“The Atheist’s Guide To Christmas” is the UK’s first atheist charity book, featuring contributions from Richard Dawkins, Derren Brown, Ben Goldacre, Simon Singh, Claire Rayner, David Baddiel, Charlie Brooker and many more. It’s been edited by Ariane Sherine, the creator of the hugely successful Atheist Bus Campaign. It’s out on Oct 1st and all royalties are going to the HIV charity Terrence Higgins Trust. Please pre-order now:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Atheists-Guide-Christmas-Ariane-Sherine/dp/0007322615/

The Atheist’s Guide is a mix of humorous and poignant contributions from over 40 various prominent atheists. It’ll make an ideal Christmas gift for your atheist friends. Your religious friends will love it too, or, even better, it’ll put them in a foul mood for Xmas! So a win-win situation! More info on the Facebook group:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=128903634833

Your support will not only maintain the profile of atheism in the UK, it will also help raise funds for the very worthy THT charity. Please note that the contributors, and Ms Sherine, have waived payment for their considerable input into the “Guide”.

Thank you, and please pass this message on to everyone you know!!

[My apologies if you already know about the Guide!]

I should have made it clearer. I was talking about choices regarding religion. Not about letting children do whatever they want.

I’m not a part of any official Humanist group so I’m not sure of everything they are for or against. I was under the impression they were trying to diminish the role religion plays in our lives.

As long as it doesn’t harm others, people should be free to believe whatever they want. It’s the harm itself that the Humanists address.

Most Muslims are peaceful, but their numbers support a smaller number of people who aren’t. It would be better if people stopped spreading the Islamic myths to begin with – that way no one would be killing in the name of Allah. I think we agree there.

It works for Christianity too, though. Some people do things in the name of Yahweh which are questionable. Even though most Christians don’t, their numbers support the smaller number who do. If your son grows up and has a different interpretation of the Bible than you, one that makes him do something bad, it will have been your fault for telling him the book comes from a god to begin with. Without that belief, there’ll be no chance of him taking any bad actions based purely on what’s written in there.

Religion isn’t needed to do good, but it is needed to do some bad things.

What matters ultimately is if the beliefs are true or not. I see no reason to believe they are. I see humanity leaving behind superstition as a good thing, but this doesn’t mean forcing people to stop. A lot of religious people thrive on the idea of persecution and it only makes their faith stronger.

You wouldn’t want to be stopped believing what you do by force, so you can’t expect Muslims to be forced out either. It works both ways. The only thing you’re being faced with is questions on a site from people hoping you’ll come to see reason. The very fact you can contemplate whether or not to answer these shows you’re not being forced out of your beliefs. You can stop at any time, but if you do, it will be intellectually dishonest of you.

If your beliefs are true, they should be able to stand up to scrutiny, and if you discover they’re not, you’ll still be the same moral person you were before.

And then you ask why teenagers these days have no fear of authority, why they pull out knives and stab people (sometimes innocent businessmen and young toddlers), why they disrespect their parents and teachers, why they treat the elderly with disrespect, why there are so many teenage pregnancies, etc. etc. This is what happens if you leave children to their own choices and without parental care/supervision/discipline. Britain, under the influence of Humanism, is destroying itself from the inside.

Christianity (not that I support most denominations, nearly all of them really) teach intolerance to anything false, and there is a reason to it. We stand up against Islam and condemn it, but no, Humanism says we shouldn’t, Humanism says we should shut our gaps (due to their human rights movement) and let the “religion of peace” be a part of British society. Did they not learn with the terror attacks on the trains that Islam is not peaceful and it should be stopped? These terrorists weren’t extremists but were following the example set by Muhammad. Humanism teaches that we shouldn’t judge and be discerning, that we can’t choose between right and wrong, that there is no such thing as absolute morality, but rather relative morality. Humanists don’t realise what Islam truly seeks: to force submission to Islam, or kill non-believers, and to obtain world domination. The Quran teaches Muslims that it is OK to lie in order to obtain your goal, it even condones making false peace treaties in order to gather strength to kill at a later stage, it is the reason why Yassar Arafat referenced the Treaty of Hudaybiyah in his famous 1994 speech when discussing the Israeli-Arab peace process in mosque which he thought wasn’t being recorded and would be a secret speech. He had no intention of peace but was hoping Israel to honour his earlier peace agreement in order to give Palestinians time to gather military strength. Islam in Britain is gathering strength under the radar, and one little thing to irritate them will bring the whole Islamic community to war. Again, Britian, under the influence of Humanism, is destroying itself from the inside.

Humanism is its own enemy, and it doesn’t even realise it.

I’m still contemplating whether to answer your previous post, I have started already but haven’t gotten around to finishing it!