[Let me just state my position first - I am a total level 7 on the Dawkins scale. I am a strong atheist, theological non-cognitivist and ignostic, which is fundamentally the epistemological opposite of an agnostic.] I'm sick and tired of hearing the same old atheist/theist debates going back and forth, again and again, over and over. Atheist says there is no empirical evidence for a God, theist attempts proof 1, atheist refutes it, theist attempts proof 2, atheist refutes it, goes on and on. Neither side convinces the other, and only occasionally a neutral reader can gain something out of it. Let me quote an argument that hasn't been attacked over and over a million times by theists on a hundred different forums. "Given that divine intervention is only meaningful in that it is a negation of material causes, what criteria can we use? We now have a major problem. We need to be able to negate the possibility of any material cause, but we cannot do so unless we know everything there is to know about possible causes of this sort. If there is a possible material cause we are not aware of, then we cannot make the wholesale claim that no material cause can explain an event. In short, we need to be omniscient!" These arguments, the semantic and epistemological ones, are the ones atheists ought to use. Rather than the old "God doesn't exist because there's no proof." in which case the theist feels like they haven't given you sufficient proof for you to start believing, and so they will continue to attempt to, all of which you turn down, forever. If you say you don't believe in a God because there isn't enough proof, some theists will think that there will be some point where you can be convinced and they will try endlessly. A classic example of terrible debate skills is - here on campus, one of the buildings has a restroom where there are "debates" scribbled in graffiti on the walls. What are the debates about? Abortion. Yes, I'm talking debates on abortion in a restroom stall. There was something saying "So you are saying that MURDER is okey-dokey?" That's exactly what I'm talking about. The fundamental flaw is assuming that the pro-choicer thinks abortion is murder just because pro-lifers consider it murder. It's like, "Oh, I consider it equivalent to murder, so you must be like that too!" Same with anarcho-capitalists and anarcho-socialists. In my observations, ancaps are more prescriptivist while ansocs are more descriptivist, so ancaps assume ansocs are being prescriptivist and ansocs think ancaps are being descriptivist. And what do you get? A 100-forum-post long debate on which one is more right and moral and useful and more likely, and neither side convinces the other. It's the same with the atheist vs theist debates. A lot of people, atheist and theist, don't realize the differences between defeating and actually converting. If you want to simply debate someone for the lulz of defeating him/her, go ahead and make him/her your enemy. I know 'cause I used to do this all the time, but I've realized the only person being actually affected was any neutral reader reading the debate in order to explore their viewpoints, to change and evolve. And these kind of people aren't very common - even amongst atheists and anarchists, it's not as common for people to truly question and criticize and analyze their beliefs to the point of a sick obsession. And a lot of the times people use projection. I've noticed this in real life situations. I'm rather fashion-oriented and love Seventeen and other style magazines, and I've often been seen as a "dumb brunette who's shallow and thinks looks are everything" type. I find this stereotyping ridiculously ironic, because they are the ones being shallow by judging who I am simply from my looks, without knowing who I am inside, the real person. And I am not perfect, but I'm not shallow either. Looks are the accessory to the actually important aspect, the inside of a person. Not a man or a woman, not a geek or a jock, an actual person. That's what's important. Anyway... I just felt like getting this off my chest. Some of it is slightly bitchy, and a lot of it is somewhat incoherent I'm aware. Just sort of rambling.