Open letter to all Atheists.

That would only follow if God has announced that there was no such thing as evolution. If so, he would indeed be a liar. Also, he'd exist, and atheism would be false.But that would apply to any false statement. If God had announced that 2 + 2 = 5, that would also make God a liar. But it does not follow from that that people teaching that 2 + 2 = 4 are teaching atheism.Your reasoning is hard to follow.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

What a load of horseshit. "Creator" didn't mean the same thing to them as it does to you. It certainly didn't mean the Christian deity.

The "days" and "nights" in Genesis clearly rule out evolution, from God's perspective anyways. There would simply not be enough time.If 2 + 2 could ever equal 5, then that might suggest that the laws of logic are in fact evolving. From a purely materialistic point of view, an atheist has to consider that as a possibility. So it follows that an atheist is the one who may one day teach 2 + 2 = 5.Or maybe 2 + 2 = banana. I like that one better.

Lookit you! Singlehandedly felling vast armies of strawmen! I am in awe.Nobody that I know has ever talked about banning government leaders who are religious. In fact, I've heard a hell of a lot more people say they'd never vote for an atheist than have said they'd never vote for a Christian. No, it absolutely isn't. But thanks for playing.{AbE} Hmmm, I've scanned the thread and I can't find anyone calling you any names. I've seen people take issue with ridiculous things you say, and attacking your specious arguments, but nobody calling you names. Can you give examples?Edited by subbie, : As noted.

Well, perhaps on that subject we should listen to James Madison, who wrote the Bill of Rights. For example, he had this to say about the appointment of Congressional chaplains: This seems to shed some light on what he was thinking when he wrote the First Amendment. He also writes: If you're really concerned about what the First Amendment was meant for, you now know that its author meant it to exclude such things as official ministers and official prayers.

You seem to have gone a little loopy. That would be your perspective. If you can prove that it's God's perspective, then you will have proved that God exists and that he is wrong. Philosophers yet unborn will thank you.---Look, consider the following scenario.Jack starts a new religion, which maintains that God is responsible for the sky being pink with green spots, and that God says so.Jill, a public school teacher who (as it happens) believes devoutly in God, but does not adhere to Jack's religion, happens to mention to her class that the sky is blue. Is she therefore teaching atheism? Was she teaching atheism before Jack founded his cult? If the members of the cult all lose their faith, does the claim that the sky is blue stop being atheist? This is absurd.Surely to be atheistic, a statement has to be, y'know, atheistic, it has to imply that there is no God, not that some particular sect is wrong about some particular question of fact.

What part got loopy? The banana? I can concede that.A blue sky is something we can observe just about every day, so she's no more teaching atheism then if she were to proclaim up is up and down is down. Or that true is true and false is false.Jack, on the other hand, in addition to his pink sky with green spots, might also declare that thick-boned, scaled theropods eventually morphed into hallow-boned, avian feathered flying things. But then, we can't observe that like we can the blue sky, so we would then know that Jack don't know Jack.You're not suggesting atheism implies that there is no God, are you? Because that's unknowable from a natural worldview, so that would make atheism a belief system, possibly even a religion.

Of course you can pray in a court house. That was not even being questioned.The case was about whether a government body can require prayer.

The point is that you can't make a statement atheistic by incorporating the opposite of that statement into a theistic religion. This is true whether or not the statement can be checked by direct observation. We cannot directly observe the Earth's core, but if Jack started teaching that God had fashioned it out of billions of happy little monkeys, it would not become atheistic for Jill to teach that it's made of white-hot iron as scientists have inferred from the available evidence. It should certainly be treated as a religion for the purposes of interpreting the First Amendment, whether or not it technically is one.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

If you made the foolish choice of believing in a religious doctrine that is directly contradicted by known scientific facts, that doesn't place on public schools any obligation to protect you and your ignorance from the truth. See Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968) .

Is that what all devout Jews and Christians believe? Because if not, then teaching evolution would not be atheism at all. It would at most be teaching that your set of beliefs is wrong.

Does evolution leave room for a supernatural Creator?

No, I'm almost certain that's not what they all believe. There are some Christians who believe in evolution, though I'm not sure how they sell themselves on that.God is not a democracy. The majority does not get to rewrite the books of the Bible.

Fixed that for you. However, that still is only relevant to literalists. Nonsense. What does logic have to do with materialism, anyway?

It doesn't address the question.