#1) Don’t give a crap
#2) Which makes this one the more important issue to me by default.

^ That. A) is discarded by default.

The second. I only care about the first issue for professional reasons, whereas the second issue is important to me for human reasons.

#2 is scarier.

If people want to believe in god, that’s their own thing.

It’s when they want to kill me because of their belief – that’s when I get concerned.

The two questions are not equivalent.

One is philosophical, the other material.

Of course #2 is the one that matters. That age old question to me is rather pointless. If He does exist, there is apparently no urgency in His letting us know about it.

The second is considerably more important to me if I have to choose between the two, because there are (serious) consequences. However, it’s difficult for me to completely separate them, as I believe the first is inevitably tied into the second. It’s not about winning an argument or about being “right,” but I am in the minority that believes that faith in a deity always carries the potential to be harmful. I don’t mean that every believer is harmful, far from it, but that the potential is always there because faith, by its very nature, is a difficult thing to defend and most people are pretty defensive of their core beliefs.

Dip doo maggazoo who’s on not you, err..neither

#2, it is more likely to cause strife.

Both are for entirely different reasons.

Discovering a “creator” would likely be one of the most profound discoveries in scientific history.

Using religion this way is one of the most disgusting things in human history.

# 2. most certainly.
I too don’t care about #1, trying to know the unknowable.
#2 is THE #1 reason humanity has been at war since before the Crusades.

1. This is not a major concern of mine.

2. My feelings about theocrats fucking with my democracy are extremely strong.

1. Since I am Atheist, this has no relevance.
2. So this would be of more importance.

1. Shouldn’t even be a serious question anymore.

2. Just take a moment and imagine how advanced human civilization would be now had we skipped all the religious nonsense altogether.

If by religious, you mean belonging to a specific church, synagogue, temple or other organized faith, then I am not religious. Having been born into a largely Christian society and initially introduce to Roman Catholicism, the religion of my mother, I accepted the traditional description of a triune deity.

Over time, unanswerable questions about doctrine and the seeming inability for most people who profess a Christian belief to follow the teaching of Christ as described in the Bible has led me to examine other religious views and in this sense question the existence of God. This journey has led me to believe that a spiritual force is behind the evolution of the universe and that God can be defined as that force.

All institutions including religions have a political aspect in that members with a strong desire for power and the wealth derived from power have perverted the core values of their organization and the members have blindly accepted their authority. The harm that follows is inevitable. My spiritual belief is important to me and I seek ways to share my perspective with others.

However, I accept that the deeply ingrained emotions that most religious people have renders them blind to the possibility that their faith may be misplaced. When confronted by different philosophical views they feel threatened and react with anger and sometimes violence. It is as analogous to the way they would react if it were suggested that their parents were selfish and cruel.

No matter how vicious their parents were, they continue to perceive their parents as loving, caring beings and that the abuse they received at the hand of their parents was somehow justified. Likewise, the shortcomings of their religion are overlooked. Because of this, their ignorance and the damage caused by the religious/political organization with which they are devoted are of less importance than my personal belief.

When I say religious, I mean a person who practices Islam, Christianity, Hinduism or Judaism. Which is exactly what religious means.

You guys didn’t leave me with anything to say. The answer is quite obviously 2.

@NerdyKeith, Christianity, Hinduism and Judaism are only three of hundreds of religious beliefs. Why would you exclude Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism and Confucianism, or the many relatively newer religions such as Mormonism, each of which have millions of followers?

@Bill1939 I’m not excluding anything. I was listing examples. I’m not going to mention every religion in existence when giving examples.

And by the way Islam was actually the first religion I mentioned in my response to you. I mentioned the four most commonly practiced organised religions. The reason I didn’t mention others, is because it was not the point of my response.

@NerdyKeith, thank you for explaining the reason for only listing four of the many religions. I assume that response was addressing what I wrote; “If by religious, you mean belonging to a specific church, ..., then I am not religious.” I thought that my lengthy response to your opening question was appropriate to “what the non-religious have to say on this matter.” One point I tried to make was that it is not clear whether or not my belief is religious. Unitarianism/Universalism would seem to include it, though some may not consider these as religions.

@Bill1939 Well it seems that some would regard Unitarianism as a community or philosophy.

1. It should be kept on the level of personal opinion. Sure, we can discuss it, but in the end, it is still a belief, however you turn it. I don’t see the need to discuss it as if the world depends on finding the answer to that question.
2. Now that one IS a serious issue. It can kill people. We need to discuss it and it is very important, (and sad, considering that religions largely send a message of peace and love, not killing.)

@Bill1939 If one is an atheist one does not believe in any religion which has a magic being at it’s core. Church going, itself, is hardly a decent yardstick for religion.