D'Souza says: "Hitchens eventually recovered and gave an answer about how religion has produced evils in the world and so on, but the power of the man's question was that he was reducing the argument to which system ultimately delivered the goods. His bottom line remains sound: religion delivers the goods and atheism can't."

Atheism is not a system and can't deliver "the goods" at all. The only benefit of atheism is understanding nature as it is, rather than as a sort of metaphor for the story of God and man's redemption.

Atheism merely saves us from making serious intellectual and moral errors. There is no claim it can save us from other sorts of errors to which man is heir.

Kevlar writes: "OK TC, I'll play along,
why would the homosexual want to enter a straight institution?"

There you go again, always assuming the very point at issue, namely that marriage is a "straight" institution.

Just because it has been a *straight* institution does not mean it cannot be reformed to accommodate modern sensibilities and modern needs.

Institutions change to accommodate reality or they simply fall off and die.

Rich D. writes: "We disagree permanently - you still think that marriage is a right, and not a privilege."

I wouldn't state my position that way, since there is a dispute about what marriage means and who gets to define it.

My position is that any two people have an unalienable right to make a contract with each other, and so long as such contract does not involve abridging the rights of others, then human beings have a moral right to make the contract.

Marriage is a type of contract, it is a "legal union," but to religious people it is much more than just a legal union.

I would have no problem with a law that said all have a right to make a legal union; however, the term "marriage" should be the province of...

Cambermeister makes another irrelevant and immaterial remark: "First and foremost, Christ-mas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus."

So what? That fact doesn't make Christmas a religious holiday in the same sense that Easter is a religious holiday. Christmas doesn't have to exist for there to be Christianity; Christianity, however, cannot exist without Easter.

What's so difficult to grasp about this concept?

Cambermeister writes: "Who do you think the Pilgrims were 'giving thanks' to?"

That's perfectly obvious. But what has this got to do with the discussion?

For Anderson: "For Flew, it is the argument from design that shows that the existence of God is probable."

If the Argument from Design were valid, we wouldn't have Darwinian evolution and people would still believe the earth is 6,000 years old, and man walked with dinosaurs. These are demonstrable falsehoods.

Shifting the field of inquiry to genetics does nothing to aid the argument.

It seems clear to me, Anderson, that you've never really analyzed these arguments from a skeptical point of view, and thus do not appreciate their strengths and weaknesses. They are not in the least persuasive or credible today.

It is noteworthy, that Flew's God is not a personal, creative spirit, the God of the Bible, but a...

To see if posting is possible

Homophobic Gay Denial Syndrome = Possessed by the strange belief that sexual orientation can be "cured".

Cambermeister, my intent was simply to say that Christmas has no religious, i.e. doctrinal, significance, having been established over time by the Roman Catholic Church. From a Fundamentalist view, Easter is the only important religious holiday in the Christian Church, for that is the day Christ rose from the tomb, resurrected. Easter embodies the very meaning of Christianity.

Many pagans celebrated at or around the beginning of Winter or New Year, approximate, and the Church needed a specifically church holiday to substitute for the pagan original.

Or would you disagree with my analysis?

Cambermeister writes: "Do atheists celebrate Thanksgiving? Christmas?

"Don't worry guys, I know you cannot answer. Bye."

I can't speak for other atheists, but I would be happy to tell you what I do.

I celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas both. Why wouldn't I? It's still good for the soul to adopt an attitude of thankfulness for our lives, our many blessings, especially when we learn of the misfortunes of others.

Christmas, of course, is not really a religious holiday. Easter is something else. I do not celebrate Easter because I do not believe in the Christian resurrection, so it would be hypocritical of me to celebrate it any more than a Christian would celebrate a Jewish or Muslim religious holiday.