Atheism is foolish

Your first paragraph is basically just a re-clarification, and so therefore there isn't much to cover. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Your second paragraph basically talks about how my argument is contradictory. However, maybe you just misunderstand. It is in no way contradictory, because logically no one wants to make a leap of faith to something that may or may not be there. Your second point in the paragraph is that however unlikely a religion is in being right, one still has to try. Now let me remind you that there are thousands or religions, not all of them still practiced. There is a strong likelihood that the religion one chooses is wrong. This leads to the question of: "Is it more likely to be punished for worshipping the wrong God, or simply wanting to avoid being wrong (which isn't neccesarily being absent of faith, just absent of decisiveness). The logical conclusion would be that one would be punished more in a religious after-life for practicing the wrong religion then not practicing a religion at all. An example could be... for instance, a kingdom. One would get in more trouble for following a different king (treason) than for not not following kings in general. Granted both are liable to punishment, but the point is that false worship is more punishable. Now, you may say that the chance of being right outweighs the chance of punishment. However, logically, one would not want to risk eternal hell against a 1 in 1,000,000 odds of being right. You third paragraph talks about how abstainment from religion isn't a guarentee of safety. Thats true, in fact I agree. But the point isn't that athiesm is a get out of jail free card, if you will, but rather that an athiest is less likely to be targeted than a conflicting religion. Goes back to the king metaphor. Also, you argue that historically it hasn't been true. However, thats completely ridiculous. Name one war waged upon athiests? Can't think of any! Maybe if you dig into the history books you'll find some, but the fact is there are more wars fought against religion than wars fought against athiests. You give an example of godless heathans being converted, but thats wrong for two reasons. First off, many of these "godless heathans" actually did practice religions. The only thing was that they were polythiestic or referred to God as something unusual. This is just another reason that Athiesm is logical. My other response is that even if a heathan was godless, and then forced to conform, that hasn't happened for... 400 years? 500 years? 600 years? A long time, rest assured. Whereas, religious wars are still being held today. The last thing to cover is "religion calls for believers, whether they disagree or have no opinion. Where religion is concerned, abstainment is definately not the road to no conflict." Indeed, thats true, but again is a misinterpretation of what I said. I never said that athiesm is a guarentee of safety, rather it is more effective than a conflicting religion. This is because athiesm has no texts or leaders that shout for wars on other religions. Whereas, Religion A and Religion B both beleive they are right, and both of the texts and leaders call for war on other religions. Voilï¿½, war! Now this could happen to Athiesm too, but the fact is... it is much more likely for a organized religion (such as Religion A or B) to fight, than a un-organized, non-religious group (Athiests). So, using a pragmatic framework or paradigm, athiesm IS a valid choice for religion because of the enormous harms being religious opens you up to, and the very, exetremly low chance of it rewarding you. Logically, you go for the thing that has the most chance of rewarding you. There is a strong chance that your religion offends someone violently, compared to the low chance of your religion being right. As to you using what I said on how athiests are despised, thats actually kind of funny. First off, you didn't use all of what I said, and secondly... athiests may be despised, but that hatred is nothing compared to the hatred between warring religions. Who hates the Islamic people the most in America? Definantly not the Athiests, probably the Christians. Did the Holy Crusades target Athiests? Nope, it was other religions. Athiesm is, logically, the smartest choice. My argument is basically that even if Athiesm isn't logical, actual organized religion is even less so.