By the way, Iggy. I would like to come to your Bible study too! IF YOU WOULD SAY WHERE IT IS! So, dump the James Bond stuff and have some guts and tell us where to be.

Susan, rather than just sharing your ideas about what you feel are the real cause of atrocities like the Gulags, you might actually investigate what happened. It has been mentioned here by others many times, and ignored by atheists, that the Nobel Prize Winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn proved beyond any reassonable doubt that the Communists killed millions of believers because of their atheistic hatred of religion and desire to see it die out. It wasn't political, and it wasn't even economic because most of the believers who were killed had no poltical or economic influence anyway. It was because the atheists in charge WANTED them to die. You can ignore Solzhenitsyn's work if you wish, but when that got out and began to spread and when John Paul II confronted the atheists in Poland about their atheism, it was the beginning of the end. Now, I am certainly open to the possibility that people with view diametrically opposed to mine might have some sensible things to say, I think a number of people at the Community of Reason would back me up on that, but when an atheist tells me bluntly they are not interested in discussing ANYTHING with me I think THEIR true motivations are exposed. Just look at the 11:13 post. Can you honestly say that this person is interested in the type of discussion you suggest? The other poster was right, Susan. You need to quit making excuses for them, because it hurts your credibility.

Iggy, I could not help but notice that you say the "crazies" (and of course different atheists at different times have defined who the crazies are) "MUST DIE". Many "crazies" have already died at the hands of atheists. Could you elaborate on "die"? Take note, Susan, he did not say DIE OFF, he said, MUST DIE. So, yes, I think that should keep being "dredged up" if he continues to use that language. By the way, I for one would love to come to your atheist bible study Monday nite. You could even bring you trusty laptop reoorder and camers. Of course, YOU WOULD HAVE TO SAY WHERE IT IS FOR ONCE.

Cole, I appeciate your reasoned response; it is about what I expected.

Susan, I think I understand where you are coming from, but I don't think that one reason there are more devorces is that there are the better "safeguards" you mention. For one thing, I don't think the safeguards exist in the way you seem to think they do, altough I understand how you could think they do. Further, I would say that 75 to 80 per cent of the divorces I have seen have involved basically "fooling around". It used to me primarily the men doing the "fooling around" (and that I admit is an old time phrase) but now I think its pretty equally the men and women.

Susan, I wanted to follow up on your comments with a brief post. I won't actually be posting here much because I don't find blogs that useful and have many projects going, but since my name was being thrown around here so much both by "friends" and opponents, I thought "what the heck"! Your comments are well taken, but I think, from the perspective of being involved in over 150 domestic cases, that the laws "safeguarding" children look a lot better on paper than they are in reality, and from both sides of the courtroom. There is definitely more divorce now than at any time in American history. But rest aasured that that the situations you describe occur just as much in middle and upper income families as in lower income families. No doubt about it, but of course I am not free to go into details. Although looking at your posts I think we would have a number of philosophical disagreements, I think your measured tones and attempt to bring parties together is a welcome counterweight to some of the other extremes, from both sides but, frankly, very noticeably from the atheist side, that we find here. Keep it up. I will try to drop in from time to time.

I couldn't help but notice that one poster thinks that there are better safe guards in place to protect children in these situations, I assume they mean the massive divorce rate, but those of us who are really familiar with this area know that is illusory. The children ALWAYS suffer in divorce. Tougher child support laws? Perhaps, but that can only do so much, they often can be counter productive. One poster has remarked that there are some 6,000 laws governing our lives, but that is way under the mark, it is more like 10,000 when you throw in IRS regualtions, OSHA, Work Comp, and the rest. And even in those areas the odds are often against the worker. Our secular society has much to answer for. That does not imply theocracy, and as was pointed out in the first post Jesus already disposed of that option, but lets quit pretending that Secular is always Superior.

That done, I don't want to give the impression that I don't enjoy debating with atheists. I have been to the Community of Reason many times, and there are some very insightful people there, especially Professor Webb, Kurt, Theo, and others. I always enjoy chatting with them. Also had a chance a while back to sit down and talk to Chuck Lunney, who is a class act and would be formidable competition in any debate. I just say this because I don't want to discourage anyone from continuing dicussion with me. But I won't back down from my postion that Atheism is Irrational, in the sense that it is non falsifiable, even though atheists commonly try to assert that they rely on the scientific method. As many of you know, falsifiability is a component of the true utilization of the scientific method; Einstein for example proposed several ways in which his theory could be falsified. But, I submit, atheism, given a presupposition that all existence can be explained by mindless processes, can never be falsified, even in principle. Those who don't undertand the Scientific Method might think that is a good thing, but the reverse is true. It means your position is in no sense scientific. In fact, I challenge ANY atheist to propose a way, at least in principle if not in practice, that Atheism could be falsified.

To any "friends" of mine or others who continue to refer to me as the Master Debater, and Glorious Leader, I would respectfully requesst that you cease doing so. I would appreciate it if others would cease doing so also. I received a call from Iggy today, and was quite suprised since he had previously told me he didn't want to discuss ANYTHING with me, although maybe he only meant privately. At this point, I don't care. The ostensible reason he called, and in a borderline hostile way in my opinion but he can post the recording here if he chooses, is that some supposed "friends" of mine were texting him repeatedly. That this bothered him is odd, since he "texted" me EIGHT TIMES Monday night. And, of course, whether they were the ones who texted him, I don't know. Fine. I have no problem with my number being out there, and discussing with any one when I have time but calling this guy about anything is pointless. He made it clear that he does not want discussion, and you shouldn't be suprised because has repeatedly stated on this board what his goals are. My strong suggestion is to leave this guy alone. Let him show the world what atheism can do for it. He will accomplish far more in that regard than any of you can.