societal cohesion since members have the same goals

similar to the societal cohesion that the atheists advocating for "anarcho communism" or feminism or trans activism or whatever  are trying to push for through government whether they admit it or not 

can you give a benefit of atheism? 

that's quite unfortunate, there are a lot of useful archetypal lessons in the bible and other religions that you'll miss out on

on the other hand there's really nothing to learn in atheism... its simply "there is no god" (even though there is no evidence of that) and "ha ha religious people are dumb" 

I couldn't help but register and post after reading through most of this thread.

First, I am amazed at most of the mature discussion regarding such a subject, it is good to see. 

Second a little about me. I am Christian, but I also love science (I am a mechanical engineer). I had drifted  away from my faith for a time in my life only to be inexplicably drawn back to it, even after earning my degree and expanding my scientific knowledge for many years.

I find in any belief of there being no God, where science rules all, that there is a scientific area that cannot be proven or disproven and can explain God's very possible existence. 

Simply put, God can be a being from another dimension. If you think about what that means, supernatural occurances don't become automatically disregarded, the odd need for the world to have religion (even today) is explained. This idea opens up possibilities to things we cannot comprehend, and we may never understand because we do not live in such a higher dimension.

God's interactions could be interpreted into what we see today in religious texts. Even if one does not believe for instance, that the Bible is real, it could have truths in it. Just like any good legend, there is always at least a grain of truth in them.

One can also say (as crazy as this sounds) that God could be a very advanced alien. Maybe there is truth to all of the religions that existed or exist today, they were based off human interactions with aliens lol. It might sound crazy, but the scientific minded would know its incredibly likely aliens exist.

Now this might make our religions seem a little primative, but whos to say, scientific minded or not, atheist or whatever, that God or gods etc, can't or don't exist.

Sorry for my spelling, grammar etc, engineer, not an editor.

Edit:This is a fun read and makes the hamster wheels in my head turn a little.

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/xdimgod.html

1. You know.... you can still cherry pick the good parts and live by them. 

2. No, there is really nothing to learn in atheism, that's why you learn by socialising with your fellow humans. And for the second part... "there is no god" ... you didn't read through the past comments, didn't you? That's an ignorant statement :/

Coming from the Christian point of view, please don't insult the atheist psyche. If they want to be assholes, let them be, don't result to using those tactics. Besides, most of the people commenting have been very open about their own ideas and hearing out your own ideas. When you insult them it takes away from your argument and further validates their BS claims.

Basically what I'm saying is don't fall for the bait.

Why are drugs illegal, but religion is allowed?

Welcome to the forum.

"I find in any belief of there being no God, where science rules all, that there is a scientific area that cannot be proven or disproven and can explain God's very possible existence." 

Are you familiar with the "god of the gaps" argument? 

"Simply put, God can be a being from another dimension."

That's what I don't like about apologists. You just take your God and place it somewhere where he cannot possible be found in order to say, "He exists there, prove me wrong". Not that the supernatural realm even exists in the first place, it's not a fact. I find it quite funny that the bible itself is not mentioning anything about dimensions, at all. Do you know where they put God in the beginning of writing the scripts? They place him in the sky. Why? Because no human being was able to get there to confirm that he is actually there. While we were able to go past that and even further, god was placed further and further away. Just to be sure that no one can disprove his existence.  

"This idea opens up possibilities to things we cannot comprehend, and we may never understand because we do not live in such a higher dimension." 

   This seems to go in the direction of agnosticism. Higher dimension have not been proved nor is there any trace of them actually existing. They are just concepts as of now.

Valid points, but are people really trying to put God further and further away in order to validate a religion, or are we just coming to understand what God would be scientifically in order to make sense of religion. I think both occur.

I recommend you read that web page if you haven't already. There are some Bible text in there that could be interpreted as God being a multidimensional being. I am just presenting an often overlooked scientific idea that somehow atheists (whom often use the scientific method as reason to not believe God could exist) disregard.

Oh and thanks for the warm welcome, I enjoy this topic. I have one foot in religion and one foot in scientific, I like to try and see the world from all sides.

Ninja edit: I will try and answers your questions more formally later, using my phone for this is becoming a pain. 

i'm not attacking anyone

i'm saying that what differentiates an atheist from another person is the unverified idea that there are no gods

i'm also saying and there are a few examples in this thread already that a common theme with atheists is that religious people are intellectually inferior, we have for example people here saying that and i'm paraphrasing off the top of my head that atheistic morality is based on rationality over old books, that religious people are morons, etc etc etc

my last point was simply that beyond the unverified idea that there are no gods, atheism as a belief system has no other merit besides in my opinion unjustified arrogance... i mean if i'm wrong on that i'm open to hearing about the other useful qualities atheism offers, but i'm just saying that is what i've experienced

the odd thing is that the atheist in here from what i'm seeing have been unbelievably hostile towards religious people, whereas i don't think i'm being hostile and i'm being called out instead of the hostile comments made by the atheists

i think the reason for that is that there's this idea that the default correct view is the atheistic viewpoint and therefore people who hold that position are naturally given more leeway than someone who does not hold that viewpoint

"Not that the supernatural realm even exists in the first place"

of course it does, this is the definition of supernatural : "(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature."

do you honestly believe that our scientific instrumentation and our senses are able to pick up all of the phenomena in existence?... dark matter all by itself disproves that idea if you do hold it