In as much as my freedom of thought will allow me, I begin by apologizing for the things that I will say, because I am sure they will surely offend someone. The greatest impediment to free thought has generally been the fear of offending others, or a certain "respect" for the religious beliefs of others. For the sake of this treatise, I will lay aside all such respect, but still remain civil.

I will not respond to any particular contributor in this thread, but I thought I should add my $.25 worth on the issue at hand. Here's a little history for you: I was born into a family of devout and charismatic Christians. Even today, a number of my family members are involved in Christian ministry. I myself have a history of Christian service. As a young child, several preachers, pastors and others "prophesied" that I would grow up to be a "mighty man of God". Alas, a series of interesting events in my life has led me to the stout conclusion that GOD DOES NOT EXIST. Please pardon the uppercasing, but I needed to emphasize that statement. Atheists and non-theistic thinkers (otherwise known as freethinkers) have attempted all throughout history to state what I have now come to understand as the obvious - the Bible in many instances negates the possibility that there could be a God. I recognize that this discussion cannot be settled quite so easily, so I will present a couple of points to substantiate my claim. Before I do this, however, I would like to state the following:

1. We agree that, in any debate between an atheist and a believer, one of them is right, the other is wrong.
2. The Bible is either the written Word of God, or it is not.
3. Jesus either died rose to save humanity, becoming the only true path to salvation (John 14:6), or he did not.
4. We also agree that "true" Christians believe that all other faiths are profoundly erroneous.
5. Based on the preceding statements, my persistence in unbelief will surely land me the torments of hell.

I will quote the Bible from the Old Testament book of DEUTERONOMY 13:6, 8-15. I have no problem extracting these snippets from the Bible, as this is the custom of all Christian preachers or pastors. In all my years as a Christian, I had never attended a service in which the preacher read from more than a couple of chapters during a single sermon. Note that the quoted scripture is part of the legal establishment (or Hebrew Law) given to the children of God. It reads,

"If your brother, the son of your mother,

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