A Methodist woman attends a Southern Baptist revival.

The fire and brimstone preachers asks, “Is there any among us who is not a Baptist?

The woman answers, “I am a Methodist.”

Preacher: “Why are you a Methodist?”

Woman: “I guess because my parents and grandparents were Methodists.”

Preacher: “And if your parents and grandparents were morons, what would that make you?”

Woman: “A Baptist, I guess.”

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You can’t lead a horse to water, and you can’t open a closed mind. Baptist doctrine lends itself well to dogma, so there won’t be many open minds there.

Try telling one that hell is a place of complete non existence. No fire and brimestone. No Satan. No Demons. It simply does not compute with their dogma.

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Try and tell an Atheist there’s a hell that does exist. His Dogma will keep his mind closed.

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Of course it will Sir Tom, however, provide an Athiest with irrefutable scientific evidence that Hell exists and (s)he will probably change his mind.  Provide a theist with a boatload of evidence that their system of belief is false, and his/her Dogma will keep their mind closed.

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Agreed Jason W. They don’t get how we’re different from them. I’ve had the “you’re closed minded” thing used on me so many times…and also the classic: “you just haven’t had an experience” of Mary/Jesus/God, etc. to which I always reply “well you haven’t had an experience of Buddha if you’re bapitist or Vishnu if you’re catholic, etc. etc. Funny how they always “experience” the god their parents believed in and taught them to believe in as a child and not another culture’s god. Funny that.

Most think we’ve been raised to be atheists by atheist parents…when most of us weren’t. What we are is rational, thinking, open minded people who want some evidence for what we “believe” in and simply refuse to trust anything with blind faith.

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Is it really accurate to use the word dogma to describe the lifestyle of an atheist?

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I think an even better way to frame this in discussions with theists is to tell them that there are a near-infinite number of things that could happen in the next minute that would cause us to immediately change our minds and say there is a deity; anyone can make these up on the fly, like a giant hand reaching down from the heavens; the possibilities are truly infinite.
Then ask the theist if they can name even ONE thing that could happen in the next minute, or their lifetime for that matter, that could change their mind.  They won’t be able to.  And presumably at that point even they will be able to see who the closed-minded one is.  Aw, never mind, no they won’t!

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Rational arguments don’t work on religious people, if they did, there would’nt be any religious people

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@Sir Tom,

Hell for this athiest is realizing that this world could at any moment erupt into war over the histerical insecurities of a people who’s major fundamental operating philosophy is based on the existence of an omnipotent imaginary friend who will save them, and only them, from any serious harm.

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Is there a “boatload of evidence” that any system of belief is false?  Also, people are close-minded or open-minded as part of their personality, not their religious affiliation. There are many close- minded and open-minded atheists, just as there are many close-minded and open-minded theists.

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There’s boatloads of evidence against all the religious belief systems that have existed that I am aware of.  Which one in particular do you subscribe to?

Assuming it’s Christian, do you want to hear the evidence that serpents aren’t capable of speech or language development?  Do you want to hear evidence that people cant stay alive in the stomachs of fish for three days?  That water can’t turn into wine?

I could go on and on with the physical side of things, or we could just go through logical evidence such as how omniscience and free will cannot possibly co-exist.  Or how omniscience and omnipotence are mutually exclusive.  The irrationality of a global flood as a means of purging sin in the world, especially since that doesn’t fit at all with the crucifixion story (ie why wouldn’t such a god take care of that when he wiped out everyone during the flood?).  I could go on and on and on…

The point is that yes, there absolutely is boatloads of evidence for any religious belief system currently in existence or ever in the past.  But you seem to be missing the point.  Atheism isn’t a belief system in itself, one that you weigh against the evidence of the others.  Atheism is just calling bullshit on cultural superstitions.  Just like a-Zeus-ism isn’t a belief system.  Or a-leprechaun-ism isn’t, or a-santaclause-ism, or a-abominablesnowman-ism isn’t.  You are almost as atheist as me, just out of all the thousands (if not millions) of gods that have ever existed you have rejected one less than me.

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Correction to that last paragraph above.  I meant to say “there absolutely is evidence AGAINST any religious belief system currently in existence or ever in the past.”

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The concept of Hell is less well defined but very different in Judaism.  Hell or Gehenna is a spiritual crucible where the soul is refined prior to its eventual assent into to heaven.  The longest anyone has ever spent in hell is a year.  Though no more supported by evidence, this is at least more consistent with the idea of a loving God than the Christian version of Hell.  So when told I’m going to Hell I always say,  “At least it’ll be a Jewish hell, it may be bad but it only last for a year.”.  I really shouldn’t be so flippant but short of laughing what else can I do?

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Eternity is really long… especially near the end.

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