A little humor...

An atheist was hiking through the woods.

"What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals," he said to himself.

As he walked near the river he heard a rustling in the bushes. Turning to look, he saw a giant grizzly bear charging towards him. He ran as fast as he could. Looking over his shoulder he saw that the bear was closing in on him. His heart was pumping frantically and he tried to run even faster. He tripped and fell on the ground. He saw the bear raise his claws...

At that instant he cried out: "Oh my God!..."

Time stopped. The bear froze. The forest was silent.

It was then that a bright light shone down upon the man and he heard a great voice from above:
"You deny my existence for all of these years... and now, you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?"

The atheist looked directly into the light. "I suppose it would be hypocritical of me to ask you
to treat me as a Christian...but perhaps, you might make the BEAR a Christian?"

"So be it," said the voice. The light faded out, and the sounds of the forest resumed.

And then the bear bowed down and spoke: "Lord, bless this food which I am about to receive and for which I am truly thankful. Amen.
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"Has it ever occurred to you that nothing ever occurs to God?"

Thats hilarious, and true. I imagine a good number of atheists turn to God on there death bed. It's quite possible I may. Let's hope it's not at the hands of a bear.

My sincere condolences SFI.

Sad

You're wrong Beth. Atheists have no need for religious faith. This is a common practice amoung certain groups to project their own beLIEfs and perceptions onto others. BeLIEvers are the ones requiring faith in a deity they can neither see, feel, nor produce any evidence of it's existance whatsoever. I don't need faith "to beLIEve" some one else's deity doesn't exist. Most people, being religious, can't seem to accept the concept of a person not beLIEving in some sort of supreme deity. So they find a way to insert faith in anyway in order to make themselves feel better.
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Carl Sagan:
"I don't want to beLIEve. I want to know."

You may not call it faith, but you can't say with 100% certainty there isn't an after-life. Just as BHL and Matt can't say with 100% certainty there is. You put some sort of "trust" or "faith" in your ability to reason and deduce that there isn't an afterlife.

You can define faith anyway you want to. It still doesn't change anything. I'm talking about religious faith, beLIEving in things for which there is no evidence. BeLIEving in things that are logically impossible. The world was not created in six days nor was it ever flooded, killing everything but Noah and co. And yes I can say with 100% complete certainty, there is no afterlife. And that last sentence surprised me Beth. You did exactly what I said beLIEvers do and attempted to insert faith where it didn't belong. As I said, most people can't accept the concept.

All I'm doing is correcting a misperception. Atheists do not have any use for religious faith.

[quote="beth"]

That reminds me of the story of a person who took a bunch of various unrelated parts and through them into the washing machine. After running through several cycles the machine was turned off and the person reached in and pulled out a perfectly working beautiful new watch that all of those parts had formed. The chances of that happening are astronomical. Still yet the chances of that happening are much more greater than the chances of human beings, the world and all of the wonderful animals in it being created by chance.

Someone explain to me why I need faith not to beLIEve in someone else's imaginary deity?

I think I need to clarify I'm speaking about an afterlife, not a deity. I'm equally capable of saying that my idea of an afterlife may have a scientific explanation and not be related to a creation of some deity.