[AngryFemme]

I can't speak for everyone, but I can explain why I've enjoyed this forum for many years, though I'm not religious:

It's the belief in belief that's fascinating, to me. It's learning about how others use the God concept in their life to help them through dark days and bad times, and learning through the trials and tribulations of others how to make my own personal struggles more positive, even though I don't rely on God to see me through.

It's interesting to hear how other people interpret their religion. It's interesting to learn how they came to know God, and it's very valuable to me to have a group of (anonymous) peers offer their opinions on what God is (or isn't).

I've seen the God concept presented in so many different ways on here. It helps reaffirm my own stance, and helps reinforce some core beliefs I hold onto, some that tend to slip away from me from time to time. Beyond all the arguments, name-calling, finger-pointing and ridicule that goes on here, there's something to be said for a group of atheists and a group of theists developing a rapport with one another that might be absent out in The Real. Something about the online disinhibition experience - it brings out a very raw and no-holds-barred discourse that allows each participant a stand behind the proverbial podium and an audience that might otherwise not listen if they were approached any other way.

I always wonder at the end of the day (or at the end of a post) how something I or someone else might have said may have influenced another individual. While most of us claim NOT to be pushing agendas, it's evident in our banter that we're ALL perspective-pushers in our own rite.