By the way, did you know that my avatar character is a girl?

I was actually going to ask. Where does it come from? (actual fiction, not where you found it on the web just in case). :P

This. End of discussion.

Serial Experiments LAIN. One of the best anime stories ever told. It's a cyberpunk story about digitalization of modern life. About virtual reality, about AI's. And it does it perfectly. Strongly recommend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Experiments_Lain

but atheism is to not believe in and form of a deity (or deities), not rejection of spirituality. These are not the same things.

Fun fact - first recorded atheistic cultures originates in Hindu from 1500 bc, when one of the six Hindu philosophies rejected the notions of deities. Deeply spiritual though....

Some Christians here want to make America a Christian nation, which means eliminating all dissension, diversity, or disagreement with the obvious superiority of Christianity. Atheism, abortions, homosexuality, gay/ black/ women's rights all get in the way of this. Freedom of Religion to them means being able to choose which version of Christianity you want to practice (and you MUST pick one). Christian leaders keep telling their flock how eeeeeevil everybody else is, and they believe it completely.

You obviously don't hear the insanity that comes out of the mouths of some Christians. Abortion doctors deserve to die. Gays are worse than terrorists. Atheism is the greatest threat to the world. Gays should be rounded up and locked behind an electric fence. Feminists, gays, liberals and atheists were responsible for 9/11. Women shouldn't confront authority figures without a man present to help them. Atheism is an evil that children shouldn't be exposed to. It's a never-ending litany. Some of those things were said by gvmt officials.

We still have laws on some books against atheists. Unenforceable thankfully, though some try.

More or less, atheism is really a misnomer. Some people just don't believe in any gods, some specifically believe that there are no gods and others are believers in some other religions which don't involve god.

Ooh yikes, I hadn't heard him praising her on The Mailbox (only started listening to him recently). Sounds like they may be friends then.

I should probably stop leaving comments on his YouTube videos with her about how dumb she is :)

Actually that's what pisses me off about her. She's one of those annoying girls that isn't stupid, but who seem to think acting like they are will make guys like them more. I never understood it, but apparently there are millions of guys who like girls who act like stupid bimbos :)

Time for an emergency procedure.

Monday is a day of the week, yet not all days of the week are mondays. Likewise, one can be spiritual without being religious, yet one cannot be religious without being spiritual. Every religion has a (common) spiritual aspect. There is no spiritual system that defines atheism.

There's no more reason to lump all atheists into the same "religion" than there is to lump together every knight that doesn't say "nih!" (or "ni!" or "nee!" or however you spell it).

But it is still wrong to say "atheism has no spiritual aspect", as spirituality is deeply ingrained in many people atheism, and there are theories that no matter what religion and beliefs every single person have some level of spirituality - it is coping mechanism. You could say that they have no agreed spiritual aspects, but that's something else. You could say that atheism have individual and personal spiritual aspects even.

(atheistic week has no Mondays?)

Of course Atheism is a religion -- they believe in a higher power:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=798

(nerds: arguing about religion is more interesting than women)
It's because if you appreciate women for their intelligence, you might actually have to treat them as a person.

That's true, but seriously.....you'd actually want to MARRY someone who can barely string three words together without sounding like a moron and who may be 'hot' now, but after the first couple of kids when her boobs are hanging around her waist she won't even have that going for her anymore??? More men really need to think about what they're saddling themselves with :)

Guess I've always had higher goals when it comes to men. My boyfriend may be short and only 'cute' and not handsome, but he's sweet, kind and funny and one of the smartest guys I've ever met (particularly as much of his political discussions etc are done in a language (English) that's not his own). Short of Alzheimers, that's not likely to go away, even when he's 80. I'll take that over 'dumb but drop dead gorgeous' thank you very much :)
The horror. Imagine the trouble we could all get into :)

It's like Pakistan. Look at that poor 14 year old girl shot in the head this week because she's spent the last two years of her life campaigning for girls to be given an education. The Taliban think otherwise so, cowards that they are, they shot her. Now that's a special kind of evil.

Oh fuck no... I'm not the smartest person in the world but I do hate explain things to people. If I'm talking about something the other person doesn't understand I get irritated pretty fast. I need a person with at least similar intelligence to mine to live with.

I met once a girl who looked so gorgeous I couldn't stop staring at her. But every moment she opened her mouth was painful to me. I tried to get friends with her, but it's so annoying when you sit next to somebody and you just can't figure out any topic that would be interesting to a person with IQ and thinking speed of a tortoise. I still like to look at her, but I wouldn't imagine my life with her.

Philosophy is for me the good topic to "measure" one's intelligence. If a person never really thought about life, meaning, ontology or anything, it usually means he or she is not worth talking with. I'm not saying it's universal measurement, but it was working for me so far. For me, people who never ask themselves "why?" are not worth my time.