d) define hypocrisy - and then see if anyone of these posts by atheists are guilty of doing exactly what they claim (and hate about) religious people.

let the flames begin

My previous questions still stands. What kind of moron are you?

You're right, it probably would be necessary to forget a lot. That actually raises a very interesting question. Would forgetting large portions of the past affect your identity any more "there" than it does "here"? I don't remember every detail of my life, and that fact probably helps shape my mind.

It could even stave off boredom. I liken this to reading a book. If you finish reading it and immediately start from the beginning again it won't seem as good, but if you wait some time and forget details, it can be almost like reading it for the first time.

On another note, your idea of a good afterlife is by far the best I've ever heard.

has been proven (by science!)

xkcd, you say? Now I just have have to link to Dresden Codak:
Secular Heaven

@Red October While I appreciate that thread of reasoning (and don't worry, I enjoy a hell of a lot of things I'm sure many people find objectionable), your right to do whatever the hell you like ends where it begins to impinge on my right to not participate. In general I agree with you, we just disagree about where the line is.

Interesting you bring up the idea of forcing people with colds to stay home, as people with swine flu have been quarantined. The difference between this and mobile-phones-cause-cancer whackos compelling people around them to turn their phones off is that swine flu (and cigarette smoke!) has been proven (by science!) to be harmful to humans, while mobile phone radiation has not.

Does that get us back on topic?

I found it weird that Stewart claims to 'hate religion' even while he's pushing - umm, something that looks suspiciously like religion to me. And I know whereof I speak, when I was a kid I got sent to Sunday School. It was Methodist or something, they took the Bible literally. I recall I was mildly indignant (though I cautiously kept that to myself) that anyone should expect me to believe this incredible stuff, while simultaneously feeling vaguely guilty that I didn't believe it, because I was obviously supposed to. I still remember the huge feeling of relief when I worked out that if it (and by extension, God) was nonsense then it didn't *matter* if I believed it, which let me off the hook.

I also find it futile that these people attempt to prove the Bible to unbelievers by quoting - the Bible. Can't they see the logical fallacy in that? Apparently not. I think the Catholics had it right when they decided the Bible was far too wacked-out and R16, not to mention self-contradictory, to be let loose on the unwashed masses. And I do hate that patronising idea of the Jesus-peddlers that 'deep down, I must know there's a God' - they know _nothing_ of what's going on in my mind. Which is probably just as well, sometimes .

I think this - this thread here and now - is just the way it's supposed to be: one group arguing for their inconsiderate freedoms, and another group whinging about it.

At least smokers aren't brazen enough to justify it using spirits/gods/wizards/etc.

I choose not to worry myself into oblivion over the choices of my loved ones unless they are so monumentally unsound that I might see results within a week or two. My girlfriend smokes, as does my father. My girlfriend also does not wear her safety belt in the car, and my father will not consult with physicians. They are adults. Those are their choices. Should either of them take up crack cocaine, I might have something to say, but until such a point I will respect the wishes of my fellow man to destroy himself however he chooses, and I still respect his will and decision to do it even through such a method as hard drugs. Indeed, you can look at smoking as shortening of life, but it is foremost a pleasure, just as riding a motorbike or driving a fast car (should I stop driving my Corvette? It's old and has no airbags, and I might get into an accident and die!) and if we avoid all pleasure in a futile attempt to stave off inevitable death, then what have we done? Lengthened our term by a few years, but at what cost? I'd rather live twenty years of joy than fifty of misery.

Miraculously back on topic; I face these realities free from the chains of a "god" whose followers would tell me how to live my life. This is the only life I've got, and I'm going to enjoy it, rather than gamble my time and though on the appeasement of a hypothetical, unlikely supreme being who, in spite of his supposed all-powerfulness, desperately needs my devotion and worship to somehow justify his own existance, and thanks his followers with famine, blight, disease, death, suffering, epidemic, strife, conflict and hatred.

This is an impressive piece of self-justification. Basically you're saying that this anti-social behaviour of yours, that's OK because you've deemed it to be necessary to sustain your current lifestyle choices. This other anti-social behaviour of someone else's is terrible and wrong and offensive because you don't shared that particular choice. All your nonsense about forcing people to use electric cars is utterly irrelevant to the discussion, and I suspect you know it.

ratkins: frankly a violent, hysterical nutcase who's as close to the edge as you seem to be probably shouldn't be anywhere out in public without an escort, so I'd guess second hand smoke probably won't actually be that much of an issue for you.