My machine friend niece…..it’s a book darling..
....a book….Here’s the title and the ISBN number….You do know what the ISBN number is don’t you Niece?
“How We Believe - Science, Skepticism, and the Search For God” by Michael Shermer.
ISBN 0-8050-7479-1 (pbk).
Good luck with that….turn off now Niece!

I came to rational “atheist” thought through my grandfather.  No he wasn’t an atheist.  In fact he was a Southern Babtist Christian. 

I was 16 and the whole family had taken a summer trip over the Rocky Mountains and decided to take a stop at Dinosaur National Monument… and he (my grandfather) refused to get out of the car!  It was a lie.  Evolution was a lie.  Dinosaurs weren’t in the Bible.  They never existed!

I hadn’t given religion or faith that much thought.  It was just sort of there.  Forced down our throats.  But that moment… that blind pig-headed refusal to even hear of something outside his religious teachings… forced my eyes wide… and my jaw to drop. 

As I stood and watched educated men chip million year old rock from REAL bones the size of a bus I came to understand the meaning of “faith”.  And I came to the conclusion it was religions way to keep rational thought away from that which was completely irrational.

Great essay.

Harry Rout, the eugenics scientists in America at the beginning of the 20th century meticulously measured the heads of boys and girls and claimed boys were genetically more intelligent than girls because their craniums were larger and could hold bigger brains.  Do you agree with their conclusions?

I figured out “How We Believe - Science, Skepticism and the Search for God” is a book, although I don’t know why someone would write a whole book on this subject.  I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet, but I assume it’s like every other book I’ve seen with claims there’s a genetic difference between male and female brains.

If you have taken courses in statistics, as I have, you would know statistics can be tweaked to prove or disprove just about anything.  Until I see Shermer’s data and methodology, I will have to assume any gender discrepancies are more reasonably explained by enviromental and social factors and even margin of error than by genetic differences.

This isn’t about emotions or political correctness, it’s about how personal bias can cause a researcher to interpret raw data in a scientifically unsound manner.  I notice your Shermer also co-authored a book with Stephen Jay Gould, Gould has written about this phenomena himself.

But keep believing in the infallability of your prophets Michael Shermer and Sam Harris, just like Catholics believe in the infallability of the Pope…keep telling yourself even though you are a machine with no ability to think for yourself you are still somehow different from people who stop thinking so they can follow supposedly “Christian” leaders like Pat Robertson…and good luck with it all!

Harry Rout, I went to your Skeptics magazine website but could not locate the article to which you’re referring.  If you want me to read something, maybe you could provide me with the link?  Oh, that’s right, you didn’t think of it…machines aren’t very smart…good luck with that!

Re: Comment #10404 by Richard Bowker:

Richard, you make a pretty good point about the difficulty of coping with disparate information in the modern age.  Toffler made a similar point in Future Shock 30 years ago, and it has only gotton worse since.  Indeed, the question “who do you trust(and why)” may be the central question of our age. But I see that as an argument FOR skeptical rationalism. Granted, we can’t possibly know who is right and wrong in every assertion that we hear, but we can certainly weigh the evidence that we have. As the ultra-rational Spock says in Star Trek IV when faced with uncertainty: “Then I will make the best guess I possibly can.” This is, ultimately, what Sam Harris calls upon us to do: to examine the evidence for and against God and religion and decide for ourselves if we can intellectually support those concepts.  What we should never do, in matters of religion or about any other issue (such as health or politics)for that matter, is trust in the veracity of anyone who is unwilling to submit his or her premises to review and debate.

I was referred to this essay by someone who said this was the best essay they’ve read in years.  I can’t disagree more… I churned out shit more compelling than this when I was an angst-ridden teenager.

God and religion are nice balms for emotional pain and crisis.  For the victims of Hurricane Katrina to draw on this power is their right and for the author to argue against their use of this power is a nice illustration of his compassion.  I suppose optimism and positive mental attitude are wrong too since they are irrational.

I fail to see how stark rationality leads to any less death.  Would you rather people were slaughtered for oil or diamonds as opposed to religion?  At least religionists who die in mass slaughter die with some hope of eternal life.

Atheists tend to discount the genius and utility of religion to overcome reality to inspire hope and peace.  I guess suspending reality for a little hope or peace is immoral.  According to some forms of Calvinism (the only form of Christianity that is even close to logically coherent), God can do with his creation whatever he wants because He made it for His own glory, not ours.  So to assert that God is somehow immoral in destroying the creation He made for his own purpose is militant atheist asshattery.

Bigass diamonds neither relieve a fear of death nor give your life meaning so that analogy is perfectly deficient.

Regarding Christianity

Christianity, like all other belief systems, is a religion propounded and encouraged by those who would rather have others pay their way for them.  Rather than go to work like the rest of us and put real effort and time into a career, holy leaders seek to spend a minimum of time at their chosen vocation for maximum payoff.  The evidence is ample:  visit your local church and ask the preacher how many hours he spends in actual labor; a couple of hours coming up with a carefully slanted sermon, perhaps; a few hours put in on Sunday mornings (maybe even for a second morning service!), with two or three more hours on Sunday evening; two hours on Wednesday evening for prayer services; perhaps a visit or two to a hospital, with the extremely rare house call thrown in (especially if the issues require his hands-on attention—say, for instance, if one of his flock has discovered rational thought and has decided the religion is pure bunk); maybe a marriage ceremony (that he charges for) or a funeral (that he also charges for).  And look closely at their churches, cathedrals, and synagogues; how many poor people would all of those icons to pure drivel have fed, clothed, and housed?
It’s a con game, one supported and endorsed by our shortsighted and self-serving government (composed largely, of course, of the very mindless masses of which I speak—when was the last time anyone elected an admitted atheist?).  These self-styled “holy men” do nothing more than play on their congregations’ hopes and fears, misrepresenting and falsely interpreting the meanings of their alleged holy works—anything that furthers their own ends, of course.  Not only do these charlatans get to sit on their ivory pedestals of assumed moral superiority, they have protection from taxation, they influence elections and public policies, and they are never taken to task for their outlandish beliefs (not without doubters incurring the wrath of the polity, not without doubters being called “rude” or “immoral” merely for their honest inquiries).
The lazy but cunning rule over the weak-minded and the ignorant, and then has the sheer audacity to demand ten percent for their trouble.  And that ten percent is not subsequently taxed.  The indolent clergy often make better salaries than many doctors, men and women who actually have to work and be trained in a field that requires knowledge and scientific expertise.  These very holy-rollers then have the audacity to complain about any governmental welfare system that might otherwise cut into their profits, while doing the bare minimum themselves to help the very people their own “messiah” ordered them to aid.  And this scam is unassailable; none can question it strongly without the questioner being vilified by the overwhelming majority who buy into the scam without question.  Amway is taken to task far more harshly than the average religion, but why? Religion is merely a publicly accepted pyramid, one that is shoved down the throats of small children (and willfully ignorant adults) by the millions every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night. Conmen go to prison; preachers, priests and rabbis claim to deserve—and actually receive—our unconditional respect.
And where is the ironclad proof that this belief system offers? It comes in the form of a collection of writings, a work gathered and promulgated by a group with a very specific set of agendas, an anthology originally written by a bunch of smelly nomads certain only of their own professed superiority because they’d gotten together and decided that they were right and that everyone else was wrong, and any who disagreed with them deserved to be slaughtered, oppressed, and treated as immoral savages—all merely because they didn’t share in the belief system (hey, their God told them as much, right?).
And because some easily-persuaded emperor of the long-dead Roman Empire decided that this was the religion for him, we in the West now have to suffer the smug superiority and irrationality, the indignity, of a group of self-righteous, poorly-educated people who wouldn’t know the scientific method if it bit them on the proverbial ass.
The truth of it is that this and all religions answer a number of emotional and pseudo-intellectual needs that people who aren’t courageous enough to accept life as it really is absolutely must have.  We all fear death, so we come up with or willingly follow any notion that allows us to believe that death isn’t really the end.  We don’t like to think we might merely be a cosmic accident, so we buy into an idea that tells us a Superbeing, the Creator of All the Universe, made us for a mysterious celestial game of chance.  We don’t feel comfortable without believing there’s Something Out There that cares for us, that watches our every move and has a Grand Plan for us—even if we don’t happen to be privy to what it is.  We take the road more heavily traveled—blind belief—than that very difficult and painful road—honest investigation—which might make us strive honestly and question who we are, where we’re going, and what it all means without the conceited but insupportable assurances our more ignorant acquaintances would have us believe.
Consider this:  why do we not take our parents to task for allowing us to believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny? Eventually these parents reveal that these figures don’t actually exist, don’t they? (At least, I certainly hope so.) Yet when they guarantee us that God (in whichever form) is for real, why don’t we make the logical comparison? Don’t our governments, because this particular belief is enforced in the home, support it, and by the time we might use evaluation regarding those other types of allowable beliefs (that are eventually done away with), it’s too late to actually realize just how much wool has been pulled over our eyes? How many “Churches of Santa Claus” are there? How many cathedrals to the Easter Bunny have you come across lately? How many Tooth Fairy synagogues are there? None, of course, because those beliefs were destroyed early and mercilessly—but replaced by one no less questionable.  A small child hopes fervently for a new bike; an old child hopes fervently for eternal life.  A young boy slides his envelope-encased molar under the pillow in hopes of a crisp dollar bill; an older boy folds his hands together to ask the Unseeable and Unknowable for that promotion, or for his wife’s ovarian cancer to clear up.
How many Christians scoff at Muslims, Buddhists, Shintoists, Hindus, and Wiccans? Yet where is the yardstick of incredulity, the demand for evidence, regarding his own cherished beliefs? Is it really okay for a Christian to smirk smugly and roll his eyes at the Scientologist, yet fail to use that same logic and cynicism when it comes to his own belief system? Isn’t it true that the Christian is an atheist in regards to every belief system but his own? Isn’t he merely making that one exception? How is it that the average Christian shrugs off the authority of the Vedas, the Bagavad Ghita, the Koran, the Tao Te Ching, the Torah, the Book of Mormon, and Dianetics, yet stands resolute and firm when their own religious texts are attacked, often by people using the very same reasoning the Christian himself uses against, say, the Koran? Is the story of Noah’s Ark really less absurd than, for instance, the story of Joseph Smith’s golden breastplates? If someone made a claim that they could defecate gold bullion, wouldn’t the average Christian ask for verification? If someone came along and asserted that they could move mountains, wouldn’t the Christian demand a demonstration? Would the Christian merely accept the foregoing claims “on faith” and quietly respect that person’s beliefs and assertions, especially if the believers attempted to subvert legislation and the public education system for their own ends?  Of course they wouldn’t.  And if a geology text were full of errors, contradictions, and absurdities, wouldn’t the Christian be justified in throwing it in the trash because of its many inherent flaws? So why does the Christian refuse to accept—in any way—that his own holy text is full of thousands of contradictions, errors, and absurdities?
The answer, of course, is simple:  he doesn’t want to.  To admit even one error makes the shaky belief system seem more insupportable than he cares to admit.  To confess that Jesus’ genealogy might be contradictory is to acknowledge that the basis of their entire worldview (bought at great expense by their indolent clergy, their well-meaning but ignorant parents, or their self-serving government) might be intrinsically flawed.  To admit that the Bible’s mention of dragons, satyrs, cockatrices, unicorns, a world resting on pillars, a talking donkey, and a disembodied hand writing by itself might be ridiculous opens the door to many more uncomfortable possibilities.  If this or that verse contains nonsense, or if this or that verse contradicts another, or if this verse clearly contains mathematical or scientific errors, that might mean I just might 1) die the true death, one without the possibility of an after life; 2) look like an idiot for believing something that is so palpably ridiculous; 3) have to actually deal with life as it really is, to look at life honestly and courageously, without having everything spoon-fed to me by those with an ulterior agenda; 4) have to actually go to the trouble of learning how this thing called the Universe actually works; and 5) abandon those bigotries I’ve so carefully cultivated all these years.
It’s time for Christians—and, for that matter, every other adherent of anthropomorphic, theistic religions—to be intellectually honest.  If an assertion must be accepted on faith, then it fails on its own merits.  If all the thousands of gods worshipped in humanity’s past are regarded as mythological and quaint, then why is this one deserving of that unique status accorded it by so many whose reasons are so terribly obvious to the rest of us.  This belief system has its only basis in its emotional appeal.  And since blind faith is the final bulwark in the believer’s arsenal, then perhaps the believer should be a bit more convivial and humble in his dealings with those of us who live in the real world.
But, of course, history is replete with examples of why that simply will never happen.  As Santayana remarked, “Those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”  The U.S. is sinking into the quagmire of fascistic theocracy, and anyone who points this out is immediately denigrated and ignored.  And all because the willfully ignorant and the intellectually weak actually have more say than those who have the courage to face life as it is without imposing their hopes and fears on an indifferent universe.

Good to see I’ve turned your machine on Niece….
I knew I would.
Actually my statement concerning gender beliefs is based on statistics from “How We Believe - Science, Skepticism and the Search For God” by Michael Shermer (founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine).....sorry to disappoint you there… but if you dare to read it you may just learn something that might help you overcome your need to believe in your little god….I doubt it though.
Just for interest, the statistics in his book are based on surveys of American men and women, they are less here in Australia but funny enough the percentages in regard to differing gender beliefs are almost identical….so please, keep your silly emotions and political correctness out of scientific discussions….if you can?

Nietzsche wrote, “God is dead!” He was wrong….
“God was never really alive!”
Good luck with that.

I am interested in the above articles since I exercised an underying Faith in ‘God’ and His? Will over a period of many years.
When I was framed and wrongly convicted, I believed, as I was not only sentenced to Life in prison, but was bashed, raped, assaulted, subject to attempts of murder, drugged and a guinea-pig in the hands of the state, that God would save me…the reality being, as now I realise, that if God existed then S/He would not ‘allow’ such an unjust and cruel onslaught.   
I am still suffering, still paying for this crime committed by another.
The thing is, that I have observed human nature at close range in close proximity over a great length of time.
I have not found one person in the entire world that is even remotely concerned about Justice and a person ‘wronged’ to even offer to help.
Doesn’t this say ALL THERE IS TO SAY and KNOW about the non-existent ‘God’ AND individuals.

One thing about the religious, they have a collective uncanny ability to rationalize on a grand scale to bolster their faith.  So often we hear that “prayer heals.” Yet whenever the subject of profuse prayer dies, there is always some vague “explanation”—“God needed him.” For what? Not enough souls already there to perform heavenly duties?—“God didn’t want her to suffer.” After years of extreme pain and debilitation, all of a sudden God doesn’t want her to suffer?  The suspension of anything resembling a thought process must be a tenet of religion.

I hate to argue with a man of science that is also a minister. I would not debate you on science but have an offer at http://www.religionquestioned.com to shut the site down, please take it as it has such nutty things as showing why the God of the Bible is as tupid baby killing liar and   showing why Jesus is a stupid liar.
I have no credentials but welcome you to refute what is said at site which does not deny God , only denies that the God of the Bible has anything to do with any Creator

Sorry, I originally sent this attached to the wrong article:

Dear Mr. Harris:

It is my feeling that all this religious belief makes perfect sense if you consider that the human species is so out of control that Mother Nature in the name of “religion” is simply taking care of business by initiating her form of population control which I refer to as “ex post facto birth control.”

Sincerely, Gail Henigman

Dear Mr. Harris:

It is my feeling that all this religious belief makes perfect sense if you consider that the human species is so out of control that Mother Nature in the name of “religion” is simply taking care of business by initiating her form of population control which I refer to as “ex post facto birth control.”

Sincerely, Gail Henigman

Harry Rout, it appears you not only suffer from low self-esteem, but also lean toward sexism.  Good luck with that!

The practice of religion has nothing to do with god. Religion has but one purpose and that is the acquisition and maintenance of great wealth and political power. It is just another business. Those foolish enough, or delusional enough to fly into buildings or strap on bombs are just pawns of the ones that are spending the money and peddling the influence. We must rid the world of religion or religion will destroy the world.

To G Bile,

You make a couple of common objections. In English all references to nouns are personal, though the pronouns who, him, her, I, me, we, etc., taken to be more personal than it, they, or them. I used the traditional personal form to closer link truth to god, Truth to God, if you will. In Arabic and other languages, there is no capitalization to carry that distinction. However, the distinction is still carried by another construction or implication. Implied copular verb is common in other languages, but not in English, for example. Also the implied definite article, and plural distinction is done in different ways. Though linguistics is not my field, I do know a few facts about rendering subtle distinctions by linguistic constructions.

As to 1+1=2, I believe that to be eternal, without beginning or end. I believe that 1+1=2 is from Truth, Who is God. (Or truth, which is the divine being over all that is true, if you will.) I believe that there exists a truth that the human genome has the capacity to function before any human genome came into existence. I believe that truth, or Truth, as God, would cover the truth of a non-existence of Unicorns, as well as the existence of humans, and the non-existence of one eyed, one horned, flying purple people eaters. Truth even covers the existence of circles, squares, and the non-existence of round squares and square circles.

The distinctions of objective facts and absolute certainties are covered in language by different approaches depending upon the language.

I say that the language of Truth, God, is the thing itself. All languages are encoded reference subject to their own inadequacies to express or to carry the meanings in terms of the thing itself. When one believes in a beginning and a creation, it is hard to conceive that some concepts and realities are eternal without creation, beginning, and without end. The closest we can render such concepts is by means mathematical as asymptotic functions. Language, as chemical and physical interactions within the brain of sapient beings, is incapable of rendering all truth and all reality.

Human progress and evolution is one of cognizance and expression in an interactive communication of thought and substance.

I chose to link Truth as God, for purposes of communicating a concept more fundamental to understanding than could ever be achieved by religious dogma or creed. My expectation is a transition from non-sense to sense to order human thought to higher achievement without the anchor of religious piety interfering with reason and progress.

I must live in a world struggling against the tide of prejudice, pride, and tradition, without endangering my own existence on the altar of world opinion and ignorance. Philosophers and others have been put to death for heresy because they dared think through an obvious or reasonable question to a logical conclusion or even for entertaining another illogical conclusion than the one expressed by the dominant heresy.

Thank you for your probing questions. I appreciate the chance to elaborate upon the matter, which needs much more thought.

The belief in Gods and Godessess is deeply ingrained in the “Machine”......some of us, and there’s not many, are able to overide this aspect of our genetic programming and dispose of these childish beliefs…..women in particular are more liable to believe in superstitious mumbo-jumbo…...fortune tellers, wicca, ghosts and yes silly things called god…..males who are stuck inside their “machine” have a tendency to go for UFO’s etc…....the god of Abraham (Christians, Jews and Moslems) is a patriarchal figure that serves as a father figure(Freud) for both male and female…..but it appears to be deeply entrenched in the majority of female minds more so than the male…..perhaps their Machine Minds are hard wired to follow these crazy male created myths?

the Universe is all powerful
and loves nothing…..your DNA doesn’t care what stupid stories ou believe in…..including the above.
Good Luck with that!

Mr Goodman:
In you recent lengthy comments two words stand out:
God, who is Truth, Truth, who is God. English is not my native language, so I might be wrong, but shouldn’t it be: Truth, which is God (or v.v.) ? I see no reason to personify Truth (and I also see no reason to use the ‘G’-word in this context).
Do I understand that you think that Truth created everything (in this Universe or even beyond). Isn’t there a conflict then with Mathematics. Even without anything created at all,  1+1 still is 2.
Do I make any sense ??

To Hugh Ross,

No event or thing rises above Truth. (I capitalize Truth to distinguish Truth from anything or all that is true. Truth must be set apart from any ordinary noun, but should not be interpreted like the name of a person.) Truth is truly transcendental to all and any other concept. Only a moment of reflection by a functioning and astute mind reveals that the capacity of a genome came before the genome. That is Truth at its best. Specific genomes worked long before any sapient being was able to discern that they do. Identified and specified genomes in existence are known by a sapient being, man, to work. That is Truth in demonstration and comprehension. A genome consists of demonstrable sequences of bases of known composition. That is Truth in science.

The genome that allowed your existence as a human being is used by you to do whatever you do. That is the personal nature of God, who is Truth. God, Truth, favored the existence of you over all others who could have been assembled on the material of your genome and body. Thus, you were created by Truth, who is God.

Philosophically, it can be surmised that even if the elements of your genome did not exist, the genome would function as it does, if they did. That is Truth transcendental and the reality of God. Humans cannot directly comprehend infinite time and space in which all events occur, let alone infinite times. However, we can have a conceptual reaction to real events and real knowledge that reveals to us that if nothing else exists and there were no events, Truth would exist, for it would be true that nothing else exists or happens. Truth exists whether anything else does or not, both locally and in the entirety.

It is up to the sapient being, man, to use his capacity to encode knowledge of Truth and existence for his own benefit and to take his pleasure in the contemplation of God, who is Truth. When the bio-computer, which is his brain, crashes permanently, and all data is lost to his conscience, there is no extension of this life or entry into another life. But, it was always true that he would exist, and it will be ever true that he did. It is true in all time that you exist as you do and when you do. Your life is your moment of existence, but your entire existence before, with, and after the end of your life lives forever in Truth, who is God. Thus the memory of us all is in God, who is Truth. Only God, who is Truth, brings about reality and existence, and we only discover or experience what God hath wrought.

Stories of creation and of a personal god with mind and a will of his own, as though he were a species of functioning organism, are just that. They are figments of fictional recreation. Sam Harris got it right in the essence of his own understanding. You have it right in the essence of your own understanding. Sam blunders in his assumption that there is no God, and you blunder in your assumption of what God is.

To Sam Harris:

You may not call my faith religion, but I do. You may not call my God God, but I do. You claim to be an atheist, but you are of my religion. At least you describe my religion throughout your article.

Archbishop Anselm stated, or restated, a definition of God as “That than which nothing greater could be conceived.” Though Anselm and all others misuse that definition, it still holds.

Truth is God. As to any proposition whatever, either it is true or not true. Atomic propositions in which there is a unique question are the easiest to discern as to their being true or not true, complex propositions also present as true or not true. Even the proposition that God exists is either true or not true. Likewise the proposition that one is an atheist is either true or not true.

When one states that it is true that it is not true that a is b, one goes to the singularity of Truth to show that Truth rules what is and what is not. All questions resolve as true or not true, but non-truth resolves as truth of non-truth. The empty set is real though it has no physical or even spiritual members.

The transition from belief in a superstitious religion of a creator god is to an understandable concept of God. Anselm’s definition is good enough. Truth is that than which nothing greater could be conceived. I can find no attribute of God advanced to the believers that could not be found as an attribute of Truth. Anecdotal references to a person of God are not attributes.

That Truth has been kind to humans is not in question. Man evolved by means of the power of Truth and enjoys an existence by the power of Truth. Truth favors some individuals over others, but selects for favorable traits in the march of evolution to a higher species.

Truth is God and God is Truth. There is only one Truth, everything is true and everything exists. whatever could be conceived to exist but does not exist is nothing.

Science and physics deal with the time element of true and not true. But Truth is Lord over all existence and determines what is not. The true religion is the Religion of Truth. In this religion there are no Atheists. And Truth is the Intelligent Design of Evolution.

A thoughtful article for thinkers…
From http://www.reasons.org

The Shell Game of Evolution and Creation
by Hugh Ross, Ph. D.

The many debates, court cases, letters to the editor, and talk shows on the subject of evolution and creation almost without exception demonstrate the shell game played with the terms creationism, evolution, science, religion, and faith. The game usually begins with a statement that evolution is a proven fact. Next, this claim is established by the presentation of voluminous evidence from the physical sciences and the fossil record for changes in the universe, the earth, and the forms of life on the earth over the course of the last several billion years. Therefore, it is then claimed (or implied) that the theory that lifeforms developed out of some kind of primordial soup and changed through strictly natural processes into more and more advanced species is unquestionably correct.

At some point in the game, creation is defined as adherence to Archbishop Ussher’s chronology for the Bible-the claim that God must have created the universe and everything within it in the last 6,000 years or so. Then, more evidences are presented to show the ridiculousness of the 6,000-year time-scale. Finally, the reader is told (condescendingly) that he is free to believe in creation, if he insists, as an act of faith, but that our schools and educators must confine themselves to the facts. Meanwhile, we should exercise the tolerance to grant churches the freedom to teach their religious myths, but only to their own constituency, not to society at large.

What is the result of these shell games? Only one view may be presented to society at large: atheistic materialism (which is, by the way, a religion of sorts).

As an astronomer, educator, and evangelical minister, I concur that the normal physical science definition for evolution is well established—things do change with respect to time and in some cases over a time-scale of billions of years. Incidentally, this fact can be established not just from the scientific record but also from the Bible. The first chapter of Genesis is set up as a chronology documenting how God changed the world over six specific time periods. A literal and consistent reading of the Bible, taking into account all its statements on creation, makes clear that the Genesis creation days cannot possibly be six consecutive 24-hour days. They must be six lengthy epochs. Ussher’s chronology represents faulty exegesis, as many Bible scholars affirm.

It is the common life science definition for evolution that must be questioned—the hypothesis that all the changes that take place in lifeforms, both in the present and the past, are by strictly natural processes. For the lifeforms of the present era, I would agree. We do see natural selection and mutational advance at work within some species. But, as biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich report, “The production of a new animal species in nature has yet to be documented. In the vast majority of cases, the rate of change is so slow that it has not even been possible to detect an increase in the amount of differentiation.”

At the same time, as the Ehrlichs also point out, we are witnessing an extinction rate of about one species per hour. Even if the human activity factors are removed, one is still left with an extinction rate of at least one species every year. Yet, the fossil record reveals millennia of both a high extinction rate and a high speciation rate. The Bible offers a solution to the enigma. We are now in God’s seventh day of rest; He has ceased from making new creatures. For six days (as seen in the fossil record), God created. On the seventh day (the present era), He rested.

Since the 1986 Origin of Life Conference in Berkeley, the primordial soup hypothesis has been acknowledged by many leading scientists as utterly lacking in factual support. Even the self-proclaimed atheist Robert Shapiro, professor of chemistry at New York University, proclaims that no natural explanation for the origin of life exists. Interested readers may want to check out his book, Origins: A Skeptic’s Guide to the Origin of Life on Planet Earth (New York: Summit Books, 1986). An extensive bibliography on this subject is available from the organization I work for, Reasons To Believe.

Science is never religiously neutral. Science deals with cause and effect. Unless one makes the dogmatic presupposition that causes can only be natural, it must be said that causes can be either natural or supernatural. In the case of the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and the appearance of most, if not all, new species, science can show us no natural causes. In the case of the universe, direct proof now exists that the cause, or causer, must transcend matter, energy, length, width, height, and time. In other words, the causer must be supernatural.

Similarly, faith is never scientifically neutral. It can dogmatically presuppose that natural processes had no part in creation. The New Testament, however, defines faith as belief and action based on established facts. The established facts, for example, tell us that stars, like raindrops, evolve under natural processes. As a physicist, I have never seen a fundamental particle called a neutrino. But I have faith in its existence and act accordingly because of certain well-established facts. As a Christian, I have never seen God. But I have faith in His existence and act accordingly because of certain well established facts.

Note. It’s really not my intention to hate on anyone by posting this, but there’s something inherently Flammable about the internet (eg. John Gabriel’s Greater Internet F**kwad Theory.)
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I often laugh at people who Believe, especially in ‘Dog’ - but then blindly carry on with my own set of strange and ontologically spurious beliefs, such as

* “There’s nothing wrong with watching television”
* Mindless capitalist consumerism
* All this ‘wired’ digital-utopian bollocks
* Western scientific materialism (eh, Dawkins?)
* Thinking that writing ‘comments’ on the internet at 3am is a healthy and natural thing etc..

I had more to say, something about ChristiansTM generally - but I sense TheyTM will only love me for adding yet more fuel to the Righteous fire. ‘The oppressor’ will then be viciously attacked - with a clear Doglike conscience - on the grounds of natural “defence” (eh, America??)
===

Thankyou for listening to my worthless and trivial midnight rant. I promise to cut down on the chocolate and coffee and do more Cheng-37 style tai chi. Peace! (And I really do mean that. A small part of me loves and needs you all, even though we have never met. I know your out here, somewhere in cyberspace - drifting, drifting..)

ps. recommended reading: J. Krishnamurti “The Core Of The Teachings” -

http://www.krishnamurticentre.org.uk/core.php

Mike Todd, i’m not sure where to start with your post.

But a short version might boil down to a couple of fundamental things i think you have not understood:

1) evolution through natural selection is a *gradual* process.  i don’t know where you got the idea that whole organ systems as we know them today had to emerge spontaneously in one generation.  think of the eye.  pretty complicated, right?  maybe hard to see how you could get from no eyes to having great eyes like ours.  yet if you look at nature, you see a broad range of eyes that illustrate the steps for you.  all you need to start is a cell that responds to a light stimulus.  eventually, if there’s information in light that’s useful in that environment to survival, random variations will accumulate to refine, focus and process that light response in successive generations.

2) mutations.  you stated in your own post that mutations can produce “slight variations.”  most of the time, these variations have no effect at all (there’s a lot of redundancy in many systems).  many times, these variations are harmful, as you recognize.  however, any time you have *random* variations, over *millions of generations*, the small percentage of organisms whose variations provide a reproductive advantage will produce more offspring, while those with harmful variations will produce fewer.  naturally, the advantageous variations will be propagated.

the “evolution is implausible” argument almost always fails to take into account the unimaginably vast number of chance events that occur over an unimaginably vast span of time (think of organisms where each generation lasts a day, an hour, even only a minute—how many “chances” do they have to get something right over a million years?).

like i’m sure someone has posted below, a nice little comeback for people who don’t trust the theory of evolution:  fine then, no flu shots for you!  the evolution of the influenza bug from year to year is the only reason that you would need a new shot, so if you’re sure it’s not needed, quit hogging the vaccine and let the rest of us have it!

Reply to TruthandConsequences

I was not raised in a strictly Christian household.  After the age of 5 I didn’t go to Church again until age 30.  I had a twin sister who passed on as age 23 and I really questioned God after that. In fact, I wasn’t interested in anything religious for 7 years after that.

Once I started studying Biblical Old Testament history and how archaeology had never disproved it, my interest in the Bible was kindled.

So, no one beat me over the head in order for me come to a realization that God exists.  If you want a purely statistical list of why our life here is utterly unique go to http://www.reasons.org. This organization was started by an astrophysicist and shows what the odds of our existence here are.

I am sure our dialogue will continue…

Regarding Islam, there is an amazing program on the History Channel which I caught last weekend on the Koran and the history of Islam. Here’s the link to the schedule/DVD order:

http://www.historychannel.com/global/listings/listings_weekly.jsp?fromYear=2006&fromMonth=5&fromDate=4&NetwCode=THC&timezone=1&View=Weekly&&fromTime;=15

Everyone engaged in this debate should see this program. It is enlightening beyond belief.

Thank you, Howard Mandel, I needed a good laugh!

“Comment #10974 by Niece on 6/02 at 11:52 am

“I don’t hate these fundamentalist atheists, and I don’t care what anyone believes or doesn’t believe about religion.  But I do get annoyed with bigots who accuse me of being mentally ill and dangerous just because I think a little differently than they do.”

Then I recommend you take your delusions and red herrings to some other discussion group where the very air you breath is not an insult to us.

Thanks, Sam!

Known Not Believed

Thumbnail held in any direction.
From an eye it hides millions of suns.
Hiding the promise lives of conviction.
A theme that is an eternal connection.
Lives lived through their daughters and sons
Through time and space life is procreation.

Small as a germ, as large as a whale.
Forbears born birth the next-bears.
Life’s purpose that no one can assail.
It’s a grandeur that will always prevail.
Counts not on granting whispered prayers.
But the real passing of the true Holy Grail.

Pleasure is the guide to its fealty.
Sex is not evil, thinking makes it so.
Authority is in truth not authority.

Look not to afterlife but to reality.
Live your life without fear when you go.
And know life continues in seeds you sew.

For living things a soul is not needed.
To go to a place that some call Heaven,
Obeying commandments need not be heeded.
Don’t let others use your selfishness craved.
Find peace in cosmos’ biological haven.
Comfort in the known not in the believed.

I sometimes think everyone might be right. I also sometimes think everyone might be wrong. My favorite word is maybe.

The shortest sentence in the Bible is “Jesus wept.”

I don’t think anyone here can argue with that.

Why do some folks here think free will AND the existence of a supreme being can’t be possible?

Perhaps there is a finite supply of “souls/energy” to go around and free will is just another mechanism the supreme being uses to thin the herd.

I think it all comes down to judgment and who are we to judge things we don’t and can’t understand, yet? (This is where patience is needed.)

To thine own self be true, I always try to practice.

I do think that if I were the supreme being I wouldn’t change a thing.

BICBW

I have a problem with this quote:
‘Lastly, as far as God sitting on the sidelines watching all the death and the immorality on this earth. He could create us with free will or could have made us zombies.’
Is a Tsunami caused by our free will ? An earthquake, killing thousands ? Harris is right when he has problems with such Divine benevolence and so should we all. Believers talk about Gods ‘magnificent’ Creation. This must be done in an attempt to please Him, because in my atheist thinking, our world, even without considering the actions of humans, is far from magnificent. The mayhem and carnage going on in the animal world, the numerous ways to suffer and die due to diseases etc. certainly are not the result of      
‘intelligent design’.
And then again, if the argument is that we can never be sure that no God exists, we can also never be sure that there isn’t a whole team of Gods out there (the ID-team), or that God wants us to kill the unbelievers, or that God wants us to sing songs for him every seventh day, or that ....

TruthandConsequences, if it’s true what you say, that most atheists live without faith and aren’t dogmatic about it, then Sam Harris and most of the atheists who post here must not be very typical examples of atheists!

Mike Todd: “As for the religion of atheism it takes more faith to believe in it.”

No, it does not, for the simple failing of how you define faith and belief. Most people who are atheists just live without a faith, they don’t walk around feeling dogmatic about it as you do about your faith.

Supporting science and evolution is not about belief, it’s about looking at the empirical evidence, of which there is far more than enough to support the case that life on Earth evolved from a primordial soup over millions of years.

Mike Todd: “Most importantly DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. Don’t just read someone else’s beliefs and take them as fact without using your own brain.”

So tell me that you independently arrived at your faith and belief through your own research, and not that you were raised with it as a child. How did you arrive at your belief that your higher power embodied itself as Jesus, not Allah, Muhammed or someone or something else?  This strikes me that you have not come to your faith independently.

I have done research, plus I have the research of my family’s life experiences. Read my previous posting, #10212.

Try to make your case without the arrogance next time.

These two points have probably already been raised, but not having read all 1000+ entries, I’ll risk repeating them.  The first being that the god debate is really probabilistic in nature, in that most conjectures have some possibility, however slight, of being true. Although, in the chance of there being a god, one would have to appreciate limit theory to understand just how much chance. 
The second involves the fundamental architecture of our minds. Religious beliefs exist in, if not all, just about all cultures and we are hard wired to form hierarchical social groups.  Wouldn’t it make sense to investigate, and potentially rule out, the possibility that religious beliefs have just evolved from an abstraction of the positive feelings that reinforce group membership?

All of this talk about being rational makes no sense when trying to understand or explain God. You can say there’s no evidence for His existence all day long just because God doesn’t appear in front of you.

Assuming God created the universe and the concept of time, no one here will EVER be able to explain Him. Our concept of science and proof isn’t able to explain God because He can’t be put under a microscope.

What’s really ludicrous here it that anyone on this forum believes they are smart enough to explain God. Of course, many new agers believe they will become gods one day soon and then they’ll understand everything.

As for the religion of atheism it takes more faith to believe in it.  Because here’s what you have to believe to be an atheist:

1) that all mammals ‘evolved’ simultaneously male and female AND that they were able to procreate the first time they tried. Otherwise, all mammals that couldn’t bear offspring THE FIRST TIME they tried would have died long ago.  What natural selection or mutation would have necessitated males and females from the very beginning?

2) that you somehow ‘evolved’ a brain, a spine, a heart, liver, stomach, etc. that all worked together PERFECTLY AT THE SAME TIME and THE FIRST TIME. Otherwise, the human species would have failed ‘millions’ of years ago.

3) that Mutations are frequent and that they add more functionality to living organisms. Everyone who thinks they understand mutations needs to find ONE evidence of mutation being beneficial to living organisms.  Trust me, there have been thousands of experiments the last couple hundred years and NOT ONE has demonstrated that mutations give organisms more functions, more strength, more intelligence.  MUTATIONS ALWAYS HARM cellular structures.  When fruit flies were irradiated constanly for years with X-Rays they either died or produced slight variations of themselves. They lost genetic material in their cells and didn’t become better, faster or transform into an entirely different creature.  Evolution CANNOT work without mutations and mutations HAVE NEVER been observed to be benefical. One quote on fruit fly research is below.

“Out of 400 mutations that have been provided by Drosophila melanogaster, there is not one that can be called a new species. It does not seem, therefore, that the central problem of evolution can be solved by mutations.” Maurice Caulery, Genetics and Heredity (1964), p. 119.

Read the Evolution Cruncher online (http://evolution-facts.org).  It contains over 1,000 quotes from scientists of all disciplines about the problems with evolution. Both atheist and religious thinkers are quoted.

Most importantly DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. Don’t just read someone else’s beliefs and take them as fact without using your own brain.  That’s why you have one.

Lastly, as far as God sitting on the sidelines watching all the death and the immorality on this earth. He could create us with free will or could have made us zombies.  Well, it’s quite apparent from this forum that He gave us free will.  Our freedom to do what we want explains all the evil in this world.  God didn’t make us evil, but, our free will lets us choose that path.  God did give us a way to come back to Him, even for an axe murderer or a Hitler.  He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into this world to show us how to live by caring for others before ourselves, by loving us enough to die for us, the subtitution that allows Him to forgive us when we accept Jesus.

No science, no philosophy will ever be able to understand or explain Jesus.  It’s all a matter of faith.

See how much of a machine you are Niece…..I ask you a question (press your buttons like a search engine) and you have no choice but to respond in computer fashion…..and even if you don’t respond directly, your machine mind carries it with you….even interupts your sleep process and you do not have the ability to stop thinking about my question…..as for low oppinion of oneself….it is those poor machines that need to have some god pushing their buttons rather than taking responsibility for their own lives that have little self respect….fear of
the unknown strips you bare.
Try not to answer me…...and sleep well my friend.
Try to turn the power point off now if you…...

Wow! Almost a 1000 comments.
Since I don´t have one religious bone in my body I am thinking that I need to know e.g. when I go to a doctor for serious stuff if he/she is based on reality or belief. How can I trust someone who “prays for me”?  Maybe it should be part of their CV.

I can intellectually understand your reasons to be an atheist. But I am not. I am a Christian who does not preach
If after I die, I find that there was no God, Oh well, I made a mistake.If after you die, you find you were wrong, I would think that God would forgive you.

I don’t hate these fundamentalist atheists, and I don’t care what anyone believes or doesn’t believe about religion.  But I do get annoyed with bigots who accuse me of being mentally ill and dangerous just because I think a little differently than they do.

“Comment #10839 by moses on 6/01 at 12:29 am

i hate these fundamentalist Atheists too, they can’t prove there is no god.”

They don’t have to because the burden of proof lies with the positive claimant.

My apologies if this has been stated already but it will probably always bear repeating.

Harry Rout, all I can say is if you really believe all you are is a machine, you must have a very low opinion of yourself.  Good luck with that.

Regarding comment #8398. Charles Darwin was writing more than 100 years ago, so when he said it was absurd to think the eye could have come about by natural selection, he was writing in the context of available knowledge at that time. We now know that eyes have evolved independently more than once. (See http://www.newscientist.com—sorry I haven’t got an exact URL, but they have quite a lot of real science there about evolution that doesn’t let irrational belief get in the way.

“Irreducible complexity” in biology is a red herring. It’s just a lazy person’s way of saying ‘we’ve reached the limit of our current knowledge, so let’s invoke a supernatural force to explain how it came about’.

The whole point of science is that you learn as you go. Real scientific theories do get changed when better evidence comes along. That’s a good thing. But once you call on that supernatural force to explain stuff, you’ve abdicated your responsibility as a scientist.

That’s very emotional Niece but extremely uneducated…...you are a machine sweety….a bioligical robot made of flesh and a brain that carries it’s past with it like the Hard Drive on your laptop…..but I fully understand your fear, but reaaly…..there’s nothing to worry about….it’s truly out of your control…it’s just the beauty of evolution.
Good luck with that.
The universe is all powerful
and it doesn’t love you…..and you Niece, like all of us….. DO NOT MATTER ONE LITTLE BIT!

i hate these fundamentalist Atheists too, they can’t prove there is no god.

**Gabriel Ratchet** “...,the hardest thing about freeing a slave is convincing them that freedom is even possible.”

What we are missing here is simply this ...

The hardest thing about freeing a slave is not convincing them that freedom is possible, rather the hardest part about freeing a slave is convincing them they are even a slave to begin with.

The will of the people can begin a NEW movement, one where true enlightenment will take place far from the current religious constructs our society currently knows.  I urge all of you to read the thoughts of Daniel Quinn contained in the books Iahmael, The Story of B, and My Ishmael. 

Peace be with all of you.

Another agnostic ramble. Thanks for the uplifting response Mike #2. It always feels good to know and meet people out there with similar beliefs but have a positive outlook on their existence. In fact, it seems natural for people to seek out others who see “eye to eye.” But, my reason for adding this comment to this exceptionally long thread is that I wanted to add another of my opinions on this topic. There was an American Country music song that I remember by a Sammy Kershaw called “Politics, Religion, and Her.” I’m not exactly a patron of any musical arts but I remember this song because of the nature of the lyrics. People have, time immemorable, become heated over these particular subjects. There is no argument or question over this matter. What I want to clarify is agnosticism. Derived from the Greek word gnosis, meaning knowledge and an “a” before meaning “without.” JD I loved your response and I believe in what few words you supplied you exemplified the epitome of an agnostic. Any argument, without knowledge thereof, is senseless and futile. So saying, there makes entirely no sense whatsoever to argue, fight, maim, or kill in the name of something that is entirely unexplainable. So, why am I making an argument now? Call it a human condition. I, like everyone else, want to make people see “eye to eye” with me. I think a person who knew “absoluteness” would have no argument with anyone.

Religion is the Imagination Run Amok

It’s possible to be a religious atheist. We’re called Buddhists.

“When a religion gains political power, it becomes its opposite.”

Harry Rout, we may be animals, but we are NOT computers!  Both we and the animals are much, much more than that.

[MESS

“Like a computer, the human brain is wholly dependent on the quantity and quality of the data fed into it. It can only store and interpret that data in the genetic ‘language’ system it inherited in its DNA, and it can respond only in the behavioural vocabulary embedded in its genome, just as all animal brains do. We may agonise over alternative courses of action for as long as we like, using whatever combination of reason and intuition we feel is appropriate, but our final decisions still represent the inevitable reactions of our particular genetic makeup to the peculiar patterns of perceived information investing us at the time. In other words, the choices we make are those we cannot help making in the circumstances.”

Excerpt from ‘Plague Species - Is it in our genes?’ by Reg Morrison 2003 ISBN 1 876334 91 6

Good Luck with it all my fellow Chimps…...
The Universe doesn’t love you!

Sam’s argument revolves around the existence of suffering, the violence engendered under the banner of religion and the primacy of rational thought over faith in producing real solutions.
Taking the problem of evil and suffering, the argument is:
1. Evil exists.
2. God, as protrayed is the theistic religions cannot tolerate evil.
3. Therefore, God must be limited in some way, and this is contradictory to the notion of God, which must be abandoned.
Very few people now disagree with 1. An interesting discussion could be had with eastern religion on this point, and Augustine famously denied that evil has any reality. “All that is, is good”. This could be an interesting road to explore, but I don’t believe it myself.
The second, is open to more probing, since what is evil to us, may not be evil to God. It is evil to a criminal to be sentenced, but not to most citizens. Many things are hateful to children, but are insisted on by their parents. However, this doesn’t get us very far. God is clearly offended by the sufferings of the innocent, and there are enough of these to conclude that at least the vast majority of what we consider evil, God also does.
Therefore, there must be some limitation on God’s omnipotence. This is what most Christians (all that I know) believe, so what arguments are brought to bear to show that this is untenable?
All we have is argument by assertion. The question is asked: How else can we understand the claim that God is both omniscient and omnipotent? But no serious attempt is made to answer it. Clearly Sam would know the type of childish paradox: Can God make a weight that is too heavy for him to lift? But how about: Can God create humans with free will and prevent them doing evil? Can God create a physical universe without autonomous physical processes operating? etc. These ideas are the staple of Christian theodicy, but no reply is made to them. It needs to be. Karl Barth famously said that we should decide what God can do from what He does do. I know that this path would not be followed by many Christians, and if Sam is inveighing against a certain type of fundmentalist mind set, then I would go along with many of his strictures. But to paint the choice as fundamentalist-atheist is just not on.
Next we get the issue about religion being the cause of violence. So is a concern for social justice, and freedom. Are they to be also thrown out? And the connection is often very tenuous, as for example the troubles in Northern Ireland. As Sam admits, violence is no less prevalent in non-theistic societies. Of course, Sam doesn’t approve of Maoism, or other pychopathic creeds, and wishes people would have no such beliefs. But what if belief is intrinsic to humanity? The essence of any religious or non-religious conviction is that it divides people. It is hard for people who are against abortion, animal experimentation, racially-based politics, global capitalism or whatever, to rub along with those of opposing views. And sometime violence is the result. As an argument against the existence of God, though, I think it is worthless. It is an argument about having any strong beliefs on issues of life and death. Blandness rules.
Finally, I would like to probe the reliance on rationalism as the basis for thought.
My first counter is, that the viewpoint is based on an unrealistic view of how people form decisions,since in the vast majority of cases, individuals are in no position to weigh the evidence, because this would require a level of specialist training, which is not practical for most people. Therefore people rely on authorities who they regard as trustworthy. So smoking causes lung cancer. Why do you believe that? Because you believe that the people presenting the case are honest and competent. Take a slightly more controverted case: high cholesterol is a primary cause of heart disease. Here, there is a general consensus but a few contrarian voices are now heard who appear worthy of some repect. If we go on to global warming, the situation is more diverse. Now in which of these would Sam claim to have the knowledge to access, interpret, and sift the evidence? Of course, he can sift the published articles, but in the end will probably trust those he chooses to trust. Therefore faith, in the sense of trusting others, is at the heart of most of what we know, direct experience alone being accepted.
The second relates to ethics, based on the dictum “you can’t get an ought from an is”. There is a consensus in our society against racially based policies, which is right. But how exactly is it argued rationally? One could always argue that if everybody does that, we may be on the losing side, and this is a valid prudential argument. But suppose I am prepared to take the risk? One could rationally debunk a lot of mis-information, and this is useful. But how to you get to the ethical imperative? In the end, discussion has to stop sometimes, and it would be interesting to know at what point Sam would say that violent restraint should begin?
This is why so many Christians fear that the atheist viewpoint could degenerate into a social darwinism, with eugenics-based policies which were being pusued in many countries until recent events have shown what they can lead to. There used to be a consensus in the UK that human rights were not dependent on being able-bodied, but this is now undermined by the differential treatment of unborn children with possible disability. Is this wrong? Why? I can’t build a rationalist case, but maybe it can be done. The point I am making is not to say which is right or wrong, although I suppose my views are obvious. The issue concerns the rational basis behind the atheist’s ethical viewpoint? Or do we have to face up to the fact that many of our most urgent issues to not lend themselves to a rational analysis?
So I don’t agree with Sam. But then I wouldn’t - would I?

Very well said.  I’ve often maintained that religion is a disease as virulent as smallpox and one that is just as necessarily in need of eradication if the species is to survive.  There isn’t a single human ill that religion doesn’t either cause directly or seriously exacerbate and the sooner that people wake up and realize that playing childish games about whose imaginary friend can beat up whose is unworthy of anyone who would consider themselves sentient beings.

Good luck, though, on convincing anyone about this.  As so many of the preceding posts demonstrate, the hardest thing about freeing a slave is convincing them that freedom is even possible.

Belief systems are powerful manifestations of self-delusion.  Unfortunately, humans seem to be wired specifically to that end.  Perhaps it’s more to the point that our history is replete with instances of wild superstition, on a massive scale, which often has lead us so cleanly to the road to perdition.

What has been conditioned into the heart is often the hardest thing to un-condition.  This is why breaking someone that’s been rescued from a cult is so difficult. 

Exhibit A: consider the Almighty Television if but for a moment, as a vehicle by which our belief systems are espoused into our subconscious, our sub-selves.  We are willingly exposed to mindless entertainment, and forget that the Tide ads are really the target for the networks.  American Idol is nothing more than a candy wrapper, all colorful and shiny. And the TV preachers, that call us to place our hands upon the screen for healing, and tithe 30% immediately thereafter are equally as guilty as are Fox, CBS, and dare I say CBN.

Marketers (Christians, Greeks, and Jews alike) know that your children actually make purchase decisions 90 our of 100 times for families…and they’ve made good on honing in on this vulnerability.  Kids are the most heavily marketed segment of our population…Hitler’s Kindergarten was a great idea: condition them early, and they’ll take up arms before the peach fuzz peaks through…and (Lord willing) maybe some day, one of those lovely Arian children will be named Pope.

So to understand why we do these crazy things we do, we need to understand the legacy of parental conditioning that the Church has instilled in society.  Baptisms, Church School (Catechism, gulp) ROTC high school weekend warrior camp, Bible majors, and boot camp all have one thing in common: a single impermeable commandment to obey implicitly, to accept and never question.  After all, it’s the fucking word of God, dude.

So what if that 200 million year old alligator skeleton can’t possibly exist in your small little mind?  It don’t matter.  Truth and facts don’t care what you think.  These fossils will be there, much as they are today, as testaments to the past long after we’ve done away with ourselves…while what’s left of our cities slowly become inhabitable again once the radiation levels are low enough to support plant growth.  Evolution will follow, as it’s done across the eons and lead the survivors to their fate.

And our testament?  Remember this: We didn’t willingly get put down, we protested every step of the way.  Yeah, it started out harmlessly enough, with the rounding up of the unfaithful, and labeling our clothes as such…then we were moved to containment camps, with walls, and prison guards, waterboards, toilets for Koran flushing…and like so many porcine sacrifices, we gathered into line, and watched in horror as a war on Terrorism unleashed a war on civil rights, on human expression, on uncovering truths.  Prosecute all the reporters!  Stop the press!  National Security above citizenry.  It’s always been this way, folks.  Peacetime satellites are but for target practice.  Go now, and delude yourself no more.

I have no beliefs.  Atheism is a belief. 

The unknowable remains for me: unknowable.

Certainty based on beliefs is absurd. 

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities..Voltaire.

I am an agnostic.

Yohanan Wetzel

Confuses the Creator of the Universe with the God of the Bible.
He also states it is easier to believe like a Christian then an atheist which may be true, but because it it easy does not make it right
Now if he is sure of his position I invite him to refute what is said at http://religionquestioned.com which doesn’t question a Creator but does state that
the God of the Bible being a stupid baby killing liar is not the one and that Jesus is a stupid liar.
Now the site has an offer to shut down, so I invite him to take the offer at site and if he isn’t qualified let him pick the clergy of his choice or let him realize he has been had.

“One has to question the story logic of an all-powerful, all-knowing God, who creates imperfect humans, then blames them for His mistakes.”

Gene Roddenberry

“Religion is all bunk.”  Thomas Edison

It is interesting to see into the thinking (or lack of) Mr. Sam Harris.  So let me get this straight-  In order for a Parent to love their child, their Child must be absolutely perfect?  In order for a husband to love his wife, His wife must listen to EVERYTHING her Man says? So how is it that a Loving God is supposed to shield and protect and give special care over those because they pray to God, Give Tithe to their church, go to church every week, hand out religious tracts in their towns and communities, feed and clothe the poor etc, etc.  That is NOT a Religious Person-  Christian . . . .that’s a robot going through the motions in fear of God’s wrath.  Sam Harris is shallow in thinking and obviously is writing to prove his narrow-minded thought process which is obvious-  He’s an idiot-  illogical deduction of reasoning! The simple belief of: “If one does for God, God will do for you is not freedom to choose to believe in God, it’s a Do or else.  How is that Freedom to know and Trust in a heavenly father figure-  A God. One should have faith, the belief that is build on Trust.  I’d rather believe in my future than turn a blind eye that all of creation was simply happen-stance . . . talk about mathematical improbabilities . . . . it’s amazing that the amount of faith in believing what you atheists do literally takes more “faith” than what it actually takes for a Christian to believe in Christ’ Death on the Cross, resurrection, Ascension an a heavenly home awaiting us for all eternity.  Doesn’t seem like much to believe does it Vs. refuting all of that and more and then having to go into all the nonsense it takes to back up your absurd ignorant belief . . . .what takes more effort?  Since its obvious that your were traumatized and childishly strike back at The GOD of the Universe-  it is to your demise in your refusal to simply believe.  Judge not Lest though be judged . . . .but in your case . . .. you get what you get!  All your effort . . . in such a wrong direction.

Beliefs…..phooey!
Your DNA cares nothing about what you believe in.
Whether you believe in God, Gods or little naked female devils with tiny horns or whether you believe in Darwinian Evolution as I do…..our DNA doesn’t give a damn….as long as we breed with each other…..form TRIBES and fight to protect our genes etc. etc.
DNA is all there is…..you see….DNA is GOD….
your beliefs….my beliefs…...are infinitely meaningless…..they count for nothing.
Good Luck with that.
The Universe is all powerful
and loves nothing.
PS….Your DNA doesn’t love you either….you’re
merely a vehicle for its endless journey….Que sera sera!

While agreeing with Sam Harris’ main thesis, and that of any other atheist, all atheists commit the same illogic as theists, e.g., there is no more certainty ascribable to the denial of God than there is to its affirmation.
  Virtually everyone seems to think there are only three possible positions: 1. Theism or a belief in God; 2. Atheism or a disbelief in God—both of which are opposite sides of the same coin - they are both beliefs, neither of which can be proved or disproved; and, 3. Agnosticism, which purports to not know what any intelligent person ought to know.

However, in addition to 1. Theism, 2. Atheism, and 3. Agnosticism, there is a fourth condition: 4. Nullifidianism, e.g,  None of the Above!

Afterall, the whole subject is too silly to give a second, much less, a moment’s thought. What we need are more Nullifidians - a Society of Nullifidians. Anyone interested?

I am a smaller percentage of a small percentage—someone who was raised an atheist. It has given me an unusual perspective on religion my entire life.

My father was what I like to jokingly call a “devout atheist.” He was born in Mainz, Germany, in 1925 to well-to-do Jewish parents who were not really devout themselves. His father earned an Iron Cross for his service in World War I and would have been a loyal supporter of Hitler had he not gone after the Jews. It was my father’s mother who saw in the summer of 1938 that they had to flee, which they did to southern (Vichy) France with the help of fake papers from the underground.

So, for the duration of the war, my father was a fugitive. Other relatives like an uncle of my father’s and his family did not have the same foresight, and they were captured and killed in the camps. It was this experience that caused my father to lose whatever shred of faith he had (earlier in ‘38 he had a bar mitzvah, but hated it—he had to have all the Hebrew for him to recite written phonetically). After the war, he spent several years sort-of in search of himself, and eventually settled in the U.S. in 1957.

As a child, the logic of what my father would tell me seemed airtight: How could any kind of god that is thought to be benevolent, all-powerful and all-knowing not intervene to prevent the Holocaust, the ultimate cruelty ever perpetrated by humanity? Twelve million people were systematically executed—of whom more than six million singled out for their religion—their very belief in a god!

With a father who’d tell me he believed in science, and that religion was just a means of controlling the masses, I never grew up believing in some mystical being in the heavens that created everything and watches to see if you behave according to its rules (or at least according to how its human representatives would have you believe its rules are, to satisfy their own desire for power and control).

Today I’m still not of any religion—I am about savoring the here and now, appreciating the genetic lottery that allowed me to be here and alive and sentient, with the ability to love, a conscience and a morality shaped not by religion but by the simple logic of not doing anything to anyone that you wouldn’t want done to yourself, and its corollary, doing good for others that you’d hope would be done for you.

And I’m not a strict atheist today, sort of like being a vegetarian but not a vegan. It’s the part where my heart wins out over my head—I very much want to believe in a place where after I’m gone I will be able to see my father, along with other family and friends, some day.

Sanjo,

Thanks for your reply (10063).  However, I did not ask where the universe came from.  I asked where the first stuff came from.  Nor did I posit a deity.  Further, if I would posit a deity, I wouldn’t posit one that needs to have an origin, for a deity that needs an origin negates the concept of deity.

I also did not ask about what happened before time.  You are right, such a question is illogical. Perhaps you are trying to reinterpret my question to avoid answering it.

Everything that is either has a cause or is eternal.  Eternality is a religious concept. So I ask again, how does something come from nothing?

Hey acscott,

No need to be so glum about being an existentialist/agnostic.  I was raised a Catholic but dumped it as soon as I moved out of home at 18 - didn’t believe any of it.  I went to Cathlolic schools all 12 years too, so they had maximum opportunity to brainwash me - didn’t work.  I feel MUCH happier as an agnostic - free to figure out the meaning of my own life without all the gibberish/dogma.  I’ve had a few bouts of existential anguish but they don’t last long.  I’m having fun!  Enjoy everything life has to offer - family, friends, nature, sex, good food, your own intellect/imagination, etc.  If you do some good works for others and the planet while you are here your life WILL have a meaning.  It just won’t have a life after death.  I feel good when I help someone else, so thats what I try to do.  Life is what you make of it.  That’s a big challenge - and a scary one.  It’s much easier to just go with the flow and accept a mythology that has society’s approval, but it’s not for me.

Rich S Wrote:

Still waiting for someone to scientifically explain to me how something can come from nothing.

Your question is illogical.  Time is a property of the universe, a dimension of space.  Hence, it makes no sense to ask where the universe “came from” since to do so assumes that there was a ‘before’ the universe.  Since time began with the universe, it makes no sense to ask where the universe came from or what was around before it.  Essentially, you’re asking “What happened before time?”  Obviously, this is an illogical question.

Moreover, your question is an unnecessary one.  Positing that a deity created the universe doesn’t actually answer any of our concerns.  All it does is push them back a little.  The question becomes “Where did God come from”?  Was he created by an even larger deity?  If so, where did that deity come from?  Needless to say, we can go on like this forever. 

It is also worth mentioning that supernatural explanations for physical phenomena, when contested against natural explanations, have always failed, without exception.  There have been thousands of such epistemological bouts since the dawn of human civilization, more than enough to discredit the supernatural as an explanation for anything.  Even in this case, a supernatural explanation for the creation of the universe doesn’t actually solve anything.  The God of the gaps has no more gaps left to fill.  Forget him.

Iam wrote:

Atheism takes is as much a leap of faith as religion.

Would you care to justify this?

Rebecca 9793,

i think there is a distinction to be made between faith and hope. Sam’s not bashing spirituality, he’s bashing the presentation of dogma - a hypothesis - as fact. He’s not claiming to understand the nature of the universe, rather, he’s humbly admitting that he doesn’t.

when i was younger and questioning the faith with which i was raised (catholic), and religious dogma in genral, i went to a charismatic church where they did the whole praying on me thing, at which time i didn’t feel what they said i would. when i shared that, the woman laying hands on me said i had to “decide to believe”, that i would find such peace if i did, and that sounded *great*; nonetheless this was not something i felt one could “choose” - i felt belief to be a state of mind that one either occuped or one didn’t based on evidence presented. (i even said to myself, “ok, 1-2-3 Believe!!!”.. didn’t work..)

i choose to HOPE, but i “believe” that belief cannot be chosen, only expressed, ie: “believing” is the expression of one in a state of belief.

but i have to side with Sam that blind faith is a form of neurosis and incompatible with any situation that directly involves the lives of others, like government office and, yes, childrearing, if the blind faith is presented to the child as anything more than a personal opinion.

my parents once threatened to *disown* me over a religious issue - i’m still scarred from it - and i think teaching hypothesis as fact is a form of abuse. i was raised Catholic, and when i reached the age of reason and realised that the things about which my parents told me i should be *certain* were purely speculative - no matter how comforting - i was filled with a feeling of *violation* which haunts me to this day. since that time i’ve never fully been able to trust my parents and bear no small amount of ambivalence toward them, which is the most traumatic part, because i love them dearly and this spiritual betrayal on their part is a permanent wedge between us.

i recently asked mom what she wanted done if she was in a coma. her answer: “whatever the church says”; so she can’t even make a living will because church doctrine is subject to change without notice. her fate is literally dependent on the will of others. she needs to *check first* to be *told* what to do. it’s hard not to feel contemptuous of that sort of delegation of accountability.

excellent article Sam. loved you on BookTv btw..

to Keri (9837) and everyone!

here’s 2 excellent “non-linear” explanations of religion, the first a neurological hypothesis about why the most nonsensical dogma continues to endure in our species, the second a quantum-physics assessment of non-linear - more specifically “non local” - potentialities of the universe and our relationship to it. it’s by no means conclusive, but is a good starting place for a rational, non-dogmatic approach to plumbing the depths that dogmatic “faith” only guesses at.

here they are:
http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-03/religion.html
http://paradigmassociates.org/ParadigmSpirituality2.html

view my own critiques of religious dogma and my defense of the Hedonistic Imperative (http://www.hedweb.net) at http://www.5gigawattlizard.net (all my posts are categorised as “28th current”).

thanks to TruthDig for being the *voice of reason*!!

Rich S, Scientifically I don’t think something CAN come from nothing.  That would go against the laws of conservation of matter and energy.

Still waiting for someone to scientifically explain to me how something can come from nothing.

Where did the first “stuff” come from, before the big bang?  And I don’t want a religious answer, like “the universe is eternal.”

Remember, “nothing” means no matter, energy, volume, light, etc..

The comment by Rudolph (Nr. 9925) is another example of someone desperately trying to defend a conventional, “moderate” approach to religion.

These folks just can’t handle the truth, and feel obliged to rationalize their belief in, or acknowledgement of, supernatural forces.

Hence the philosophical mumbo-jumbo.

David Wrote:

“News reports showed people praying in church and when finally rescued it was God who saved the two men. My immediate thought was then that God must have killed the man who did not survive if he was able to save the other two.”

And that is the logical thing to think. The mindset of those who praise God for delivering them from natural disasters, who say, in essence, “Thank you God, for saving me from this act of God”, is something that will be forever inscrutable to me.

I was very pleased to read your manifeso.
We have just had a situation here where 3 miners were trapped in a rock fall in Tasmania. One died and 2 were rescued. News reports showed people praying in church and when finally rescued it was God who saved the two men. My immediate thought was then that God must have killed the man who did not survive if he was able to save the other two. Your country seems to be run by religious men, ours also has some of that but not to the same extent. Your manifesto may help spread the facts. Dave.

Most Christians I’ve spoken with have decided that belief in God comes mostly from experiential reasoning, rather than clear outward evidence.  To reason-out a religion goes against the purpose of having faith and the power of the supernatural. 

Eastern cultures traditionally accept non-linear logic, which accepts contradictions in reality as inevitable and important.  I find Eastern philosophy hard to swallow, but I think it would be wrong to cling to Aristotle’s logic as the only access to truth.  In fact, one needs a bit of intuition to accept foundational systems of thought like math and logic (the examples that come to mind are sucky…just look up Kant’s theories on a priori philosophy).

And I don’t think suffering means there isn’t a god.  Life’s true purpose may not be happiness.  It may not be indifference, either.

Religion may be harsh and bad, but it would be wrong to limit oneself from the possibilities.  I’ve personally developed my own religion.  I’m fairly convinced that panspermia was initiated by space-mice.

I consider this a wonderful dissertation on religion. It clearly presents the points I have tried to articulate for six decades.
It’s interesting to remember that in the overwhelming majority of cases, one’s religion is the religion of one’s parents, and the identical person who is born to Christian parents would have certainly been Jewish had his/her parents been Jewish. Yet, the beliefs of the two religions are so opposed to one another.
So, the Jesus Christ story is absolutely factual if I was born to Christian parents, or is a myth if I was born to Jewish parents.
Is it that difficult to perceive how ridiculous this is?

...visit http://www.proveyourgod.com ...

Iam - Amen!

The Atheist Manifesto is very well stated.
It did miss a few points* but by and large it would make an excellent guide for humanity to live by.

What is it about Humanity that makes it so prone to beleiving in Pie-In-The-Sky religious Faerie Stories?  I’m frankly embarrased to be part of this planet.  Any passing ETs must surely be either laughing at us or preparing to wipe us out before we can spread like an infectous disease across the cosmos. Maybe both!

Athiests = The only sane inhabitants of the planet Earth.

Don’t let the Fundies getcha,
Keri

*= such as: Hitler and the Nazis actually supported religion and received support from two different Popes in return- they were NOT irreligious as the USSR was (or tried to be)

Atheism takes is as much a leap of faith as religion.

It sounds like the writer, as a non-believer in all-powerful creative entities, is using some of the same arguments the long, long line of religionists quoted have used for who knows how long. Only the writer goes the opposite direction—anyone who believes in a supreme being has got to be irrational, deluded, and not humble,

That atheists don’t get the credit or power they deserve, thank you.  I actually never thought about that. My father admitted to being an atheist, but he still loved his Baptist mother, Catholic wife, and Episcopal children, and we love him. I don’t recall him saying anything about us being irrational or deluded. He was elected to the school board in our community, and I don’t recall anyone having a problem with him, though he probably never talked about his non-belief in public, any more than we walked around talking about how great our religion was.  On Easter Sundays he’d show up in church just for Mom and us kids, but also for the nostaligia, because he’d had a religious upbringing.

The world is indeed loaded with people deluded about all kinds of things, as well as hateful people, many of whom use religion to support their hate. The world is full of bad weather, disasters, criminals who kill children, ordinary silly people who drive their cars while talking on their cell phones and crash into old ladies on their way to church.

You need to give credit to the large number of deeply religious people who accept the facts of being human. I’m an ordinary, generally non vocal Christian, but if I had been born in the mid-east, I would likely be one of the majority of Muslims who quietly try to live honest, productive lives of faith.

Sure, I would like to *know* my prayers are answered and God is watching over us, and what every rule might be, but who am I to presume? Maybe he’s a she, or whoever it isn’t always looking. Maybe there are no rules. OR how about this—why should God spare me and my family the pain of being human just because I believe and pray. I doubt God punishes people, and maybe he doesn’t help people either. But for me, and there are plenty like me, belief is a choice. I can’t “prove” there’s a God any better than you can prove there isn’t one.

My son died last year, run over by a train. I have prayed every day of my life since age five up until the day of my son’s death last year. I prayed that day and every day since. But Sammy got drunk and fell asleep on a railroad track, the wrong one. A few weeks later, old people slowly drowned in their attics during hurricane Katrina, praying the whole time. Tell me, can you think of anything better they could have done? They prayed and died anyhow. Non-believers do *not* pray and die anyhow. As you said, that’s life.

But I hope to see my son again some day. Believing this helps me want to live. Believing helps me get out of bed in the morning, make sure my diabetic husband eats properly and takes his medicine, be ready and available if my daughter or grandchildren need me, and try to earn a bit on top of Social Security, and every so often contribute toward relief of the suffering of others outside my family.

What Bill Clinton said about building the kingdom of God on earth, I understand. To a non believer a code of ethics might be to do right by others and to contribute to the relief of the less fortunate. For me it’s a demand of faith. So what?

Anyway, if you happened to read the fanatical religionists quoted by Mike in comment #9449, “Men of God,”  you can learn from their unfortunate examples that if you take up a lot of time and emotional angst judging others, that time is wasted and you will likely be wrong anyway.

By all means, defend unbelief. You may *not* be thinking you’re more honest, more rational and more humble than myself and countless others, but if you are, that’s fine as well.

However, you’re wrong if you think that all those with faith are deluded, irrational, or not humble. 

Best,

Rebecca Fransway

I grew up in Omaha ne. Went to a Catholic school and mass 6 days a week.My mom married a man that had been divorced and the Church excommunicated my mom which means she is condemmed to the fires of hell for eternity unless my dads first wife dies before my mom dies. If that happens ,my dad will not be married to his first wife [the Catholic church does not recognise divorce].My dads first wife died, so now the church can now bless my moms marriage and even thing is OK and my mom can now be spared eternal damation. Does any of this make sence.
  My mom prayed for years that my dads first wife would die before my mom did , so my mom could get the marriage blessed and she wouldn’t have to go to hell.

Mike
Quotes a lot of people in favor of God.
You do realize the whole world including the poop spreading Pope though the earth was flat and the center of the world.

Tell you what get the most qualified person you can to refute what is said at http://www.religionquestiioned.com which has an offer to shut down based on the false teachings to Christian about the OT Messiah message.
It also says th God the Bible is a stupid baby killing liar and Jesus a stupid liar.
So please shut the site down and save us the money

Sample of lies told Christins is shown by their being tokld Isaiah 53 is about Jesus.
Look at the last sentence which says ” I will give a portion with the Greats etc”- NOT make him the greatest - so that surely couldn’ be the misconceived one could it?
Shut the site down with your best clergy or Bill Clinton who knew from the King David Story , you could screw the wife of another and then like a Mafia boss take out a contract on the husband and have him whacked and then prove crime pays by getting to keep the booty from your crime , Bathsheba.
I guess Bush found out also if you have an in with the Judge you can get to be President
By God quoting Pat Buchanan- couldn’t you get something like that fro Saddam?

“If God didn´t exist, everything would be permited” Fydor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamasov

That is a crock. Four Hundred years before the supposed OT , the Code of Hammurabbi had many laws not based on God.
By the way the God of the Bible okayed in Lev 25:44-46 one Human to buy another Human and then leave that Human like any other property as an inheritance to his Children ( This has been oulawed by Humans)
The God of the Bile said after - you killed all the men and Cattle , you could take the VIRGINS as booty ( Humans ahave outlawed that even though Christians & Muslims in Bosnia and other places still seem to hang on to this)
The God of the Bible told Saul to kill all the Amalikites incuding the suckling children ( something decent people say is genocide and not allowed)
The list goes on
The web site http://www.religionquestioned.com says that the God of the Bible is a stupid baby killing liar and Jesus a stupid liar and has an offer to shut down based on the lies Christians have been taught about the OT Messiah message.

I don’t know much of anything, being an agnostic, I concede to this. I cannot rationalize the existence of a god or the absence thereof. But opposite, as many of those zealots who are religious, I cannot but feel what I believe to be the truth in my heart. An athiestic truth that when I die I will return to the nothingness that I did not know before birth. In truth, I envy the religious because they can be happy in their lives (what I, of course, believe in my heart to be a denial of their true existence). Some people might say that I have issues, but can you really compare psychology or psychiatry, for that matter, to a quantitative science such as mathematics? The answer, of course, if you are a student of the quantitative sciences, is a wholeheartedly no! I love religious people and count many of them as my friend. They enjoy life more than I and I envy them. I believe that I am cursed in a way to endure my life in solitude. My only wish is that an agnostic church could persevere in a world, I feel, is full of doubt.

For those of you that truly believe in God, Jesus and Heaven, you are living proof that brain-washing is a powerful tool. It is even more affective when it is started as soon as a child is old enough to retain what adults teach them.

It is terrible to raise a child to believe that all the sins that they can commit will be forgiven, provided they believe in God and Jesus, which then places them on the direct path to heaven.

We teach our children to avoid hazards, such as fire or falling, by demonstration of what fire can do (burning old clothes in a garbage barrel); or, falling off a chair as compared to falling out of a tree. These examples provide physical proof of what happens if the child plays with matches, or climbs a tree.

We all know that just telling the child that fire burns or falling hurts is a waste of time. Because the child has no sense of what “hot” is until it has actually felt heat or has fallen and suffered pain from the fall. In other words, belief is based on hard evidence that is visual and/or results in pain. However, it is apparent that the majority of adults in this world have been brain-washed to the point that they believe in a god and a hereafter for which there is no evidence of any kind. The only evidence we have is that we will all die eventually and we will all be buried or cremated to eliminate the mess of a decaying body or carcass.

If life and death are actually the result of and controlled by an intelligent-designer (as claimed by some), they can claim visible proof of each; but show me any proof of life in the hereafter. It is a fairy-tale, as adequately described by Mike in a previous post. The Bible is worse than pornography. At least pornography does not pretend to be based on the words of God.

SM - Thanks for the link, I really enjoyed reading Laura Miller’s review!

Here you go folks, from a twin review of Harris’ End of Faith and McGrath’s Twilight of Atheism, which critiques both authors rather harshly.  Ms. Miller has plenty more where this came from - and for the purposes of this forum I’d say that no one has good reason to be up on a high horse, including the Harrisites:

... and so Harris finds himself floating the idea that “some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.” How—despite Harris’ strenuous efforts to distinguish good, rational belief systems from noxious, irrational ones—this differs significantly from executing people for blasphemy and other thought crimes is hard to say.

She does a decent job of painting Harris in similar colours worn by the religious fundamentalists he despises so very much, in character and content.

From God Wars by Laura Miller.

In god we rust.

Mike #1,

“Theirs is a kill-the-children-first approach to war, and we ignore the fundamental difference between their violence and our own at our peril…Here we come upon a terrible facet of ethically asymmetric warfare: when your enemy has no scruples, your own scruples become another weapon in his hand.” - Sam Harris in an unsuccessful attempt to prove pacifism is immoral in “The End of Faith.”

I far as I can tell, your point is it’s fine to be hateful as long as you don’t also claim to be religious!

I heard you debate Robert Kennedy on air America radio. You destroyed him. He never got one point for the debate.Of course you had all the data to back you up.good job!

It´s funny to see a whole site made and supported by so many people, who spend so many time thinking and talking in what they don`t belive. The same arguments that are given for not beliving in God or any kind of faith, niether can proove the nonexistence of God. Someone who does not belive in anything contradicts himself, because he neither can´t belive what he thinks, so he has to belive in something, at least in what he says, and if he belives in what he is saying, he is already recognizing that he is right and someone else is wrong. Right and wrong? does not sound that much atheist.
“If God didn´t exist, everything would be permited”  Fydor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamasov

Men Of God?

“If we have to give up either religion or education, we should give up education.”
      [William Jennings Bryan]

“And how can we ever again succeed in educating children to become moral men and women if, in America’s public schools, we consciously deny them all religious instruction, and deny them access to that primary source of morality, God’s own word. The Bible is the one book from which they are expressly not allowed to be taught.”
      [US Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan,
“The City and The Crusade”, Commencement       Address for Christendom College, May 6, 1996]

“Our culture is superior.  Our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity and that is the truth that makes men free.”
  [US Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, speech to the Christian Coalition, Sept. 1993, as reported in ADL Report, 1994]

“We need to do more than win an election or win the House or win the presidency, my friends: we need to make this beloved country of ours God’s country once again.”
    [Pat Buchanan at the Christian Coalition 1995 Road to Victory Conference, as reported in
the October 1995 issue of Church and State]

“We’re going to bring back God and the Bible and drive the gods of secular humanism right out of the public schools of America.”
    [Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan addressing anti-gay rally in Des Moines, 2-11-96]

“No, I don’t know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots.  This is one nation under God.”
      [Republican Presidential Nominee George Bush, 1987]

“Abraham Lincoln said he couldn’t handle the job except on his knees. Have you found recourse to God in prayer often in your presidency?”

“You have to. I don’t believe that an atheist could be President of the United States - anybody that did not have something bigger than himself or herself. And faith is the answer, and I’ve said this to friends. To some degree religion for me has been a private thing. But I can tell you that when the going is tough, and even when it’s not - in our family we say our prayers. We say our prayers at meals and we say our prayers when we go to bed. Barbara and I do. But it’s something that the more I’m there, the more I understood what Lincoln meant.”
  [President George Bush, in a August 27, 1992 “700 Club” interview]

“We may rest assured that God would never have suffered any infants to be slain except those who were already damned and predestined for eternal death.”
    [John Calvin, rationalizing the slaughter
    of infants in the Old Testament]

“There is not one verse in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating it.  It is not then, we conclude, immoral.”
        [Rev. Alexander Campbell]

“I never saw a contradiction between the ideas that sustain me and the ideas of that symbol, of that extraordinary figure. [Jesus Christ]”
          [Fidel Castro, Cuban communist leader]

“...once a person admits to not believing in God, this raises the question of whether or not that person believes in America….”
  [Chief spokesman for national office of the Boy Scouts]

“We must not hold back in the battle for children’s minds”
        [Church of England spokesman]

  “Tuez-les tous; Dieu reconnaitra les siens.”
“Kill them all; for the Lord knoweth them that are His.”
  [Arnaud-Amaury, Abbot of Citeaux, 1209, when asked by the Crusaders what to do with the citizens of Beziers who were a mixture of Catholics and Cathars]

“Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman.”
    [St. Clement of Alexandria from The Tutor, as quoted in “The Natural Inferiority” of Women compiled by Tama Starr (New York: Poseidon Press, 1991) p. 45.]

“Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.  The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours.”
            [Grover Cleveland, 1905]

“Sometimes I think the environment in which we operate is too secular. That fact that we have freedom of religion doesn’t mean we need to try to have freedom from religion.  It doesn’t mean that those of us who have faith shouldn’t frankly admit that we are animated by that faith.”
              [Pres. Bill Clinton]

“The Bible is the authoritative Word of God and contains all truth.”
      [Pres. Bill Clinton, at a prayer breakfast]

“I ask you this whole week to pray for me and pray for the members of Congress; ask us not to turn away from our ministry. Our ministry is to do the work of God here on earth”
              [Pres. Bill Clinton]

“If life were to be found on a planet, then it would also have been contaminated by original sin and would require salvation.”
  [Piero Coda, theology professor in Rome, in a statement to the Vatican, as reported by Ecumenical News International]

“A Roman Catholic priest and theologian has called on his church to consider the possibility of evangelizing extraterrestrials, according to published reports.  After two Swiss astronomers said they had discovered the first planet in a solar system similar to Earth’s, Piero Coda, a theology professor in Rome, said any beings living on the planet would be in need of salvation.”
  [Associated Baptist Press article, as quoted Jennifer Graham, Knight-Ridder Newspaper, in “Mork from Ork is going to hell? Some scholars say extraterrestrials would be tainted by original sin.”]

“Do unto another what you would have him do unto you, and do not do unto another what you would not have him do unto you.  Thou needest this law alone. It is the foundation of all the rest.”
      [Confucious’ version of the “Golden Rule”, predating the Christian version by 500 years]

“No person who denies the being of God shall hold any office [in] the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any court.”
  [Constitution of the State of Arkansas, Art. 19, Sec.1; violates the US Constitutional prohibition against religious tests for public office, and was ignored by Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton]

“When God the Son squeezed energy into atoms, he squeezed and held the atom so tightly that there were no unstable elements and therefore no radioactivity. At the fall [of Adam and Eve], He relaxed His grip slightly… which affected every atom and allowed some to become unstable, i.e., radioactivity!
        [Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1982]

“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners… But for that very reason, I was shown mercy so that in me… Jesus Christ might display His unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.”
  [Jeffrey Dahmer, convicted serial killer, in a statement to the court, Milwaukee, WI, February 17, 1992]

“People who are bitter and hateful about slavery are obviously bitter and hateful against God and his word, because they reject what God says and embrace what mere humans say concerning slavery.  This humanistic thinking is what the abolitionists embraced.”
      [Alabama State Senator Charles Davidson, citing biblical defenses of slavery, 1996]

“...this monkey mythology of Darwin is the cause of permissiveness, promiscuity, prophylactics, perversions, pregnancies, abortions,  pornotherapy, pollution, poisoning and proliferation of crimes of all types.”
      [Judge Braswell Dean, in Time Magazine, March 1981]

“...And whereas it has also come to the knowledge of the said Congregation that the Pythagorean doctrine—which is false and altogether opposed to the Holy Scripture—of the motion of the Earth and the immobility of the Sun, which is also taught by Nicolaus Copernicus in De Revolutionibus orbium coelestium, and by Diego de Zuiga on Job, is now being spread abroad and accepted by many… Therefore, in order that this opinion may not insinuate itself any further to the prejudice of Catholic truth, the Holy Congregation has decreed that the said Nicolaus Copernicus, De Revolutionibus orbium, and Diego de Zuiga, On Job, be suspended until they are corrected.
    [Decree of the Roman Catholic Congregation of the Index condemning “De Revolutionibus”, March 5, 1616]

“The inability or unwillingness to hate makes a person worthless. If we do not hate detestable things, the quality of our character is suspect.  The Bible commands that we hate.”
  [H. A. (Buster) Dobbs, Editor of Firm Foundation magazine and Church of Christ preacher, from the June 1994 issue.]

“Are we courting you?  Maybe we are, but what’s wrong with that?  You are the glue that holds America together.”
  [Bob Dole, to a rally of the Christian Coalition]

“In all of the colonies there was a law that Quakers and other heretics should be banished and, if they returned, could be executed; but only
Massachusetts hung any Quakers - four of them, one a woman. They cut off the ears of others, branded some with hot irons, and beat them with
iron rods and tarred ropes. The worst the Pilgrims ever did was put them in the stocks or imprison them for a while.”
        [“The Mayflower Compact” by Frank R. Donovan, Gosset & Dunlap, New York, 1968]

“Where would Christianity be if Jesus got eight to
fifteen years with time off for good behavior?”
  [NY State Senator James Donovan, speaking
  in support of capital punishment]

“Don’t you understand mister, you are royalty and God has chosen you to be the priest of your home?”
  [Tony Evans, co-editor of “Seven Promises of a
  Promise Keeper”, in The Progressive, August 1996]

“The demise of our community and culture is the fault of sissified men who have been overly influenced by women.”
  [Tony Evans, co-editor of “Seven Promises of a
    Promise Keeper”, in The Progressive, August 1996]

“I am not suggesting you “ask” for your role back, I’m urging you to “take” it back…there can be no compromise here.  If you’re going
to lead, you must lead.”
    [Tony Evans, co-editor, in “Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper”, “Spiritual Purity” chapter, p. 79-80]

“We’re fighting against humanism, we’re fighting against liberalism… we are fighting against all the systems of Satan that are destroying our nation today…our battle is with Satan himself.”
              [Jerry Falwell]

“The ACLU is to Christians what the
American Nazi party is to Jews.”
  [Rev. Jerry Falwell]

“Our goal has been achieved.  The Religious Right is solidly in place, and religious conservatives in America are now in for the duration.”
              [Jerry Falwell]

“..If we are going to save America and evangelize the world, we cannot accommodate secular philosophies that are diametrically opposed to Christian truth…We need to pull out all the stops to recruit and train 25 million Americans to become informed pro-moral activists whose voices can be heard in the halls of Congress. I am convinced that America can be turned around if we will all get serious about the Master’s business.  It may be late, but it is never too late to do what is right.  We need an old-fashioned, God-honoring, Christ-exalting revival to turn American back to God.  America can be saved!”
    [Jerry Falwell, in the _Moral Majority Report_, September 1984.]

“I hope I live to see the day, when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!”
      [Rev. Jerry Falwell, America Can Be Saved, (1979)]

“I listen to feminists and all these radical gals—most of them are failures. They’ve blown it.  Some of them have been married, but they married some Casper Milquetoast who asked permission to go to the bathroom.  These women just need a man in the house.  That’s all they need.  Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they’re mad at all men.  Feminists hate men.  They’re sexist.  They hate men—that’s their problem.”
              [Reverend Jerry Falwell]

“The decline in American pride, patriotism, and piety can be directly attributed to the extensive reading of so-called ‘science fiction’ by our young people. This poisonous rot about creatures not of God’s making, societies of ‘aliens’ without a good Christian among them, and raw sex between unhuman beings with three heads and God alone knows what sort of reproductive apparatus keeps our young people from realizing the true will of God.
  [Jerry Falwell, “Can Our Young People Find God in the Pages of Trashy Magazines? No, Of Course Not!” Reader’s Digest, Aug. 1985: 142-157]

“Billy Graham is the chief servant of Satan in America.”
          [Jerry Falwell]

“AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharoah’s chariotters.”
          [Jerry Falwell]

“If you’re not a born-again Christian,
you’re a failure as a human being.”
      [Jerry Falwell]

“The idea that religion and politics don’t mix
was invented by the Devil to keep Christians
from running their own country.”
      [Rev. Jerry Falwell]

“AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that *tolerates* homosexuals.”
        [Rev. Jerry Falwell, 1993]

“Grown men should not be having sex with
prostitutes unless they are married to them.”
[Jerry Falwell, on CNN’s Crossfire, 5/17/97]

“He is purple—the gay-pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle—the gay-pride symbol…. As a Christian I feel that role modeling the gay lifestyle is damaging to the moral lives of children.”
      [Rev. Jerry Falwell “outing” Tinky Winky the Teletubby, Feb. 1999 edition of the National Liberty Journal]

“If the King’s English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me!”
          [“Ma” Ferguson, Governor of Texas]

“In 1550 he (Las Casas) took part in a great controversy with Juan de Sepulveda, one of the most celebrated scholars of that time.  Sepulveda wrote a book in which he maintained the right of the pope and the king of Spain to make war upon the heathen people of the New World and bring them forcibly into the fold of Christ….  In maintaining his ground that persuasion is the only lawful method for making men Christians, extreme nicety of statement was required, for the least slip might bring him within the purview of the Inquisition.  Men were burning at the stake for heresy while this discussion was going on, and the controversy more than once came terribly near home.”
            [Discovery of America, Chapter XI:  Las Casas, John Fiske, 1892]

“We warn the North that every one of the leading abolitionists is agitating the negro slavery question merely as a means to attain their ulterior ends… a surrender to Socialism and Communism—to no private property, no church, no law; to free love, free lands, free women and free children.”
          [George Fitzhugh, 1857]

“The secret they [the courts] do not seem to understand is that there is no separation of church and state in the Constitution or in any of our founding documents.”
  [Janet Folger, Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, in Coral Ridge On-line Newsletter, February, 1999]

“The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example.”
  [Rev. R. Furman, D.D., Baptist, of South Carolina]

“The doctrine that the earth is neither the center of the universe nor immovable, but moves even with a daily rotation, is absurd, and both philosophically and theologically false, and at the least an error of faith.”
  [Catholic Church’s decision against Galileo Galilei]

“Having been admonished by this Holy Office [the Inquisition] entirely to abandon the false opinion that the Sun was the center of the universe and immovable, and that the Earth was not the center of the same and that it moved… I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally all and every error and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church.”
      [Galileo Galilei, Recantation, 22 June 1633]

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians, Your christians are so unlike your christ”
        [Mahatma Gandhi]

“...the only “right” a sodomite has in a
Christian Theocracy is the right to die.”
  [Dan Gentry, of Christian Research]

“The activities engaged in by the Christian Coalition…were a vital part of why we had a revolution at the polls on November 8, 1994.”
              [Newt Gingrich]

“Just last week I saw two homosexual men at the supermarket. The supermarket! In broad daylight!  That’s what you get when you worship the creation instead of the creator.”
    [Rev. Terry Glidden, Washington Post, Oct. 5, 1999]

“God gave the savior to the German people. We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith, that he [Hitler] was sent to us by God to save German.”
      [Hermann Goering, from Louis L. Snyder, “Hitler’s Elite, Shocking Profiles of the Reich’s Most Notorious Henchmen”, Berkley Books, 1990]

“Vaccination is a direct violation of the everlasting covenant that God made with Noah after the flood….  Vaccination never saved
human life.  It does not prevent smallpox.”
    [_The Golden Age_, (predecessor to _Awake!_),
      Feb. 4, 1931 (Jehovah’s Witnesses)]

“I talk to my only friend Jesus our LORD! I know JESUS understands my terrible desires and etc. I have towards little boys! And the main reason I murdered them little BOYS, is because our society is so AGAINST the fact of CHILDREN-DOING-SEX together or with anybody! I believe children should be ABLE to do sex! And I can ARGUE that all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court! SEX is a great GIFT that Jesus gave us all!!!!”
  [Freddy Goode, serial killer, in a letter to one of his lawyers]

“I believe in serving God and trying to understand and obey God’s will for our lives.  Cynics may wave the idea away, saying God is a myth, useful in providing comfort to the ignorant and in keeping them obedient.  I know in my heart - beyond all arguing and beyond any doubt - that the cynics are wrong.”
    [Vice Pres. Al Gore’s commencement address at Harvard, 1994]

“I think when a person has been found guilty of rape he should be castrated. That would stop him pretty quick.”
          [Billy Graham, 1974]

“I don’t care anything about the separation of church and state”  [Rev. Ron Griffin, pres. of Detroit Urban League, on Gov.  Engler’s plan to use churches to deliver state services.
  Oct 18, 1995, Detroit Free Press, article by Dawson Bell]

“When the temptation to masturbate is strong, yell “Stop!” to those thoughts as loudly as you can in your mind. Then recite a portion of the Bible or sing a hymn.”
    [Mormon _Guide to Self-Control_]

“I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do.”
              [D. Dale Gulledge]
(My thoughts, exactly!)

“Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things:  One is that God loves you and you’re going to burn in hell.  The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love.”
              [Butch Hancock]

“Nothing could be more anti-Biblical than letting women vote.”
    [Editorial, Harper’s Magazine, November 1853]

“A disturbing fact continues to surface in sex abuse research.  The first best predictor of abuse is alcohol or drug addiction in the father.  But the second best predictor is conservative religiosity, accompanied by parental belief in traditional male-female roles.  This means that if you want to know which children are most likely to be sexually abused by their father, the second most significant clue is *whether or not the parents belong to a conservative religious group with traditional role beliefs and rigid sexual attitudes*. (Brown and Bohn, 1989; Finkelhor, 1986; Fortune, 1983; Goldstein et al, 1973; Van Leeuwen, 1990). (emphasis in original)
    [“Sexual Abuse in Christian Homes and Churches”, by Carolyn Holderread Heggen, Herald Press, Scotdale, PA, 1993 p. 73]

“My father was really a bigot. He was very strict and fanatical. I learned that my father took a religious oath at the time of the birth of my younger sister, dedicating me to God and the priesthood, and after that leading a Joseph married life [celibacy]. He directed my entire youthful education toward the goal of making me a priest. I had to pray and go to church endlessly, do penance over the slightest misdeed—praying as punishment for any little unkindness to my sister, or something like that.”
    [Rudolf Hess, to psychologist G.M. Gilbert, in his Nuremberg cell, from Louis L. Snyder, “Hitler’s Elite, Shocking Profiles
    of the Reich’s Most Notorious Henchmen”, Berkley Books, 1990]

“I swear before God this holy oath, that I shall give absolute confidence to the Fuehrer of the German Reich and people.”
          [Heinrich Himmler]

“You Einsatztruppen (task forces) are called upon to fulfill a repulsive duty. But you are soldiers who have to carry out every order unconditionally. You have a responsibility before God and Hitler for everything that is happening. I myself hate this bloody business and I have been moved to the depths of my soul. But I am obeying the highest law by doing my duty. Man must defend himself against bedbugs and rats—against vermin.”
    [Heinrich Himmler, in a speech to the SS guards, from Louis L. Snyder, “Hitler’s Elite, Shocking Profiles of the Reich’s Most Notorious Henchmen”, Berkley Books, 1990]

“I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord’s work.”
        [Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936]

“Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . we need believing people.”
    [Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933, from a speech made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordant of 1933]

“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as
a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter.
  In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison.
  Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross.
  As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice…
  And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting
rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery.
  When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exposed.”
    [Adolf Hitler, speech on April 12, 1922, published in “My New Order”, quoted in Freethought Today April 1990]

“I believe today that my conduct is in accordance
with the will of the Almighty Creator.”
  [Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp. 46]

“What we have to fight for…is the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator.”
      [Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp. 125]

“This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief.”
  [Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp.152]

“And the founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of his estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary, He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God.”
      [Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp.174]

“I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so”
  [Adolph Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941]

“Any violence which does not spring from a spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain.  It lacks the stability which can only rest in a fanatical outlook.”
  [Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, p. 171]

“I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, Vol. 1, Chapter 1]

“As long as leadership from above was not lacking, the people fulfilled their duty and obligation overwhelmingly. Whether Protestant pastor or Catholic priest, both together and particularly at the first flare, there really existed in both camps but a single holy German Reich, for whose existence and future each man turned to his own heaven.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, Vol. 1, Chapter 3]

“In nearly all the matters in which the Pan-German movement was wanting, the attitude of the Christian Social Party was correct and well-planned.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, Vol. 1, Chapter 3]

“It [Christian Social Party] recognized the value of large-scale propaganda and was a virtuoso in influencing the psychological instincts of the broad masses of its adherents.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, Vol. 1, Chapter 3]

“The anti-Semitism of the new movement (Christian Social movement) was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge.”
    [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, Vol. 1, Chapter 3]

“Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, Vol. 1, Chapter 5]

“Only in the steady and constant application of force lies the very first prerequisite for success. This persistence, however, can always and only arise from a definite spiritual conviction.  Any violence which does not spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, Vol. 1, Chapter 5]

“Once again the songs of the fatherland roared to the heavens along the endless marching columns, and for the last time the Lord’s grace smiled on His ungrateful children.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, Vol. 1,
      Chapter 7, reflecting on World War I]

“The more abstractly correct and hence powerful this idea will be, the more impossible remains its complete fulfillment as long as it continues to depend on human beings… If this were not so, the founders of religion could not be counted among the greatest men of this earth… In its workings, even the religion of love is only the weak reflection of the will of its exalted founder; its significance, however, lies in the direction which it attempted to give to a universal human development of culture, ethics, and morality.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, Vol. 1, Chapter 8]

“While both denominations maintain missions in Asia and Africa in order to win new followers for their doctrine—an activity which can boast but very modest success compared to the advance of the Mohammedan faith in particular—right here in Europe they lose millions and millions of inward adherents who either are alien to all religious life or simply go their own ways. The consequences, particularly from a moral point of view, are not favorable.”
        [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, Vol. 1, Chapter 10]

“The great masses of people do not consist of philosophers; precisely for the masses, faith is often the sole foundation of a moral attitude.  The various substitutes have not proved so successful from the standpoint of results that they could be regarded as a useful replacement for previous religious creeds. But if religious doctrine and faith are really to embrace the broad masses, the unconditional authority of the content of this faith is the foundation of all efficacy.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, Vol. 1, Chapter 10]

“....the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.”
  [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, Vol. 1, Chapter 11,
  precisely echoing Martin Luther’s teachings]

“Faith is harder to shake than knowledge, love succumbs less to change than respect, hate is more enduring than aversion, and the impetus to
the mightiest upheavals on this earth has at all times consisted less in a scientific knowledge dominating the masses than in a fanaticism
which inspired them and sometimes in a hysteria which drove them forward.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf” Vol. 1 Chapter 12]

“The greatness of every mighty organization embodying an idea in this world lies in the religious fanaticism and intolerance
with which, fanatically convinced of its own right, it intolerantly imposes its will against all others.”
    [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf” Vol. 1 Chapter 12]

“The greatness of Christianity did not lie in attempted negotiations for compromise with any similar philosophical opinions in the ancient world, but in its inexorable fanaticism in preaching and fighting for its own doctrine.”
        [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf” Vol. 1 Chapter 12]

“All in all, this whole period of winter 1919-20 was a single struggle to strengthen confidence in the victorious might of the young movement
and raise it to that fanaticism of faith which can move mountains.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf” Vol. 1 Chapter 12]

“Thus inwardly armed with confidence in God and the unshakable stupidity of the voting citizenry, the politicians can begin the fight for the ‘remaking’ of the Reich as they call it.”
    [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf” Vol. 2 Chapter 1]

“Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle
and contributes to the expulsion from paradise.”
    [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf” Vol. 2 Chapter 1]

“A folkish state must therefore begin by raising marriage from the level of a continuous defilement of the race, and give it the consecration of an institution which is called upon to produce images of the Lord and not monstrosities halfway between man and ape.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf” Vol. 2 Chapter 2]

“For the greatest revolutionary changes on this earth would not have been thinkable if their motive force, instead of fanatical, yes, hysterical passion, had been merely the bourgeois virtues of law and order.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf” Vol. 2 Chapter 2]

“It doesn’t dawn on this depraved bourgeois world that this is positively a sin against all reason; that it is criminal lunacy to keep on drilling a born half-ape until people think they have made a lawyer out of him, while millions of members of the highest culture-race must remain in entirely unworthy positions; that it is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator if His most gifted beings by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands are allowed to degenerate in the present proletarian morass, while Hottentots and Zulu Kaffirs are trained for intellectual professions.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf” Vol. 2 Chapter 2]

“It may be that today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life, but the time will come when man will again bow down before a higher god.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf” Vol. 2 Chapter 2]

“Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf” Vol. 2 Chapter 5]

“For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a
doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes in its outward structure?  ...Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church.  Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dogmas… it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of a faith.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf” Vol. 2 Chapter 5]

“The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially
of God’s will, and actually fulfill God’s will, and not let God’s word be desecrated.  For God’s will gave men their form, their essence and
their abilities.  Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord’s creation, the divine will.”
      [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf” Vol. 2 Chapter 10]

“For this, to be sure, from the child’s primer down to the last newspaper, every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission, until the timorous prayer of our present parlor patriots: ‘Lord, make us free!’ is transformed in the brain of the smallest boy into the burning plea: ‘Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, bless our battle!’
    [Adolf Hitler’s prayer, “Mein Kampf”, Vol. 2 Chapter 13]

“The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life”
  [Adolph Hitler, in a speech to the Reichstag on March 23, 1933]

“I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker.”
      [Adolf Hitler, Speech, 15 March 1936, Munich, Germany.]

“Today Christians ... stand at the head of [this country]... I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit ... We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the *poison of immorality* which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of *liberal excess* during the past ... (few) years.”
      [The Speeches of Adolph Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1 (London, Oxford University Press, 1942), pg. 871-872]

“Jesus Christ never commanded toleration as a motive for His disciples, and toleration is the antithesis of the Christian message.”
        [“The Southern Baptist Convention and
Freemasonry” by James L. Holly, Page 30]

“What seems so right in the interest of toleration and its cousins-liberty, equality and fraternity-is actually one of the subtlest lies of the ‘father of lies.’”
        [“The Southern Baptist Convention and
Freemasonry” by James L. Holly, Page 40]

“...maybe it will encourage people to pray and they will become Christian.”
    [Rep. Ferry Hooper Jr. (R-Montgomery) on the “Alabama Live” show, Nov. 20, 1997, exposing the true motive of his bill requiring all students to participate in a daily moment of “quiet reflection” at the beginning of each class day]

“This right here is the work of the Lord.”
  [John Howard, owner of the Laurens, SC
  “The Redneck Shop & Ku Klux Klan Museum”
  from Nov 14, 1996 ed. of the CNN web page]

“The way to make money is to start your own religion.”
          [L. Ron Hubbard, 1954]

“Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous.  If a man really wants to make a million dolars, the best way would be to start his own religion.”
  [Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, 1949, then just a science fiction writer. Quoted in the New York Times, July 11, 1984]

“Use against heretics the spiritual sword of excommunication, and if this does not prove effective, use the material sword.”
        [Pope Innocent III (1161-1216)]

“The National Government will therefore regard as its first and supreme task to restore to the German people unity of mind and will. It will
preserve and defend the foundations on which the strength of our nation rests. It will take under its firm protection Christianity as the basis of our morality, and the family as the nucleus of our nation and our State.”
    [_Nazism, A History in Documents & Eyewitness Accounts_. (Original source listed in the bibliography: Jacobsen and Jochmann, Ausgewahlte Dokumente Bd II.)]

“All riches come from iniquity, and unless one has lost, another cannot gain. Hence that common opinion seems to be very true, ‘the rich man is unjust, or the heir to an unjust one.’ Opulence is always the result of theft, if not committed by the actual possessor, then by his predecessor.”
          [St. Jerome (compare to Karl Marx)]

“Though thy father cling to thee, and thy mother rend her garments and show thee the breasts thou has sucked, thrust them aside with dry eyes to embrace the cross.”
      [St. Jerome, Letter to Heliodorus,
      on true Christian “family values”]

“I never spared heretics and have always done my utmost so that the enemies of the Church should also be my enemies.”
          [St. Jerome, 420 CE]

“We Catholics may lie and say we are Protestants when we are among the Protestants or we may lie when we are among the Huguenots and say we are Huguenots; and if we wish we can stoop so low as to say we are Jews when we are among the Jews if our lying would benefit the Catholic Church.”
        [Jesuit oath from the Congressional Record]

“The Roman Catholic church, convinced that it is the only true church, must demand the right to freedom for herself alone and the end of
freedom for all others.”
            [Jesuit publication]

“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth;
I came not to send peace, but a sword.”
      [Jesus, Matthew 10:34]

“But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.”
        [Jesus, Luke 19:27]

“She spoke to him about the approximately 200,000 women who die every year from self-induced abortions—a major health issue: “Religious
leaders—and all of us, really—must address this very important issue.”
“Don’t you think,” John Paul IIinterjected, “that all irresponsible behavior of men is caused by women?”
  [Pope John Paul II to Nafis Sadik, UN Representative, at the UN Council for Women, from _His Holiness: John Paul II and the Hidden History of Our Time_, by Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi]

“The one reason why we’ve always had an open Bible in every room in the Holiday Inn motels is to help people find Jesus and the solution to their problems, no matter who they are.”
      [Wallace Johnson, co-founder of Holiday Inns, on the use of his business to proselytize]

“WE MUST NOT LET THE HOMOSEXUALS TAKE AMERICA’S CHILDREN. Please send your gift right away. Thank you again!”
  [Rev. D. James Kennedy, Coral Ridge Ministries
    fundraising letter, November 1999]

“God is raising up an army of believers to take
back the land and Reclaim America.”
  [Rev. D. James Kennedy, Coral Ridge Ministries
  On-line Newsletter, February, 1999]

“Priestesses should be burnt at the stake because they are assuming powers they have no right to. In the medieval world that was called sorcery. The way of dealing with sorcerers was to burn them at the stake. It’s illegal now but if I had my way that is what would happen to them. In medieval times, I would burn the bloody bitches.”
    [Church of England vicar Rev. Anthony Kennedy, March 9,1994 as reported in the Times, regarding female CofE priests]

“I would shoot the bastards if I was allowed, because a woman can’t represent Christ. Men and women are totally different, that’s not
my fault, and Jesus chose men for his disciples.”
      [Church of England vicar Rev. Anthony Kennedy, March 9,1994 regarding female CofE priests]

“The party stands on the basis of Positive Christianity, and Positive Christianity IS National Socialism…National Socialism is the doing of God’s will…God’s will reveals itself in German blood…Dr. Zoellner and Count Galen have tried to make clear to me that Christianity consists in faith in Christ as the Son of God.  That makes me laugh…No, Christianity is not dependent upon the Apostle’s Creed…True Christianity is represented by the party, and the German people are now called by the party and especially by the Fuehrer to a real Christianity…The Fuehrer is the herald of a new revelation.”
      [Dr. Hans Kerrl, Nazi Minister for Church Affairs]

“Politics must be founded on the solid faith of God almighty”
    [Alan Keyes, Rep. presidential candidate, at
Christian Coalition “Road to Victory” convention]

“If we accept the logic of the Declaration, reverence for God is not just a matter of religious faith, it is the foundation of justice and citizenship in our republic.”
  [Alan Keyes, Rep. presidential candidate, 1995]

“The doctrine of ‘separation of church and state’
is a misinterpretation of the Constitution.”
  [Dr. Alan Keyes, 2000 Presidential candidate,
  on his webpage at ]http://www.keyes2000.com]

“Killing is a form of mercy because it rectifies the person. Sometimes a person cannot be reformed unless he is cut up and burnt….You must kill, burn and lock up those in opposition.”
  [Ayatollah Khomeini, Iranian religious leader, Feb. 3, 1984]

“We are protesting the fact that this country and especially Texas would give any place to these filthy sodomites. It would be better to give honor to a maggot than a faggot. At least maggots are natural and serve a worthwhile purpose, while faggots are filthy, ungodly, perverts who hate God, His word and His people.”
  [Kilgore, Texas group’s press release protesting the play “Angels in America” from The Washington Blade, Oct. 22, 1999]

“O ye who believe! Murder those of the disbelievers .... and let them find harshness in you.”
      [Koran, Repentance: 123]

“O believers, do not treat your fathers and brothers as your friends, if they prefer unbelief to belief, whosoever of you takes them for friends, they are evil-doers.”
        [Koran, Repentance: 20]

“Let not the believers take the unbelievers for
friends…. whoso does that belongs not to God.”
    [Koran, The House of Imram: 60]

“Give tidings, O Mohammed, of painful doom to those who disbelieve…Slay the idolaters wherever ye find them..And fight them until
persecution is no more, and religion is all for Allah.”
              [The Koran]

“...You watch these debates, brimming with God-
talk, and you catch a whiff of the Taliban.”
    [Charles Krauthammer, on the
      2000 Presidential debates]

“It should be made clear that in order to live a Christian life, any Christian must be able to discriminate and hate, because that’s what the bible says.”
    [Bernhard Kuiper, Colorado Springs pastor]

“The woman who is truly Spirit-filled will want to be totally submissive to her husband…This is a truly liberated woman. Submission is God’s design for women.”
    [Beverly LaHaye, “The Spririt-Controlled Woman”]

“The Y2K could very well trigger a financial meltdown, leading to an international depression, which would make it possible for the Antichrist or his emissaries to establish a one world currency or a one-world economic system, which would dominate the world commercially until it is destroyed.”
        [Tim LaHaye, TIME Magazine, Jan. 18, 1999]

“The Church doesn’t believe in book-burning, but it believes in restricting the use of dangerous books among those whose minds are unprepared for them.”
      [Francis J. Lally, American Roman Catholic Monsignor, Mike Wallace Interview, Fund for the Republic, 1958]

“We found a great number of books…and since they contained nothing but superstitions and falsehoods of the Devil we burned them all.”
    [Catholic Bishop Diego De Landa, after burning priceless books of Mayan history and science, July 1562]

“We really have dinosaurs today, without any question.  You just need the right weather conditions, as I see it, to get huge creatures.  And in the ocean, of course,, we have huge creatures…This is where the pleisosauruses seem to be today, and perhaps also this fire-breathing dragon is still down there- very rare, but occasionally there.”
      [Rev. Walter Lang, Founder, Bible-Science Association]

“However incompatible the spirit of Jesus and armed force may be, and however unpleasant it may be to acknowledge the fact, as a matter of plain history the latter has often made it possible for the former to survive.”
    [Prof. Kenneth Scott Latourette, _A History of the Expansion of Christianity_ (New York:Harper & Brothers, 1937) Vol. I, p.164]

“It is quite unlawful to demand, defend, or to grant unconditional freedom of thought, or speech, of writing or worship, as if these
were so many rights given by nature to man.”
      [Pope Leo XIII, “Great Encyclical Letters”,16]

“The equal toleration of all religions…is the same as atheism.
          [Pope Leo XIII, “Imortale Dei”]

“We’ve learned how to move under radar in the cover of the night with shrubbery strapped to our helmets,”
  [Ralph Reed, executive director of Christian Coalition]

“I want to be invisible.  I do guerrilla warfare.  I paint my face and travel at night.  You don’t know it’s over until you’re
in a body bag.  You don’t know until election night.”
    [Ralph Reed, Christian Coalition Exec. Director, from the Virginian Pilot and Ledger Star, 11/9/91]

“It’s like guerrilla warfare….It’s better to move quietly, with stealth, under cover of night. You’ve got two choices: You can wear cammies and shimmy along on your belly or you can put on a
red coat and stand up for everyone to see. It comes down to whether you want to be the British army in the Revolutionary War or the Viet Cong. History tells us which tactic is more effective.”
    [Ralph Reed, The Los Angeles Times, reprinted in The Religious Right: The Assault of Tolerance & Pluralism in America, produced by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)]

“Reed said coalition members will be active in Virginia’s first school board elections in May, and he predicted that 40 or more seats in Congress could change hands in the November 1994 national elections. He said his organization will become for ‘people of faith’ what labor unions are for workers and chambers of commerce are for business leaders. ‘We want to be a permanent part of the political landscape,’ he said.”
      [Ralph Reed, in Richmond Times-Dispatch, Nov. 26, 1993]

“The `wall of separation between church and state’ is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.”
          [Chief Justice William Rehnquist]

“I think the sky is blue because it’s a shift from black through purple
to blue, and it has to do with where the light is. You know, the farther we get into darkness, and there’s a shifting of color of light into the blueness, and I think as you go farther and farther away from the reflected light we have from the sun or the light that’s bouncing off this earth, uh, the darker it gets ... I think if you look at the color scale, you start at black, move it through purple, move it on out, it’s the shifting of color. We mentioned before about the stars singing, and that’s one of the effects of the shifting of colors.”
        [Pat Robertson, on a telecast of the 700 Club]
(AKA – ‘no science education’!)

“[The] feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice
witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”
  [Fundraising letter from Pat Robertson that was an in-    kind contribution to the Iowa Committee to Stop ERA,    as reported in The Washington Post, August 23, 1993]

“There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that
sanctifies the separation of church and state.”
        [Pat Robertson]

“God showed me…that he was going to bless the Christian Coalition beyond our wildest expectations.  Before the year 2000, the Christian Coalition will be the most powerful organization in America.  We’ll be back in 1993. We’ll be back in 1994.  We’ll be back in 1995…We’ll be back until we win it all.”
                [Pat Robertson]
(Hmmmm…it’s 2001 now…)

“The Constitution of the United States, for instance, is a marvelous document for self-government by Christian people. But the minute you
turn the document into the hands of non-Christian and atheistic people they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society.”
      [Pat Robertson, The 700 Club, Dec. 30, 1981]

“Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals—the two things seem to go together.”
      [Pat Robertson, “The 700 Club,” 1/21/93,
      ADL report on Religious Right, page 131]

“It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-biased media and the homosexuals who want to destroy all Christians”
[Pat Robertson, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Sept. 14, 1993]

“Modern experience has shown that usury inevitably leads to subservience. And God did not want his that for his people but rather intend for them to rule… He directed very fifty years that all debt would be cancelled, all property be redistributed, and the cycle begin again… Not withstanding the sneers of many in the banking community, it may be that God’s way is the only one open to us - a year of jubillee to straighten us out.”
        [Pat Robertson, The Secret Kingdom, 1992]

“I have known few homosexuals who did not practice their tendencies. Such people are sinning against God and will lead to the ultimate destruction of the family and our nation. I am unalterably opposed to such things, and will do everything I can to restrict the freedom of these people to spread their contagious infection to the youth of this nation.”
                [Pat Robertson]

“I know one man who was impotent who gave AIDS to
his wife and the only thing they did was kiss.”
        [Pat Robertson] (cookoo!)

“You say you’re supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing.
Nonsense. I don’t have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist.”
    [Pat Robertson, The 700 Club, January 14, 1991]

“The wars of extermination have given a lot of people trouble unless they know what was going on. The people in the land of Palestine were very wicked. They were given over to idolatry; they sacrificed their children; they had all kinds of abominable sex practices; they were having sex, apparently, with animals; they were having sex men with men, and women with women; they were committing adultery, fornication; they were worshipping idols, offering their children up; and they were forsaking God. God told the Israelites to kill them all - men, women and children, to destroy them.  And that seems to be a terrible thing to do. Is it? Or isn’t it? Well, let us assume there were 2,000 of them, or 10,000 of them living in the land, or whatever number there was of them. I don’t have the exact number. Pick a number. God said, ‘Kill them all.’ Well, that would seem hard, wouldn’t it? That would be 10,000 people who would probably go to Hell.  But, if they stayed and reproduced, in 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 or 100 more years, they could conceivably be - 10,000 would go to a 100,000 - 100,000 could conceivably go to a million.  And then, there would be a million people who would have to spend eternity in Hell! And it’s far more merciful to take away a few than to see in the future a 100 years down the road, and say, ‘Well, I have to take away a million people that would forever be apart from God,’ because the abomination was there like a contagium. God saw that there was no cure for it. It wasn’t going to change; their hearts weren’t going to change; and all they would do is cause trouble for the Israelites, and pull the Israelites away from God, and prevent the truth of God from reaching the Earth. So, God, in love, took away a small number that he might not have to take away a large number.”
    [Pat Robertson, rationalizing genocide committed by the early Israelites, on “The 700 Club” television program. May 6, 1985]

“When I said during my presidential bid that I would only bring Christians and Jews into the government, I hit a firestorm.  `What do you mean?’ the media challenged me. `You’re not going to bring atheists into the government? How dare you maintain that those who believe in the Judeo-Christian values are better qualified to govern America than Hindus and Muslims?’ My simple answer is, `Yes, they are.’”
      [Pat Robertson, “The New World Order,” page 218]

“For this cause shall a man leave his mother and father and cleave to his flesh…. I mean, cleave to his wife.”
  [Pat Robertson, on “Larry King Live” August 17, 1992]

“Sickness and disease will be a part of life
of this planet until Jesus comes back.”
      [Pat Robertson]

“A lasting peace will never be built upon man’s
efforts, because man is sinful, vicious, and wicked.”
        [Pat Robertson]

“I know there are some Christians who believe that war and their participation in it are morally wrong. While I respect their views and must allow them to follow their consciences, I do not believe the Bible teaches pacifism.”
                [Pat Robertson]

“Whenever the civil government forbids the practice of things that God has commanded us to do, or tells us to do things He has commanded us not to do then we are on solid ground in
disobeying the government and rebelling against it.”
          [Pat Robertson]

“Government was instituted by God to bring His laws to people and to carry out His will and purposes.”
          [Pat Robertson]

“When any civil government steps outside the mandate authorized by God Almighty, then that government does not have any further claim over its citizens.”
          [Pat Robertson]

“I believe that he [Jesus] is Lord of the government, and the church, and business and education, and, hopefully, one day, Lord of the press. I see him involved in everything. And that’s why I don’t want to stay just in the church, as such. I want the church to move into the world.”
              [Pat Robertson]

“Satan is a tool of God’s love in the sense
that he forces us to see God’s loving patience.”
        [Pat Robertson]

“Therefore the spiritual standard for America would be the gospel of Jesus and everything in the Old and New Testaments.”
            [Pat Robertson]

“The strategy aginst the American radical left should be the same as General Douglas MacArthur employed against the Japanese in the Pacific… bypass their strongholds, then surround them, isolate them bombard them, then blast the individuals out of their power bunkers with hand-to-hand combat. The battle for Iwo Jima was not pleasant, but our troops won it. The battle to regain the soul of America won’t be pleasant either, but we will win it.”
  [Pat Robertson, in “Pat Robertson’s Perspective,” April-May 1992]

“There will never be world peace until God’s house and God’s people are given their rightful place of leadership at the top of the world. How can there be peace when drunkards, drug dealers, communists, atheists, New Age worshipers of Satan, secular humanists, oppressive dictators, greedy moneychangers, revolutionary assassins, adulterers, and homosexuals are on top?”
  [Pat Robertson, “The New World Order”, 1991, P. 227, Word Publishing]

“The key in terms of mental ability is chess. There’s never been a woman Grand Master chess player. Once you get one, then I’ll buy some of the feminism…”
  [Pat Robertson (According to the Chess Federation of the U.S. there were already two women Grand Masters at that time, both from   Georgia. Since Robertson’s gaffe, three more women became Grand Masters)]

“The courts are merely a ruse, if you will, for humanist,
atheistic educators to beat up on Christians.”
    [Pat Robertson, The 700 Club, Oct. 2,1990]

“I am bound by the laws of the United States and all 50 states…I am not bound by any case or any court to which I myself am not a party…
I don’t think the Congress of the United States is subserviant to the courts…They can ignore a Supreme Court ruling if they so choose.”
      [Pat Robertson, interview with The Washington Post editorial board, June 27,1986]

“Why are so many marriages falling apart? Why is the divorce rate so high? ...Why is there such a tragedy in marriage?...Now the basic answer to the basic problem of marriages today is a question of leadership. The wife actually makes the husband the head of the household and she looks to him and she says ‘now you pray, and I’m
going to pray for you that the Lord will speak to you.”
      [Pat Robertson, The 700 Club, May 22, 1986]

“It is interesting, that termites don’t build things, and the great builders of our nation almost to a man have been Christians, because Christians have the desire to build something. He is motivated by love of man and God, so he builds. The people who have come into [our] institutions [today] are primarily termites. They are into destroying institutions that have been built by Christians, whether it is universities, governments, our own traditions, that we have…. The termites are in charge now, and that is not the way it ought to be, and the time has arrived for a godly fumigation.”
      [Pat Robertson, New York Magazine, August 18, 1986]

“Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It’s no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history.”
      [Pat Robertson in a 1993 interview with Molly Ivins]

“The public education movement has also been an anti-Christian movement… We can change education in America if you put Christian
principles in and Christian pedagogy in. In three years, you would totally revolutionize education in America.”
    [Pat Robertson,“The 700 Club,” September 27, 1993]

“You see what happened in 1962. They took prayer out of the schools. The next year the Supreme Court ordered Bible reading taken from the schools. And then progressing, liberals, most of them atheistic educators, have pushed to remove all religion from the lives of children…The people who wrote the “Humanist Manifesto” and their pupils and their disciples are in charge of education in America today.”
      [Pat Robertson, “The 700 Club,” January 13, 1995]

“The mission of the Christian Coalition is simple, to mobilize Christians—one precinct at a time, one community at a time—until once again we are the head and not the tail, and at the top rather than the bottom of our political system….the Christian Coalition will be the most powerful political force in America by the end of this decade.. We have enough votes to run this country…and when the people say, ‘We’ve had enough,‘we’re going to take over!”
                [Pat Robertson]

“We want…as soon as possible to see a majority of the Republican
Party in the hands of pro-family Christians by 1996.”
        [Pat Robertson, Denver Post, 10/26/92]

“People have immortal spirits with incredible power over elemental things.  The way to deal with inanimate matter is to talk to it.”
    [Rev. Pat Robertson, quoted in San Francisco Examiner]

“We are not one nation, we are two nations entirely separate (Christian and non-Christian).”
            [Pat Robertson]

Jesus Was Sinless?

The Bible Clearly Says So:

2 Corinthians 5:21: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” 

Hebrews 4:15: “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”

1 Peter 2:21-22: “...because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.”

1John 3:5: “And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.”

But, Wait!

Mark 10:17-18: “And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.”

Matthew 19:16-17: “And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God…”

Luke 18:18-19: “And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God.”

And Remember:

Matt. 5:17 says, regarding the old law—“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill”.  So let’s keep in mind that the old laws (including the Commandments, right?) must, therefore, still apply (even with Jesus).

Interesting!  Now Read the Following:

John 7:8-10[KJV] Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast: for my time is
not yet full come. When he had said these words unto them, he abode still in Galilee. But when his brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.  (Jesus broke his promise [word] by going up secretly after saying he wouldn’t.)

Matt. 5:22 “...but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” (Yet, Jesus repeated called people fools: Matt. 23:17,19 “Ye fools and blind…” Luke 11:40 “Ye fools,...”)
John 3:13 Jesus falsely stated: “And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.” (This verse is not only inaccurate historically as 2 Kings 2:11 shows: 2 Kings 2:11”...behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.” but also absurd on its face. If the son of man (Jesus-ed) is down here on earth speaking then how could he be in heaven.)
In Matt. 5:44 Jesus told people to: Matt. 5:44 “...Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, ...”  (Yet repeatedly called his opponents names and hurled epithets. (See Matt. 23:15, 23:17, 19, 27, 33, John 10:8, Luke 11:40, Matthew 12:34)
Jesus said: Matt. 19:19 “Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” while he said to his own mother:  (John 2:4 “...Woman, what have I to do with thee?” Apparently Jesus’ love escaped him. This is the same Jesus who told everyone else to “Honor thy father and mother.”)
“Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees which were of Jerusalem, saying, `Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.’ But he answered and said unto them, `Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?’” (Matt. 15:1-3).  “Why do ye also” is an admission by Jesus that his disciples were violating a commandment of God. He doesn’t deny they are breaking God’s law; he simply says his critics are guilty of the same offense.

MATT. 9:18 (“While Jesus spake these things unto them, behold, there came a certain ruler, and worshipped him, saying, my daughter is even now dead: but come and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live”). Later, in the 24th and 25th verses Jesus said, “Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. But when the people were put forth, he went in, and took her by the hand, and the maid arose.” If the ruler’s daughter was dead, then, Jesus lied. If she was not dead, then he performed no miracle.

Numbers 15:32-36 – (32) And while the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man who gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day.  (33) And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron, and to all the congregation.  (34) And they put him in custody, because it was not told what should be done to him.  (35) And the L-rd said to Moses, “The man shall be surely put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.”  (36) And all the congregation brought him outside the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the L-rd commanded Moses.

But Matthew 12:1-6 states: “At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were hungered, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day.” (The “corn” referred to in the King James Version of the Bible is really referring to a grain crop.) Mark 2:23-28 describes the same incident. In Luke 6:1-5, the disciples’ sin was not to pluck and eat the ears of grain; it was the act of rubbing the ears between their hands to extract the kernels which was considered work, and thus sinful.
Conspiracy to steal animals: In Mark 11:2-4, Matt 21:2-3, and Luke 19:30-31, Jesus instructs two of his disciples to go into a village - perhaps Bethany. They were to locate a colt tied up near the entrance, and to return with it. If someone stopped them they were to explain that the Lord had need of it. Otherwise, they were simply to steal the colt without paying for it or obtaining permission.

In Matthew’s account, they were to steal both an ass and a colt, and Jesus somehow rode into Jerusalem astride both animals. Liberal theologians interpret this strange arrangement as a misunderstanding by the author of Matthew of Zechariah 9:9 “...behold, thy King cometh unto thee… lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.” One commentator wrote: “Matthew misunderstood the Hebrew parallelism by which the lines were matched by sense rather than by sound.” 6 Hebrew poetry makes almost no use of rhyme and no direct use of meter. Rather, the “units of thought in each line of the poem [are] enhanced compared or emphasized by their relationship to those in a parallel line.” 7 Thus, Zechariah is referring to the same animal, twice. The author of Matthew misinterpreted the passage and believed that it referred to two separate animals. The authors of the Gospels of Mark, Luke and John did not make this mistake. In Mark 11:7, Luke 19:35, and John 12:14-15, they describe Jesus as riding on a single animal: a young donkey or colt.  The sin in this case was conspiracy to commit theft.

Dear Emily:

Biblical Attitudes Toward Women

Old Testament:

Lot refuses to give up his angels to the perverted mob, offering his two “virgin daughters” instead. He tells the bunch of rapists to “do unto them [his daughters] as is good in your eyes.” This is the same man that is called “just” and “righteous” in 2 Pet.2:7-8.  (Gen. 19:8)

Lot and his daughters camp out in a cave for a while. The daughters get their “just and righteous” father drunk, and have sexual intercourse with him, and each conceives and bears a son (wouldn’t you know it!).  (Gen. 19:30-38)

Abraham had several concubines.  (Gen. 25:6)  Ever notice it’s only the men with multiple lovers? The ‘adultery’ rap only applies to women, since the men can have concubines or multiple wives.  You don’t see the Good Book frowning on the practice, do you?

Leah conceives and bears four sons. And it’s a good thing, too, since her husband hated her until then for not giving him any sons.  (Gen. 29:32-34)

Jacob has two wives and two concubines, continuing the biblical tradition of polygamy.  (Gen. 32:22)

Dinah’s brothers, to justify the massacre of a town for the rape of their sister, say: “Should he deal with our sister as with a harlot?” To the author of Genesis, rape is a crime against the honor of men rather than against a woman. (Gem. 34:31)  Note:  this attitude is still very prevalent in the Middle East.

Rachel dies in childbirth; but at least she had another son. And in the Bible, a woman is expected to die happily as long as she has a son. (Gen. 35:17-18)

After Judah pays Tamar for her services, he is told that she “played the harlot” and “is with child by whoredom.” When Judah hears this, he says, “Bring her forth, and let her be burnt.” (Gen. 38:24)  Once again, completely different attitudes toward women regarding the act of sex.

“Thou halt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, ... nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.” In the Bible, women are the property of men; they are his possessions—like an ox or an ass.  (Ex. 20:17)

God explains how to go about selling your daughter—and what to do if she fails to please her new master.  (Ex. 21:7)

If you “entice” an “unmarried maid” to “lie” with you, then you must marry her, unless the father refuses to give her to you, in which case you must pay him the going price for virgins.  Ex. 22:16 (What a deal!)

“Their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.” God always blames the women; it is they who “go a whoring” and then “make” the men “go a whoring.”  Ex. 34:16 (That’s certainly my contention!)

Women are dirty and sinful after childbirth, so God prescribes rituals for their purification. If a boy is born, the mother is unclean for 7 days and must be purified for 33 days; but if a girl is born, the mother is unclean for 14 days and be purified for 66 days. This is because, in the eyes of God, girls are twice as dirty as boys.  Lev. 12:1-5 (I knew it!)

When “Moses numbered them according to the word of the Lord” he was told to count “every male from a month old and upward.” Women and girls didn’t count as persons.  Num. 3:15-16

If a man dies and has no son, then his inheritance goes to his daughter. But if he has a son, then the daughter gets nothing. Also no mention is made of wives, sisters, or aunts.  Num. 27:8 (After all, they can go ahead and get remarried, right?)

If men make vows, then God expects them to keep them. But a woman cannot make a vow, unless it is “allowed” by her husband or father. If it is “allowed,” then she must keep it—but even so, she is not responsible (her husband or father is).  Num. 30:3-16

Under God’s direction, Moses’ army defeats the Midianites. They kill all the adult males, but take the women and children captive. When Moses learns that they left some live, he angrily says: “Have you saved all the women alive? Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.” So they went back and did as Moses (and presumably God) instructed, killing everyone except for the virgins. In this way they got 32,000 virgins—Wow! (Even God gets some of the booty—including the virgins.)  Num. 31:1-54

If you see a pretty woman among the captives and would like her for a wife, then just bring her home and “go in unto her.” Later, if you decide you don’t like her, you can “let her go.”  Deut. 21:11-14

If a man marries, then decides that he hates his wife, he can claim she wasn’t a virgin when they were married. If her father can’t produce the “tokens of her virginity” (bloody sheets), then the woman is to be stoned to death at her father’s doorstep.  Deut. 22:13-21

If a betrothed virgin is raped in the city and doesn’t cry out loud enough, then “the men of the city shall stone her to death.”  Deut. 22:23-24

If a man rapes an unbetrothed virgin, he must pay her father 50 shekels of silver and then marry her.  Deut. 22:28-29 (Now that’s what I call “Wife-Finder” writ large!)

If a man dies before his wife has a child, then the widow must marry her husband’s brother—whether she likes him or not, and whether she wants to or not.  Deut. 25:5

“Have they not divided the prey; to every man a damsel or two?”  Judges 5:30

When “the spirit of the Lord” comes upon Jephthah, he makes a deal with God: If God will help him kill the Ammonites, then he (Jephthah) will offer to God as a burnt offering whatever comes out of his house to greet him. God keeps his end of the deal by providing Jephthah with “a very great slaughter.” But when Jephthah returns, his nameless daughter comes out to greet him (who’d he expect, his wife?). Well, a deal’s a deal, so he delivers her to God as a burnt offering—after letting her spend a couple of months going up and down on the mountains bewailing her virginity.  Judges 11:29-39

After taking in a traveling Levite, the host offers his virgin daughter and his guest’s concubine to a mob of perverts (who want to have sex with his guest). The mob refuses the daughter, but accepts the concubine and they “abuse her all night.” The next morning she crawls back to the doorstep and dies. The Levite puts her dead body on an ass and takes her home. Then he chops her body up into twelve pieces and sends them to each of the twelve tribes of Israel.  Judges 19:22-30

David kills 200 Philistines and brings their foreskins to Saul to buy his first wife (Saul’s daughter Michal). Saul had only asked for 100 foreskins, but David was feeling generous.  1Sam. 18:25-27

“And it came to pass about ten days after, that the Lord smote Nabal, that he died.” This was convenient for David who then took his property and his wife, Abigail.  1Sam. 25:38 (This is David, “a man after God’s own heart”!)
David sees a woman (Bathsheba) bathing and likes what he sees. so he sends for her and commits adultery with her “for she was purified from her uncleanness.” She conceives and bears a son (of course).  2Sam. 11:2-5

David tells Joab (his captain) to send Bathseba’s husband (Uriah) to “the forefront of the hottest battle ... that he may be smitten and die.” In this way, David gets another wife.  2Sam. 11:15, 11:17, 11:27

Speaking of births, Job says: “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean. Not one.” So according to the Bible, women are dirty (sinful), giving birth is dirty (sinful), and the newborn baby is dirty (sinful).  Job 14:4 (Does this apply to Jesus, too?)

“Who can find a virtuous woman?” Virtuous men are much more common.  Prov. 21:10

“As a wife treacherously departeth from her husband ...” If a woman leaves her husband, she is “treacherous,” but a man is blameless when he “puts her away” for no reason.  Jer. 3:20

God sends a “man clothed with linen” to mark the foreheads of the men who will be saved. Apparently only men are considered good enough to keep, the others (unmarked men, “maids”, little children, and women) are to be slaughtered. God says he’ll “fill the courts with the slain” and will have pity on no one.  Ezekiel 9:4-10

“You’re all a bunch of women” was the biggest insult God could think of at the moment. Nahum 3:13

Evil is personified as a woman.  Zech. 5:7-8

New Testament

(For those who want to try the, “Well, Jesus changed all that,” gambit, read the following: Matt. :17 says, regarding the old law—“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill”.  So let’s keep in mind that the old laws must, therefore, still apply).

Matthew:

Jesus says that divorce is permissible when the wife is guilty of fornication. But what if the husband is unfaithful? Jesus doesn’t seem to care about that. 5:32, 19:9

When Jesus’ mother wants to see him, Jesus asks, “Who is my mother?” 12:47-49

Mark:

In the last days God will make things especially rough on pregnant women. 13:17

Luke:

Even Mary had to be “purified” after giving birth to Jesus. Was she defiled by giving birth to the Son of God? 2:22

Males are holy to God, not females. 2:23

Jesus, when told that his mother and brothers want to see him, ignores and insults them by saying that his mother and brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it. 8:20-21

Romans:

Paul explains that “the natural use” of women is to act as sexual objects for the pleasure of men. 1:27

1 Corinthians:

Paul would prefer that no one marry. but he says “to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife.” 7:1-2

Paul says “the head of the woman is the man,” meaning that the women are to be subordinate to men. 11:3

If a woman refuses to cover her head in church, then her head must be shaved. 11:5-6

Men are made in the image of God; women in the image of men. Women were created from and for men. 11:7-9

Women are commanded by Paul to be silent in church and to be obedient to men. He further says that “if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in church.” 14:34-35

Ephesians:

Wives must submit to their husbands “in every thing” as though they were Christ. “For the husband is the head of the wife.” 5:22-24

Colossians:

Wives, according to Paul, must submit themselves to their husbands. 3:18

1 Timothy:

“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” 2:11-12

Men are superior to women since Adam was made before, and sinned after, Eve. But even though women are inferior to men, they shouldn’t be discouraged because they shall “be saved in childbearing.” 2:14-15

Real widows are “desolate” and pray “night and day.” But those widows that experience pleasure are “dead while [they] live.” 5:5-6

You should help a widow only if she 1) is over 60 years old, 2) had only one husband, 3) has raised children, 4) has lodged strangers, 5) has “washed the saints feet,” 6) has relieved the afflicted, and 7) has “diligently followed very good work.” Otherwise, let them starve. “But the younger widows refuse [to help]: for ... they will marry; having damnation.” Besides the young widows are always idle tattlers—“busybodies, spreading things which they ought not.” He adds that “some are already turned aside after Satan.” 5:9-15

2 Timothy:

In the last days, “silly women” who are “ever learning” will be “led away with diverse lusts.”3:6-7

Titus:

“Teach the young women to be ... obedient to their own husbands.” 2:4-5

1 Peter:

1.Peter orders all wives to be “in subjection” to their husbands. 3:1
2.Wives are to use “chaste conversation, coupled with fear.” They are not to braid their hair, wear gold, or put on any “apparel.” They are to do these things in imitation of the “holy” women of the Old testament who were “in subjection to their won husbands: even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord.” 3:2-6
3.In relation to her husband, the wife is “the weaker vessel.” 3:7

God On Slavery

“As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from the nations that are round about you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you, to inherit as a possession forever; you may make slaves of them, but over your brethren the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another, with harshness.”..........Leviticus 25:44
“When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be punished; for the slave is his money.”..........Exodus 21:20
Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as to Christ….”..........Ephesians 6:
“Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, . . . and they shall be your possession . . . they shall be your bondmen forever.”..........Leviticus 25:45-46And the

(Christians in the North in the days of the Civil War thought slavery was wrong?  Which Bible were they reading?)
“Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be defamed. Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brethren; rather they must serve all the better since those that benefit by their service are believers and beloved.”..........1 Timothy 6:1Good
“Bid slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect…”..........Titus 2:
“If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. . . . And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the manservant’s do.“Leviticus 21:6-
“Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes….”..........Luke 12:37

“And that servant who knew his master’s will, but did not make ready or act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating.”
..........Luke 12:47

Regarding Christianity

Christianity, like all other belief systems, is a religion propounded and encouraged by those who would rather have others pay their way for them (that is, the so-called “holy men”—priests, preachers, rabbis, imams, etc).  Rather than go to work like the rest of us and put real effort and time into a career, holy leaders seek to spend a minimum of time at their chosen vocation for maximum payoff.  The evidence is ample:  visit your local church/chapel/cathedral/synagogue/mosque and ask the preacher/priest/shaman/rabbi/imam how many hours he spends in actual labor; a couple of hours coming up with a carefully slanted sermon, perhaps; a few hours put in on Sunday (or Saturday) mornings (maybe even for a second morning service!), with two or three more hours on Sunday evening; two hours on Wednesday evening for prayer services; perhaps a visit or two to a hospital, with the extremely rare house call thrown in (especially if the issues require his hands-on attention—say, for instance, if one of his flock has discovered rational thought and has decided the religion is pure bunk); maybe a marriage ceremony (that he charges for) or a funeral (that he also charges for).  And look closely at their churches, cathedrals, and synagogues; how many poor people would all of those icons to pure drivel have fed, clothed, and housed?
It’s a con game, one supported and endorsed by our shortsighted and self-serving government (composed largely, of course, of the very mindless masses of which I speak—when was the last time anyone elected an admitted atheist?).  These self-styled “holy men” do nothing more than play on their congregations’ hopes and fears, misrepresenting and falsely interpreting the meanings of their alleged holy works—anything that furthers their own ends, of course.  Not only do these charlatans get to sit on their ivory pedestals of assumed moral superiority, they have protection from taxation, they influence elections and public policies, and they are never taken to task for their outlandish beliefs (not without doubters incurring the wrath of the polity, not without doubters being called “rude” or “immoral” merely for their honest inquiries).
The lazy but cunning rule over the weak-minded and the ignorant, and then has the sheer audacity to demand ten percent for their trouble.  And that ten percent is not subsequently taxed.  The indolent clergy often make better salaries than many doctors, men and women who actually have to work and be trained in a field that requires knowledge and scientific expertise.  These very holy-rollers then have the audacity to complain about any governmental welfare system that might otherwise cut into their profits, while doing the bare minimum themselves to help the very people their own “messiah” ordered them to aid.  And this scam is unassailable; none can question it strongly without the questioner being vilified by the overwhelming majority who buy into the scam without question.  Amway is taken to task far more harshly than the average religion, but why? Religion is merely a publicly accepted pyramid, one that is shoved down the throats of small children (and willfully ignorant adults) by the millions every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night. Conmen go to prison; preachers, priests and rabbis claim to deserve—and actually receive—our unconditional respect.
And where is the ironclad proof that this belief system offers? It comes in the form of a collection of writings, a work gathered and promulgated by a group with a very specific agenda, an anthology originally written by a bunch of smelly nomads certain only of their own professed superiority because they’d gotten together and decided that they were right and that everyone else was wrong, and any who disagreed with them deserved to be slaughtered, oppressed, and treated as immoral savages—all merely because they didn’t share in the belief system (hey, their God told them as much, right?).
And because some easily-persuaded emperor of the long-dead Roman Empire decided that this was the religion for him, we in the West now have to suffer the smug superiority and irrationality, the indignity, of a group of self-righteous, poorly-educated people who wouldn’t know the scientific method if it bit them on the proverbial ass.
The truth of it is that this and all religions answer a number of emotional and pseudo-intellectual needs that people who aren’t courageous enough to accept life as it really is absolutely must have.  We all fear death, so we come up with or willingly follow any notion that allows us to believe that death isn’t really the end.  We don’t like to think we might merely be a cosmic accident, so we buy into an idea that tells us a Superbeing, the Creator of All the Universe, made us for a mysterious celestial game of chance.  We don’t feel comfortable without believing there’s Something Out There that cares for us, that watches our every move and has a Grand Plan for us—even if we don’t happen to be privy to what it is.  We take the road more heavily traveled—blind belief—than that very difficult and painful road—honest investigation—which might make us strive honestly and question who we are, where we’re going, and what it all means without the conceited but insupportable assurances our more ignorant acquaintances would have us believe.
Consider this:  why do we not take our parents to task for allowing us to believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny? Eventually these parents reveal that these figures don’t actually exist, don’t they? (At least, I certainly hope so.) Yet when they guarantee us that God (in whichever form) is for real, why don’t we make the logical comparison? Don’t our governments, because this particular belief is enforced in the home, support it, and by the time we might use evaluation regarding those other types of allowable beliefs (that are eventually done away with), it’s too late to actually realize just how much wool has been pulled over our eyes? How many “Churches of Santa Claus” are there? How many cathedrals to the Easter Bunny have you come across lately? How many Tooth Fairy synagogues are there? None, of course, because those beliefs were destroyed early and mercilessly—but replaced by one no less questionable.  A small child hopes fervently for a new bike; an old child hopes fervently for eternal life.  A young boy slides his envelope-encased molar under the pillow in hopes of a crisp dollar bill; an older boy folds his hands together to ask the Unseeable and Unknowable for that promotion, or for his wife’s ovarian cancer to clear up.
How many Christians scoff at Muslims, Buddhists, Shintoists, Hindus, and Wiccans? Yet where is the yardstick of incredulity, the demand for evidence, regarding his own cherished beliefs? Is it really okay for a Christian to smirk smugly and roll his eyes at the Scientologist, yet fail to use the same logic and cynicism when it comes to his own belief system? Isn’t it true that the Christian is an atheist in regards to every belief system but his own? Isn’t he merely making that one exception? How is it that the average Christian shrugs off the authority of the Vedas, the Bagavad Ghita, the Koran, the Tao Te Ching, the Torah, and Dianetics, yet stands resolute and firm when their own religious texts are attacked, often by people using the very same reasoning the Christian himself uses against, say, the Koran? Is the story of Noah’s Ark really less absurd than, for instance, the story of Joseph Smith’s golden breastplates? If someone made a claim that they could defecate gold bullion, wouldn’t the average Christian ask for verification? If someone came along and asserted that they could move mountains, wouldn’t the Christian demand a demonstration? Would the Christian merely accept the foregoing claims “on faith” and quietly respect that person’s beliefs and assertions, especially if the believers attempted to subvert legislation and the public education system?  Of course they wouldn’t.  And if a geology text were full of errors, contradictions, and absurdities, wouldn’t the Christian be justified in throwing it in the trash because of its many inherent flaws? So why does the Christian refuse to accept—in any way—that his own holy text is full of thousands of contradictions, errors, and absurdities?
The answer, of course, is simple:  he doesn’t want to.  To admit even one error makes the shaky belief system seem more insupportable than he cares to admit.  To admit that Jesus’ genealogy might be contradictory is to admit that the basis of their entire worldview (bought at great expense by their indolent clergy, their well-meaning but ignorant parents, or their self-serving government) might be intrinsically flawed.  To admit that the Bible’s mention of dragons, satyrs, cockatrices, unicorns, a world resting on pillars, a talking donkey, and a disembodied hand writing by itself might be ridiculous opens the door to many more uncomfortable possibilities.  If this or that verse contains nonsense, or if this or that verse contradicts another, or if this verse clearly contains mathematical or scientific errors, that might mean I just might 1) die the true death, one without the possibility of an after life; 2) look like an idiot for believing something that is so palpably ridiculous; 3) have to actually deal with life as it really is, to look at life honestly and courageously, without having everything spoon-fed to me by those with an ulterior agenda; 4) have to actually go to the trouble of learning how this thing called the Universe actually works; and 5) abandon those bigotries I’ve so carefully cultivated all these years.
It’s time for Christians—and, for that matter, every other adherent of anthropomorphic, theistic religions—to be intellectually honest.  If an assertion must be accepted on faith, then it fails on its own merits.  If all the thousands of gods worshipped in humanity’s past are regarded as mythological and quaint, then why is this one deserving of that unique status accorded it by so many whose reasons are so terribly obvious to the rest of us.  This belief system has its only basis in its emotional appeal.  And since blind faith is the final bulwark in the believer’s arsenal, then perhaps the believer should be a bit more convivial and humble in his dealings with those of us who live in the real world.
But, of course, history is replete with examples of why that simply will never happen.  As Santayana remarked, “Those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”  The U.S. is sinking into the quagmire of fascistic theocracy, and anyone who points this out is immediately denigrated and ignored.  And all because the willfully ignorant and the intellectually weak actually have more say than those who have the courage to face life as it is without imposing their hopes and fears on an indifferent universe.
And, just for a moment, consider something:  imagine how far along humanity could have progressed had the Dark Ages never happened.

This is a fine and interesting article, however it leaves out one of the most salient reasons why religious structures exist in most societies. That reason is the perpetuity of class hegemony.

Sam, 
  I heard you on Airamerica, with Bobby Kennedy, Jr..  Your arguments are extremely rational; you made total sense.  I guess its hard for a lot of people to accept the points you make because it goes so against what we were ALL taught throughout our lives.  But, you’re right; religeous, rigid thinking and intolerance of “others” is responsible for so much of what’s wrong and atrocious (in the sense of “atrocities”) in the world, and has been throughout recorded history and, undoubtedly, even prior to it.  Perhaps enough of us will ultimately evolve to the clarity that you so courageously and articultely verbalize.  Of course, the sooner the better.
  You may find some congruent points of view on my blog at <http://petepearlman.blogspot.com>.
  Appreciatively, Pete Pearlman

I think the main barrier to the discussion of atheism is the notion that atheists have no morality. To say that someone is an atheist is to say that they are always open to re-interpretation. Likewise, it would seem inconsistent with atheism to say “there absolutely is no God.” To me, the group that is going to be the most_responsible is that which fears it may only have one life to live. Where is the accountability for those who would claim there is another beautiful world after this? This sounds a great deal like a fantasy. How egotistical is it, anyway, to say that the salvation of your own personal soul is the most important thing for you to do? I did enjoy the statement of “Let your beliefs be proportional to your evidence.” That seems to be the most prudent method. It is comical to see how angry most people get when presented with awkward questions for which they have no answer…

At some point we are going to need to abandon our belief in religious freedom.  Some form of religion are just too dangerous for society.

It is never worthwhile to argue about the religion you haven’t got.

The person who boasts of having no religious prejudice quite often has no religion.

Many tailor their religion to fit the pattern of their prejudice.

The person who argues most about religion usually has the least of it.

The world does not need a definition of religion as much as it needs a demonstration.

People don’t really pay much attention to what is said about religion,  because they’d rather watch what is done about it.

A lot of people are interested in a religion that makes them look good without having to act that way.

Thousands of people are experts on religion but never practice it.

Religion does not fail. It is the people who fail religion.

The most uncomfortable person on earth is one who just enough religion to make him uneasy and not enough to make him happy.

The religion of some is well-developed at the mouth but lame in the hands and feet.

If your religion leaves your life unchanged, you had better change your religion.

Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, die for it—-anything but live for it.

A religion that does nothing, costs nothing, suffers nothing—-is worth nothing.

True religion is the life we live, not the creeds we profess.

Christianity should be the motor of life, the central heating plant of personality, the faith that gives joy to activity, hope to struggle, dignity to humility, and zest to living.

You can’t repent too soon, because you don’t know how soon it may be too late!!!!