Satan also offered the kingdoms of Earth to Christ in the desert. It would follow that he controls them, if he is able to offer them over.

Because the pre-Christian empire was known for it’s integration of other faiths and cultures in the empire. Post Christianity, it was more known for pogroms and genocides.

the Roman Empire, Hitler, Stalin, Mao etc. I could go but remember it wasn’t Christianity

that killed these people it was organized religion.

Phil

52 million or so people died in WWII. So, I don’t know if I agree that “more people have died in history than any other cause in history” regarding Christianity. Here’s some more statistics that I believe show that non-Christian (although often religious) causes were behind most war deaths.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_disasters_by_death_toll

My belief is that ALL organized religions that create “us against them” tribal mentalities (most of them) will have to cease to exist before war can be ended in any long term way.

For the Crusades alone they can never atone for what they did. How do you justify the full sale slaughter of men women and children? For the fact that they roasted babies alive to eat? And of course the reason the American’s are in the Iraq war- For the destruction of the City of Peace into the City of Chaos that it is now.

Frankly I worship the one thing that I know exists- Death. Can you refute Death? No. Can you prove that Death does not exist? No.

This shows ONLY that atheistic totalitarian regimes can be just as oppressive as theistic totalitarian regimes.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1184546/Donald-Rumsfelds-holy-war-How-President-Bushs-Iraq-briefings-came-quotes-Bible.html

http://www.allgov.com/ViewNews/Bush_Invaded_Iraq_on_a_Mission_from_God_90809

Those are facts – Bush interfered in the Middle East because of Christianity. Over 4,000 American boys and girls have given their lives for Bush’s desire to please his god.

http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx

Evolution is fact much like gravity is fact. What we quibble isn’t whether it happens or not; it’s how.

We can measure gravity. We can calculate, with a very high degree of accuracy, how much gravity a body is subject to and how much force we need apply to overrule the force of gravity. It’s what makes machines like airplanes and satellites work. We can falsify gravity – if, say, a body randomly shoots upwards without a logical explanation. We can repeatedly show it exists, and predict how it reacts.

To say it “depends on human perception and logic” alone is ludicrous and an affront to rational thought. We can just as easily say nothing is real and that we’re all living in the Matrix, we only think we’re living in reality. So what?

What we don’t know is what makes it exist. That’s what we’ve been studying. That’s why gravity is considered a law – Newton’s law of universal gravitation – not a theory, as you imply. The theory you refer to is the general theory of relativity, which attempts to explain how gravity comes about – whether by the curvature of space-time or whatever. Mayhaps gravity isn’t a force, maybe it’s just invisible fairies pushing things down, but it does act very much like a force – it’s reasonable to think it is a force (much like it’s reasonable to think reality is real and not a computer simulation). Theories in science are different from theories in lay terms, as Michael pointed out. Theories in science need verification, need evidence. That’s a far cry from saying something is as it is “because I think it is”.

In essence, we don’t know what causes gravity, but we know something does, and we know how it works well enough to guarantee it does, in fact, happen. Much like we know now that light acts as a particle and as a wave both – we can measure light’s wavelength and we can identify its particles.

(Also, this flat earth you speak of. Ironic that people have known the Earth is round well before that – I forget the name of the guy who first measured the Earth’s radius. People already knew the Earth was round well into Medieval times.)

Likewise, evolution is a fact. We know things change over time. We can prove, over and over again, that it happens. We’ve observed it happen – what with nylon-consuming bacteria and the several million different strands of viruses that appear daily, with fruit flies and genetics and all the staggering amount of evidence we have. No, we have not observed evolution in a greater scale, directly, but it’s not unreasonable to assume it does. After all, we’ve seen it happen. You can use another word for it, XYZ, whatever, but it doesn’t change the fact it does happen.

What we’re trying to understand now is how. Genetic drift, natural selection, random mutation, the several controls and mechanisms that make biological creatures tick. That’s where the theory comes about, and the theory of evolution is far more complex than natural selection alone. It’s the best explanation we have to date that accounts for the hard, factual evidence we have, and if you have a better one (for the record and the crazies out there: Goddit doesn’t count), by all means, do share.

This is wrong. A scientific theory must, by definition, provide an explanation of something based upon careful observation and experimentation. Scientific theories are never, ever based upon human perception and logic. What you’re describing is a theory in the vernacular sense, or a theory prior to the invention of the scientific method, neither of which has any relevance to this discussion.

These men committed atrocities to secure and maintain power for themselves. Stalin promoted atheism in order to eliminate the church because it had power and influence. His motivations were greed and power, not atheism. Atheism was simply a vehicle for him to keep religion’s nose out of his business so he didn’t have to deal with their influence. Mao isn’t even a good example. Pol Pot’s motivation was a fear of revolt and overthrow, so he eliminated all the educated and powerful people. There was no atheistic motive whatsoever.