So Noah was in the ark 40 days, Jesus was in the wilderness 40 days - But I haven't studied Noah in any depth.

I haven't studied the sun in the sky, but I find that interesting as a possible parallel to the 1000 year reign of Christ.

No need to worry about Biblical parable which is how God speaks to the multitudes(us). This is after all an atheist site. I do know that you all and I will recall this dialogue when we are in Christ.

You have been very civil, thanks, Dutch

And I conceed that the Bible teaches that God is real. :-)

Gee, Adam lived 930 years after God promised his death the day he ate of the tree.

You aren't the first to come up with this, BTW. The concept that one day must equal 1000 years has been around for a while, as writers from the first couple centuries also came to this conclusion so that god would not be lying about Adam.

But, what I would like to ask is this: Why would you say that one day equals one thousand years when it could equal 930 years?

Also, what about all the other days in the Bible? Noah was on the ark for 40,000 years? How about the day the sun stood in the sky, was there really no darkness for about a thousand years?

I concede only that you don't consider atheism a belief or faith...For reasons I stated before, I respectfully beg to differ, and I understand your logic. The subject has been beaten to death, and neither you nor I are likely to change opinions.

I just finished, or nearly finished "Einstein and Religion." I do not recommend this boring book. Nothing new, and I already knew Einstein was an atheist, I justed wanted to know his reasoning.

Take care, Dutch

Thank you OMGF, and no offense taken...

Thank you for being understanding. Sometimes the things we say don't quite come across correctly to the person on the other end of the interwebs who is reading, so it's important to ask questions sometimes and make sure that meanings are clear.

Majority rule? Hilarious. This person must think the holocaust was okay since the majority at the time supported Hitler. Ick.

As for Dutch, he wrote this on Dec. 30th:

OK, OK, point taken and understood - will not bring the belief thing up again, I promise.

Maybe he was just telling me what I wanted to hear, but he did say it. I suppose he didn't necessarily have to believe it, either.

Now that we've all totally strayed away from "Zombie Saints", I'll just clarify that my Fundy phase didn't begin till I was a senior in high school. I guess we're both lucky.

I also don't see where Dutch concedes that Atheism is not a religion. As recently as 12/30 he was spelling out in grotesque detail why it is a religion (never once, to my notice, defining what "religion" is.) The closest he came to conceding this point was to agree with me on something I hadn't said -- that the discussion on faith had been beaten to death.

None of this is as frustrating as the discussion I had with a coworker yesterday who believes that right and wrong are determined by majority rule. He didn't even want to year why I didn't agree. That's pure evil!

Is there a word with which we could fill in my blank and which would describe one and not the other? In other words, is theism a "belief system," a "theology," a "lifestyle," a "world view," etc. etc? I don't think so.

I don't either. Theism is just a belief in a god or gods, and to me it describes itself just fine. It's kind of an all-encompassing term that includes all religious belief.

....Telling them that it's not a Duck doesn't prove anything. We need to know what they mean by this so we can address the ideas and not the words.

Oh, I get it now. I agree with that. You were once a thumper, so you probably have a better idea for this than I do---I am lucky to have grown up in a non-practicing baptist house (mom was a believer, but thought my brother and I should be able to make up our own minds when we got old enough to. Guess she didn't think atheism would ever come up!). I just think addressing those ideas are going to be tough until they get a fair understanding of atheism, much like atheists can't really make up their minds about religion until they understand it, too.

If the discussion returns to the "Atheism is a religion" point (and I'd love to see a practical example of this)

Well, scroll on up and look at Dutch's responses. He couldn't get anywhere until he got that point. He tried Pascal's Wager, which only works if you pre-suppose the existence of god. He even tried to use the old "science requires faith" argument, too. He framed everything in a faith-based mindset, which is what he obviously defaults to. Notice, too, that he disappeared once he understood what I was trying to say. Possibly made him think a little deeper? I don't know. Hope so.

At this point, however, I'm wondering why we'd even want to continue a discussion once we've established that our conversation partner isn't interested in genuine dialog, but only in asking disingenuous questions like a Mommy asking a crump-faced child "what happened to the cookie?" At that point, we should cut our losses.

Agreed. Like I said earlier, sometimes you get through, most times you don't. I have a group of nutjob in-laws who like to try and convince me (and my daughter) to come join them at church, so I have no choice but to tell them what I think from time to time. They will not let up. I know I'm not getting anywhere, their minds are made up for them, but I won't have them attack me without a defense ready.

You're point (paraphrased) that to say "Atheism is a religion" is an attempt by believers to see our point of view within the framework of their own is well taken. I'm currently having a fairly involved e-mail conversation with a long-time friend of mine who is a believer in the Baha'i Faith. I have had a fair amount of contacts with Baha'i believers over the last 10 years or so, and I have never been able to see the Faith in a way that will make sense to me - neither as an atheist (like me) nor as a former Bible Thumper (like me.) I'm sure it makes sense to them, so my challenge is to put myself in their shoes and see it from their point of view instead of my own. This is hard to do.

I notice, however, that within this conversation, you contrast atheists with theists. Is there a word with which we could fill in my blank and which would describe one and not the other? In other words, is theism a "belief system," a "theology," a "lifestyle," a "world view," etc. etc? I don't think so. It may be part of a (fill in the blank) just like Atheism can be part of Budhism, World Pantheism, Marxsism, Humanism, or Universism is, but by itself theism is not a religion (or whatever.)

I see your point, but in my experience, I've never gotten far if they don't understand atheism. The discussion just goes in circles—right back to the "atheism is a religion" point, because theists are used to believing fantastic things on faith alone.

This is another thing you've said to me more than once. My point is that there's no sense in denying someone who says "Atheism is a Duck" unless we know what this person means by "Duck" in this context. Telling them that it's not a Duck doesn't prove anything. We need to know what they mean by this so we can address the ideas and not the words. If the discussion returns to the "Atheism is a religion" point (and I'd love to see a practical example of this), we'd have to approach it the same way by saying something like "you keep saying that, but do you believe it takes faih" or "you've said that before, what do you mean by that?"

I cannot take issue with your experience here, since I tend to avoid long discussions with believers (the above-mentioned discussion with my friend is an interesting exception, which I'd love to discuss sometime). You might notice that most of my comments on Daylight Atheism are directed at my fellow Atheists.

They don't like to ask questions unless they think they already know the answer. So asking them if atheism takes faith seems to me like it would just play that argument right into their hands—of course they think it takes faith, everything in their lives takes faith.

This point of yours is another point which is nicely handled at the about.com pages. At this point, however, I'm wondering why we'd even want to continue a discussion once we've established that our conversation partner isn't interested in genuine dialog, but only in asking disingenuous questions like a Mommy asking a crump-faced child "what happened to the cookie?" At that point, we should cut our losses.

You completely misquote me, I never said "tons of eyewitnesses"....And accusing me of an outright fabrication is a serious error, you can say my argument is incorrect but calling me a liar is out of line and you owe me an apology.

You did say:

firmly established the Christian religion and were in wide circulation at a time when plenty of living witnesses were still alive to refute any and all fabrications.

You didn't say "tons" but you did say "plenty", so you'll have to excuse my poetic license. As for the "fabrication" comment, I did not mean to direct it specifically at you or imply that you are a liar. These kinds of comments are all over the place and most of them are fabrications that unsuspecting people pass on because they've been lied to. I regret that you thought I was accusing you of lying. From my standpoint, it simply looked like you were passing on a falsehood that I figured you had picked up from a place you thought was reputable, not that you were intentionally lying. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

That said, the literate people did write works against the Xians, most of which didn't survive the subsequent rule by the Xians. We know, for example, about one such work by a pagan only because a Xian later wrote a "rebuttal" to that pagan's work, but the original did not survive. I can dig up the reference if you wish, but Ehrman talks about it in his book "Misquoting Jesus."

Further, since the gospels were written so far after the fact, the eye witnesses who could have said, "That never happened" were not around anymore to protest. You'd think, however, that someone would have written something if dead zombies really had risen from the ground as Matthew claims.