Dennis..you sound like a very reasonable man. The problem most of us have with the Christian religion is the enormous amount of magic one must believe in to be a Christian and the related intolerance directed at those don’t believe in all that magic.(We are supposed to be the very last on the guest list)
Allow me to provide a partial list of magic.
1. Writer who watched Jesus birth somehow.
2. Angels talking to Mary somehow.
3. Writers knowing what the angels said somehow.
4. Belief that the New Testament isn’t humanly flawed somehow.
5. Belief that prayer works (ask mother Theresa how that went for her) somehow.
6. Raising the dead somehow.
7. Resurrection somehow.
Along with those elements, are the to often selectively quoted rules of the old testament as if Jesus weren’t a Jew who moved on but was still a Jew. Which we admit he was to the end..and that we believe that if he existed…he never intended to start a new religion.
8. Then you have the odd ball beliefs of the Mormons and Jehovah’s witnesses and right winged wackies who heap more magic on the pile.(God hit New Orleans for allowing prostitution)

Most of us here don’t see proof of a god. How can we rant that there isn’t one when we can’t prove it? But the scientific evidence and scientific reasoning points to once dead always dead. And the idea that some god came into existence or always was in existence doesn’t gel with what we know about the universe and time and evolution and how things happen. And yes we all believe in the freedom to believe and not believe…just don’t shove it down the throats of anyone by yelling “majority rules!”

That’s doesn’t sound like you…but believe me what this country suffers from is a lack of critical thinking skills and Christianity doesn’t promote those skills at all. Many of the the Christians that do show up here believe that the majority rules…and that the majority thoughts are more valid..which is plain silliness.But if you believe in magic..that kind of thinking prevails. Thankfully you’re not among them….

Oh now that is just too priceless!  The priest (was it?) was concerned about the NY Times putting the RCC in a bad light as if they hadn’t done it themselves.  That’s like saying that the New York Times puts Dahmer or even Hitler in a bad light.  But somehow paedophilia shouldn’t be placed in bad lighting?  Somehow attempting to shield even one more child from such abuse is an attack against that atrocious institution?  Man how I wish I could have been there. 

He was actually surprised that an atheist sitting next to him (Dawkins?) was actually nice to him?  Hey daddy, it isn’t the atheist movement that is hiding paedophiles under robes of piety!!

Enforced atheism?  How do you enforce who other people pray to?  How do you know when and if they are doing it?  He is talking about the lack of religion - not enforced atheism.  He must not know the meaning of the word. 

And the lady…what a joke!  She failed to mention the historian Bart Ehrman who has laid out in perfect terms that can be cross referenced how the history of the xian religion came about.  The only thing we talk about is the Inquisition?  She needs me to head butt her so bad…

Xians are obviously (look in any newspaper or on YouTube) inarguably the most hateful people on the face of the earth.  Even the Muslims answer, however rarely, with a civil tone. 

These two are liars - full stop.  And what they know could fit on the head of a pin and leave room for a very big Catholic family.

Give me one day in a room with these two idiots.

Yes, SNED..my family disapeared from me altogether.  They simply don’t want to hear what I have to say.  It maks them feel stupid although they would never admit that.  Remember, I never even knew my dad was dead until days after he died.  They steer very clear of me.  I don’t know why…other than I think they’re afraid of the ‘anti-god” talk.  Probably because I know the Bible better than they do and have always been able to spin the arguments around.  Of course that was back when I was allowed in their lives and was just musing on my doubts.  Even then I was beginning to be reviled.  I was so naive….thinking they were indulging me with answers when my questions were really defeating them without me knowing it.

Heres a link to the EWTN show on atheism…guest Mary Eberhart from Hoover Institute. http://ewtn.edgeboss.net/download/ewtn/audiolibrary/snl_07112010.mp3 

What’s is hysterical again is after years of claiming to be the one true church and putting down gays, and women and kids whacking off…she thinks atheists are just to out there…too. Too beligerent. Here we are the folks least likely to be invited to dinner and we should be condemned for having strong opinions. It’s all worth a few letters to Ms Eberstat.

Annie…great story dealing with your cousin. What a way to slam the door in her face. Where did she go from there?...silence?

Yesterday my wife and I visited a local stables with out Subway sandwich…The Stables are owned by a true Christian who helps anybody and everybody he can.

The property however was all screwed up with a blocked road and tape fences all over the place cutting into the stables property. Seems the pastors of the local church that the stable owner attended purchased some property from him that included a building that they agreed he would buy back from them at a price they agreed to. But the stable owner didn’t get it all in writing so the pastors screwed him…offering it back for 4 times what they agreed on. They took over the land that had been part of the stable called the cops as they fenced off their land .and then reported the stable owner for running an illegal boarding house because he had taken in a homeless woman. (Who told us the whole story)

Meanwhile the pastors are riding new ATV’s all over, they own new cars, a huge home and are now vacationing in Maine all summer. The clergy screwing the parishoners….again.

In Watebury CT a beloved priest was recently found to have stolen $1,000,000 from the church so he cold live the high life with his boy friends….and if you haven’t read it…check out the lengthy NY Times report on Pope Benedict’s active role in NOT dealing with the abuse of children for 20 years as the Ratzinger of rats. And read Maureen Dowd’s and Frank Rich’s columns from this past Sunday.Both on the RCC in one way or the other.Good reads.

AHAHA What a blow-hard. My uncle used to brag like that - now they are all silence before me.  I know what that sounds and looks like, but it’s true.  They don’t know what to make of the atheist in the big religious cess pool.  However, my cousin once told me that it was because I have been hurt a lot in life (through email).  And I asked her: “who hasn’t?”  That trap was easily set because people love to talk about their problems.  Once she got going - batta bing! I asked the mother load of all questions: “And your god was watching you go through all of this?” She began to excuse him until I asked her if she would do the same for me if I had been the cause or the on-looker of her problems.  “No, but you’re not God”....“exactly, I would set mine to a higher sense of morality than what your’s has. Your god is only going to be as good as you allow him to be because he is really you”.  I am sure they all still gossip about me.

How is that old bat, Mother Angelica?  haha.  Yes, I too was a watcher of EWTN once.  Now I awaken every day to Kenneth Copeland and his son, daughter and other people he brainwashed into believing religion would make them rich…oh wait!  They have seen the fruits….they KNOW!!  The saga continues and no one cares what they’re doing to their children’s brains.

I hope the pope is held accountable by Dawkins and Hitchens…and the world!!  :D

I was watching EWTN the other night…as I am prone to do once and a while and the subject was atheism. Show was entitled something like Sunday Night Questions with an old Friar who sounded like he was dying and a female writer. I had to laugh when the friar claimed that the had a lot of atheist friends and when he got into discussions with them they (we) always ended up silenced by his wisdom. Hah! I’ll invite him to post here. Let’s see how fast he silences us.

The woman felt that there were no great women atheists (Forgetting the murdered Madeline Murray) and claimed that this was so because women can give birth and men don’t therefore women by their nature and experience are more religious. (But she fails to see that the men and women who run her favorite forgiveness venue cannot have sex or babies….without sinning. So how do you resolve that one? EWTN…always good for a laugh or a cry…whichever mood you’re in.

But of course it’s a lower case “g”.  We’re never quite sure whcih god it is…until then, it’s not a proper noun. :D

I rarely ever capitalise “god”.  There really are just too many.

Oh! Yes I know of the attitudes.  Once I said to somebody who said they could not trust an atheist..

I asked. “Outside of your own sect which of the others do you or do you not trust?”  I couldn’t get a really straight answer, just didn’t want to expose their total bigotry.

I then pointed out that in a defended court trial.  Except in the rare instances where there is a genuine mistake, or misunderstanding, either the Prosecuting Officials or the Defense deliberately lies under oath.  Not a very positive recommendation for Religious Belief.

The only difference between an atheist and a theist is the a. As with all religious faiths, those of us without the trammels of religion, are indistinguishable Same faults, and failings, with one exception.  Many believers are “Good” from fear of retribution, whilst atheists who are “Good” are so, as are some Believers, for purely altruistic reasons.

Tom…you’d be interested to know that in a recent poll of American’s the very last person that the average American would like to have dinner with is not a gay person or a convict, or a mass murderer (I think I’m exaggerating)...it was…....
..........
..........
an atheist.
And there you have an insight into the average American’s brain. It is small in every which way possible. But congratulations Australia.

Oh Tom!  That’s delectable (is that a word)?  I just find that to be the best news of the day.

We cannot match that in the states.  Too many zionist xians on the defence and worried about us growing group of atheists.

That’s what angered me…or annoyed me about that lady dancing around a simple question about the difference between faith and spirituality.  “Spiritual is real in the mind, and faith is the illusion”...that’s all she would have had to say.  But she watered it down like coward.  No respect from me.  Fuck that closet shit.  “I am an atheist, if you don’t like it, take it up with your god, who will undoubtedly do nothing…just like always”.  Of course, that would have been my answer.  Loud and proud.  I don’t have many friends, but I don’t care to have faithies as fiends, so it’s both tragic and good at the same time. :D Think I will move to Australia.

Oh! Nice to hear y’all again.  Brothers and Sisters rejoice, be one in heart with us down under.
Australia now has a WOMAN as its leader.  OH! So what, she isn’t the only one. Ah but she is living with her bloke of many years, and is not married.
So what? Iceland has a female “Gay” leader who is legally married to another woman.

Australia’s leader took the affirmation, and not an oath on a Holy Book. (Lets not be blindly Christian here.)  After the ceremony she was bluntly asked .. Do you believe in God?” Just as bluntly replied.“NO I’ve never felt the need for one. Next question.”
Mind you our esteemed leader is not the only one in her party who affirmed and didn’t swear an oath when elected to Parliament.
O K America.  Your call.  Match two out of three and I’ll believe you are about to enter enlightenment and the 21st century.

Annie…to her credit she has had Bart Ehrlman on and quite a few agnostics etc. Somde of the shows are interesting and you can kinda tell right away.

But she was charging for that piece I referenced. Hardly worth a senior nite out movie ticket.

Oh she was a real bore.  But I think her answer, or non-answer to that question sounded more like something a political pundit might say.  Answer the questions by dancing around them.

LOSER.  I have no desire to listent to people like her.  Not that I didn’t appreciate you bringing her to my attention.  On the contrary; it’s always good to know who’s worth listening to and who’s not so that I am not wasting precious minutes of my life.  She was a waste.

I misspoke. The question she hemmed and hawed on was “what was the difference between being religious and spiritual.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/6489283 about the 49th minute into a rather boring lecture in which she read the damn thing.

Annie: Yes it is galling….pathetic…sick…and everything in between. But you and I know their arguments…but I would like to see on the ceiling “Would Jesus build this?”
I would think not.

Or “What would Jesus do with this building”

By that way took out a 4 hours history of Xtainity produced by Frontline (or NG). It occured to me, as I watched it,  that if Jesus said..“My God why has thou forsaken me”...how can he be god too?

That’s sorta like yelling at myself for playing with myself.  Or like Steve Martin’s “IIIII FORGOOOOOT!”

Oh yes my wife and I listen to NPR’s Speaking Faith rather religiously (some humor there). Khrista Tippet (SP) the moderator has been touring and giving talks derived from her new book…Yesterday I found a video of one of her 45 minute books tour lectures…during which time she was asked what she believed….and she babbled and rambled and went on and on and on for five minutes or more without directly answering the question. You just knew that she was at best an agnostic or at worst an atheist…because there are too few of us to worry about if she’s a believer..(Although my gut tells me that more than half her listeners are educated liberal non believers.)It was one of the worst answers to a question I had ever seen.All she had to say was..“based on my position as moderator…I should not take sides based on my personal beliefs. Therefore I will keep them/it to myself.
I have to find the link…Here she invites questions then doesn’t answer the most likely question.

Isn’t that place galling? If it were just some historical building it would be awesome.  But the fact that it houses paedophiles whilst ignoring the poor is just galling.  I will be going back to Rome in October.  Maybe I will burn it to the grround this time ‘round.  Thanks for those awesome photos, SNED.  “Give all you have to the poor, take up your cross and follow me and you shall have a place in the kingdom of heaven” - J.C.  Indeed!!

Just kidding Rupert Murdoch.  Try not to ban me for a joke again!!

On a different note, have you seen the pages of “faith heads” talking about Christopher Hitchens esophogeal cancer?  OMG!  Talk about galling.  They’re already suspecting a death bed conversion.  First of all, I was thinking *reckon you could give him a minute to take his dose of chemo and recover, fucktards?*  Then I was thinking that only a fundie, faith head could think that cancer is God’s cure for a prideful heart.  The last thing I would believe as I headed through a string of chemo is “god is love afterall!” 

One person actually said “well this could be god’s way of bending the prideful knee”.  No one considered or made comment about the fact that he’s a raging alcholic and chain smoker.  No.  God just wants to bend Christopher Hitchen’s knee.  It’s so revealing of the hateful heart and mind of the fundie.  Since they are their own god - and we know that’s true - look at what they’re wishing for instead of his getting better.  Sometimes I think I am going crazy.

Forgive me for half this post…but this is worth a visit if you, like me have never been inside St Peters Basicila.Go to the link.
Go to #2 Put your cusor in the pic and move it up down sideways. http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_pietro/vr_tour/index-en.html

On the other hand there’s was long report on the failure of Pope Benedict to act on the abuse of kids…when he should have. And the man was a p——.As I recall he ruled the curia with an iron fist.(hmmmm) Wonder if anyone asked him if he was gay? I’m not homophobic, but have concluded that the RCC and the gays inside (and the straights) are the worst kind of cowards. Malachi Martin referred to the “Gay Faction” 20 years ago in one of his books. So it isn’t and wasn’t unknown. But to be one inside and the condemn those outside is beyond hideous.And according to Gary wills up to 60% of the priests and above are gay.How many bishops? How many cardinals? How many of the popes? Their anti gay stance is just as abusive to a kid who knows he’s gay as it is to physically abuse a kid. A point the press is apparently afraid to deal with or expose.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/world/europe/02pope.html?scp=1&sq=church office failed&st=cse
or just go to the NY Times and seaqrh “church office failed.

We seem to be missing one point. Europe and Mother Theresa.

There’s no question that you can’t talk an emotionally-linked-to-god Christian into much of anything. But if there is a god…S/he sure knows how to scare the Christ (literally) out of a vast number of people…including Mother T. That’s my theory anyway.You don’t suffer through two world wars within 50 years and not have some second thoughts about the lack of prayers answered coupled with the destruction and death surrounding you. Hence a secular Europe.

Nor could Mother T believe in God when too few of her prayers were answered and too many kids suffered and died in her care.

I was lucky enough to start doubting when as a little kid I tried to rescue some baby birds and I watched them die.One at a time. Americans have had it easy. Even our news today is easy. Reported on NPR yesterday. The average Iraqi get 2 hours of electricity in 100-130 degree heat. Do we see those images? Do we see the suffering WE CAUSED? No. We are lilly white pure of spirit defending democracy around the world…fighting wars in which far more of THEM die than us.
We are in trouble.

Some news…40% of American’s believe that Jesus will return in the next 40 years.(Pew research) Unfortunately It’s highly unlikely that I’ll be around to have a good laugh.

Our problem is the same one Nietzsche fore saw when “god died” which is the emotional void it would produce in the human animal.* Unfortunately Atheism seems too coldly logical, not enough of the yearnings of the heart within for most people to cuddle up to. Something I noticed long before I started reading Nietzsche and his fear of nihilism that would sweep the world should so many come to the realization that the concept of a god is dead. He just didn’t know about evolution or he would have realized he had nothing to fear.

This aspect of the human condition is in a separate part of the brain. If you don’t have it or it is dormant in you then you will more than likely stay an Atheist from birth. Move from what I call “natural” Atheism to an educated one. Now unless you have brain surgery or are bombarding those areas with energy you shall not have any religious expressions. Experiments have been done showing there are parts that when stimulated will produce visions etc. I don’t know which ones off hand, visual cortex is one, using a cranial stimulator to do it. I am packing to move so they are not within reach.

Suffice it to say that if those you wish to “enlighten” Jeremy Thomson won’t work unless they already have enough doubts to put them at the threshold to another mind set. Otherwise I would advise you not to evangelize to them to convert them. Just as you would want them to not evangelize you. It is the polite thing to do. However if they want to get into a debate then go for it!

*My mother was that way, told me that if there was no god she would have no reason to live. A nice summation I would say.

Yes, but when you believed in Santa Claus it made you happy, didn’t it?  If you continue now to believe just to maintain that sense of festive delight…that would be absurd.  I think that’s the point he was making.

Night-Gaunt

That piece by Hedges is the scariest thing I’ve ever read..because the shoe fits…the glove fits….it’s all around us and too many are falling for it. Look at the crap that’s been going on at the Air Force Academy…and with our own soldiers hawking the bible..and on and on.

National Geographic ran a piece on Herod in which they claimed that there was no evidence for thew slaughter of the innocents.Christians objected.

Now I read a piece about Christians leaving the holy land… and NG writes about Jesus as if he really existed… when there is not one shred of evidence that he did.

QUESTION? Does anyone know for a fact when the word Christian AND/or Jesus Christ was first used in an authenticated document written before 300 CE or the council of Nicea?

Once you accept that a given thing can do say 100X the magnitude of the usual then your imagination takes over from there and your intelligence is dedicated to making it work within those parameters. What fiction writers do all the time. Only in this case it is believed hook, line and sinker by first a few and then if it catches on, billions.

Oh I have to agree that the excuse is J C, and the Ghost.  It never did satisfy.  Apart from what has already been stated.  Jesus not having been born, and the Ghost is but God’s earthly manifestation on earth, plus those who believe that all three are but the one entity, which leaves ...Who the hell were the other Gods??  The mind boggles at the other ramifications such as a Ghost injecting semen into Mary to reproduce J C who is only a reproduction of the Ghost who is only God who is also J C so that leaves God reproducing himself in human form… Oh heck I’m even losing myself in the labyrinth.

AND ADULTS BELIEVE THIS TWADDLE?

THE SNED yes and yes you will find my comments to both articles.

One thing we do know our intelligence isn’t a prerequisite to survival. In fact as you pointed out it can be a hindrance if not a way to kill ourselves off.

Also see Chris Hedges on the “Rise of Christian Fascism” in the USA where I have said a few things there too.

Threes come up many times in various religions. The Hindus had two sets, one good, the other bad, so it is no surprise that even the monotheists can’t stay away from 3=1 version of math. It would only work if the three are subsets of the one. Also 3 quarks per configuration in sub atomic physics.

Annie interetsting point (I wouldn’t have known that)

Here’s the link

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_warning_from_noam_chomsky_on_the_threat_of_elites_20100607/

there’s also anopther by Chris Hedges titled Noam Chomsky Has ‘Never Seen Anything Like This’

I’ve heard about the “gods” being the unholy trinity, too.  But that’s such a lame argument since Jews wrote the old testament, and deny any Jesus.  They also wrote against him in a ferocious manner in the 1st century Talmud.   So, it’s lame and just more cherry picking.

Where is the article by Noam Chomsky?  I couldn’t find it in the digs.

correction..it’s Noam..he’s the title of the arucle

A Warning From Noam Chomsky on the Threat of
Elites

Night Gaunt…(Your June 3 post)Thanks for correcting the Illuminati link.

I have felt for a long time that our intelligence was a mutation that in not sustainable because of out inability to control power and greed.

By the way…Did you read the Norm Chomsky piece posted on Truthdig about his warnings about the Elite?

Tom…when you point out the multiple gods business in Genesis to a Xtain…they claim that “that means Jesus, the holy ghost and god him/herself. Which gets back to that trinity thingy which, to this day, no one can quite explain… but it sure sounds good,

Bobby Eaton.. Can’t disagree with anything but one snippet.  The Bible doesn’t mention that Adam and Eve would be as wise as GOD.. It was multiple…...GODS.
Yup there was more than one of me. Either that or s/he was mumbling to her/himself.

The problem is that it is still believed so they are so pious with it in most cases. Not the kind of gusto of “Clash Of the Titans” (both versions)or the new Mummy series. Can you imagine a big budgeted film treating these religions as if they are myth!

Maybe in 200 years and maybe it will just alter as it has done over 2,000 years to fit the locality, language, local mores etc and be something we might vaguely identify should we zip in a time machine to see what it would develop into in a more harsher world of the Green House Effect in greater bloom.

Wow!  I loved watching you lay that all out.  And for a quick moment I thought…“god what a great story!”  But the problem is people don’t see it for the great mythology it COULD be if they just realised it already was.

I love the Greek mythologies of Zeus, Poseidon…Percius even better!  The way he traveled to slay Medusa meeting the sisters who shared one eye and one tooth….  The trick he used to look at Medusa via a mirror and take her wicked head.  These are all good stories!  The Bible would have all the makings of a good piece of mythological literature if only people saw it for th myth that it is. Too bad in a way.  The Bible is one of the greatest mythologies I have ever read..besides my personal fave..Percius. 

The problem is not the story for me.  The problem is that people have made the story true for themselves.  That is the danger.  The crazy sheeple…

Night Guant…You are absolutely correct. I just wrote a friend telling him that 20 years ago I had envisioned the right wing growing stronger and more self contained…but I never thought that we’d be living in a middle ages mentality where the object of life is to blow up everybody who disagrees with ones philosophy…or jail them..or prevent them from services…etc etc.

Oh yes while we still have time for a laugh he’s an article about a bunch of hookers and lovers who petitioned the pope to let the priests get married.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/27/italian-priests-mistresses-letter-pope

And then there’s the Pope setting up an investigation of the Irish problem about 6 months after a government released study of Catholic clergy and nun child abuse detailed in a 2000 page document..as if this right winged conservative leader of the Curia had no idea what was going on. He probably thought the government of Ireland would suppress the study down to a few gripes. To the benefit of Irish children…they didn’t.
(I think I’ll send this to the Irish Times)

http://www.illuminati-news.com/2007/0804b.htm  this should have activated as a link per this site. Maybe now it is.

Here is a quote you probably never have seen that seems to fit these times, I hesitate to identify him as you will see.

“The intellect has grown autocratic & become a disease of life. We are at the outset of a tremendous revolution in moral ideas & Man’s spiritual orientation. A new age of the magic interpretation of the world is coming, and interpretation in terms of the will of the elite and not of intelligence.”

Does anyone else see this as just as relevant now as it was in the 1930’s? More so in fact! Are you ready to find out the prophet behind those words? The far mystic thinker of a new age? Ready or not it was that failed painter, WWI veteran and messianic dictator of Germany for 12 years—Adolf Hitler! That was no Atheist talking was it? A scary thought because I see similar trends here as well as all over the world just like in the 1920-1930’s only with far more people of that kind of mind set and ready for Jihad and Crusade to remake it in their image. Fundamentalist authoritarianism grows as the world becomes harsher to live in too. Heads up!

Great, but sad, story Tom.

How do we deal with these crazy adventures in lost logic?
Your story needs a headline.

“Atheists help rescue believers in major brush fire and suffer few losses while a desperate God takes young Christian mother plus furniture, appliances and utensils he obviously needed…for what we’re not sure..”

I’ll see if I can find the movie for sale somewhere. Some how we’ll get you a copy.

I had one “Friend” remark that this site seems to have disappeared…. Gratefully the hiatus has finished.

The movie you mentioned does not seem to have appeared here “Down Under.” Do you know if it is possible that it is on the “Hire” circuit. Hiring D V D’s is not a
something I do but would for this one.

Just a few short years ago we experienced a pretty bad bush fire, the young mother of four children next door to me perished in the flames. (next door is 800 metres away).. The family of two very elderly people at the end of our roadway (4 kilometres) I add there are only six residences on the 6 kilometre road, lost all their possessions and home.  In a T V interview I heard them saying.  “We give thanks to the Lord for saving us.”  They are Ukrainian Orthodox
whilst the deceased young mother was a Methodist.  The young husband, fortunately, was just out of hearing range at the time. Now my immediate neighbour across the road, and the next door neighbour on the other side,  plus another couple in close proximity who just happen to be unbelievers, and GAY, all managed to save their properties, well actually this atheist and his son participated in the fire fighting efforts there.  Strange that all the atheists fared better than the two families of believers .  Furthermore the Ukrainians were actually saved by a couple of “Bush” workers who had their hair and beards singed when rescuing the elderly couple from the burning home. 
Well stretch the imagination, and I guess they were a couple of Gods.  Or maybe God just sent them but forgot the younger lady, understandable in the chaos of the event.  Oh!, those rescuers, they weren’t church goers either.  God sure does move in mysterious ways.

Or god always wins.

Just re-read something that I might have or might not have recommended but assuming I didn’t…. this is an extraordinary piece of research…“The Forged Origins of the New Testament” by Tony Bushby available (I hope) on illuminati-news.com/2007/0804b.htm If not I’ll scan it and send it to you. It confirms what I knew or guessed…and answered a question concerning the writings of Paul…that didn’t make sense…but make sense now. But what’s most interesting is that The RCC church is the source for much of his claims!

SNED, I think on that note you will enjoy what this lady said.  I lvoed this so much I put it on my facebook page.

People seem to know that God is good, that God cares about every-
thing and is paying close attention to everything, and that God is respons-
ible whenever anything good happens to them or whenever anything
bad almost happens to them but doesn’t. Yet they apparently don’t know
that God is responsible whenever anything bad happens to them, or
whenever anything good almost happens to them but doesn’t. People
who survive hurricanes or earthquakes or explosions say God saved
them, but they don’t say God killed or mangled all the victims. [unless they’re Pat Robertson!—drs]
Olympic athletes say God is good when they win a gold, but they don’t
say God is bad when they come in fourth or twentieth, much less when
other people do.
That’s the advantage of goddy epistemology, of course: it’s so
extraordinarily ?exible, so convenient, so personalized. The knowledge
is so neatly molded to ?t individual wishes. God is good when I win
and blameless when I lose, good when I survive the tsunami and out
of the equation when other people are swept away and drowned.
This is all very understandable from the point of view of personal
fantasy – there’s not much point in having an imaginary friend who
is boring and disobliging and always picking ?ghts – but peculiar when
considered as a kind of knowledge, which is generally how believers
treat it. ...
[W]hat business would God have hiding? What’s that about?
What kind of silly game is that? God is all-powerful and benevolent
but at the same time it’s hiding? Please. We wouldn’t give that the time
of day in any other context. Nobody would buy the idea of ideal,
loving, concerned, involved parents who permanently hide from their
children, so why buy it of a loving God?
The obvious answer of course is that believers have to buy it for the
inescapable reason that their God is hidden. The fact is that God doesn’t
make personal appearances, or even send authenticated messages, so
believers have to say something to explain that obtrusive fact. The mys-
terian peekaboo God is simply the easiest answer to questions like “Why
is God never around?”
The answer however has the same ?aw that all claims about God have:
nobody knows that. Nobody knows God is hiding. Everyone knows
God is not there to be found the way a living person is, but nobody
knows that that’s because God is a living person who is hiding.
Nobody knows that, and it’s not the most obvious explanation of
God’s non-appearance. The most obvious, simple, economical explana-
tion of God’s non-appearance is that there is no God to do the appear-
ing. The “God is hiding” explanation has currency only because
people want to believe that there is a God, in spite of the persistent
failure to turn up, so they pretend to know that hiding is what God is
up to. The wish is father to the thought, which is then transformed into
“knowledge.”    —Ophelia Benson

ANNIE…

I’m surprised it got any play or any positive reviews. It’s so damn good and so funny!

Years ago, I started to write a piece about the perfection of heaven as xtians believe but this does such a better job of it and in a m ore subtle way…It just goes to show how ignorant people are ..even about themselves….and that includes me.

In death we get exactly what we perceive heaven to be…but with one added benefit. We don’t have to live through it. If we were forced to live lives of heavenly perfection right now..where we’d never run out of Cheerios, and every golfer would make par (not more or less) ..every day..and as a result we’d all be jumping off cliffs. Xtians can’t image what god has in store for us…I can..it’s called oil spills bangladesh, and Dick Cheney.

And I have relatives who wait for god to give them guidance.
When informed that my widfe and I were not mopving to another country, my mother in law said “My prayers have been answered.” How odd I thought..she’s lost two of her own children,(thaty she prayed for) two of her grandchildren (that she prayed for) yet she would like to believe that god cares about where we move. At what point did the brain turn off?!

SNED, I saw it when it first came out.  Do you believe it didn’t do very well at the BO?  But of course it didn’t.

I felt the same way you did about it.  Gervais made a marvelous and innovative movie, and very few liked it because of it’s “atheistic view”. 

People.

It has been a long time….however I saw a movie last night that is a must see. “The Invention of Lying “(2009)

In my view it is the most brilliant piece of anti religious comedy I have seen to date. (And since there’s not much call for it…we don’t get to see very much of it.)

But this takes the concept of a heaven with all it’s honesty and silly perfection and just destroys it…in a rather unique way. Don’t read a review. Watch it and discuss it here. (And it’s not about heaven..it’s about us…real people and how we really think..and don’t think…which makes it so brilliant.

Yea, especially the Koala bear that is not in anyway indigenous to the arid temps fo the desert.  OR the penguin for that matter…:D

It’s a stupid story.  I have the funniest cartoon with the ark sailing away and two dinosaurs standing on a rock as the flood waters build. One is saying to the other “Oh crap! That was supposed to be today?!?”  And the caption reads: Now we know what really happened. :D

Oh! Friends I have had the “Evil Bible” bookmarked, for so long I’m beginning to think I wrote it.

I once had published in a local newspaper my own thoughts on the biblical “Flood”.  Interestingly not a single person tried to refute my findings. From the impossibility of the manufacture of the “Ark” to the ludicrous dove with a vine leaf, after the vine being drowned for months, the story is so childish it is amazing even juveniles accept it. Not a single piece of the story is credible.

One thing I didn’t touch on was the “Biblical” fact that the few people on the Ark were supposed to be the only people left in the world.  If this was so then by all the laws governing survival of a specie, mankind, and for that matter all the other mythical animal passengers, had been reduced to the point of non survival.

Wow!  If that site doesn’t spell it out for a person…they’re just plain stupid and cannot be helped!  haha I bookmarked it.

The page about “God is Impossible” reflected some of my own thoughts about a perfect being NEEDING something…which cancels out perfection.

What a nifty site to have handy for the “screw-loose” faithies. :D

Grant…have you read one page about what’s going on in Europe. I’ll bet you haven’t a clue.

Hey Annie…here’s a crazy link. Don’t know where I found it but it might be worth a laugh….http://www.evilbible.com/

Believers are great examples of people who know just enough to be dangerous. They see just enough to be a destructive force in any given society.

Pity the fools.

:D You threw just enough dirt around to be dangerous yourself.  Care to expound?

No, it would be us they would go after if they were inclined not each other. We would be their common denominator if they were fundamentalist enough. The recent actions of so many Tea Partiers shows the long running hates simmering just below the surface. Racial and sexual hate, both religiously based.

Wow!  Let’s introduce her to my brother!  Maybe that way, they’ll go all dysfunctional on each other and kill each other. :D

It does help me that I am waaaay far away from any of them and get all of my information 2nd and 3rd hand over the wire now.  I understand now why my oldest and more sane brother left to live so far away at 20.

Thank you for what you said, Tom.  It was really nice of you. I wish I didn’t cry so many literal tears…but they are all for my dad. I have been in a broken family for so long that doesn’t bother me too much anymore.  But with my dad gone, and living so far away—it was hard to know what was happening at any given time.  Then the “I will see him agains” made me crazy ...fuck nuts crazy!  It just exacerbated the pain.  Frickin’ scripture quoting about King David who was ALMOST ALWAYS talking about a war in his prayers.  “but they’re so poetic if you don’t really pay attention to what they’re about”.

Blech.  I have to fly out again Thursday and then again in April. >:^(

Just to add to the disfunction when my mother died (Whom I despised alive, but as dead respected)my sister, who has some head problems, had the wake in an out of town funeral home my mother didn’t want, was going to have an open casket…(Which my my mother hated) so I threatened to close it and sit on closed if that happened (It didn’t)...and a year later I found out that she had a memorial service for my mother attended by childhood friends of mine who came from hundreds of miles away..only to not find me there…because I wasn’t told about the service…nor was I told that I was an executor of the estate by her or the lawyer. Sooner or later s—t happens even in families.(I tend to forget this but it came up last night over dinner with friends…now I’m pissed again)

Ah Reit I didn’t say it was hard to believe. but “Intriguing and perplexing.” Qualifying,in my last sentence, in the difference between Australia and the U S A.
On quieter reflection I must put it down to the disparity between average education levels.  Without a doubt there is a correlation between low education levels and Fundamentalist religious beliefs.  Before better educated but religious people object, please note the “Average” and that I did not specifically state Christian.

When general education is lacking there is a tendency to not see other points of view, once again not just with religion. With tunnel vision and certainty of righteous conviction there is also a tendency to be aggressive. This applies to any religion but is, at present, manifested by extremist Muslims, or for that matter those who form the military expeditions against Islamic eastern nations.

So, once again, education seems to be the common denominator. I saying,or accepting, this it does seem that the change will be a long time coming in the U S A, and I hastily add, many other countries also.

All the above being said. I do find it even more troublesome that familial affiliation can be so adversely affected by a single non conformist. I would have thought “Love” for a child or sibling was the supreme emotion.  I have seen my sister thrice in the past sixty years, this also was the same with my late brother, the bonds of affection have never diminished. My brother never left his, admittedly very weak, Episcopalian religion. He was certainly more leftist than I.  A stronger Union supporter, and Official.

I feel deep sympathy for your position Reit Family break ups, for any reason, are extremely hard. Maybe one day they will see the light and realise that, in the Quaker idiom.  It comes from within. Even the Catholics love to quote that passage from 1 Corinthians 4, Love is. etc.,.... Maybe you should offer this letter and the passage from Corinthians to your estranged family.  Then again they may be like many Christians, Accept only those passages that agree with their particular form of bigotry.

For what it is worth Hugs, and metaphorically, weep
on my shoulder..

Why do you find it hard to believe when you said it so well?  I am a citizen of the United States and while it is concidered a democracy, by and large, you are not allowed your deomcratic rights when it comes to neither politics nor religion.  The right wing funei nutjobs will always attempt to diminate and bully - usually with great results for their part.

Thus, I am an outcast.

I find it both intriguing and perplexing that a family would reject you because of you divergence from their beliefs religious or political. I’ve never experienced it, but then, whilst my extended family is scattered far and wide, they are mostly irreligious anyway. My mother, a terribly superstitious woman, was a Spiritualist.

I live 12 miles from a small township of less than 6,000 people.  Because of my contributions to the local newspaper I am relatively well known.  My relationships with towns folk is amicable, I count as acquaintances and friends S D A’s and followers of most of the other religions. I have never actually encountered hostility or rejection by any because of my non religious outlook.  Politically I have been, in the past, a distributor of “How to vote” cards at elections. All the “Parties” are represented and it is not unusual to see them all chatting in a friendly way with each other.  Indeed I can recall my handing out the cards of two other parties along with the one I represented (Greens).

There are, of course some odd balls who are antagonistic.  But this is the point, THEY are the minority. It seems that in the U S A this acceptance of other people’s points of view is somehow lacking.

As a case in point, and at the highest level of Government The Deputy Leader,  and then, the next to be Prime Minister, a member of the Liberal (Right Wing)Party had a brother who was a leading light of the Labor(Left wing) Party, he is also a Minister in the Baptist Church.  Now to Americans that really is a contradiction in terms.

Australians and Americans all seem to think we have a lot in common, and so we do, but evidently not in
Religion and Politics.

That’s sad about your mom.  I would steer clear in that case, too.  And I can say..at least your brother talks to you.  I am an outcast. So, you’re ahead of the eight ball.

They know and I try not to engage in that area but sometimes they want to. My mother is going through trying times with cancers so I stay away from anything like that. However My second oldest brother, I am the oldest, will occasionally engage me. But curiously the last time he told me that “You don’t know everything” as a prelude to our geopolitical discussion. I found that interesting.

NG, yes I have heard of the absorption thing, too.  It’s funny how if one chooses to abort, it’s wrong, but if God sees fit to allow a miscarriage it’s all good because it’s from above and there’s an unseen and unknown, yet widely accepted reason for it. Palaver.

Can I ask you..does your family disclude you?  Or do they not know how you think on your own? I find I am discluded the most.  Before my father passed away, I was discluded comepletely by everyone except him.  His passing caused a couple of my siblings to be a little more friendly.  But they all still keep their distance pretty well.

NG, yes I have heard of the absorption thing, too.  It’s funny how if one chooses to abort, it’s wrong, but if God sees fit to allow a miscarriage it’s all good because it’s from above and there’s an unseen and unknown, yet widely accepted reason for it. Palaver.

Can I ask you..does your family disclude you?  Or do they not know how you think on your own? I find I am discluded the most.  Before my father passed away, I was discluded comepletely by everyone except him.  His passing caused a couple of my siblings to be a little more firendly.  But they all still keep their distance pretty well.

Reit1 I am like you in that I am the odd man out in my family. I am the only one not a right winger nor religious in any way.

Isn’t it true that many of us start out as twins and sometimes they are absorbed by the other or just die long before birth?

Not wishing to be pedantic Reit. Surely in most cases you don’t chose your religion. It does happen, but generally it is chosen for you.

My late wife was brought up as a Catholic, even to the point of once applying for “Holy Orders.”  She had been boarding with lovely Nuns of an American Order, in Rose bay Sydney. The Priest interviewing her, was maybe very perceptive,  he said. “Go home to Queensland Eileen for three months and if you are still of a mind we’ll see about it then.”  She never returned and always complained they never sent her clothes to her.  Embraced the Quakers and I am not
surprised, because if there ever was a real Quaker it was she. Funny thing was that she was absolutely sure that J C,was not a son of God,nor his mother a virgin, and she had strong doubts about Big Daddy too.  Not my influence. But that’s Quakers.  Believe as much, or as little, as you wish, they do not dictate. Except. You can thump the Bible but not each other. Peace be unto us. Tom E

..oops..rather I meant..one person split into two.

ha! That’s one of my favourite t-shirts. “Theres a sucker born again every minute” :D

I only meant that I wasn’t surprised about twins…particularly identical.  They come from the same sperm cell, the same egg and the DNA similarities are often uncanny.  Its as if two people split into one.  They look alike and often marry twin sisters/brothers and live their whole lives together.  One set that I know cannot live without each other.  One is right handed and the other left…like a completeion of some sort.

In that way I am not surprised about these boys.  But mostly I think it’s along the lines of geography—what religion you choose or not.

Reit.

Please he is right on the money.Your genes are virtually replicated in twins, or even family.

It is nothing to marvel at. In America, regardless of where you reside, chances are you will be, in spite of being born without beliefs, indoctrinated thereafter in the faith of your fathers.  happens elsewhere.

The God gene?? Well it is also known as the gullibility gene. Some people are born to be suckers.

Twins..I am not surprised.  But it’s enough to make me wonder if I were adopted sine I am nothing like my right-wing, fundie xian family who not only LOVE the death penalty, but abhor abortion.  My oldest brother who takes a great deal of pride when he hits a bunny rabbit with his roadster while driving (I actually like this brother)..has a daughter who is much more like me, though.  And he loves playing verbal volleyball with her until she cries.  She is in her 20’s.  I give it time before she verbally throws him to the mat.  Everyone knows that the more liberal your views, the more you are humanistic. So sorry if you don’t agree, but it’s a fact. That’s why we’re called “bleeding hearts”...cause we give a fuck.

I’m cleaning up

Found another gene theory reference from 1992…“Born to Believe..your values about god, home and country may be influenced by your genes.”

Story concerns twins separated at birth who met at 31 had were incredibly alike even inthe way they think.

Link to the article is so long it’s easier to do an advanced Google search- words in quotes required in that sequence plus authors name. Interesting article.

MCAULIFFE “BORN TO BELIEVE “

BUT…here’s the link
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:rQ-vrbDi5r4J:www.kmcauliffe.com/Kathleen_McAuliffe/Evolution_files/92BornToBelieve.pdf+MCAULIFFE+“BORN+TO+BELIEVE+”&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShKMe-pNiohYHRt5ot-zIirLvQxZLXwQ9hs7iYj2SKr1vjE8XR6gw1ekee2_8zey6f5QD-kOFDVb74JDppjgMEjOvkDxY5gqV1GWj3GGEBseYZLVctKCjOREDwSLygJdiNtRUhS&sig=AHIEtbRq7qwrxTdOttgS7bqeJM3AkAEDkg

ha!  You’re in luck!  I have phone numbers. It appears the internet really IS the place. :D

Perception is 9/10ths reality isn’t it? Now if only I could find a significant other without a car.

I think I’ve referred to the Time article on Theresa before. I know where I read it…in a cheap sandwich shop in MA..and I turned to my wife as I was reading it and said..“I’ll bet she lost her faith after she began working with sick and dying kids….you can only have so many prayers go unanswered before you know that “no” all the time means “No god.”  I was right.

On the other hand I have a relative who claims that Jesus brought he and his second wife together without a thought about statistics and the fact that they were looking for each other on a Christian single web site.

Like the odds that both of them would find someone were pretty high without Jesus…and neither blamed Jesus for their divorces. Point is when you have one prayer allegedly answered out of some prayers…God did it…but when you have cause to save a children’s lives day in and day out and you pray for them and they get sick and die anyway…you get smarter.

But the church will make her a saint anyway.

And then there’s the sgtory of my wife and I in a real Mexican town finding a couple ..she Mexican and he Peruvian, running a tiny sandwich shop..and I asked how they met being 3-5000 miles apart…and the answer…“On line.” I almost fell of the chair. Turns out they were both Mormons searching for a mate on a Mormon singles web site. Go figure.
The world is getting smaller. PS…my relative and his wife are living 300 miles apart….and get together on weekends and such because her house is in a great town…and his is in a not so great town but that’s where he has a good career and retirement looming. (Jesus did not make it easy for them)

You know what?  I just found this on the net..  I think this was the journal as quoted by my atheist friends.  Come be my light..etc. She was obviously a tromentented agnostic at least. 

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1655415,00.html

No, not really.  I read some of her journal that was posted on an atheist blog on myspace.  In the end she had given up on God.  But throughout the journal (and I heared..don’t know for sure…that the RCC is trying to make excuses for her words) but Sam Harris covers some of it here:  http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/sam_harris/2007/08/the_sacrifice_of_reason.html

Reit1, I have never heard that before. I remember how she was criticized for allowing people in her care to suffer (good for the soul etc) as in her religion of Catholicism and didn’t spend the millions she was given to alleviate it. So I have a contradiction here. Can you give any sources for this allegation?

Mother Theresa-perfect example.  we now know that she was an atheist for a large part of her life, yet she continued to do good because it was in her nature.  I particularly love the way she used the churh as a catalyst for getting into places that she otherwise wouldn’t have gotten into if she hadn’t been affiliated with such a “power”. (cities that were bombed heavily, etc.)

Using good to trump evil is good for me!

Night Gaunt Bang on target.

My dearest, departed, friend was a fundamentalist Church (Nazarene) Pastor.  A better man I have never met.

It matters not if you are agnostic/atheist/RC/AC.DC/ or BC.  How you use what you have is the only criteria.
Kennedy was so wrong with his oft quoted “Ask not what can my country do for me”  the final passage should have been. “Do whatever you can for the world.”

When it comes down to it the religion is the facilitator and the human is the main component. Whether secular or religious determines just how good or evil it will be. If you are a Gandhi will will act in a good way no matter what the religion says whereas if you are a Stalin you will be as cruel, murderous and evil no matter what the Constitution says. It is also up to the people to make sure the best persons are in charge of the gov’t and church, and to keep them separate.

Addendum to the God Gene.

Some 35 years ago I worked with a white woman who, as a child, wanted to play with black dolls. I suggested to her then, that perhaps one of her ancestors was captain of a slave ship, whose guilt was so great that it changed his genes/dna.

Years later that same woman discovered that one of her ancestors was very involved in the emancipation of blacks. I asked her for the details… what follows is her letter back to me.

“My gg grandfather, Capt. William Henry Folmsbee was in the First Cavalry Regiment, Missouri State Militia in the Civil War. He was a prominent Radical Republican who was active in politics and a representative to the 1864 Missouri Constitutional Convention in St. Louis.
As someone wrote recently:
The Republican Party of the 1860s was a completely different entity than today’s conservative GOP. Even though Lincoln was a moderate, his party’s base of support was in the Northeast/New England and was made up of former Whigs, Free Soilers, Radical Republicans and abolitionists (i.e., America’s first “bleeding-heart liberals”). The Democratic Party at that time was the party of “states rights”, wealthy plantation owners and slave-holders, and rather arch-conservative elements. There was nothing more conservative than a Southern Democrat. It was the liberals of the day who fought for civil rights, just as it is today. The letters R and D have no bearing on it.
I can’t put my fingers on Dr. Folmsbee’s obit right now, but from the way it was written, I don’t think he was too popular in his racist hometown of Gallatin, MO in the late 1890s. It certainly was racist in 1995 (no blacks) when we were there.
Dr. Folmsbee’s wife, was Harriet Salome Brown. Her obituary claimed she was “very kindly toward blacks.”  Some were neighbors.
Now, you might ask, how did William and Harriet come to be abolitionists? They grew up in Cincinnati, where Harriet’s family was Presbyterian and I suspect attended the church where Lyman Beecher preached. William was taken in by Dr. Vincent Caldwell Marshall (who lived near Lyman Beecher) and who was Quaker. William’s father, Isaac was Dutch Reformed but married into the Swift family, who were also Quaker. The way these people intermarried, I don’t think they were staunch in their separate religions.  Cincinnati was a real hotbed for the underground railroad.
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=53
As you know, Lyman’s daughter was Harriet Beecher Stowe, b. 1811 and wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. My suspicion is that Harriet Salome Brown b. 1825 was named for Harriet Beecher. One of William and Harriet’s daughters (my great grandmother) named a son Lyman. Since there is no Lyman family lineage, it’s a relatively unusual given name, and I suspect comes from Lyman Beecher. So there you have it.”

Of course all of this doesn’t prove a thing…but it provides at least one answer to some unique behavior.

Thank you Reit.  I can only have a small inkling of your problems.

Things here can be so much simpler.  When my wife died everything was mine.  We have the State Public Curator
as an administrator.  For four hundred dollars the whole lot was transferred, Bank accounts re arranged, Even the vehicle, which was in her name although she didn’t drive, had the registration transferred.
I had no large amounts of cash so that was no problem.
I didn’t even have to make a personal appearance. Two phone calls, and all the paperwork was by mail. Two weeks and finished.  Simple.

Get in touch whenever you feel inclined.

Take it easy, stress can be a dreadful thing. Tom E

Tom, you are right about me not reading entirely and i do apologise.  I have a thousand things going on.  I am flying back and forth from place to place to take care of my father’s estate and handle a sibling who is in dire need of psychiatric help.  It’s going through the courts and I have to stay on top of it.  I am still very blurry..can’t explain in an open forum, and I do appreciate your trust in giving me your email address.  I think when this has sbusided for me a bit, we will have better communication, and i will read more thoroughly.

As far as the last part about an atheist with selective antagonism, well..we are many!  Just look at the atheists in the US.  They are very intolerant of the Bible above the other three A-faiths.  The Koran, is a good subject, but nothing gets them going like quoting the Bible to them.  I have been on a lot of blogs and this is the recurring theme.  So I did scathe through your post, and the end caught me.  I know it’s not uncommon.  One day i will explain why I have such a disdain for Islam and you will understand.  I will write you in a personal email, though, ok? 

For now, I have to call a brother in Russian.  Yes, Russia.  I will check in tomorrow, though.

Sned,
I really do not have any response. Thanks for the posts. I really have nothing to add or say. I do appreciate the time. I enjoyed the read.

I feel obligated to give you something. I just do not know what to give.

So you are ahead of the game and I am behind in the times. That’s fine.

This is your thing – learning and all – you have been practicing it since being a kid. When a person studies and gains knowledge say in carpentry, he gets satisfaction with an end result. That end result being a good paying job or the homes and stuff that he builds.

Here’s your end result, Sned. You are right. You are more knowledgeable on the subject of politics, science, history and most of all religion – than I. You are more knowledgeable on religion than most if not all religious people. That’s it. There’s your end result and maybe there’s your satisfaction.

Take care.

It has been nice.

Mike

Oh Reit, Once again you either do not read, or will not
respond to what is written. I very specifically said I would not live there nor would I wish to in the other countries specified, America included.

Using the hands to eat is very often a cultural thing and nothing to do with evolving. I notice you ignored the Hamburger/Hotdog.  Indonesia, the largest Muslim country on earth, actually uses eating implements.  As an anecdote I remember my Dutch emigre employer from those islands who, when the Dutch were kicked out, could not bring his wealth in cash,  (It was worthless) so he bought a Gold Dining Service.  Only to find on arrival in Australia that Dinner KNIVES were not included.  The Indonesians, whilst using implements had no need of knives as they still cooked in the oriental way i.e. food was pre cut before cooking.  Much more sensible, cooks faster and easier to serve.

It is unusual in an atheist to find such selective antagonism. I have repeatedly acknowledged that the extremists of Islam are a real problem. You counter by saying they are the cause of more killings than others.  Correction.  America, and its coerced and bought allies, Australia included, have been the direct cause of death to well over a million Iraqis alone.  The number of Afghans joining this number grows daily, most of them are non combatants, mainly civilians women and children.  Even tho

I guess we can all agree that all thee Abrhamic faiths are primtive and backwards, but no one wears it on the outside so well as Islam.  Funny, they are the last to protest on blogs like this one..likely because they are too busy planning our annhilation, while xians can only dream about it in the western world.  And Jews, well, Tel-Aviv..another city that never sleeps appears to be sane, yet they have guards that stnad by a wall to beat down ..yes, even little children of Palestine with the butt of their guns just for getting too near.  Because as Sam Harris put it “God being the real estate investor that he is gave them that little piece of land.”

As for the Amish well, they wear it on the outside and yet they will pay all the sinners (the rest of us) to do the “progressive work” for them.  i.e. Use of tractors and farm equipment.  Hipocrisy runs rampant in all three Abrahamic faiths, no matter what the sect or denomination.  However, only a Muslim has directives from his sky father to strap on a bomb and kill innocent infidels as part of their tenet laws.

Xianty= Primtive and backwards
Judaism= Primitive and backwards
Islam= Primitive and backwards.

As for eating with your hands like the Brits and native Americans did “back in the days” <is my point exactly.  There’s nothing wrong with a woman wearing the same garb as a man.  But don’t tell that to a Muslim.  No, no no.  They have yet to evolve.  let’s hope they do before they blow some othe skyscraper out of the sky as duty to their heavenly father.  and let’s hope they start using tables and forks and spoons, letting the females hair and face out.  And in Tehran and Turkey they most definitely do NOT allow these things.  I know a few things about a few things. And Islam is the biggest threat today.  On a global scale, no other group causes more blood to run in the streeets.  Some can argue GW, but he didn’t stand for a group pf people…he stood by himself and for himself.  And he will go down in history as one of the most blood thristy leaders of America.  However, the US did not care for him and let him know it, unfortunately too late.  You can never tell the Shah of Iran the same.  You will be BEATEN.  But I say if you find so much peace there, live there awhile.  something tellsme that your mind will change and start to favour the more evolved xian societies.  As for Jews in Israel, they’re too cliquish for me to bother mentioning them..other than their babaric war with Palestine.

Reit my dear.  Tolerance.  I doubt that you have been to Iran/Iraq/Arabia as many times as I, and my visits have, by no means,  encouraged me to be a Muslim any more than my visits to the U S A enticed me towards Christianity. In both instances the opposite actually.

To liken all followers of Islam to those of Arabia or The Sudan is to equate all Americans with the backwoodsmen of the Ozarks or those Amish you laugh at.
The Amish in particular are no more outlandish in dress than many a Priest. I can’t recall them ever being a threat to anybody other than their own, even then not physically.

Eating with hands? Well this is not confined to Muslims.  Most Indians do.  Polynesians historically did, so did the Brits and Native Americans in early days. If I recall correctly Modern Americans still eat Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, etc without implements, Australians think it peculiar to eat a meat pie any other way than with their hands and directly from a paper bag.  My Pastor friend when visiting Texas for a Church convention was horrified when his dessert was served on the same plate as the main meal. maybe a convention of that area, and time.  Sensible really, saved washing up and presumably they wiped the plate with “Biscuit.” from the preceding food.
I am reminded of my Chinese neighbour, when eating at his place, waved his chopsticks saying.  “We invented these two thousand years before you lot made a fork.  Bloody slow though.”

Believe me Teheran you would find to be as westernised as any European City, but with a culture going back much further than the U S A (and Islam) has existed. The Burqha, in Teheran, is not generally known although the excessive covering up is. Is it any different to the (fashionable)near nudity on some streets in the West?  Actually the problem either way is all in the minds of the depraved male.  You didn’t indicate if you would like to read “Not without my make up.” that I offered to send you.

Yes Islam is a primitive religion as is Christianity,  Hinduism, etc., This doesn’t presuppose that all Americans or all Iranians , even if adherents of those religions are primitive. there are some that would fit the category in all countries , and admittedly because of brainwashing, more so in Islamic countries.

I have walked the streets of Pakistan, India, Iraq, Iran, Felt neither more nor less safe than in America, Italy, U.K. or Holland. I wouldn’t chose to live in any of those cities or countries I don’t see any of them being predominately primitive, whilst reserving that for some of the inhabitants of ALL the countries.

Sned ...So much of which I agree.  There are some things we can neither see nor touch but in which we believe, although there is plenty of supporting evidence, Gravity, Tectonic Plates.Radiation, Sound Waves.
Therein lies the difference Gods.  can’t see them, smell them, touch them without an ounce of supportive evidence except some people claim they have experienced them.  Trouble is Hindus experience their particular Gods as do all the other differing religions.  Others experience being Napoleon or Joan of Arc even Jesus Christ, but they receive treatment.
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The priest I refer to in the end of my posts below is JOHN CORAPI. He’s all over u-tube and on EWTN. Scary guy.

Dear Mike

Having been an avid reader of scientific magazines since I was a kid, the concept of the “god gene” is old news to me (here’s a time cover from 6 years ago) http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20041025,00.html. FYI I am a strong believer in the power of DNA to carry far more than instructions to build a person. I firmly believe that strong emotional events can change DNA and we have already proven that knowledge can be passed down in worm studies, where offspring of trained worms will learn the parent learned task faster than the offspring of a control group. So called “junk” DNA is being found to be not so much junk after all.  So it is highly possible that some people have a “god gene.”
But if that is true is seems to me there’s also a “lack of curiosity gene” that these same folks are blessed with. It’s also possible that there’s a Catholic gene…that develops a need to fear god and hell etc. etc. etc. Everything in that junk park is possible. So in my book you’re simply way behind the times. If anything…like the invention of God…the gene isn’t god given, but man made…over time.(see “worms” later on)

Your stated that “you supress your need to worship a Being by trying so hard to disprove one.” Thank you for your unqualified shrink-think but you are not only wrong about me but every atheist that posts here.

My history is well documented on this web site but I’ll give the brief review. Raised a Presbyterian active through freshman year college at the local regional and national level. ALWAYS had doubts and the Presbyterians of that day allowed me to think without fear of god punishing me. Something Roman Catholics do not experience.(Don’t read this don’t examine that don’t play with this don’t mess with that) I also got religion when I was in love…but infatuation only lasts so long and then reality hit home. It was religion itself that turned me into an atheist because its insistence on lying to people whether RCC or Protestant or any other structured religion.

People like your mother ands my mother in-law and brothert in-law who are religious without an ounce of curiosity intrigue me and frustrate me.
You might say that that’s my genetic make-u up. But curiosity was also born into me by my own parents who never said that any idea I ever had was dumb or stupid. They encouraged me think on my own.  My parents were also anti Catholic. Father raised a Catholic and mother a German Lutheran.  That’s it Mike. That’s me.

Remember my friend, atheists believe in what we see and hear touch and feel Believers believe not only in a god but an incredible number of unproven magical mystical things that I enumerated here not too long ago…begining with the

soul, the hereafter, belief in the validity of the bible   and its authors and copyists etc. etc. etc.

So I agree that there can be a god gene…that probably comes attached to a lack of curiosity gene…or a major brain blind spot. Maybe it a “I must feel content gene”..for sure I don’t have it when it comes to religion.

I do have a relative that fits the god gene picture. He is far more interested in a priest martyred by Indians than he is in what Christianity did to the Indians. What stopped his brain at martyr? He’s not stupid. He’s educated. But he missed the greater bad over a lesser (cough cough) good.

You failed to answer my question about a secular Europe. Perhaps because you can’t see that forest for the trees either. 20 million people died in Europe in WW 2. God didn’t answer enough prayers…and religion failed big time in so many ways.

Mother Theresa (who will laughingly be made a saint) died an atheist because unlike you and me she experienced death and disease everyday and she got too many unanswered prayers to believe that god existed or was worth praying to.

Finally there is no proof that our intelligence is anything but a bad mutattion…good for nothing but its ability to destroy. Only the primitive peoples are part of this earth…the rest of us just consume it. And we American have had it easy. No major war here in 160 years. Europe two major wars in only 50 years. Millions of innocents dead. Millions of other deliberately murdered. That caused people to think beyond their god genes and they got rid of those genes. Gave em to Good Will.

Of all the major Christian churches the RCC is home to some of the most ridiculous irrational and hateful beliefs that I’m not about to turn the other cheek if someone wants to defend it or it’s member..but my argument is with the hierarchy that steeps itself in secrecy…and promotes fear, promotes recipes to heaven (say this Novena 10 times and wait 4 days for something to happen)relic veneration..that compete with he most pagan of religions.

Is your mother a good person? Probably. Never said she wasn’t. Is she curious about her religion?Probably not . She’s like my mother in-law who keeps a Bible next to her bed but admits she’s never ever read it.

As to your comment that I want to conquer something. The only thing I want to conquer is ignorance. It’s one thing to believe that god exists something else to believe that your parent’s god was IT. That alone should cause some curiosity.  But that’s the way it happens around the world. It’s another thing to listen to unmarried fatherless most likely gay hierarchy condemn homosexuality, birth control, abortion, masturbation, reading, thinking for themselves etc in addition to being anti women.

If you think I’m wrong I heard that bald headed dynamic wrestler look-alike priest (whose name I can’t recall) one day proclaim to his TV audience in his booming voice..that “If you even think that Mary was anything but a virgin you have excommunicated yourself.Only the magisterium can interpret the Bible You can’t.”

I couldn’t make it up. I would want to make it up. It says it all in a sentence. “Don’t think….we will do it for you.”

Ahh what a blameless life. They’ll think for me. How sweet.

So much for thinking on one’s own. And I hate the idea that you shouldn’t think on your own…god gene or no god gene.. Any questions?

Hi Tom,  yes they are (Iran and Iraq) primitive and backwards.  Just because they have oil and money, doesn’t mean that bowing to mecca each day and making your women wear burqas is evolving.  It reminds me of a bunch of Amish people in a grocery store.  These sites are laughable.  The mosques are outrageously fantastic, while the people sit on the floor to eat with their hands after bowing to mecca…everyday.  And they do it in flowing robes and Islamic hats (whatever THEY are called).  Except the women.  They have to pull the burqua skirt away from their face to eat. :D It’s funny to me!!  They believe that you can beat your wife, as taught in the koran, and all these stupid Islamic laws about the Imam holy land blah blah.  Look at the once cool Cat Stevens (now Yusef Islam)..he looks like a 1500 year old idiot.  Yet, I am quite sure he had money as did Mohammed himself.  *married a 9 year old girl*  OMG!  I remember being a 9 year old girl and if some 50 year old man had married me I wouldnt have made it to 10.  That’s just gross to a child.  Oops, digressed a little to show you that just because a city has money, doesn’t mean that it’s people have evolved mentally.
Primitive and backwards.  Absolutely.

Stirring the Mud? Yep. Whenever it is presented.

As I recall you are the one who complained of not having ALL your salient points addressed. How many of your fingers point back?

Funny how a different interpretation can ensue.  I thought that documentary showed terror at being forcibly removed from her kith and kin.

You support the extrapolation of information regarding beliefs in God and Rapists from a few 100,000 year old bones.  How?

Reit. Sorry my dear.“Iraqi and Iranians names and Primitive ways.?”  Now I’ll go along with their religious beliefs being medieval. Primitive? and as for their ways. I have been, in the past, in that area on over a dozen visits, their ways weren’t even primitive then.  As a matter of fact Baghdad and Teheran vied with many an American city of comparable size, and surpassed all in history and culture. Even Abadan, a small port town, had facilities surpassing many Mississippi/Missouri/Alabama townships. Teheran is today a thriving very modern city, comparing favourably with many a sophisticated European metropolis.  The country itself(Iran/Persia)has never attacked outside its own borders in 400 years.  How many times has America in the past 100 years.? If that was the measure I know what an extra terrestrial would consider the “Primitive.” however that doesn’t deny the religion is medieval and backward nor that many adherents are besotted and misled. Bit like Christianity and the Bible Belters really. Remember, prior to the Gulf Wars, Iraq had free education to tertiary level for both male and female. O K it had an unacceptable Dictator, so did a dozen other countries, some worse than Hussein.But they didn’t have proximity to oil and Israel. remember also Hussein held elections. Yep they were rigged.  Who was the teacher Hussein or Bush? As I said.. Hell being a “Skeptic”.

Tom,

I stand corrected. It is the Iraqi war.  But (and not to dismiss my error) I was just rapping to this tune by the Rational response Squad where the singer was saying “And I’m not sayin’ we should go bomb Iran, but we can’t have peace ‘til Islam is gone.”

So, there you have it.  It’s pretty easy to tell the difference between persia and iraq. Although their names and primitive ways are all too familiar since the gulf war, etc.

Tom,

Maybe morality would have existed. If a clan of humans invaded another clan of human’s dwelling and killed all the men and raped their women then kept them as their sex and food gathering slaves, I would think that somehow those women would consider it “wrong”.

So the “rape gene” would be passed down along with the strongest, the biggest and the most intelligent traits of the human race. If you are a man, you should admit that you have those sexual thoughts now and then. Similar thoughts that you described about “stealing” and suppressing those urges.

Recently, I saw a documentary about our closest relative in the gene pool - Orangutans, Tom. And, you guessed it. A nearby outsider tried to “kidnap” and rape one of the group’s females. She was screaming and terrified – one female and other males came to her rescue. She was depressed and shaken till the episode’s end. So, I believe you to be 100 percent wrong to dismiss rape in the primal days to be non-existent due to the fact that the humans would simply consider it a natural urge. “Sure, kill my mate and offspring and ram that thing in me forcefully and make me bleed and hurt…ya, I am starting to enjoy this also now.”
See, an atheist thinking like a biblical figure from the old testament regarding the female race.

Or, Tom are YOU just here to stir the mud?

thanks Annie.

I will read that book. You steered me to this link/page

http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2009/11/the_faith_instinct_how_religio.php

and this alone is right on target to my thoughts and point.

I never read or heard a thought on this subject - my thoughts evolved from my own mind - just thinking while the pouch runs from me with a long stem of tall grass sideways in her mouth.

Instinctively, pursueing that notion and act. So, she never had that learned behavior from another dog. Could possibly humans be naturally chasing that Higher Being instilled with fear (primitive lightning strikes and such? Could our own education and present knowledge be suppressing or re-training those reflexes?

A deer involuntaryly reacts to a quick nearby movement and escapes unharmed. Genes passed down with natural selection - caught and eaten deer can not reproduce.

This explains the deer’s natural and instinctive reaction. This does not seem to explain (the natural behavior to believe in a Higher Being through natural selectivity) my posted theory. Unless, maybe Annie, all the primitive humans who believed in some form of God or Thing killed off all the non-belivers. This you may believe could be true -hahaha.

thanks for the book/link.

RANDY Thornhill.  The name is so apt.  Seems more like an apologist for rapists. 

By jiggling here and jugggling there one could always find an excuse for any behaviour, ask any Statistician.
One does wonder how the interpretation comes about over a 100,000 year period.  Let us consider that for the “Believers” who think morality is only possible with “God Belief.” How do we extrapolate from a few bones a belief in Gods 100,000 years ago? Now consider that it is very unlikely that such religious beliefs prevailed, the humans then would consider sexual activity a biological urge, morality would not enter the equation, in other words the concept of “Rape” did not exist. So how was there such a thing as a rape gene?  No to my mind this sounds like Rapists or wannabes looking for a sop for their consciences, if they actually have one.

A little like Kleptomaniacs.  Now I, freely admit, I have the urge, sometimes, to avoid paying for an item in the Supermarket, who by their monopolistic prices are robbing me.  I have suppressed that urge. I reckon anything under a half million isn’t worth the risk, and anything from there on would be even riskier, apart from not having the wish to lower my own personal standards.

Reit. Once again I point out that intensity of religion is closely linked to poor educational standards.  The Bible Belt compared to the largely secular States proves, abundantly, the point.
It is similar in the Islamic countries.  The poorer in wealth and education are the most fundamentalist, aggressive and primitive.

may I be so bold as to make a correction?  You said Iran.  I think you meant Iraq.  A common enough error, especially with Americans.  Iraq is where it is happening. Iran is where they want it to happen.
Basically for the same reason 1. Oil 2. Israel. both countries are strategically placed and antagonistic to Israel.Afghanistan whilst not oil rich is similar,
the strategic positioning is the same. The oil? It needs to be transported over that country by pipe line.  I know things aren’t that simple, unless you are an Ocham’s Razor fan.  Could be that America just needs more international empire for another military “Base. It is hell being a “Skeptic.”

Sned,

To satisfy your anti-catholic needs, I will answer one of your questions and let you ignore all previous points.

You say: Less catholic church attending thus less anti-gays – you insinuate.

I could say: Less catholic church attending thus more crime in the country.

(we can not say either statements to be true - how ya going to prove/disprove such broad statements?)

Give it up, Sned. Read a book that will not fuel that desire of yours.

You may not be anti-gay but you are anti-something. I bet a Gay Devote Christian confuses you greatly. Should I hate him or should I embrace him?

btw - again this is not an atheist site. Posts are comments to Harris’ manifesto. If the Pope/Church preached anti-gayism in the past and their sheep listened… Harris and others are preaching that gay acceptance is and should now be the proper norm and their sheep are listening…Hundreds of years ago, Men in France wore dresses and openly slept with boys…What will tomorrow bring? And who will be to blame for tomorrow’s present social “negative” behavior?

Mike,

I found this on the web,.  It might interest you.  What I found most interesting is that the two words “instint” and “faith” are intertwined.  Also, “genetic predispostion” to faith is also stated as being genetic only insomuch as there were religious precursors.  i.e. (Taken from Nicholas Wade’s “the Faith Instinct)”:

  “I raise these questions after reading my colleague Nicholas Wade’s fascinating new book, “The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures,” in which he argues that people have a genetically based urge to worship, engraved by natural selection in the mind’s neural circuits because of the tremendous advantage religion conferred on early societies. (You can read a summary of the argument in his Week in Review article.)”

I don’t see how something can be genetic if there were learned precursors. That would make it nurture as opposed to nature.

Tom:  I was reading “The God Delusion” again ( I love that book) and Dawkins refers to the US as legally secular, but not religiously.  Pat Condell has a video about it called “The United States of Jesus”.  As you mentioned the Bible Belt…holy cow!  There are so many Jesus freaks there alone that you cannot shake a stick at it.  They always seem to be the same type, too.  “God Bless our Troops” (and fuck the Islamic Iranian Civilians apparently), and a hunting slogan on a bumper sticker on their big trucks. :D Po’ dunk southern stupidity galore.  Other parts are religious as well, they just don’t carry it out as a badge of honour the way most southerners do.  I think there are only a cuple of states that can remotely be concidered “secular”.

Again, main points are lost or better yet, simply avoided.

What’s up with my point that the need or desire to worship a Supreme Being may be within a passed down gene?

A biologist Randy Thornhill, had just co-authored A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion, which argued that rape is (in the vernacular of evolutionary biology) an adaptation, a trait encoded by genes that confers an advantage on anyone who possesses them. Back in the late Pleistocene epoch 100,000 years ago, the 2000 book contended, men who carried rape genes had a reproductive and evolutionary edge over men who did not: they sired children not only with willing mates, but also with unwilling ones, allowing them to leave more offspring (also carrying rape genes) who were similarly more likely to survive and reproduce, unto the next generation. That would be us. And that is why we carry rape genes today. The family trees of prehistoric men lacking rape genes petered out. (Sharon Begley, Newsweek)

Use this as a similar example to my last post of the possibility that humans possess a (worshipping) trait encoded by genes and passed down to the next generation and so on and so on.

So yes Annie, it could be an instinct – to scratch an itch. To blink – to eat grass. That was my point. But, why did you fail to equate it to my point regarding an instinct or natural behavior for possibly worshipping a God. A trait/fear/shock and Awe passed down from the Sun God, Lighting Strikes, Earthquakes etc…and embedded into our systems and circuits?

And Sned, again you are way off base and not even close. Annie at least mentioned the word instinct as an answer. But, she stopped there. I know instincts. My instincts predicted your response of avoiding any main points.
“He will again steer away from the original thoughts in my posts – the easy way out.”
I do not care how many American Catholics are going to church.  Why do you? What did that have to do with my point above? So, the sheep are grazing in the other pastures nowadays – like in the Mega Christian Churches that are springing up all over the United States. Maybe that grass is tastier these days. These Mega churches are more uplifting, emotional and inspiring then the old RC traditional services.
But, what do you have to add to the passed gene theory? I could easily forget the fact that you are not a fan of the Catholic Church like you ask. However, you can not. Your last post smelled so much of it that it was not even funny. You fight and suppress your need to worship a Being by trying so hard to disprove One. You also satisfy that natural urge of conquest. Could you imagine actually giving a Catholic human a break or a benefit of the doubt that their desire for a God is as naturally common as you rubbing your balls in your sleep? Does your wife think that you are an ignorant fool to do so, unwillingly? I think not.

My instincts tell me that you are going to respond to my above points by asking me why Catholics going less to church equates to less anti-gays in the USA. Just like my dog, eating that grass over and over again. Grass hurts her stomach, eats grass to soothe her stomach, eaten grass hurts her stomach. So, you keep eating those grasses in the forms of books, forums, discussions, conversations, documentaries, internet research etc…and you will remain in perpetual discomfort.