Frederick Turner has some thoughts:

The figure of the village atheist is a rather comic one. He proves his superior intelligence by mocking the sheeplike conformity of the poor benighted believers. The old word "enlightened" has now been replaced by the word "bright" as the self-description of this sort of atheist. He is a variant of the "Cliffie the mailman" wonk who knows it all, or Sportin' Life the cynic in Porgy and Bess. An older version is Flaubert's character Homais the bourgeois anticlerical pharmacist in Madame Bovary, and an even older one is Thersites the scurrilous doubter in Shakespeare and Homer. Much pleased by their own originality, they take their mishaps as the martyrdom of the bold intellectual pioneer, and they have produced a group of arguments that should probably be taken apart.

One is that religious ideology is a unique inspirer of terrible wars. In the current perspective, such an opinion sounds plausible. But anyone with an historical sense will recognize that the few hundred people who die each month in religious conflicts are absurdly dwarfed by the tens of millions, almost all of them religious believers, who died, within living memory, under the savage atheistic regimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong and the various dialectical materialist dictators of eastern Europe. We have seen what atheism looks like on the large scale, and it is not pretty: the Holocaust, the Gulag, the Cultural Revolution, the Killing Fields. Religion has indeed been a cause of appalling slaughter during the course of human history; but it must take fifth place behind atheist ideology, nation-state aggression, mercantile colonialist expansion, and tribal war in the carnage sweepstakes.

Another argument brought by the village atheist type is that to base one's life on faith is intellectual suicide. This argument might be persuasive if there were any alternative, but there is not. Reason is not a basis for thought, but a method of thought. Kurt Gödel showed conclusively that every system of reasoning contains self-referential statements of the form of "This statement is unprovable", which are correctly formed propositions that must be true or false, and must, if reason is fundamental, be provably one or the other. Analysis quickly shows that the statement must be true, but cannot be proved to be true. Reason is a process of proof, but reason is incapable of proving a certain true proposition, one that must take its place among the axioms of any logical system. Rationality cannot prove itself. The fundamental validity of reason therefore must be taken on faith; the only difference from a purely logical point of view between an atheist who believes in reason and a religious person who makes a primary act of faith is that the religious person recognizes the pre-logical basis of his beliefs, while the atheist does not.

If the village atheist dismisses this sort of thing as logic-chopping and takes his stand on the empirical down-to-earth evidence of the senses, the ground similarly disappears from under his feet. David Hume is rightly hailed as a hero of atheism, for his dismissal of the traditional arguments for the existence of God. But what his atheistic admirers miss is that his argument against empirical knowledge is even more devastating. Hume showed that the concept of cause has no logical necessity—that just because one event has often followed another, that does not mean that the same sequence must necessarily happen again, or that there is any necessary causal connection between them. Our expectation of causal connections in general, not just those that attribute the cause of events to God—is at best an emotional and practical habit. The religious person, by this logic, is actually more aware of the shaky basis of his commonsense than is the confident atheist.

RTWT

I have to admit I view most atheists (though not the quiet, no shoving ones like you, Rand) the way I view liberals - useful but annoying. Useful in the same way - they force you to question your beliefs, and make sure that you know what you are doing and believing. Annoying in the same way - they have a tendancy to not believe that you ever question your beliefs, and that you cannot defend them (that and they both say "NA-NA-NA" when they start to hear things they dn't like!).

I believe it takes all kinds - but I also am glad that the liberals are kicked out of the government when needed (such as during a war - liberals don't believe war is ever needed, they currently don't even acknowlege that we are in one). I imagine the same is true of conservatives, though being a conservative I'm not totally convinced...

An understandable God would not be worth worshipping.

And: All formal religions are based on the premise that by performing the correct rituals you can influence the decisions of God(s).

Right. Assuming that you live somewhere near a dark sky; go out one night and look up. Really look. Then come home and take a close look at a spider, or a flower, or any living thing for that matter.

Then try again to persuade yourself that God(s) care(s) actually care whether you (for example) make the correct gestures and vocal noises while facing a carved piece of wood.

Or that God(s) care which bit of your anatomy you expose to the air, or which bit of your anatomy you place in close contact with which other bit of which other person's.

The deeply religious are not humble; they are supremely arrogant.

Sorry for the poor grammar. Mea culpa. Substitute "God(s) actually care(s)" in the appropriate place.

And read this to see the hypocrisy of the true believers (Bush's base):

"I felt it was my responsibility to my fellow brothers and sisters, that I had to take a stand, and I cannot sit back anymore and hear (what) to me is an anti-gay message," - Mike Jones, 59, of Denver, alleging that he was a paid sexual esc*rt for the leader of the National Association of Evangelicals. The leader, Ted Haggard, denies the accusation.

Then there's this:

Jones, who told a bankruptcy judge last year that he is a self-employed fitness consultant, told Boyles that he was paid money by Haggard, who he says made frequent trips to Denver for sexual liaisons, that he has recorded voicemails and a letter from Haggard, and that he had also witnessed Haggard use methamphetamine.

Jones offered to take a polygraph examination, and Boyles said that will occur Friday during his morning radio show.

Some community leaders in the Colorado Springs had scheduled a rally this afternoon in support of Haggard but canceled the gathering at the request of the church.

62 million people paid for gay sex once a month and snorted meth? Wow. Being Republican must be a whole lot wilder than I thought ...

An understandable God would not be worth worshipping.

Wow, the first sentence in your comment, and you have invalidated the rest of your comment. I believe God is completely understandable - in fact, coming to understand God is the whole point of life. It is said: "We are created in his image" - think about that.

And: All formal religions are based on the premise that by performing the correct rituals you can influence the decisions of God(s).

And then you destroy anything else left of your credibility with this statement. Influencing God's decisions is not the point. God is our father, he loves us, and wants us to be like him. Do you call your father to try to influence him for your gain? (Be honest, you sometimes do!) Does he give you whatever you ask for?

You are revealing yourself to be exactly the type of person I was discussing in my first comment. You can't really have a conversation by stating: "1. Here is what you believe. and 2. Here is why it is wrong." The propper way to discuss something (even if you feel that you are totally in the right) would be to first try to understand what is believed, then to challenge those beliefs. You can't skip the trying to understand step - otherwise you are trying to argue something that noone even challenges.

You have to admit, there is no point in my debating you on the value of worshipping a non-understandable God when I don't believe in that!

That's what I like about this site. It's two main centers are how a bunch of space hobbyists are going to get man into the cosmos and the non existence of a supreme being. Both of which are insolvable problems.

Well, what I like about this site is all the pseudonymous trolls who can't solve any problems, particularly their own.

As an agnostic, I find those militant atheists as annoying as the militant believers.

As for the pastor of New Life Church, it remains to be seen if the allegations are true or not. You know, that whole "innocent until proven guilty" thingee. It applies to him, too.

Now, as a 21 year Colorado Springs resident who lives within eyesight of Focus on the Family and the New Life Church, I've had fewer attempts at interference in my life from them than from the militan atheists. It's tricks like this that make me such a supporter of early voting. It weakens the ability of the Press and other tricksters from pulling last minute dirty tricks in an attempt to sway an election.

Oh yes, the press sure pulled a dirty trick with the Kerry stuff didn't they? And Bush's hysterical reaction. Innocent until proven guilty indeed; Kerry was crucified for something he never meant to say. That must be the "liberal media".

Bush has nothing to offer other than more lies. He nad his bunch of gays in denial the GOP - Gay Old Party.

Whether he meant to say it or not, he said it, and then refused for too long to apologize for saying it. And the fact that he's said similar things, or worse, in the past means that he's not entitled to the benefit of the doubt. Kerry dug his own grave here--can't blame this one on the press, particularly when they're lying to cover for him.

Yes, I can see how reporting the insult that Kerry actually said could be intrepreted by some as a "dirty trick." If he'd been a Republican and insulted millions of people like that, there would've been demands for his resignation (see "Trent Lott" for an example). However, holding a Democrat to the same standard must be a dirty trick, right?

Frankly, I don't give a damn about what Kerry claims he meant to say. It was the insult that he actually said that got under my skin, along with his half-assed "apology". I wouldn't cross the street to piss on John Kerry even if he was on fire.

Oh, and by the way, Haggard's accuser failed a lie detector test this morning according to the Rocky Mountain News:

Jones, who describes himself as a former prostitute failed a polygraph test administered Friday morning in Denver, when questioned about sex with Haggard

The polygrapher, John Kresnik, said the results "indicated deception" but he also believed the results may have been skewed because Jones, was suffering from a migraine and didn’t get much sleep.

"I’m disappointed with myself," Jones said on Peter Boyles’ morning talk show on KHOW radio after taking the 90-minute polygraph. "I feel like I’ve disappointed a lot of people. I initiated it and I’m willing to accept the consequences of it."

However, Jones said he "would not back down" from his original accusations. He also said — at the prompting of Kresnik — to take two more lie detector tests after he got some sleep. Jones said he only got two hours of sleep.

The reason for the two tests, Kresnik said, was because there are two separate accusations being made — that Haggard sought gay sex from Jones and also asked Jones to be the middle man in an attempt to get methamphetamines.

Jones said he never got drugs for Haggard, but said he knew people who could get drugs. Jones said Haggard liked the drug because it "enhanced" the sexual experience.

Sitting in the radio station studio, Jones looked weary and his lips drew tight when Boyles played tape snippets of Haggard denying the allegations.

Kresnik said he asked six questions on the polygraph test and there were two relevant questions — both involving sexual contact with Haggard. Kresnik said those were the ones Jones failed.

"All I can do is call them as I see them," Kresnik said.

Maybe the guy is telling the truth but is lousy at taking tests or maybe he's lying. I really don't know nor do I care very much. I do disagree with the tendency to automatically assume any accusation against a Republican is true until proven false (after the election, of course).

Uhm, from the post,I think the comments have gone a bit off topic with the Haggard issue, but on that, I would like to note: I don't think innocent people resign in THE MANNER he did.

Second, I don't understand the comments:

"All formal religions are based on the premise that by performing the correct rituals you can influence the decisions of God(s)."

This seems to me totally opposite of what Jesus taught. In fact, if you have studied Jesus and Christianity at all, I don't understand how you could say this. Perhaps I misunderstood, and this was a sarcastic comment?

Also:

"The deeply religious are not humble; they are supremely arrogant."

Again, perhaps I am 'misunderstanding' the argument/comment, but if one is "deeply religious" (at least in Christianity) the importance -- in fact, essentiality -- of humility is a fundamental tenet.

If these statements were put forward as factual understanding, I would suggest that you continue your search for Churches that DON'T propose such theologies. They are out there, they are following the lessons of Jesus, and they certainly don't conform to the popular/media-driven definition of Christianity. Although there certainly are churches and groups that espouse such beliefs, you should also be aware that there are intelligent, thinking, caring Christians who adhere to the lessons of Christ and denounce such beliefs -- we don't all fit into the caricature of stupid, unreasoning people popularly portrayed as religious people.

You might actually like and respect us.