All religions are based on fairy tales of course, so anyone believing in any of them are surely NOT the brightest are they?
Not rocket science to work out is it?
Immaculate conception - How does THAT work
Come on get real all you religious zealots out there.
More examples to come.

Professor Platt,

"More examples to come."

If they are of this level of understanding, I sincerely hope not.

Wayne

magic...;-p

Professor Platt: All religions are based on fairy tales of course,
David: What do you mean by "religion"? Do you mean the revelation/s, the message/s transmitted during the revelation/s, the doctrines built on the message/s, the rituals, the philosophies, the histories, the system of laws and ethics, anything else the subject numerous PhDs in theology...or just the magic tricks kids' story books are made of?

so anyone believing in any of them are surely NOT the brightest are they?
Not rocket science to work out is it?
David: Only if they are unaware of the fact that theology, like maths, science, or literature can be studied at different levels.

Immaculate conception - How does THAT work?
David: So let's suppose it, along with the other magic tricks didn't "work". Will you have toppled the rickety table of religion? What beliefs, exactly, are you assuming?

Come on get real all you religious zealots out there.
After you. I tend to assume that if something seems too simple to be true, chances are...that it probably is.

Very good David, it is the university educated ones who are rabid religion freaks that are the dangerous ones.
All schools should be religion free zones, why on Earth do we allow our children to get brainwashed by all these undesirable people?

Professor Plat: Very good David, it is the university educated ones who are rabid religion freaks that are the dangerous ones.

David: That's not far from the truth. Only, the religions in question that have made university-educated intellectuals more commonly a menace to society in the bloodiest century in history have been secular.

Communism, Nazism, Maoism, Pol Pot, and any given "liberation" movement by far recruited its more credulous believers from their ranks. (It amazes me to discover time and again how so few people are aware of this.)

Professor Platt: All schools should be religion free zones...
David: To be implemented as soon as they figure out how to who will define "religion" and who can be trusted to do the policing. (For an example of an organization that continues to demonstrate its complete lack of trustworthiness in that area, google "The United States Supreme Court".

Professor Platt: Why on Earth do we allow our children to get brainwashed by all these undesirable people?"

David: The answer is implied by the tone of your rhetorical question.
"Why do we allow a bunch of Communists teach our children that our morals come from chimpanzees?"
"Why do we allow our children to be indoctrinated into believing that sexual education is purely a matter of knowing how to unroll a condom over a piece of wood?"
"Why do we put up with allowing the double standard that allows any message conveyed by a teacher that is not Christian?"

The questions you and I raise reflect our diverse perspectives and the difficulty we have in resolving them. Ultimately the answer to your question is because democracy reflects the limitations we place on each other that end with us meeting in the middle.

"Why do we allow a bunch of Communists teach our children that our morals come from chimpanzees?"

Evolutionists are Communists...?

Ryan,
I was being half serious with that one, but if you want to go there, do evolutionists believe that we get our morals from chimps?
Even I realize that that would be a straw man.:)
But then again, don't straw men seem to be the ingredients of many an Amazon discussion?

I thought you might have been indulging a bit of parody, but sometimes it's hard to tell here. :) Watch Fox News for five minutes, and you'll see what I mean.

David A.
"I was being half serious with that one, but if you want to go there, do evolutionists believe that we get our morals from chimps?"

Good grief, I hope you were'nt even being half serious with that one!!

If you were (as Ryan said, it can be difficult to tell), then here's what "evolutionists believe" regarding our morals and chimps: We don't get our morals from chimps because we didn't evolve from chimps. Ourselves and chimps split and evolved separately from a common ancestor around 5 million years ago. Any morals that we share may be basic 'primate' morals based on social living, strong parental bonds, the propensity to form and break alliances and friendships and so on. But we didn't inherit these morals from chimpanzees because we have evolved in tandem with these animals, not evolved from them.

Pumpkin, Pumpkin,
Relax, I was pulling your respective legs with both.
Sorry for not making that clear.
And...in case I gave you cause for doubt,
No I don't believe in Creationism, and yes, I do accept Richard Dawkins' authority as a biologist (though not as a theologian).

Consider my legs well and truly yanked, David A.! However, some people really think that humans evolved from chimps, so I just had to make sure....

Very good David, at last a thinking man on these forums prepared to listen and then to write a sensible well thought out series of honest answers and observations.

Chumps not chimps....!

I reckon it is some type of magic that casts a spell over otherwise sane human beings when this religion lark takes over their minds.
Very odd indeed.......

The great scientists, who was religious and who was not?
Let us make two lists of believers and non believers.
It should be quite interesting to see what this throws up.

Dear Professor Platt

Hold on. Read more. Amazon have plenty of books. I have a religion. It isn't Christianity and while fairy tales are something people use to help their argument, I certainly don't follow fairytales in my religion. My religion follows science, earth based senses and lots and lots of facts from Archaeology. Please do not generalise!

Religion is fairy tale, end of story. Yes I am an atheist, and no I don't go around spouting my theories like some - Richard Dawson for example. People go on about morals being religious based but morals have been developed as we have become more civilized and are a way for us all to hopefully live in harmony. It is interesting to note that a Greek philosopher gave us the idea that paedophilia is worng, and not any religious dogma.

Most of the attrocities throughout history have been done in the name of religion and lets face it each religion seems to have so many schisms and differing views that not even those of a Christian, Muslem or any other faith can agree on most things between them. My dad is a Creationist and some of the things he comes out with don't make sense and indeed sometimes fly in the face of scientific observation and truth.