Being, at my most spiritual moments, Agnostic, I believe, if there be a God, He’d be unknowable by us humans. We’re some small race in this small, tucked-away corner of the Universe, and we seem to think we’re actually important. That’s what gets me. Without us, the universe would be indifferent, all our Holy Babble would be a mere letter in the book of the universe. Our existence as a sentence.
A God, who has created this universe, wouldn’t be so low as to want OUR worship. He wouldn’t be as low as to expect us to be more than animals. We’ll just be animals who have acquired a few civilized qualities; and even more if we throw all this hatred called “Religion” out.

Most “modern” (within the last 10,000 years or so) religions were created due to the fascination of the universe, the innumerable stars in the sky, the giant ball of flame in the sky we call the Sun at day, with a giant, cool moon and many distant balls of flame in the sky at night. We humans were so fascinated that we assumed that the Sun was our God. That’s how the Egyptian religions started, and the Egyptian religions are where Judaism, Islam, and Christianity started.

To take a quote from Carl Sagan on the Universe: “For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”
That’s how modern religion started, through the love of the universe. Although, the impurity of man (especially the bronze age they were in) made religion into the rotting piece of dying flesh that still lives on today, through hatred and intolerance of others.

On my “logic” days, where I look at evidence, I see that a “God” isn’t required, the evidence clearly shows how everything may have come to be; I am an Agnostic Atheist, I believe there is no God, but evidence would change that. On my philosophical days, I am Agnostic, I believe that it can’t be known whether a God exists or not, but evidence, still, would sway me. Either way, I’m Agnostic.

I’ll end this comment with some of my favorite quotes.

“My view is that if there is no evidence for it, then forget about it. An agnostic is somebody who doesn’t believe in something until there is evidence for it, so I’m agnostic.” - Carl Sagan

“We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.” - Gene Roddenberry

“If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.” - Isaac Asimov

“The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.” - Delos B. McKown

“Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.” - Carl Sagan

I think that the article is more about how to deal with it when Christians try to force their beliefs upon those who walk other paths and still be polite and reasonable. And many Christians do ram their beliefs down peoples’ throats. Often, and often not so nicely. I looked at this more as an “in case of” then as a general guideline to deal with anyone who wears a cross.

Lest I generalize, I can say that I’ve met many Christians who don’t do this, who are lovely people and are true, shining examples of the path that Jesus walked. I would never start an argument with either type of Christian, the former or the latter, but I can tell you that the dialog I tend to enjoy and learn more from are the ones that are based on a mutual, open respect.

And congratulations on actually securing a domain name with both of your names. :) Here’s a funny story for you: when my wife Jenn and I (Matthew) tried to do that same, we first tried http://www.jennandmatt.com, but found out it was taken. Then we tried mattandjenn.com — and it was the exact same site. So we now had mortal enemies in the URL universe. Good thing we were able to get the one best for us — mattifer.net.

Been a while getting back on my feet, so I had to come here to get back into the old haunt.

Congrats on the upcoming event… Obviously can’t make the wedding, but I can at least hit the gift registry to make an in absentia showing. :-)

Best of luck to you both. And let us hope you will be getting back to posting someday…