i believe in someone higher but i also believe that work must be done alone to get recognition.

Nope.
God cannot reward a believer simply for the sake of believing. God cannot blame a skeptic simply for attempting to seek the truth logically. Even if God factually exists, It would not be able to pass judgment unless Its existence is scientifically grounded, which is not the case.

I have no problem with people believing what they will. But i think the second you deny a gods existance, just because it cant yet be scientifically proven, is denying the possibility of anything that you dont currently think exists, exists. How can science progress if it stays inside the box?its people who think what people of the time thought was impossible, that bring progress. Denying somethings existance because you cannot currently prove it, is denying progress. Believe it or not, science and religion have to coexist, and its possible to look at it in ways in which they can both be true, and make perfect sense.

You misunderstood. I never denied God’s existence even if I said I do not BELIEVE in God. A believe by itself means nothing; anyone can believe literally anything. I decided not to believe in God as much as you committed to believe in God; it does not mean I refute God or that you have proven God exists. Have I said God has been scientifically negated, I would have denied God’s existence. Get it?

As an atheist myself, I have never in my life experienced any religion except for Christians giving me crap about my lack of faith. I have had people that became born-again, that were my friends, and then didn't want to be anymore. I have had Christian politicians try to legislate their faith, and they continue to do so now. It is Christians who changed the Pledge of Allegiance in the United States to reinforce their faith over schoolchildren- kids too young to know or make their own decisions about faith. It is Christians in the South who use religion to oppress and keep oppressed their population.

Not Jews, not Muslims, not Sikhs, not Buddhists, and not Hindus. And I have friends from all of these faiths. They are not nearly so annoying, so oppressive, and so hypocritical as Christians.

The Christian faith is "join or burn forever." They always go on about their loving god, but apparently he is very petty because if I don't kiss his butt every Sunday I apparently deserve eternal damnation or something. That doesn't sound like a god, it sounds like a demon, a demon that would need to be slayed if we even went to an afterlife.

I won't be ruled by fear. I won't tolerate legislation based on fear and ignorance. I am more than happy to tolerate any faith; by all means, worship whomever and whatever you want. But if you wouldn't appreciate the Muslim, or the Buddhists, or whomever forcing their faith on you, how do you think atheists feel?

I suppose this all sounds rather irritated, and it is especially in election season. Bottom line, if we could all just let each other live by the Golden rule, and not force all of the faith issues on each other, I wouldn't say a word about your flying spaghetti monster.

My friend, the golden rule has major loopholes. -_-

Very good. There is an important language distinction between denying a god and lacking a belief in a god. For one, you can't prove a negative. Those remain theories. However, all it takes is one affirmative hypothesis that can be reproducibly verified to prove something.

Do tell.

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
In theory, you could justify an immoral act. If all it takes is to accept the same magnitude of immorality back, one could commit an immoral act and justify it base on the golden rule. However, no immorality is justifiable.

I consider myself spiritual, not religious. I've been an agnostic Taoist (Spiritual Taoist, i.e. no religious component) for the last 20 years, but was raised Catholic. I acknowledge that there may be powerful beings out there that humans might consider gods, and I don't know enough to concede that any particular religion has it "right." The only thing I have faith in, is that I must leave this world at least a little better off than it was when I entered it. It's a vague life goal, but that's perfectly fine with me. The criteria aren't set in stone, and I won't know if I truly accomplished it until I'm about to die. I can live with this.

Religious texts were written by humans, and things may have been distorted, lost in translation, or simply omitted. Beliefs change over time, along with society. Women aren't considered property anymore, and marriage is no longer a contract between a husband and the wife's father, with livestock and/or land to seal the deal. Yes, the woman was effectively sold to the man, and she became his property. (That was considered "traditional marriage", too - for those who like to bandy about that term to discriminate now.)

One could also say that I'm standing up for what I don't believe in.

I've never believed that one needs to worship a particular deity in order to be a good person. Conversely, I strongly believe that worship of a deity does not inherently make a person good (or even a better person, for that matter.) What matters most are our actions, and the content of our character. In the code I live by, societal laws aside, the only consciences we have to answer to are our own, and we also must be fully responsible for our own actions. It's not an easy code to live by, however. One can't blame a god, much less other people, for actions that were fully under their own control.

There is enough pain and sadness in this world caused by things we can't fully control - diseases, acts of nature, death itself - and people still insist on causing more pain for others. At times, religion is used as a tool (or more to the point, a scapegoat) to that end. Whether it's used to exclude others from society, deny people rights, or "justify" murder, people would still be more than willing to commit these acts even without a religious motivation. Having a religious justification just makes them feel better about the pain they seek to cause.

Life is harsh enough as it is, and there are plenty of people (religious or not) seeking to alleviate some of that pain in the world around them...there just aren't enough of them. Hell, I'm not expecting all sunshine and rainbows, here. I'm not expecting a world without conflict, because it's not going to happen in my lifetime, if ever. But some people might actually get a bit more fulfillment in their lives if we could open our minds a little bit more, and not try to tear each other down so much.

Tl;dr: It's not about how you worship, or who; it's all about how you live.

I was raised a Catholic, but around the age of 16 I went my own path. I believe in the Godz of space!! Their out there, and when they come to our planet we will be punished by what we have done to the planet. Until then, I live my life through my own morals and values and try to live life as best as I can. I may not believe in religion, but I tolerate and respect all of them. Just don't try to push you're beliefs on me..

It doesn't say
"Do unto others as has been done unto you."

There is no such thing as good and evil. All our notions of good and evil are just opinions. One person's evil can be considered good or neutral. Anything can be justified as long as you want it to be.

If religious tolerance was possible, there wouldn't be hate. But hate comes as naturally as breathing it seems. It's a rash that never goes away.

God is our Creator, and deserves our utmost respect. That is why we go to Church every Sunday or even more. We do it out of respect, but also out of love. Is it really so hard to give one hour of our time a week to the God Who loves us so? Jesus died for us, one hour given seems like something small in comparison to what He gave.