It's not a scam, unless of course they don't follow through in the case where the rapture comes.

Or are you one of those people who also thinks that baptism is a scam because it hasn't been empirically proven to put a person on the right track to go to heaven?

In what way? In the sense that there are other problems with America or that these 250 people are not the problem with America?

You can't prove that something fantastic doesn't exist, its logically and physically impossible. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, religions have had more than 2 millennia to provide even the slightest evidence and have failed miserably on every count

Quite so but you can look at the religious source material and find a naturally occuring explanation for everything that actually happened like evolution or you can see the overwhelming evidence that something like an apocalyptic flood didn't happen.

The gist of the resistance and the reason that so many atheists are pissed off is that religious people are using their belief (which has as much evidence as that of the belief of the 'aliens built stonehenge' crowd) to influence the lives of sane people and force their values which are often bigoted and petty on the rest of society and that is fundamentally unacceptable.

I don't see anything wrong here. It is sad and amusing at the same time that people have bought it but the actual business seems legit. They're either not scamming anyone or they are and it won't matter.

The burden of proof is on Christians to prove that there is a heaven and a "God" rather than to prove that there isn't.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Also, when my not believing in "God" has a real impact on other people's rights, then we can consider whether or not I'm being unreasonable. At this point, they're the ones that have been holding back my civil rights back over a book that's about as factual as the latest Harry Potter novel.
Exactly my point.

The burden of proof in cases like this is on the party making the claims about this "God" fellow, "heaven" and "resurrection."

And no, it's not a stereotype. Using the stereotype when it's demonstrably true that the driving force behind things like DOMA and the now overturned anti-sodomy laws was anything else is disingenuous at best.

There is no burden of proof. As a Christian (can't speak for others) it is not your job too to prove the existence of God. That would defeat the purpose of faith. I never understood why people try to use scientific methods to solve spiritual problems. There are numerous ways that one could explain occurances in the Bible but that would depend entirely on your interpretation of the Bible and how accurate our knowledge of the past really is. However, the pursuit of such inquiries is ultimately fruitless. You can find fools wherever you look. I enjoy intelligent spiritual discourse so please don't resort to belittling the faith of others or preying on those that haven't come up with a solid defense of their belief yet. You will never win an argument with someone who hates what you believe.

The motherfuckers who have made laws that I have to follow because they believe in Christianity, they had better do some damn good explaining, and they had better do it damned fast.

It's called the burden of evidence. Those making the positive claim, (eg. existence of heaven, god, invisible pink unicorns, green swans, teapot in orbit, a cat in the trunk of a car) are responsible for showing that it does exist. Until such a time it's perfectly reasonable not to believe it. Once you get into the territory of proving a negative claim, ho boy. Impractical to say the least.

That is why there should be a seperation of religion and state. However, there are many that twist that to mean state should be athiest. State should stay out entirely. Here is an example: if state stayed out of marriage entirely, there would be no gay marriage/polygamy controversy. As long as no one is harmed, there is no foul. Nothing is forced on anyone.

Ain't that the truth. Although since there are legal and tax benefits to marriage, I have no problem with the state marrying someone, or allowing someone to be married by someone who isn't ordained; their only stipulation is, they have to do it without prejudice, but since that whole without prejudice thing is in the first damned sentence in the document that started this country, that should go without saying.

There fucking well is if religion is dictating the rights of people who have no connection to it.

Okay so what happens if somehow god is proven to exist?

Belief in something you can't prove, something that makes no sense and something that has been the inspiration for oppression, violence and bigotry for centuries is not something to be lauded, its something that needs to be cured. The only reason its not classified as a mental illness is because its so widespread


In more than 2000 years? I think they're too late.

The most successful intellectual communities have always been those that respect each others beliefs (early Muslim empire comes to mind, between the cycles of convert or die campaigns). That is not so for the US (once again, can't speak for others). I have a hard time believing either side because their results are tainted by their intent. It has probably held back our progress in the long run.

Well yes there's not much to discus if things turn out to be purely a matter of faith. Although from what I've seen in various discussions a fair amount of the time it doesn't just come down to a matter of faith. It would seem people like having their reasons to believe something. In which case we have discussion worthy material.