"If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.' Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death."

How is that a recount of history that is happens to get a point across? If the point is that children should be disobediant, isn't there a better way for an all-knowing, all-powerful God to convey His word? I mean, you can cherry pick everything you want, but I could never believe in something this horrific. You are right in one thing, however, and that's that people actually did this stuff! The Bible promoted it. So even if we are misunderstanding this, God conveyed this message knowing how we would interpret it. Doesn't He get any responsibility in this?

I started reading all the responses to this great question before I gave up. These Christians avoided the question at all cost, until a few non-believers started voiceing their opinions. Then, quickly, the Christians ran to the defense of Christianity by saying it's not torture, with very little explanation. As an atheist, I would like to point out that Bible calls for a town to stone a child to death if s/he is disobediant. I consider stoning a form of torture, because you die slowly and it hurts. So do take this wonderful question a step further, how do Christians deal with verses that deal with stoning children to death if Christianity doesn't permit torture?

I would date a devout religious believer if they were open minded and accepting of my atheism. I guess that's a bit of an oxymoron, though, because most religions have something about converting others to reach a heaven. Religion constantly gets in the ways of relationships, and that's why we should do away with it...or one reason anyway.

This is a terrible argument. I'm an atheist, but your defintion of faith is way off. Just because you can't prove something doesn't mean we're trusting something "we know isn't true". It means that we're believing in something not knowing if it's true or not. Do you really think all religious people that base their whole life around God know it's not true? No, of course not. In fact, many claim they know God is true and I believe that many of them actually think there is a god. We go too often with assuming someone isn't telling the truth just because we find their statement ridculous. Sam Harris brings this up all the time and I'm with him 100%. He says that radical islamics that do suicide bombings really believe they are going to meet with 72 virgins or whatever the number is. As mooon005 put it, you guys are being cynics. Here's my favorite definition from dictionary.com: belief that is not based on proof. Nowhere in that definition does it say belief in something we KNOW IS NOT TRUE. There's a big difference.