Just wanted to make a comment regarding the nature of some posts in this thread, and hope this not is perceived as bringing religious topics back into this thread against the will of Jillio.
It's meant as a comment in general and to the moderators regarding the ban of religious topics.
I've noticed that the secular attacks against religion appears to be common and approved, while religious attacks against secular thinking are rare. Mostly it's preaching with no additional reasoning. The latter is perhaps indirect attacks against secular values, still different from the attacks going the other way.
The problem with heated religious disscussions on AD appears to be that some individuals among the different views(seculars/Xians/spiritualists/other world religions) aren't able to explain their view in a understandable way to people of other views or faith. The reasons why they can't, vary.
To a Xian, ethic values of other people perhaps become irrational as God allready have fitted the Xians with the right ethic. This is a traditional ethic, bound by rules. This however, don't mean that some of them can expect other people to accept their feeling that all other kind of reasoning have no value. Those Xians have to take the consquences of their ignorance if they want to display it in the public. Common sense says that if they want to discuss with seculars, they have to reason their views into a degree and listen to critics of their religions, like they are allowed to critic secular views if they want.
Some seculars also need to acknowledge that some of their claims lacks backup. Just because they are secular, don't mean they are rational. People are born into ethic values, and later, teach them to other people, without thinking much about what they have learned or teach. This is not very different from Xians preaching, without caring to give any rational explainations. Much of the views seculars got, come from the christian culture of western europe, much more bound to traditional ethic values many are aware of, anyway. Even rational thinking and secularism as we know it today, have a christian origin.
