Here's another good one about the harm religion has done: There's a scene in the movie "You don't know Jack" where Al Pacino tells a young fanatic about how anesthesia was discovered in the 1250s by alchemists. But the church felt that God should decide the suffering human's endured and punished anyone who even toyed with ether. It wasn't until the turn of the 20th century that some dentist in Boston started using nitrous oxide to rellieve the pain of pulling a tooth.
So in all that time, seven hundred years, people had to suffer surgery without any anesthetic help. In our Civil War thusands of wounded soldiers suffered amputation and had to "bite the bullet" rather than take a shot of ether.

No Christian has ever had an Atheist tell them they are going to hell, gave no reason to live, are morally bankrupt, or accost them on in public or at their for.

I can get with all that you reported in your post! We needed a little meaness in our nature, to overcome, out run, out talk and finally confidently state...our right to be here, wasn't given to us, by some savior!

Where can I find this book, Saving Gaia?

I agree. I try not to be anti-religious, but I tell ya, it's REALLY hard to not hate religion at this point. It's constanty shoved in our faces, countless billions have been killed in its name, children are being indoctrinated, scientific progress is being halted, and they still dare to call US the ones without morality. The world has had atheist/agnostic/secular monsters too, but still. Their atrocities usually pale in comparison to the number of atrocities committed in total in the name of religion. Add up all the mass murders throughout human history committed by the religious in the name of their god, and even Stalin can't compete. Religion is an evil system that traps people and is used for political gain. I sometimes wish we were all secular. It wouldn't create peace on Earth, but it would certainly decrease the number of famines and wars by a long shot.

It doesn't take actually being negative or abrasive to be accused of those things. To them, it's negative and rude and abrasive and mean and viscious simply to openly not agree with or be impressed with their "thinking", or sympathetic to their special pleading.

Religious faith has, for most of human history, enjoyed unearned deference and respect in the marketplace of ideas, largely because of blasphemy laws and less formal taboos and their hegemony in society. Those have been eroding in the past century, to the point that in the past generation they've really had to put a lot more psychological energy into apologetics. And it's a lot harder to deflect and bullshit the indefensible than to simply argue a legitimate, defensible position for which there's actual evidence.

You should tell her to check out this site and just observer for a while.

Granted I just joined and have only been on here a few hours, but so far this has been the friendliest and most supportive forums I have ever read.

Really digging it!

Agree, agree, agree, agree... but... did the lord actually say, "Render unto Carsar..." or was he/she misquoted, guess we'll never know... and I mean never.

Matt Dillahunty will be the answer to her prayers.