear, mathematics isn't an ideology.
What the problem here is that you've failed to read many of my posts which identify both atheists and theists as having negative outcomes. I'm consistently playing devil's advocate -- I think modern day biology is a fantastic element of learning, but I believe we've still MUCH more to learn about how organisms work. I personally believe evolultion occured, but I never use it to argue against someone's religious beliefs. I never use scientific theory (aside from the earth not being flat and the sun not revolving around the earth) against someone's religious beliefs. I use fact based on the only perception I have. I do not go out and push people around for having beliefs that differ from mine. I tend to retaliate more than anything, but I do in fact bring up the subject, which is often seen as me being pretentious or oppressive. I've stated in the past I'm open to intellectual debate, not pissing competitions or pointless banter.
Take from that what you will, but assuming hypocrisy based on argumentative behaviors is so antiproductive is hilarious. If you had nothing to question your beliefs, you would be nothing but sheep -- and I hope that that isn't the case.
Oh, and I can assure you I'm open about this in public. Stop making stuff up to further an argument.
That puts atheists in the minority (unlike what they think).
Oh, yeah, because your statistic on what atheists believe is definitely true. Instead of getting on my ass for making reasonable assumption and presenting fact, how about you reread what you're constantly spewing and assume you may be in the wrong. Again, try playing devil's advocate, instead of being incredibly stubborn about your belief system.
Also, though religion is very old, its original principles (polytheism and the like) are no longer practiced, yet ancient literature is what fueled all modern day religious beliefs. Take, for example, the fact that the story of Noah's Ark was adapted from the poem The Epic of Giglamesh, written many many years before your Christ was born.
Thats just the way he is. There's really nothing to bother addressing about it. *shrug*
There's a difference between addressing something and bombarding someone with nothing but useless ad hominem. If you've got an argument which you can speak of otherwise, go for it, but I tend not to get on someone's ass if they know what they're talking about.
