I like your thought about the fire and cooking part.

Excellent point. :) :)

Being one who has little knowledge of the Bible, I found your answer very insightful.
Thank you.
:) :)

Cain's sin was that he withheld his best from the Lord in his offering. 

That's what Don says, too. 
:) :)

God knows why its not illegal for so called educated nations to keep on peddling such utter nonsense in this day and age...
We can go to war and kill any living animal/race  ,pollute the planet ,yet must never try to help those that have been taught from birth the most unbelievable nonsense thought up by men....
Humans are a very sick bread of animal ,sustained only by their greed l.....

First Amendment in USA. 

Freedom of speech ,do you really think that exists anywhere in the world ? This post was edited by Nice Jugs at November 14, 2019 7:27 AM MST

Freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
No we do not have complete freedom of speech. There can be punishments for some speech: slander, inciting violence etc. 
In the USA we have more freedom of speech than most but the left is working getting rid of it more and more. This post was edited by my2cents at November 14, 2019 7:27 AM MST

enciting inciting violence

The sinister, rights-eroding Patriot Act was passed by a Republican Administration. 

(or was GW Bush a RINO too?) 

This post was edited by Don Barzini at November 13, 2019 8:12 PM MST

God knows? Ironic. 

As stated elsewhere, people have the freedom to say and believe and advocate whatever baseless idiocy that strikes their fancy. Nowhere is this exemplified more than in the wide disparity of denominational theism. 

In sum, it is less about “educated nations“ than it is about a fading percentile within these nations who are impervious to education. We can’t legislate critical reasoning. 

This post was edited by Don Barzini at November 14, 2019 7:28 AM MST

Well put.
It's ironic that many refinements of logical reason developed within the first universities founded by the Catholic Church for the purpose of proving that God existed.
It was reasoned then that if God existed then it could be proven by logic.
One by one, each proof was found to have a flaw, until no one could find any new proofs.
The Catholic Church decided that faith could only depend on the choice to believe.

I can understand people's people's ignorance one hundred years ago or more..... It's should have all died out though after the First World War ...All governments are to blame  for letting the insanity continue .... 

I think part of the problem is in our education systems.
I'm a believer that public state schools should teach science from as early as five years old. At that early age, it should be very simple as fun. Proposing a theory, and each child doing the experiments to show whether the theory can be proven to be true, and then how it can be used to solve other problems. Kids love this kind of stuff, lap it up like play. One can start teaching botany and ecology via gardening, physics through simple experiments in mechanics, and chemistry through yummy experiments in cooking.

Edward de Bono invented the CoRT Thinking Program. It teaches basic thinking skills at primary school level from 8-years-old and up, using weekly forty-minute lessons. It includes learning how to think ethically from the principle of causing no harm or greatest good. An example is thinking through the question, "Should kids be paid to go to school?' The kids tend to say "yes" at first, and arrive at "no' By the end of the class, having decided this for themselves through discussion of the possible results. I would like to see this program rolled out all over the world.

The ability to think and to properly understand science does not prevent people from choosing religion. About three percent of scientists believe in a God of some kind.

Because I'm a libertarian, I don't agree with any attempt at preventing people from believing in any faith - unless it can be proven to do serious harm to its adherents or others. Most religions probably tend to do more good than harm - though I realise this is debatable and depends on what one considers to be harm.
I think religious private schools should by law present a science curriculum in addition to their religious teachings - so that as the kids grow older can choose what they believe for themselves.

One could also teach comparative religion at high school level from twelve years of age. I believe this would help be more tolerant of one another's differing beliefs and customs.

One of the things I find most interesting about Islam is that Mohammed was emphatic about the benefits of education and knowledge.

Happy Dance!! :) :)
As I think back through all the teachers that hold true in my memory years later, was Mr. Goodwin.  He was my first Science teacher.  Even though he taught all the other subjects too, he was my first introduction to science and I loved it. :) :)
He was my 5th grade teacher. :) :)

Perhaps the brightest mind in human history, Newton himself, spent years attempting to formulate reasoning for God’s existence, and was, by his own admission, thwarted at every turn by the evidence, or lack of it. 
The unspoken price of faith is an inherent admission that the belief cannot be proven, has no basis in fact, or is not sufficiently understood by the believer. 

I agree about the unspoke price.
Many theologians make a virtue of doubt. They see it as a natural and necessary phase in deepening their faith.

By some interpretations, (for instance, JWs,) the purpose of the Garden of Eden story is to show that God values faith for its own sake. To not believe is the first and primary sin. It has a circular quality: thou shalt believe in God because God commands it. He is a jealous God who demands belief as the first price of Heaven in the afterlife (in Christianity & Islam, but not Judaism.) The second price is repentance and living a virtuous life.

I find this ironic because virtue causes its own rewards and needs no bribery.

I wonder how Newton coped emotionally with living in a world surrounded by believers.
I imagine he might have done what I did for most of my life, which was to avoid mentioning my lack of faith around believers. I was afraid of their possible reactions if they knew. In his time, I think open admission of agnosticism or atheism could have been fatal.

Indeed. Look what expressing opposition did for Galileo. 

Hello there Don
Its been a while since I have been on this site, I thought I would check in and saw your reply on this thread.
If memory serves, you describe yourself as an "unabashed" Atheist, I would use that same description for myself.
While you present a well described list of costs, billions of people throughout history have been willing to pay for it because they were getting something out of it. For many it has been gaining a sense of superiority over those who don't adhere to their beliefs, for others it was for "forgiveness", or guidance or a sense of comfort, we know that first group have done evil things in the name of their God.
I do not look at those seeking, and finding through their faith guidance and comfort in the same way as I look at a child holding a belief in the Easter bunny or Santa Claus. 
Many scholars and academics have held a faith in the unproven God, many men and women of reason have 'believed'.
I am an Atheist, I need no God. I am fine with my mortality. I take my comfort in the experiences I have had, both good and bad, and those yet to come. I am thankful for the life I have and everything that led me to this place, that's enough for me.
That being said I do not begrudge the grieving parent looking for comfort after the death of a child, or a parent using the teachings of their faith to teach an expectation of conduct.
To assume ALL people of faith are ignorant backwoods uneducated fools, I just don't believe is true.
I have read the Bible several times, not for spiritual, or divine reconciliation, rather in the same way I read Dante's' Inferno. I no more believe the fables of the bible than I believe Dante and Virgil actually and literally travelled down the rings of torment. I think the Bible is one of the greatest pieces of literature ever written, or compiled.
Sure, people can pick at it to reinforce the reasons they don't believe while others use it to justify their beliefs, Me, unless I am being forced through threat to believe that in which I don't....I don't care (and the threat of a Hell doesn't count  Pffffftttt!!)
Hope all is well, got any good road trips in the coach planned..

Good to see you again, designer. 

There is clearly a great deal we agree on. 

For me, the issue with Theist faith isn’t people individually choosing to believe this or that, for whatever reasons they deem appropriate. It’s about the deeply flawed substance of what is believed, and thrusting it, with recurrent and predictable ignorance, into the general discourse as unerring reality. Forcing it into immature minds to further demonstrable fallacies, and empower the purveyors of dogma.  

This, to me, is wickedness. It stunts our species, denigrates life and truth, and a coherent voice of dissent deserves a say. Or two. Unabashed...

On the other thing: we are happily hunkering down here in Fla until spring. Winter seems to have arrived up north. Hate it. We did take the RV out to Tenn during Dorian, we escaped to the Great Smokies. 

This post was edited by Don Barzini at November 14, 2019 3:25 PM MST