I don't believe in 'them', there's no evidence, but as he Drake equation shows us 'they' more likely than not to exist we must accept the probability. I find no reason to think that any alien has visited Earth as yet, and therefore it seems likely to me, that all who have claimed alien abduction or visitation are merely part of the same human "I'd like there to be something more than us" phenomena of which god, magic and fairies etc are also symptoms.
I agreed we should accept and welcome them but, as the post suggests, with all our primitive ways, will they accept us?
I know I wouldn't.

I don't disagree that we all have different reactions, we are all individuals, however, we have many more common reactions; we 'all' have the same basic experience of life: Birth, growth, death, love, heartache, happiness, breathing and a million other commonalities of life.
What differs is education.
That is, all education, not just academic, the education in folk tales by a granny, the way uncle X 'sees the world', legends etc. All of our 'cherished beliefs' are based solely in 'local' culture and history, our 'roots'. If, for whatever reason, a student receives a poor academic education, it doesn't recieve the consensus of correct facts, collated from all the great minds and discoveries, and those 'cherished beliefs' have a massive effect on shaping the student's opinions.
I feel it's at the very least a disservice to any student, and by consequence society, to deliver 'answers' in terms of 'unmeasurable truths' when there are solid true facts available. In fact, I feel it's more than a disservice, it should be seen as a criminal mis-education of the student and a crime against humanity.

It is irrelevant whether I or you can distinguish a difference or not, the lies are being perpetrated upon and embedded into those under 5.
Could you have distinguished a difference at that age?

You use unprovable, I said unmeasurable. The existence of god(magic being) is, as I said, the epitome of unmeasurable. While disproving the existence of father christmas seems more possible, it is not, as the "he's magic" card can also be played for santa. The fact that santa is clearly a social lie which we employ for amusement makes it seem like we can all 'know' santa is obviously a lie but how is the unmeasurable truth of a magic man who lives in a magic land we cannot detect any different whether you call it santa or god?
To a five-year old 'truth' is what adults tell you.

Thanks for the comment and delighted you are going to read through, you'll be only the second to do so as far as I know.
As a great man once said "We can have our own opinions but we cannot have our own facts" and I can only agree but I'd go a step further, "when we find our opinion conflicts with a fact, we should instantly concede to the fact."

I find I can have no respect for those who promote spiritual fascism. Faith in a god of creation is no different to fawning over any other authoritarian despot and so often the followers are so desperate to please this fallacious leader they become the enforcers of arbitrary and cruel rules. For me those who choose to deny the facts of reality because they conflict with their favourite myth and thereby indirectly support the cruelties of their doctrine are unworthy of my respect. There's more here No Respect For Spiritual Terrorists

It's good that you try to be 'careful about how you say things', that you afford them some free will is laudable, so kudos for that I wonder though why you think religious topics are subject to special privilege.
It's not a matter of choice to accept gravity, it's just the way things are.
It's now also not a matter of choice to accept evolution and, as Soul Shaped Gap explores, the component via which the religious expect eternal life is not evident or required for human life; there is no evidence of soul whatsoever.
I wonder, when you are allowing them to draw their own conclusions, if you furnish them with these facts. And, whether you phrase it 'some people believe...'?

There is no evidence whatever of the god mentioned by your book's author or of any other god.
There is no evidence whatever of any form of afterlife.
There is no evidence whatever of a human 'soul'.
These are all just pretend; fantasies in an ancient novel trilogy.
People die every day from punishments derived from ways laid down in these books.
One of these books you say you are proud to follow.
Merely pretending you have a soul, there's a god, or an after-life validates...
Every punishment carried out under your religion's flag
Every 'honour' killing
Every acid attack on a woman
Every persecution of a homosexual
Every forced marriage
Every woman repressed
Every subjugation.
While you and yours(J/C/M) hang on to this ancient nursery rhyme, just so you can pretend death is not the end, all that blood and pain is on all of your hands.

I clearly don't understand religious morality: If I belonged to a club and I found out people were dying/suffering because of the actions of a faction of a club to which I belonged, I'd instantly, noisily and publicly leave that club by way of protest!
I wonder why you and yours don't form a new club: "Islam2.0 ~ For the good guys"?
Or perhaps that's what the Baha'i is about?

Apart from the standard refusal to give up pretending there's a paradise, which is a failing of all the religious, I have no problem with you, or any human. However, whilst tyrannical doctrine remains I will continue to have a problem with all it's despotic forms, regardless of author.
My fight is against the persecution of any human, under any circumstance, but especially when the authority is so clearly false.

There are some, atheists helping the homeless immediately springs to mind. Also, there's a link on the right somewhere to 'Non-believers giving aid'.
I realise it matters not the reason for giving but that you say that religious give more, I always think you can never trust their motive; makes me wonder are they just trying to rack up 'gold stars', or offset some bad thing they did in their past in readiness for their judgment.
One can only be sure it's true altruism from the godless; they're not looking for an afterlife prize.

I often wonder how much poverty there would be if none of the churches had been built but instead the faithful had put their money to good use.

Thanks, I try.
It's only a shame they don't know themsleves as well.

The small sketch is, obviously, a fictitious caricature of the likely approach a priest would/do take in teaching kids to use a condom.
In the priest's mind because of the dogma to which they are enslaved, wearing a condom for a catholic is a direct offence against their supreme superhero; a dogma the priest believes in so strongly he has spent his whole in service of its principles and which in turn has fuelled the priest's fervent faith. They actually believe there is a hell and they actually believe wearing a condom will send you there.
In the priests mind, if they deliver the condom wearing lesson in the style of the sketch they are doing the kid a favour because they think that will keep the kids safe from the 'lake of fire' which in their mind is a much a greater danger. (Death from a disease on earth doesn't exclude a believer from an eternity heaven, wearing a condom means repeated eternal tortures in hell). And they may even be concerned for their own immortality; if one teaches someone a way to break god's law is one not just as guilty of the sin?
It seems clear to me that any priest is going to find it very difficult, if not impossible, to put his lifetime of faith in the principles of his church completely out of his mind while he teaches this life saving lesson.
I wonder why it does not seem clear to you.