please feel free to read his response…however, I think you’ll realize that it hangs by fingernails.

Again, he puts words in my mouth and ignores the context I put things into.

But, then again, while he’s right, no one has conclusively (his word, not mine) proven that religion is a mental illness, if you hear voices in your head, believe the world is run by powers unseen, and that we are all manipulated by an invisible man, then exactly whats the difference?

He’s right, in that context I don’t see a difference.

Were we having a theological debate, that would be relevant.

He’s mistake if he thinks we are.

So, I ended up in something of a debate over the past couple days with a Catholic blogger.  His initial statement that caught my eye was “Why are atheists always targetting Christians”.  My basic response was “Because Christianity in America is the religion most likely to be throwing its weight around”.

The conversation, though generally polite, spiralled from there.

Eventually, I realized two things:

1. We were talking at each other.  We were, in effect, having two different conversations.  He seems to disagree with this.
2. He honestly doesn’t understand the atheist viewpoint.  He got pretty upset with me when I said that, from my perspective, all christian sects are basically the same. 

I can certainly understand why #2 would upset him.  It is, in effect, like telling an English professor that all authors are the same. 

But this shows exactly what he doesn’t understand about atheism.  Once you believe in an all-powerful supernatural entity that controls the universe and his divine son that was killed and then rose from the dead, any distinctions between particular interpretations of these beings and stories really does fall by the wayside.

For example, lets suppose I’m schitzophrenic.  And I believe that the dog is talking to me telepathically.  Would you see any real difference between me and the other schitzophrenic that believes the dog is talking to him vocally?

Of course not.

Btw, I’m not saying that the other blogger didn’t have some valid points, just that ultimately we were never going to communicate very much because I would have to explain to him what I thought of his worldview and that was never going to be seen as anything but either stupidity or insult.  I don’t fault him for this, its just the way it is. 

Its sort of like trying to talk with someoine who believes magic runs every little bit of the world.  How could you talk physics?