Ummm Obama is an atheist and I am not the only one who thinks this just read the thread. A hater? Just because I am more logical than you are does not make me a hater it makes me a realist.

Fact?

Now it's an opinion? I'm not the only one who thinks the flying spaghetti monster is our lord and creator, how about that?

What logic? You already contradicted yourself in just the first sentence of this post. Say something logical. Start with 2+2 = 5 and go from there.

And your analysis of what the Bible says is pretty post hoc as well. In the OT, the Hebrew word yom is used in a wide variety of situations related to the concept of time in general.

Also, the idea that the word was not used to represent a literal 24 hour day predates the theory of evolution. Saint Augustine, for example, held the Old Earth view in the 5th century.

Ayn Rand (Virtue of Selfishness), Friedrich Hayek (Constitution of Liberty), Ludwig von Mises (Liberalism), Murray Rothbard (For an New Liberty), Walter Block (Defending the Undefendable), Mikhail Bakunin (God and State), Emma Goldman (Anarchism and Other Essays) and Christopher Hitchens (Hitchens Web).

Yawn. Anyone who fails to produce a list of their own should keep quiet about others' lists imo.

Exactly...

So isn't it just the fear, then, that keeps people from allowing themselves to acknowledge reality?

As in:
Q - Why are you so adamant that this story is a real representation of the creator of the universe, and what he means for us?

A - I'm afraid that if I don't believe this, after I'm dead, I will be punished for eternity.

I think most young smart white guys go through an Ayn Rand "phase". You end up with people appalled they ever greed with it, those who grow out of it, those who think it was good to grow up thinking about but are past it, and some true believers in it. I am kinda surprised that I didn't have much of a dalliance with her ideas as I always thought I would grow up to fight for God and Country against wicked atheist Communist evil. Personally, I think its pretty intellectually shallow, self-centered pseudo thought, but its not "idea-less". You can't use those ideas to build a people, much less a society or nation, but I guess you can live a life with them, but its not one I would choose, but you can't offhand dismiss someone whose thinking was heavily influenced by it.

Or, you know, they actually believe it. But I mean if it makes you feel better to simply write others with different beliefs than yourself off as necessarily "afraid" or "stupid" then there is little point in discussion.

im part of this group.

Bruce Lee Richard Dawkins George Carlin Bill Hicks Charles Bronson Dean Karnazes

I'm not an advocate of objectivism and I'm critical of some of her views, I do however think Rand was brilliant and am not ashamed of crediting her with having shaped my political beliefs. I'll never 'grow out' of her condemnation of racism in 'Virtue of Selfishness, nor of her life long commitment to liberty and individualism (at least I hope not).

She was a militant atheist and viewed nationalism as irrational and a form of tribalism... so it's perhaps not surprising that you weren't drawn to her ideas given your purported god fearing nationalism. 'Communism' drove her out of Russia and destroyed her family, so she saw first hand the evil of communism.