The name Nelson Mandela comes to mind, who spent over 25 years in prison for defying South Africa's unjust apartheid laws with no guarsntee of ocerturning them, or ever getting out of prison at all.

Bush's statements are too simple to judge. If he said it, it's a lie. He has never made a fully truthful statement in his life

The world will get over Sept. 11, 2001 a lot quicker than it will our invasion of Iraq Mar. 20, 2003. Since then, Bush has killed more Americans than bin Laden has, maimed tens of thousnads more, killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (which is what Saddam was hanged for doing), while totally destroying our country's world standing for years to come. There really is no comparison in the crimes.

How could a war come to anybody if the premise that nobody came were true? There would be nobody to come or the proposition doesn't hold. .

Except in Bush's case, EGL, it wouldn't be a nuclear arsenal, it would be a nucular arsenal. He has trouble with big words.

Peace can be hard work.

Absence of war may not equal peace -- our “cold war”, for instance -- but it sure beats a presence of war. It might even be good for keeping one’s guard up. Just make sure you have responsible leaders, and not some trigger-happy cowboy who doesn’t simply guard his country but taunts and threatens other nations …even invading them, provided they’re not over one tenth your size and you’ve had inspectors on the ground there for months first.

It being so easy to do the exact opposite and do unto others as they did to yourself. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"

War is better left to militart men, if it must be conducted at all, than to a bunch of witless civilians with no military experience at all . The military men may be better at staying out of war.

Eisenhower, a real combat veteran, could have been talking about today's administration, without a day of military service among them, taking the country into a totally useless war, no matter how much the people wanted peace.

I fully expect artificial intelligence will be developed someday to the extent the professor describes, but until it can also reproduce itself, as biological organisms do, there is no need to worry, for without the capacity to propagate - generating the raw materials, assembling them, and instilling the learned intelligence, they pose no real threat to mankind. A well placed monkey wrench would put an end to their "genocides, and other tyrannical practices". Darwin pointed out, survival is the key, and only those that can reproduce themselves will survive.. Mr. Shaffer is a sci-fi dreamer

It's true; you can't make yourself believe anything. You either believe something or you don't, or have no opinion. It is just as hopeless for me to try to make someone believe atheism cannot be a religion as it would be for him to convince me it is. I can't be convinced because it has none of the attributes of any religion; creed, clergy, system of worship, any semblance of a deity, etc -- you name it; atheism has none of them. I do not say there is no supreme being. There may well be one, or more, but I won't hold my breath till I see evidence of one. I am absolutely, positively, one hundred percent certain, however, if there is one, he/she/it will not be anything like those described already -- even down to what he thinks and says and expects of his subjects. My certainty is just plain odds. What a coincidence if any of them happened to guess right about such a remote and complex possibility. So keep kidding yourselves that atheism is a faith, or a religion, although I have no idea what difference it makes to you. Why are you so concerned? I will not accept I am religious.

If my definition of religion is narrow, Mike, give me a broader one - one that says how a believer really believes, or whatever you meant by that.. I simply explain what I think and hide behind nothing, and surely nothing approaching holy or sacred -- or I might be considered religious and I would not hide behind that. I am interested in religions and why they exist, but no interest in hiding behind anything religious. Keep your religion to yourself and I'll keep my lack of it to myself -- except when I hear it challenged or am said to have a 'faith', as the term is commonly used. I have plenty of faith in things I can understand, not in dogmatic mystery, however..

The quote is a good one, but how can anyone think atheism is a religion? A religion has a system of worship and a creed laid down by a clergy, who tells the laity what to believe (except maybe Unitarians who have no creed but do have a beautiful system of worship, and even prayer, although not like ones used by most religions), . There is no atheist creed, or clergy and obviously no system of worship. It is not a "faith” atheists believe. They simply have not seen a deity they can accept as a mystical superior. It is not just semantics to an atheist, but is a real difference. It is also foolish for religious people to try to understand, or explain, atheism so they should not try. Most atheists have a background in some religion or other, so they have a better understanding of both than religious people usually do. Their explanations usually reveal a negative bias, not knowledge

How does heaven go about doing anything? It would make as much (or more) sense to say, Do your duty, and to hell with the rest At least everyone would know what it meant

I still say tolerance is a positive thing showing more strength than weakness or submissiveness.

I wish I could understand what all that was about, Logan. It surely doesn’t depict an atheist; having to depend on society for moral guidance because he has no diety to do it. To an atheist it is experience and observation, just as a scientist does to test a theory. And even after he has “proven” his theory, he is still open to further data to disprove it. If a person sees no evidence of a god, how could he accept the dictates of one? The atheists long ago discovered nothing works like the Golden Rule, or the Law of Universality (what if every did it?) It doesn’t take society to answer that, although the gratitude and appreciation of others, or their condemnation at times, may help. We don’t have to ask a deity, or his mediator, in the form of a cleric, to explain it. Just how does God tell you what’s right or wrong? Does he send a lightening bolt or a smack on the head, or what? I’d really like to know. I might be able to use it too and save having to think. As an atheist I wold gladly accept a deity, if I could see a shred of evidence of one.

I especially like the positive conotation of tolerance as being "the eager and glad acceptance" of another's way, rather than the negative one or indifference or condescension. Very good quote.

It is a more worthy thing to be searching for the truth than claiming to know the truth

I would only rate the quote at two stars max, for the first part only, nothing for the Heaven part, but I give Logan's comments five stars - at least as I understand them. I am an atheist and I think he described, basically, an atheist's thinking on the science of virtue better than anyone I have read who doesn't claim to be an atheist himself. I don't know about "borrowing" from religion for a concept of virtue, however. I think it is simply in the realm of "social" science to determine, as in any other science, what works and what doesn't. I have often considered the many cultures that practice animal, and even human, sacrifices to demonstrate virtue. To them it makes perfect sense, no matter how difficult it is for us to understand. Just as many today believe society cannot avenge certain crimes without exacting the death penalty, even while believing it is wrong to kill a person.

thats why I appreciate being an atheist I dont have to get it That point when I realized that and admitted it was a big relief

Is the crux of Christianity really the belief that bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people ...or is it the hope? Did the quote really say anything different from that? It doesn't seem like much of a philosophy to base a religion on. I'll take your word for it, though, as I'm aheist (thank God).

That's what I said, Archer. The quote has no meaning because anything else is impossible. The quote is self-evident ...like saying money will not buy poverty, It is impossible to act against your beliefs or they are not your beliefs It is, however, not, impossible to act against what you claim you believe. Too many people do that all the time ...but the quote doesn't say that

Would be nice, if true, and often is, but consider the corollary that all that do not take the sword shall not perish by the sword. The fact is, there is no direct corelation. Another useless biblical quotation.

Too elementary, self-evident, and axiomatic to be of any value. If one does not "live according to his belief" then he does not have that believe. It is impossible to be otherwise. You act in accordance with your true beliefs or they are not your true beliefs. The hypocricy comes in when one claims to believe something ...but doesn't. That's not what the quote said. Mark Foley of Florida was like that.