We can't stop religious parents from indoctrinating their children so I guess education is our next best bet.

I have a hard time believing only 4.7% of the country is a religion other than Christianity

I'm not sure.

A week ago I saw a stat saying the percentage of women going to college is higher than men.

Quote from the NY Times:

"Women now make up 58 percent of those enrolled in two- and four-year colleges and are, over all, the majority in graduate schools and professional schools too."

"At Colleges, Women Are Leaving Men in the Dust":
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/ed...ewanted=4&_r=1

Education is the first best bet. Those children will someday grow up to be parents themselves, and an entire new generation of different thoughts and values would arise.

There are lots of smart and educated people who are religious. Therefore I don't think that intelligence and education is enough to overcome early childhood indoctrination. Also not everyone is intelligent enough to benefit from education in a way that will result in the critical thinking that is needed to question their religious upbringing.

I say we just all get together to pray that it will go away. Seems like that route would be win-win.

Yes that does seem low and I have a hard time accepting that figure but minorities seem to be found in higher concentrations in big cities. The Jews number particularly seems low but that's probably because they have a bigger presence in American society and the media than they have actual numbers in the population.

I've heard around 2% for Jews in the US before. In fact, let's check wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_...ons_by_country

It gives 2.2% in 2008, vs the 1.7% in 2007. Hmm, I'm not sure if this clarifies anything or not.

I think you're right. Its confusing because there's always a movie like Schindler's List or a comedy like Seinfeld getting massive attention or famous Jews in the fashion industry like the garment industry in NYC where you see them being given alot of attention. You're more likely to encounter a Jew in college, or at medical or law office or in a big city or certain parts of the country where they have large groups of them than you are in rural middle America.

Maldives.....nah.....Muslims are as bad as atheists.

Have any other suggestions?

Anyone else find it ironic that he wants to educate the women out of being more spiritual than men?

We do know from biology that men see better and are more visual than women.

But seeing isn't believing. It never has been in the spiritual world. Just the opposite: believing is seeing.

You may want to ponder what is harder: following or leading...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_and_follow

I'm starting to think God gave men "headship" because he knew they needed a stronger lead to be able to follow him. So he puts the men up front closest to God then gives them responsibility for leading their own family. Its always been easy for a woman to follow if she has a good lead. Also men's minds wander more than women's. Maybe its the eye/mind connection.

How about in the real world?

We don't have to worry about the real world. We've already got it.

And that's part of the problem. Humans like to dwell and put too much emphasis on the past.

Humans always encounter time problems: they either live too much in the past or too much in the future. Doing either one will mess you up. Because the gift is today. We give too much influence away if we don't live enough in the present. Jesus said so on the Sermon on the Mount.

Our goals are future goals. Doesn't mean you can't enjoy the present. There are no goals in the past.

I read somewhere that all past, present and future will be reconciled in eternity.

Nazi Germany?

By Hitler


Middle Ages?

Vanini then left Paris, where he had been staying as chaplain to the marechal de Bassompierre, and began to teach in Toulouse. In November 1618 he was arrested, and after a prolonged trial was condemned to have his tongue cut out, and to be strangled at the stake, his body to be afterwards burned to ashes. The sentence was executed on 9 February 1619.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giulio_Cesare_Vanini

After recantation the culprit was conducted to the scaffold, where the executioner tore with a burning iron the tongue and the mouth, with which he had been cruel against God; after which his hands, the instruments of the abominable production, were burnt at a slow fire, the sacrilegious paper was thrown into the flames; finally himself, that monster of his century, this deicide was thrown into the expiatory flames; expiatory if such a crime may be atoned for.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimie..._modern_Poland

After imprisonment for fifteen months, Dolet was released by the advocacy of Pierre Duchatel, Bishop of Tulle. He escaped from a second imprisonment (1544) by his own ingenuity, but, venturing back from Piedmont, whence he had fled in order to print at Lyon the letters by which he appealed for justice to the king of France, the queen of Navarre and the parlement of Paris, he was again arrested, and branded as a relapsed atheist by the theological faculty of the Sorbonne. On 3 August 1546 (his 37th birthday), he was strangled and burned in the Place Maubert. On his way there he is said to have composed the punning pentameter Non dolet ipse Dolet, sed pia turba dolet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etienne...ment_and_death

Hitler Quote:
"Without pledging ourselves to any particular Confession, we have restored faith to its pre-requisites because we were convinced that the people needs [sic] and requires [sic] this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."

Well you do know that Hitler was paranoidly against any other organized group. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he identified the atheist with the communist. Given that in his day the U.S.S.R. was an atheist-communist state and iirc the National Socialists had to fight off the communists for supremacy in Germany.

Hitler happened to be right on this. People need to have a code to follow as it makes life easy. Like people who want to rely on preflop holdem charts so they can have strong convictions that the way they are playing is correct, people need (as in they crave it) to be provided with "correct" moral systems that aren't available for those who are left to think for themselves. So without religion, they will rely on propaganda to get their morality. Hound out the evil XXXists the media doesn't like and put the YYYists on a pedestal and worship them because the media loves them.

Feeling that you are doing the right thing is more important than doing the right thing. It feels better.

Actually, quite the contrary. Having a code to follow is much more difficult than making up your own. If you make up your own, then everything you "like" becomes "good." Left to their own devices, most humans would have a considerably more slack code than the Ten Commandments, for example. "If it feels good, do it" would be what most people would choose, I suspect.

I'm talking about people concerned with morality and doing the right thing. Hedonists aren't. Morality is the least of their concerns.

I used to believe religion was actually a real source of morality, that is before I became an atheist. Christian "morals" aren't even coherent.

Or always moral. I would have to add a lot of slack in my moral code to accept some of their immorality.

Objective morality is impossible in an atheistic worldview.

If atheism is true, then nothing is immoral.

Please tell me your justifications for making such radical claims.

Atheism is true for me. I dont know if there is a God and thats the truth.

As far as there not being right and wrong without your particular God..meh..

In order to "value" something, you first you have know what it's purpose is. If atheism is true, then humans don't have any objective purpose. Therefore, in an atheistic worldview, people would have no intrinsic objective value. As a Christan, I believe that the objective purpose of mankind is to glorify God. God has bestowed value on people, hence it is possible to treat them immorally. Ultimately, there is only one immoral act: to disobey God.