You quite clearly do not understand what I've said.

For someone to be delusional requires that there be overwhelming evidence to contradict a view they hold and that they persist in the belief even after the evidence has been layed before them. As a result of my contention that there is no such evidence in regards to the existance of god, it should make it plainly obvious that I'm not "implying" any sort of delusion at all.  The only way I can see that someone would think I implied a delusion is if they believe that "faith" is synonymous with "delusional".

PS - Cueil never called me an ass, perhaps you should read the entire conversation before posting?

You both need to drop the attitude.  There are ways to disagree without the insulting approach...if you want to continue posting in this thread you need to drop the BS and have a discussion rather than a pissing match. You can consider this a warning for both of you.

I'm very sorry sqrl, it was meant for ManusJustus.  This is what i was referring to.

For some reason, it has become the "in" thing to hate on people's spiritual beliefs entirely.  That is no different than any other type of hate and intolerance for people's differences.

Rereading my post, it came out more negative than I intended it to be, but calling me an ass and telling me to shut up hardly puts you on 'high road' that you believe you are on.

It doesnt matter how many people think something is true, all that matters is if it is true or not.  If you convinced everyone on Earth there were aliens coming to pick us up on Halley's comet, that wouldnt make the belief any less delusional.

And yes, the problem with made up stories is that there is no evidence to prove or disprove them.  Thus, there is no need to provide physical evidence for or against such an argument before making a rational judgement.  If someone made up a ridiculous story and told this story to me, my inability to prove it false shouldnt deter me from making logical judgements about said story.

Yeah, it's funny--when I was writing that post & constructing the scenario, I asked myself that same thing. :)

I'm not sure I have an answer for it, except that the uber anti-theist is, by definition, "some entity that is not god."  To investigate it further, I suspect, would take us deeper into questions like "what exactly do we mean when we say 'god'"? 

And those might well be worthwhile questions to ask.

Well I do understand that I deleted most of my post as I was apparently doing injustice to sqrl as it was meant for you, but what you put in its stead isn't exactly how I worded it.  I did however tell you to shut up if you weren't going to be more civil.

One person believes one thing, person 2 believes something else.  Person 1 says the second person is delusional.  The second person getting angry says the first person is believing a fairytale and is delusional.  The first person then gets even more angry and starts shouting insults, though he was the one picking the fight to begin with.  The Second person then starts throwing punches.  The first person then takes a gun and shoots the second. 

You see how productive that is?  Wow, if we could all just approach things the way that you have with an "I'm right and crap on everyone else and what they believe" mentality, you can obviously tell how wonderful of a place the world would be.  I'm not here to say that believing in God is or is not a fairytale.  I'm not going to say that not believing in God is or is not a fairytale, but I am going to comment on your lack of respect for other human beings simply because they are different. 

Back when people thought the world was flat, they all thought that the world being round was just a fairytale.  At the time, it seemed to them to be the obvious answer.  If only they had a more open mind, they wouldn't have been so wrong.

All right, so here's the thing: if I understand you correctly, there is "absolute knowledge" that comes from Outside One's Own Abilities (revelation, God, what-have-you) and then there's also, uh... "fallible knowledge" that comes from one's own abilities (rationalism, empiricism, whatever).

But, if "being 'gifted' some absolute knowledge about the world doesn't necessarily imply one also knows where it came from," then how do I know, for any given piece of knowledge, if it's in the "absolute knowledge" camp, or the "fallible knowledge" camp?  Because, in order to know which it is, I would have to know where it came from, correct?  (Because the source is actually what determines what it is.)

So, for instance, if I believe that I know that the sky is blue, but I don't know where that knowledge comes from... then how do I know if it's absolute, or fallible?  Or, when I think I know that x = x, same question--if I don't know the source of that knowledge, how can I tell if it's absolute?

A Quick Observation:

Most of the people in this thread were discussing matters very civilly until people started coming in to tell others to be civil.

Did you even read ManuJustus' comments?  I don't know why you are calling me uncivil, other than I mistook sqrl for manusjustus.

even sqrl called them out for their confrontational skew.

I don't usually come into a conversation unless I feel that I have something that needs to be said.  You said that "most" people in the thread were discussing matters civilly.  I am referring to the few or more specifically the "one" provoking the "second" who were not.

All I can say from your last post is, what?  I'll try to garner more productive debate in another manner.

Lets assume God exists and that God created the universe and is all powerful.  Man is more powerful than an ant, yet nothing compared to the difference between God and man.  A man puts ants in an ant farm, feeds them, watches over them, but he requests that the ants pay homage to him in return for his good deeds.  If the man feels the ants disobey him or do not pay proper respect to them, he takes the ants out and tortures them horribly.

We would all say that the man is being ridiculous, yet when we look at God we think his actions are not so ridiculous.  Why would a God want people to worship him?  Why would he reward or punish should inferior creatures in such a way that is described in the Bible?  Why is God angry, or jealous?

The answer is that God was created by man, and naturally man gave God human-like characteristics.  This explains why God has the personality of a human king in 5,000 BC.  At that time men desired to be worshipped, they were very angry, jealous, and vengeful against others, and if possible they ruled with a iron-fist.  Actions God commanded of his Old Testament followers were harse and ridiculous by today's standards, but were on par with mankind at that time.