Note the word "Seem." I feel MIT graduates earned their credentials, and I see that someone at that level may find acceptance for their lack of belief, more easily then someone on the other end of the social ladder. The same could be said of any group that is prejudiced against.

I recognise the difference between faith an organised religion, and I stand by what I said. A non-Church going person with religious (For want of a better word) beliefs will not be prejudiced against on the same level as a person without religious beliefs.

While I respect your feelings that we aren't a seperate group, consider the evidence before you and open your eyes. Consider what an admission of atheism would mean to you in any of the presidential candidates and read "The God Delusion" for more details on what the atheist's experience of society is. You don't have to agree with the book, just understand that the social injustices highlighted in it are very real.

The sad truth is that we are seperate groups, slowly merging into a whole. To say otherwise is to ignore the idea that getting on with each other takes work - that we won't improve things without trying to improve them.

If a business won't hire atheists, then it needs to be protested because that is no better then a business that won't hire Christians. It is not acceptable, on any level.

If you cannot be open about your beliefs, you are not free and the "Don't ask, don't tell" idea of ones personal ideals, is no solution to this.

We demand that all beliefs be up for equal examination even our own. If I am wrong, then I want to be proven wrong, but if I feel you are wrong, I want the right to argue back.

And that right just isn't there anymore on any level beneath the atheist book, because we aren't accepted as a part of society beneath the level of the intellectual elites. We aren't all great scientists and history professors after all.

The arguments that matter most, are normally the ones which provoke the most controversy.

Nicely put, and may I posit another reason for religion?

We have an inborn need to believe our parents. Generally, if our parents tell us something when we are small we believe it because, well over the course of our evolution believing our parents proved to be an evolutionary advantage.

Frankly, your argument is more of a sign of your small mindedness then mine.

You are arguing that an atheist has no right to be an atheist in public - that one's personal beliefs if you are an atheist should be kept quiet and hidden away from the world.

Meanwhile religious beliefs are to be tolerated quite happily by everyone around you, and indeed celebrated as a virtue. I am not arguing in favour of hitting people over the heads with your atheism, I am arguing in favour of being allowed to let people know that you are an atheist.

All I am arguing in favour of is the freedom to not have to keep quiet about your beliefs, what you are arguing for can be translated quite simply as "Shut up and tow the line or else."

Scientists and philosophers are fine with each other - mostly. Philosophy is something of a scientific field, a blend between the social sciences in fact.

Its when scientists and theologians clash that you start to see real fireworks.

1984, the root to all freedom. This isn't just about religion or the lack thereof, this is about the right to be honest.

...dark matter?

Its matter that happens to be black (As in pigment.) Take out a piece of charcoal, and there you have dark matter.

Otherwise, I agree that we don't know everything yet and we probably never will, but that doesn't mean that we should simply accept any old theory without proof. Its why there are so few scientific laws, as opposed to theories.

No, I am not. I am pointing out that what you are calling for is, to put it bluntly, lying in the name of political expediency.

Your prior post actually went out and said it in almost as many words, that we should put aside the concept of being honest about what we are because there are more important things then the truth.

I disagree with that idea because frankly, it disgusts me. If we are to fix the problems of today we need to be able to be honest, to go out and proclaim loudly, without fear that we are atheists, believers or whatever - because there are some things which are more valuable then our own lives.

I am arguing that we atheists should not be prejudiced against for our beliefs and you are arguing that I should just shut the hell up because it upsets your comfortable view of the universe. You are arguing for oppression I am arguing for freedom.

Hence why I quoted 1984, because though I am an environmentalist, because though I am strongly in favour of fighting for all of the other freedoms a decent society offers that Bush has stripped away, the one I hold most dear, the one I will die for most readily, that ideal is the ideal of the right to tell the truth - because all of the others lead from that right.