I've been watching this thread for awhile and the one thing I have taken from it is that you want finite answers in a universe that appears to be infinite. You seem to think those with faith are ignorant and willfully so. You appear to believe it's your duty to force your enlightenment unto believers and convert them. You've gotten a lot of polite responses from people who disagree with your views and from my point of view you have been a little hostile and condescending to those who've explained their religious views. I'm sure you intend only to discuss, but at some point you just need to accept that no matter how many times you make your point it's still only a point of view. You might as well tell someone that their favorite sandwich sucks. It won't stop them from enjoying the sandwich, but if you keep telling them their sandwich sucks, they'll probably start looking for someone else to eat with.

I get that you see religion as a barrier to scientific advancement. But, religion isn't the only concern that puts moral pressure on scientific research. For example believers and non-believers alike tend to feel squeamish about harvesting fetuses for stem cells while at the same time have nothing against adult stem cell research. The idea of creating human life just to destroy it is something the bothers people of all creeds especially when that life is a viable baby. That's not religion, that's human nature.

As for Muslim extremist terrorism, really? As if violence and genocide are solely the realm of religious zealots? Extremists come in all manner of twisted ideology and are not exclusively limited to twisted holy text. Religion may get used to manipulate, but that doesn't mean religion is by its nature manipulative. A religious person volunteering at a soup kitchen isn't being manipulated into doing good any more than an atheist volunteering at the same soup kitchen is.

As for science, the way you talk about it is like it's a religion to you. You want religion to stay out of your science like our founding fathers wanted government to stay out of their religion. I'm not saying your concern is invalid, I just find it interesting how atheism has grown into something that resembles religion. There's even atheist organizations with their own literature and meetings that get the word out on atheism much like organized religion has its own books, meetings, and gets the word out on God.

I've known many atheists, I'm related to a few, and I'm friends with some. I've observed a trait that the atheists I've known share that differs from the religious people I know.

Here it is, are you ready?

Atheists look to science for facts. Theists look to god for truth.

I know, it doesn't seem that different, but it is. Truth and fact are sometimes the same thing and other times they have nothing to do with each other. Another way to put it is this: Theists only expect science to explain "how" things work while they look to  God fill in the "why". Atheists are less concerned with "why". For atheists, "how" tells the whole story.

When I look up at the Milky Way Galaxy on a clear moonless night I see both God and science. To me it looks random, but it feels structured and patterned. It's both beautiful and incomprehensibly big. I feel equal parts awe and curiosity. I wonder how it all works and why it is the way it is. To me "why" is both connected and separate from "how". The current theory of the Big Bang is a logical mathematical model for how the universe as we know it may have began. It may not be complete, but since it's the best we have I run with it. But at the same time I don't see why the Big Bang couldn't be the result of God willing time and space into existence. I just don't see why science and God have to be mutually exclusive. The Big Bang Theory could be the way God "Let there be light". Evolution, to me, looks to be the way God created the fish in the sea. The dust God used to create Adam is more than likely a metaphor for atoms/molecules. Sure there are evangelicals who read the bible as literally as a dictionary, and they probably view me as unreligious as you, by their definition. But in my opinion it's a book written to dumb down extremely complex concepts and ideas so primitive people could understand it. That doesn't make it invalid, it just means that "seven days" probably doesn't literally mean days and like I said above "dust" sounds a lot like atoms and "let there be light" sounds a lot like the big bang. Anyone that says the bible has all the answers doesn't understand the bible, but the same can be said of those who claim science holds all the answers. If 100% is the amount of things there is to know in the universe I'd say we probably now .001% and we humanity will probably never reach 1% comprehension. Heck, I'd say we probably only understand about 1 or 2% of what's going on in and around Earth. Every time we break open the tiniest part of an atom we find even smaller stuff. Of course those percentages are not based on any real world data, so please don't focus on the numbers.

Anyway, I don't really understand why you feel the need to stand up to religion. With all the problems in the world, is religion really such a plague that you feel the need to take action against it? I'd be willing to bet that you get annoyed by missionaries knocking on your door spreading the word. But your spreading your word. You posted a thread with the title "Prove that God exists", but you know that God can't be proven or disproven. You will never be satisfied with any explanation that anyone gives in favor of God and therefore the topic could never progress past the "that's not proof" stage and was destined from the beginning to either be futile or devolve into a flame war.

There are always two sides to the coin.

You see, if you had posted this sooner, then your topic would've turned out more towards the type of discussion you were hoping to follow. You can't expect to map out a blueprint then wait until a bunch of random people follow it so you can advance with your questions. This whole time I was under the impression that you blindly hated religion and posted this topic to entice religious people and flame them. 

However, as you lightly aluded to, religion has done plenty of good along with bad. I mean, even though religion has hindered some aspects of scientific growth in the past, it has also played a large role in promoting scientific growth. The nations we know now wouldn't be the same (or even be here) if it weren't for religion. Our advances in medicine wouldn't be at this level if it weren't for religious organizations promoting medicine (heck, Muslims created the first Medical schools). I too am a man of science, but you shouldn't assume that people of religion aren't "logical". I am a firm believer in God, but I am also researching in Biochemistry; I believe in evolution but I also believe in creationism. Science hasn't gotten to the point where it can disprove the major things in religion (like creationism of man and the universe) because we're still at the birth of understanding evolution, and we still don't understand our universe, let alone the stars outside of it.

And I don't understand how it is dangerous for people to follow "old religious" books. Your textbooks are outdated because people make newer discoveries and/or disprove statements in older textbooks. There is nothing out there that has "disproved" anything from religion (such as the Quran, which hasn't changed since the day it was written), so why would the book become outdated? Can't you accept that there are people of science who also follow religion deeply? Hell, some of our greatests scientists were strict Jews, but did their religious faiths hold back or dismiss their discoveries in physics and biology? The only major conflict I see in science and religion is between the creation of humans and the overarching question of how life started. That is a question which might take a millenia to answer, but currently these theories aren't strong enough to dismiss the religious claims.

There might be religious terrorists blowing up buildings, but there are religious insitutions that are helping promote human welfare. Take the genocide in Chilie for example, only the churches and synagoges were willing to "hide" and protect the refugees for essential manslaughter when the United States government was denying them entrance to the country. There might be some churches meddling science, but there are also those who promote human advancement and discoveries. You can't have a biased outlook on religion without looking at both sides, much like how I am not biased for religion even though I am a religious man. It is possible for religion and science to grow side by side, but that can't become possible if we have extreme religious people dismissing scientific claims, nor can it be possible when we have extreme atheists like you dismissing religious claims.

What you're hoping for is an ideal world, and I sure as hell will bet that if religion didn't exist, something else would take its place to create this "separated" feeling of yours. There are always two sides to the coin, and one side cannot physically exist without the other.

Better question that religious people and athiests can answer: What is the most powerful being in the Universe?

Another one, how did an object as complex as an eye come into being?

well mine was a joke where I was implying that I was a Autothiest...

I DO think religion is very irrational, but we are very irrational beings.  We cling to things that are dangerous, we do things that will hurt us, we eat food that will make us fat, and we buy videogames and movies, all because they make us happy, they give us comfort, just like religion.  Religion is like a blanket of security, gives us hope and unity and all those placebos, but happiness is happiness.  I just REALLY REALLY wish that's all religion was, I wouldn't be so hostile towards if if they kept their faith to themselves.  Instead we live in a world where I can't even answer my door without "HAve you found jesus" morons pushing their beliefs.  

Please, link me to actual, valid arguments.  I've seen none.  I've seen some that said "Well there is this one thing that supposedly happened that could be true", but that doesn't even remotely constitute a valid argument as far as the topic is concerned.  

Lack of Disproof is not proof.