Sorry I haven't written you back sooner, but I'm not spending as much time online as I used to, either.

When you dropped out of the net, after a few months I tried googling your name in various Montreal suburbs, just to see if you were OK. Nothing came up at all, which was better than seeing your name in the obits, but I was still a bit concerned that your blindness was worse and permanent. I was definitely pleased to see your return.

I'm definitely glad you're not squandering limited vision or time arguing further with the fey troll.

Lets see what he does in 2032.

Right. Everybody I know cares about saving the planet from global warming until I ask them if they've started taking cold showers. Nobody needs a hot shower - they're actually quite unnatural and bad for your skin too. Yet, I've not once gotten an affirmative answer (stick a RADAR gun on how fast they can change the subject!)

We need to stop ascribing any virtue whatsoever to hypocrites who only want other people to sacrifice (and actually call them out on their ill behavior - it's harmful in aggregate).

Just pointing out that I didn't create the labels "God is Good" and "Freedom From Religion Foundation".

Where your link, for instance, just proves the existence of God for a theist. Nice planet, God!

"No arheist is so stupid" was the claim. The link refutes the absolutist "no atheist", but perhaps I misread the misspelling, and you meant something else?

Still, I should have read further back in the conversation and posted this instead:
http://www.science20.com/writer_on_the_edge/blog/scientists_discover_that_atheists_might_not_exist_and_thats_not_a_joke-139982

Certainly NOT modern....Predated Christ by 500 years.

And somehow, I don't think they'd put up with http://sundayassembly.com/assemblies/ very long

GOOD- glad somebody got that.

That's why I inserted the word "modern". Should have been "postmodern", I suppose, but one can quibble the point.

http://www.kidswithoutgod.com/

http://www.atheist-community.org/library/articles/read.php?id=700

Is that why the bloody angel, an idol created by cleaving one's victim from neck to pelvis and spreading the ribs wide as a warning was common in pre-Christian northern Europe?

I think your scholars are deluded.

Your comment reminds me of an old joke.

Q: What's the difference between a computer salesman and a used car salesman?
A: The used car salesman knows when he's lying.

So how does someone know who to believe is a genuine "Computer Professional"? I don't normally* wear a set of test leads around my neck like a stethoscope; I don't have a "Mr. GoodBytes" patch sewn to my work uniform; I don't wear a lab coat or even carry a clipboard. What cue would you recommend people trust? A pithy T-shirt? A club tie? An expensive car in the driveway? An imperial conditioning tattoo on my forehead? Trust is always the problem.

* Yes, I do occasionally drape test leads around my neck, but that's beside the point.

Because to some of us it is news. It's not that I need the warning, but it helps me to know that my sister-in-law might be exposed to this kind of rumor, because she's pretty gullible and falls for trolls like this. I would like to be able to tell her preemptively "Yeah, this new lie is going around, don't do that."

If I bring it up around the dinner table before she (or anyone) asks, it may also save her some embarrassment. Better, if the local TV news picks up on a story like this and broadcasts a hoax alert, it might save hundreds of people from this fate.

I was thinking more about the "Good without God" movement- definitively and explicitly atheist, yet still somehow affected by "Good" that just happens to coincide with the good of Christianity.

Your one true atheist would be rather unwelcome in such circles, having never worked at a soup kitchen.

I remain unconvinced, either way, that the tale of Saint Isa is true or false. But if true- and there's plenty of room in the Bible for it to be true, 30 years is a long time in a young man's life, and travel to India was certainly possible from Galilee in those days- then yes, it is quite possible that Buddhism infected Christianity with certain ideas.

But I'm not sure what Buddhism has to do with modern Atheism, which would deny the Buddha as being yet another bronze age magician.

I was thinking more about "Good without God", "The Freedom From Religion Foundation" and most obviously, "Sunday Fellowship", all of which are atheistic organizations trying to do good by a Christian definition of Good.