@crisw You said I actually wish there were more people on the “other side” who could debate reasonably; it’s more fun that way. Well first of all I don’t think the majority of theists/religious believers on here are interested in debating atheists about their beliefs since these beliefs are considered personal to them. Just like the parent who lost their child wants to believe their child is in “heaven” because it helps with the grieving process. Whether heaven exists or not shouldn’t matter here. I do see mant atheists go too far with this negative behaviour of attacking every little belief or incident. Now if a theist is specifically challenging your own lack of belief, threatening you with hell/resorting to name calling or challenging a scientific theory (such as evolution for example) than that is the time to give theists strong debate back to them. There is a time and place for respecting others beliefs and debating them. I suspect the majority of believers on here come to Fluther to talk about other topics.
I believe in God myself but I’ve been laying back on here so far because during the week I come home from long hours working and I’m usually just too tired to answer anything other than simple questions. When I do feel up to debating these issues I usually save it for other websites such as the great realization (a hardcore atheist website) so I get pounded on there, I also debate on Sodahead against religious fundamentalists so I get thrashed on there as well (real bigtime), Scepcop, which is supposed to be a proparanormal forum but ironically there are more sceptics on there than psi supporters (alot of JERF people are on that site) but they’re pretty decent people to debate on these topics and they always have treated me with respect when I debate them (even though they disagree with me and let it well known) so I actually prefer to debate many of these issues on there. I’m also a member of a Christian forum and another forum similar to this and I take poundings on them as well.
I’ll try to post when I can but it’s hard to get any balance on here, all you have to do on here is bring up the word “god” or (god forbid) “paranormal” and it’s like “hey he/she’s an idiot, ha ha ha, what do you believe in the tooth fairy as well”? I’ll debate certain aspects of my beliefs on here but for many others I prefer debating the sceptics on the other forums where I can actually get a respectful debate on these topics without the riff raff.
Try believing in both the concepts of God and psi while rejecting religion. We’re the ones who have it the most difficult by far. We don’t have too many supporting websites unlike atheists, agnostics, religionists and even deists.