Public opinion; who the best philosophers are on this forum?

[Nicene]

Who are the best Atheists, Agnostic and religious people in presenting their cases. If you are willing, I would like one chosen for each catigory, Religious/person of faith, Atheist and Agnostic. If you don't mind, please follow the simple guidelines:

1) Do not vouch for yourself.

2) If you are religious/person of faith, choose an atheist or agnostic but do not elect another religious/person of faith.

3) If you are an atheist or are agnostic, a religious/person of faith but do not elect another atheist or agnostic.

As much as we all love giving our opinion and winning debates, I am also hear to sincerely learn. I am asking this because I want to know who the best are and give there posts greater attention. I gave the guidelines the way I did because this is the best way to be certain of objectivity. So the theory goes, if a christian vouches for an atheist, this should be more dependable then a christian vouching for another christian. Please give an explanation, brief or lengthy and detailed of why you feel this person is the best. If you can't decide, feel free to list more then one.

DISCLAIMER: The label of religious/person of faith was used to be as general and broad as possible to avoid the issue of people trying to debate me on linquistics. If any label doesn't fit you for whatever reasons please over look the objection and please respond according to what you believe I would most likely think of you as. In other words, I am looking for information. I DON'T WANT TO DEBATE CATIGORIES, LABELS AND LINQUISTICS!!!!!

Thankyou for any cooperation.

[Nicene]

Blast you, people, don't just view this, respond to it.

[ST88]

If you are indeed here to learn, then your first lesson should be to come to your own conclusions. There is a lot of material here to pore over to see who you agree with/disagree with/admire/laugh at, etc. If you rely on others to make these decisions for you then you're not really learning, you're just recording.

I admire the initiative to understand the dynamics of this forum, but what you're asking is beyond the scope of what is expected of the members here. If nothing else, this forum is about ideas, and not the people behind those ideas. Not everything that a "best" Atheist says will be worth recording or even make sense sometimes. Anyone can say something remarkable at any time. That's the beauty of the Internet. You don't have to know who the people are, you only need to respond to their ideas, which can come out of some strange places, were you to know their source. If you only pay attention to certain individuals, you are missing out on some really interesting, thought-provoking material.

(There are certain designations that certain members hold because of an annual award: Best Debater, Most Civil Debater, etc., but that's probably not what you're looking for.)

[harvey1]

2) If you are religious/person of faith, choose an atheist or agnostic but do not elect another religious/person of faith.

Oh Shesh, where do you start? There's some fine minds on this site. QED, NGR, ST88, McCulloch, Bugmaster, Tim the Skeptic are always good non-theist posts to read. For a theist view with (often) considerable differences than my own, I recommend Curious. If you go through the archives, we used to have a very good mind in Spetey. He dropped out though, but I highly recommend reading everything he wrote here.

[Excel]

I nominate Harvey1. Although I don't agree with quite a few of his points, I think he does an excellect job of presenting them.

[Nirvana-Eld]

The debates that Harvey1 and QED have are infinitely interesting. I also find McCulloch has some very unique perspectives from time to time. But just about everyone has something good to contribute in probably the most civil subforum thats offered here *philosophy*.