Most intelligent scientists simply do not want to devote the time that Sam Harris has to such an utterly rediculous state of affairs as religious postulates.  The claims of organized religion are so utterly far-fetched and infantile one cannot help but cringe as the impoverished and depraved minds which originially organized them.
We should all take at least one moment to thank Sam Harris for devoting these precious, conditional, and finite years of a short human life to attacking so vile a cancer in order to make us all a bit safer. 
Other people have their own ways of contributing such as advancing science and the space program in order to get us off of this planet before we kill ourselves from the monkey-brained-sex-fantasy of religion.  For people like Sam Harris who directly attack and see the nastiness for what it is, we should give a special thanks and particular support for all his future efforts.

Forget the bible for now, just look at the facts:

1. GOD = love for yourself and the same exact love for your fellow man.

2. Atheist = Love of yourself

Just think about that for a little while. The goal of religion is so everyone can work together to take care of each other. That means no hate for your fellow man. What do you rather Friends of foes? If you don’t agree with the Bible that doesn’t mean it’s wrong...maybe you havent realized the obvious truth in it. It’s OK, just keep asking questions, but also open your jeart to love rather than hate. It’s really simple, don’t complicate things. Keep it simple stupid!!!

ONE LOVE

i do not care to enter into debate with faithheads.
as the old maxim goes “when you argue with a fool it’s just two.......”
having once been a bible thumping cretin, i am eternally indebted to the likes of dawkins and harris for their brave and intellectually honest stand. as a teen i was removed from my christian youth group for being a “disruptive influence”. translated that means the self righteous moron, in a display of typical christian charity and tolerance, was unable to answer one too many questions i posed undermining his delusional mindset. i was branded an apostate while all the time the hypocrites that ousted me continued in classical christian fashion to have there cake and eat it( that’s another story altogether ).thankfully, as a bibliophile and naturally intelligent individual, i was, with the help of atheist role models able to embrace the iconoclast, ironically, i was deemed to be. i welcome the barely disguised loathing of christians. my contempt exceeds any pity i feel for them. they are tainted and evil.

born again atheist.

Christie, you cite then categorically reject a claim you (understandably) find unpleasant, but you offer no critique of the reasoning underlying the claim, the few lines of which you omit from your quotation, and in which Sam both acknowledges the severity of his statement and provides a cogent argument supporting it:

“This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live.  Certain beliefs place their adherents beyond the reach of every peaceful means of persuasion, while inspiring them to commit acts of extraordinary violence against others.  There is, in fact, no talking to some people.  If they cannot be captured, and they often cannot, otherwise tolerant people may be justified in killing them in self-defense.” (The End of Faith, pp 53)

It is hardly a failure of reason to take those unfortunate actions to which the dangerously irrational compel us (which is certainly not to say that all of the “current administration’s policies” can be so categorized).  If you can offer a more reasonable alternative to killing those who cannot be captured nor swayed from beliefs that drive them to commit violence against the innocent, the world would be indebted to you.

Thanks Dave! We ignostics find no meaning to God. He is a mystery surrounded by others finding no support empirically, based on a series of guesses.Why assume an eternal god when a series of gods could be there?Why not a limited one as imperfections show no onmipotent one.Natural causes discount God from causes anyway. God is just the unimformative tautology that God wills what He wills. God did it is useless as an explanation.Contrary to Richard Swinburne, God cannot function as a personal explanation anymore than Thor, gremlins or demons.God is as useless as Lord Russell’s orbiting teapost! But, if granted meaning for the sake of debate, He is saddled with having to overcome Ockham’s razor. He requries ad hoc assumptions that are not forthcoming. He is teleological whereas natural selection is causal; the former proposes goals and purposes while the latter shows none whatsoever.Thus arises the clear contradiction between science and theology: one cannot add God to selection as it is a power unto itself, not an empty vehicle for God to put input into.And, Elizabeth, most Americans embrace creationism, not what you state!Now fundamentalists do vary: some embrace homosexuals without calling them names.Jim Wallis can try to get evangelicals to embrace our party, but I prefer Mr. Secularist Progressive himself Paul Kurtz to contribute to moral knowledge and to inform the party. Bishop Tutu is a great man,but he would be such were he not religious!Mother Theresa was a fraud as Hitchings and others show.Falwell sold the lying Clinton tapes. Graham advocates irrationalism. The Pope has good economic views but is reactionary socially. One should criticize religion just as one does politics. This is no longer taboo! Dawkins is engaging,non-threatening. Bizby and other fellow rationalists, thanks!

Unfortunately the Ku Klux Klan is often chosen at later age while the indoctrines of faith start very young. I agree that getting people to laugh at irrational beliefs take away the power of these. I also believe that where the education started so early and is part of everyday life, politics etc, it is more likely to unset aggression.

The post above by Guitarsandmore with the title “Scientists’ Belief in God Varies Starkly by Discipline” by Robert Roy Britt is an Internet hoax.

The claim that “About two-thirds of scientists believe in God, according to a new survey” is a lie.

For a truthful description of Prof. Ecklund’s research, written by her, go to http://religion.ssrc.org/reforum/Ecklund/

In her own words,
>When asked their beliefs about God, nearly 34 percent of academic scientists answer “I do not believe in God” and about 30 percent answer “I do not know if there is a God and there is no way to find out,” the classic agnostic response. This means that over 60 percent of professors in these natural and social science disciplines describe themselves as either atheist or religiously agnostic. In comparison, among those in the general U.S. population, about 3 percent claim to be atheists and about 5 percent are religiously agnostic.

I.e., about two-thirds of scientists do NOT believe in God.  The hoax by Britt and guitarsandmore has exactly inverted this, claiming that about two-thirds DO believe in God.

For an expose of the hoax by someone who actually bothered to speak with Ecklund, see http://www.statenews.com/op_article.phtml?pk=35422 .

And for a Christian Website that had the courage to expose the hoax, see : http://christdot.org/modules.php?name=News&new_topic=35 (scroll down).

It’s shameful how some of the god-fakers will lie to advance their religion!

The god-fakers ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Page 52/53 of the paperback of the End Of Faith:

“Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.” That’s Sam, not paraphrasing any religion, but spewing the same kind of reactionary tripe which leads to the killing of people who believe things differently than you.

I looked forward to this book when it first came out. Upon reading it, though, I was sorely disappointed. This is no call to reason. This is a call to reactionary killing and serves only to justify the current administration’s policies.

Sad. Still waiting for the call to reason.

The failure of religion is not found in its inability to offer verifiable proof of the existence of god, heaven, hell, paradise, messiahs, prophets, etc.
All religions are promoting fiction and offer fictionalized representations of the characters in their stories, along with the concepts and entities required to support that fiction.
Fiction, being the combination of the historical with fantasy, lies somewhere between the two in factuality and preponderance.
The true believers of religion will never succumb to the rules of evidence and will endeavor to fictionalize whatever is necessary from history and imagination as support to the veracity of their claims.

The Achilles Heel of religion is in the morality it professes to hold monopoly on.
This is glaringly apparent in the statement: “Thou shalt not kill”.
Judeo-Christians call this a Commandment, meaning a command from God not to be violated.
And in fact, it is taught to children as meaning: thou shalt not kill EVER, or you will be subject to eternal damnation.
However, it is obvious in practice by all adult adherents that the functional meaning is: thou shalt not kill, UNLESS OF COURSE IT’S NECESSARY, in which case you get a pass on the eternal damnation clause.

Religion would either have to stick to the moral high ground with Choice #1, profess: “Thou shalt not kill” and ACTUALLY stop with the killing… or Choice #2, lower the moral bar and change to: “Thou shalt kill as necessary”.
Either way the choice they make will erode their moral authority.
Avoiding following thru with Choice #1 and they wallow in their own hypocrisy.
Addressing the reality and going with Choice #2 and they lose their sanctification of purpose.

Fine,Paul! If one applied the scientific method as Victor Stenger does, one would find no god! See: “Has Science found God” and :God - the failed Hypothesie.”

Part 2

I think the essence of what Sam Harris is saying is that if you really understand the scientific method, it is possible to define yourself simply as a person who reasons from tangible evidence, and when you do not have enough evidence, or have a reliable theory to guide you, you have no choice but to go with your feelings.  Some might call that faith; some might call that going with your gut or your hunches.  It is all the same to me.

If someone wants to believe on faith that there is a god watching, or helping, or guiding their decisions, or that god is the essence of the ethics or morality of humanity as a whole, or anything of that sort, it must be recognized that any such belief system has the potential to create all of the negatives associated with religious dogma: from nitpicking over details, to thought crimes, to leaders with pipelines to god, to religious war, because who really knows what any of those things mean except the person thinking of them? What Sam is saying, if I read him right, and this is only part of what he argues, because he is against all dogma, is the only way to avoid that is to put the burden of proof on theists.  When and if theists accept that burden of proof, they certainly retain the option to continue to believe what they will in the privacy of their own minds and the confines of their churches, but in public, they must necessarily behave as functional atheists.  In fact, when critics of Sam say that they understand the scientific method and apply it already in practical matters, they are saying they are functional atheists, though they may be faith-based Christians in private.

Please refrain from referring to me as “another atheist”, because I do not believe in the label any more than Sam does.  I believe that I am a Christian in the sense that I have internalized many of the beliefs prevalent in the community I grew up in, having neither the time or inclination to question and prove every one scientifically.  However, when conflict arises concerning my beliefs, my approach is far more scientific than it is faith-based, and I do modify my beliefs with time, experience, and rational thought.

I do not understand the criticisms of Sam Harris argument by some who say he sets up fundamentalist Christians as straw men and attacks all people of faith, people who include, according to his critics, a majority of Christians who do not take the Bible literally and are essentially scientific in practical matters.  I thought he was quite clear stating his objection to faith-based dogma in general, and his objection to moderate Chrisianity was that it gave cover to the fundamentalists.

The responses seemed typical of so many seen on forums like this.  People react to the fact that “their group” was criticized, and in their eagerness to fire back, they misstate or respond inappropriately to the original argument.

Regarding “faith-based” Christians, who it was claimed, believe in science and the scientific method, I do not doubt that a poll would place them in numbers ahead of fundamentalists according to some definition of belief, but I’m skeptical of the claim that they are in the majority by MY definition of what it means to believe in the scientific method.  I’ve met many well-educated people in universities and professional settings, most of whom are Christians, and the vast majority cannot state the scientific method correctly or even construct a logical argument in normal speech or writing, so why should I believe that vast numbers of faith-based Christians have a working knowledge of the scientific method? 

I think faith-based Christians believe in science the same way the general public believes in science.  That is, the reality of the results of modern science and technology cannot be denied, so they “believe”.  But their belief differs little from the average person who believes he knows how a radio works.  Whey you ask how, he says you turn the knob.  Belief without understanding is only a slight improvement over belief without evidence. Without understanding, it is, in fact, possible to believe in many things simultaneously that cannot all be true.  While it might be possible to believe in ethics, or people, or God on the basis of faith, I find it hard to accept that it means much to believe in the scientific method the same way.

Part 2 to follow.

I am a positive atheist: there probaly is no god. I do not interpret the Scriptures inerrantly; I recognize the good parts, but one finds them elsewhere also .Yes, the religious rationally cherry pick but then they use our humanist moralilty to do so , not we who live off theirs ! I recognize the goodness of many religious but find them disregarding so much of their morality. They are as good or bad as the rest of us .They even have sex before marriage! St. Paul had a peaean on love but did not condemned slavery or misogyny . Jesuine and Pauline love is limited .One could love ones slave! How limited!  . One uses the love notion with facts and reason ,leaving aside the nughty parts.I prefer Arthur Caplan , Paul Kurtz and Peter Singer to the Pope or Jim Wallis.Morality has truly evolved over the centuries from the subjective , whimsical morality of the Scriptures to the more objective one of what facts and reason and love find out about what is truly good or bad for humans , other animals and the enviornment !And it is silly to compare us with fundamentalists !

In the end we all die..then no more christianity and no more atheisim.

I have read both of the Harris books, and am in the position of one who agrees with an awful lot of the observations he makes, and who understands precisely why he has raised the question, but who cannot support the overall conclusion that he draws. In any even moderately intelligent approach to a serious proposal such as he makes, surely it is the nature of the synthesis which links the observations that are reported to the conclusions that are drawn that should be of most interest? My personal faith is not threatened at all by Harris’ central argument, in fact it is rather stimulated by it. I think he deserves as good an answer as he can get, and I am currently trying to write something to explain that answer, from my own point of view of course. I have no idea how I might be able to share that writng, however.

A lot of anti-faith and anti-religion comments on here are from those who do not know the most basic things about religion.

Take the “12 Questions” post. The Holy Trinity is something that is considered a Holy Mystery; Catholics are not expected to fully understand why that is. It is something we accept with humility because we don’t have the answer to it. Many of the other claims on there can also be thrown out the window when actually speaking to someone who is more up-to-date with the theology of Roman Catholicism, as the 12 Questions apply mainly to that denomination.

I hear the whole “religion is bad! get rid of it!” argument all the time. This is somewhat true; there are things in the Bible and other holy books that are incompatible with life now and downright ridiculous. Does that change the message of love your neighbor as yourself, do good to the poor, do not murder, steal, etc.? No. Most of the Bible was written by humans, and to believe it blindly IS unintelligent. The main message should be the focus of what people believe, or what Harris calls “cherry-picking.” I don’t understand why cherry-picking is bad when it helps religion evolve, really, or at least allows religion and religious people to get out of the fundamental stage. It is also about interpretation. Fundamentalists and atheists will always interpret the holy books, especially the Bible, literally, because that is how they support their view of the world. (Atheists because they counter arguments of God with the literalness of the Bible, etc.) Religion does not necessarily equate or make bad people. If that were true, then the majority of the world would be horrible people. Yes, it is possible to have morals and ethics without religion, as it is possible to have it with religion. What I don’t like about Harris is that e has a very arrogant view towards anyone remotely religious - isn’t that the same as religious fanatics discriminating against others? Same feeling but different purpose, and that makes it okay?

Science and religion are also not as incompatible as people believe. Even in science, there are those who believe in a Supreme Being, as there are those who do not. Science is about experiments and theories and evidence, and it is changeable, and so there are those who can point at experiments and say that God exists while another can say the exact opposite. It is like “reality” - it’s there, but everyone’s interpretation of it is different. There is no one “reality.” That is absurd.

I’ll answer more later.

Sam Harris answers the silly fundamentalist atheist charge .It is not ,however, intolerant to state that some opinions are faulty as I try to show.Now to show faulty thinking: one does not ascribe to Thor weather conditions or to a mountain god the fact of isostasy, so why ascribe to God the entire cosmos when we have theories of bounce or the Harltle-Hawking theory ?Why make a mystery or the cosmos when science has these theories? It would be a violation of parsimony to add God to the equation. It won’t do to assume that He can sustain the cosmos when there in no need to posit that. There is no reason to think that there is any gound for assuming it would not just be without outside help .One can avoid this conclusion, but that does not make me intolerant !One should evaluate arguments. There probaly is no god,but others might not agree with me and that is fine. I do not envisage any opponents in a train wreck a la Atlas Shrugged ! I have found a flaw in one of my arguments ,by the way.Gee, but then I admit as a naturalist, fallibility .I cited books to encourage others to check out what the top people on both sides have to say.I am not unctous ,but fallible. So the conversation does indeed end .Father Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism.[With Albert Ellis, I urge self- and other acceptance. No one has to prove herself to me and vice versa .Acceptance, acceptance of life’s challenges also. See his book on self -esteem to learn about acceptance in all three forms.Acceptance would prevent hatred of the different.<I have so many mental defects ! >]

Fideism is entirely the bogus straw man for this discussion - it means accepting faith and rejecting logic.  That is precisely how you set it up.

Wallis and Falwell are much of the same stripe.  Yes, Jim is nicer - but he’s still theocratic and fundamentalist with respect to issues.  Haven’t a clue what he thinks about science and evolution, but he is anti-choice and homophobic.  Not good.

I told you, and I know as a sociologist, that the polls are flawed.  Numerically and attitudinally the mainstream, progressive people of faith outnumber the fundamentalists.  The polls seek to confirm the belief (they are in their own way fideistic) that the anti-logic fundamentalists are in ascendance, but it simply is not true.

I haven’t a clue how people envision God since the entire process is fraught with human limitation. How can you know the unknowable?  How do we envision a Black Hole when to someone there, it would not even be apparent?  There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio…

But I do know that you are highly intolerant of that with which you disagree and therefore with those who see the world differently.  You adore bloviation to try to win your argument, and I do not see why - it’s perfectly obvious even to people of faith that no one can possibly KNOW anything about the ethereal world of faith and transcendence.  You are on solid ground in your disbelief - but you remain just as intolerant as the most blowhard fundamentalist.  And with that, I end this.  It’s dull and uninformative.  I have not read anyone on this interchange who isn’t an atheistic fundie, and that makes me sad.  After years of working comfortably with both the faith community and the Center for Inquiry, I am saddened that atheists are just as inarticulate as the rightwingers.  Onward and upward to more and better conversations.

Elizabeth , no, I do not set up a straw man.I find that if people use faith -fideism- as their intial point they are all the the same in that regard= no facts and reason.Now theistic evolutionists do use facts and reason , though I find them to be oxymoronic, involved in a contradiction.They deserve credit for fighting fundamentalism over creation science. Now there are huge differences in the use of faith .Jim Wallis’s faith drives him to aid the poor .But when I decry faith is when it just means fideism at heart .When it means trust and hope , there is no problem .That is I find some mixing faith and reason- Aquinas and some just fideistic -Kierkegaard. Fundamentalists use more than faith- distort matters and rationalize .So, while I find fideism faulty as a way to God .I find faith even mixed with rational theology is suspect .As far as polls go , the majority seem to hold sway are fundamentalist, creationist ;others accept creationism in science classes as fairness as I gather matters.I would like to see a poll on how Americans see God, the man up there with a beard, the ground of being or being itself or a vague spirit or force. Anyway, I find beliefs wrong-headed but even fundamentalists can be quite nice . I support civil liberties groups . I praise those who fight fundamentalism at its extremes .I praise you! I decry the method of faith as a way to knowledge as a philosophical naturalist.  Yes , there is a vast difference between the Falwells and the Wallis’s .Now , I would unite with most anyone on public affairs when we agree . I find arguments for God faulty and say so ,but I find good people everywhere!This is enough.Bizby, what do you say? My last defense of my tone . Please respond to my argumensts anybody without thinking this liberal is intolerant of any but the intolerant !Peace!

The wider faith community that welcomes science and logic is actually the majority.  Polls today cast the ‘faith community’ as ‘those attending church one per week’ or not at all, the latter being the non-believers.  It’s a false set of criteria. The result is that the Bible thumpers look like the mainstream - they are the only ones who get interviewed, and of course, as fundamentalists, they are a pretty scared lot.  They cannot cope with the world, so they disavow that they cannot understand.

Many of the mainstream faith community don’t attend church regularly but are possessed of a grounding in belief that spiritual goodness and decency ride alongside belief and reliance on logic and science.  They don’t have conceptions of heaven and hell, wouldn’t begin to anthropomorphize “God”, are not vested in Biblical literalism much less inerrancy.  We/they are the MAJORITY, and we actually agree entirely with you - if you’d only stop salivating long enough to pay attention. 

If you want to repudiate fundamentalism, fine.  If you try to ask people such as we to defend it, you’re polemical, not logical. We don’t believe ANY of the things you furiously disdain.  We disdain them as well. You’re setting up a straw man to knock down, and that’s where you resemble Jerry.  His argumentation is entirely the same. By creating mythic monsters to destroy, you are no different from the religious right.

I do not presume to know your beliefs. So you share some of mine. I do not see any difference between you and me in tone .My declamations are to do with denying any supernaturalism .Whether fundamenatalist or not, some still pose natural theology and the scriptures as basic . Why class me with such invincible ignoramuses as Falwell ? You are the irrational one in so doing .Of course , I am aware of the wider faith groups but that is a minority. Harris answers such as you who wantonly misunderstand that we will take it no more! Answering others is not self-indulgence but setting the record straight . Don’t confuse passion with indulgence . If I criticize faith healing for children at risk , is that self-indulgence. I give argument, not verses or just so stories .

Well you ask me to defend what I do not believe. That is your first error. That’s irrational on your part.  I don’t defend sending people to hell because I don’t believe in hell.  Or heaven as you conceive of it ( it may be the beauty of human collective acts for good however.) I have no idea if there’s an afterlife - who could know that?  I don’t believe in the Bible as fact, don’t believe any human thing is inerrant, and the Bible is a product of human writing and thought. 

You need to read more about the majority of us who are in the mainstream and progressive faith movements to even know who we are and what we think.  Otherwise you’re indulging in a form of bigotry that is scarecely indistinguishable from any other. 

Smugness and narcissism make all people the same even if their content is different.  Your writings offer precisely the same fundamentalist self-indulgent tone and screed that is proffered by Jerry Falwell and others.

Everyone , go to sam harris .com to read the debate between him and Andrew Sullivan on the former’s[ and mine] approach to religion and the latter’s defense of religion[moderate]. Gee, I once again cite authors.Fine me.

Show that.I think you do not have a case, so you say that.Bizby would certainly disagree with you. At other forums , others think like you, yet others find me engaging. I cite authors so one can fully see what they have to say about the subject. Fundamentalists do not use reason while I do.I do not rationalize away matters as they do.I send no one to Hell.Answer my points, not mischaracterize them,please! You cannot answer ,for you are so wrong! I give reason why the free will defense is faulty , theistic evolution is an oxymoron and more .I do not mischaractrize others no more than the authors I cite do. No. So , we disagree.Show, not bray!

Morgan-Lynn - you vomit ‘facts’ and authors’ names to prove - what?  You misrepresent a great deal of what you’re discussing, you provide no logical thought stream so it’s impossible to discuss anything.  You remind me entirely of the religious right in this respect.  “Overwhelm ‘em with diatribe!  That’ll learn ‘em!” You share a lot more with religious zealots than you do with reflective, thoughtful people of any stripe. I can’t reply any longer because I don’t understand one word of what you’re trying to say.

I thoroughly enjoyed the interview with Sam Harris’ on the Australian ABC Radio National programme “The Religion Report” (24 January 2007; still available to download as a podcast).  For a while my sense of gnawing discontent with the “critical realist” position of John Hick, for example, was an itch I couldn’t scratch.  Although I admire Hick’s courage in calling for critical reflection and reform from within religious traditions I have had an inarticulate sense of something very wrong in accepting the tenets of dogmatic belief systems as “true myths”.  The logic of Harris’ critique of religious “progressives” - as complicit to dangerous self-delusion by their odd bedfellow fundamendalist brethren, in a world brimming with WMDs - is unassailable I think, and has helped me clarify my misgivings at last.

I am, however, mystified by Harris’ seeming ambivalence about the US invasion of Iraq.  Do I misread his position or is there a strain of missionary zeal to forcefully impose democracy at work here?  How can Iraq be viewed as anything but a dangerous and horrendously inhumane policy failure, regardless of the true nature of US motivations?

Read my other posts,Elizabeth to see that I do indeed give rational doubs about religious arguments.Ellis’s term mustabatory refers to having to have something when it is not necessary.Millions of us live quite well without needing God. Carl’s pean on faith just does not make it as it i s just verbiage .You would disavow ,rightfully, hideous portions of scripture according to facts and reason as we skeptics do .You cannot fathom that what is good in any religion ,one can find elsewhere.Notions of the golden and silver rule antedate Yeshua .They are rational for rational people.Some people have no moral sense and some of them , we have to lock up.Evolution passed on to us this sense from our forebears.We see it in the other apes .As Walter Kaufmann points out, one reads into scriptures ones own views. Yours ,rightfully, are above those of pass ages of faith .Faith does not as you probaly agree determine goodness. I hope that others will respond to errantists defense of scirptures .Anyway, defend errancy here please! Let’s have a fruitful discussion .I read two of Bishop Spong ‘s books,finding them on par with skeptical ones in his denunciation of fundamentalism and the bad parts of scriptures. Kai Nielsen admonishes us naturalists to be humble.Kaufman would want me to more balance in my commentary on scriptures, but I let others do that .Althought a schizotypal,I abjure the supernatural and the paranormal unlike other schizotypals .Our background of information or ignorance leads us to opinions .Mine is naturalistic to the core. Read Swinburne ,Platinga and Hick on your side. Then read Oppy, LePoidevin, Sobel and others on my side.Ponder.Bleesings!

Morgan-Lynn - read Dixie and Michael Carl.  They are far more thoughtful and reflective of the complexities of science, belief, faith, and religion than are you.

I disavow all ‘masturbatory’ principles - especially self-indulgent posturing.

I asked what is the metaphor for the hideuous Deluge,implying an errantist version.If you disavow completely the passages about it with no metaphor, fine.You have not read my posts. One would see that I make a good case for anti-theism.Use your search engine for my name minus the griggsy[I use different names.] to see that elsewhere I deploy the same arguments and more to show no god and get various responses. I know quite well some people are errantists but they can claim no special claim for their scriptures. Not only do those scriptures show not how the heavens go, their way of going there has nothing to recommnend. No rational being would have sacrificed his son[himslef]. Jews long ago gave up animal sacrifice.We have no “mustabatory” need for a god. See Albert Ellis’s books on tolerance and self -esteem about the good and bad or religion and also on the objectivist cult.I know tu quoqe is not in order.Bizby, how are you? Maybe you can answer Elizabeth !

Faith, what a wonderful concept. How we use it and abuse it, yet it remains a flexible, durable and metamorphic phenonomena for all of us in some way.

We are not robots. We don’t respond to instant impetus of emotionally charged personal circumstances if someone ‘reprogammes our logic’ for one cause or another. We act irrationally, we act in emotional spontonaity.

But we do not shut down and become Athiests or Zealots in a wholly rationally committed manner unless we have a substantial body of life experience. We are a evolution of the homonid specie. Since mankind achieved the top of the Darwinian tree of life many many years ago, these primitive societies expressed a visible record of awe and interpretion of the force of life. Gradually these became refined with man’s intelligence in evolving complex societies to include forms of description of a presumed metaphysical connection to the unseen power of life, the organiser, the supreme Alpha Male of the reason why we are here, our advantage and our rights in nature. At the top of the animal kingdom, the peak of the food chain with time for thought, a cerebral function we are well equipped with, survival takes on a new more complex and cunning dimension.

From Neolitihic origins through out the world for 10,000 years from Egyptian to Hellenic to Assyrian, Hindu, Mayan, Aztec the message of kingdom and rule of divine law is irrefutably similar. Ignore the geography and the circumstances and implementation are indisputable evidence of absolute independent capacity of mankinds predisposition to utilise the concept of metaphysical forces from magic,shamic,and demonic threats to assist and coerce the popular acceptance of rule by a implied superior human king - God relationship. Good versus Evil.

We are all well versed in the muck raking of abuse of power. Popes, Kings, Sultans they are all well known. Religion as an organised expression of faith has been corrupted. Did the ancient Druids do it any different?

So, what is “faith”? My view is that is the human condition that binds us to a common value, a community of good.

It is the belief and applied expression of belief, from Shiites chain flogging bare backs, Catholics bleeding, Protestants starving to the other end of the spectrum - Mother Theresa, Gandhi, and innumerable peoples who simply care and give and share without notice and plea.

Faith and loyalty are deep within the human psyche. The IRA, the Mafia, the Nazis, El Quaida and your average football team are all very similar in anyones esteem. All thats different is the geography and socio-economic circumstances. Ignorance and the distortion of truth are as prevalent and as odious today as they were when Martin Luther pinned his declerations to the church door 600 years ago.  Damn that printing press thundered the Church!

Kings and Popes and Presidents and Preachers have exploited Religion to the detriment of Faith. So, who is God? Most of us in the Judeo-Christian-Islam conundrum see it as the One. The Hindus see millions of Gods, the Buddhists as a intangible form of enlightenment.

There is no God. There are many. God is of your making based upon your desire to express your thanks, your anxiety, your wishes, your grief and happiness in the manner that suits your culture, your background and your circumstances alone or in a community of like minded people who lend each other a moral compass.

That is Faith.

Here is a Quote from Einstein:
“What humanity owes to Buddha, Moses & Jesus is of more value to me than all the achievements of the investigating & constructive mind.”
(1937) Einstein was a complex man. You cannot simply place him in the “Dawinian Scientist” box. He was Romantic, fell in love more than once while in his marriage, adored music & enjoyed talking about G*d with many people, including Marilyn Monroe. I’ve read 5 biographies on Monroe & he was a large part of her life. I’ve read 3 biographies on Einstein & am persuaded that nobody can really define either of these two unusual people.  Personally, I love Jesus but cannot be defined as simply “Christian.” It is absolutely crucial that we live our lives in ways that do good toward other humans, animals, the earth & all the rest of this wild, chaotic reality. I think Time is Waves. Like the sea, it rolls, storms, gets calm & sometimes, some rare times, a person catches “the perfect wave” and can see into the future. H.G. Welles & other visionary people were time surfers. Jesus saw His own end but despite being holy, I much doubt He realized how truly amazing His final days would be, or His effect upon the world. Others who have contributed much toward the Good live/lived lives of Loud Inspiration (as opposed to Quite Desperation). ML King, Jr. was not a weakling, despite being on the side of peaceful protests. When I heard him speak in Washington DC, his voice carried for miles, like rolling waves (getting back to that sea imagery).  Groove On!  Dixie

I would not disagree with this last point by Respondon.  I think there’s a huge, huge difference in the ways people look at faith versus religion and within both.  Faith for most mainstream progressive adherents is not in ‘the finger writ large’ notions of a supreme being but in a very deep and thoughtful guide to a kind, peaceful, humanistic (yes - humanistic) life that honors all people.  Religion is really quite distinct and too often needs and imposes absolutes. 

The problems in this discussion come from a very narrow interpretation of faith that many non-believers have, largely based on the actions and statements of the self-proclaimed religious who dominate our airwaves today.  They have a handful of edicts by which they judge all the world - moral, scientific, and historical.  They are very simplistic and absolutist. 

We in the progressive faith (not religious) community are constantly searching to understand both the physical and metaphysical. The realm of the physical is the province of science which we honor, support, and try to understand when we are lay people.  All moral issues, all non-scientific issues such as philosophy, fall into the latter realm where we also deliberate, reflect, and try to understand.  Faith is a medium, not an end.  If we found there was no God absolutely and without question, it wouldn’t change a thing.  Morality and human decency exist with or without a One. 

Absolutism is anathema to all thinking people. ALL thinking people. 

One prayer even non-believers might wish to adopt (with irony) : “Lord, bring me into the presence of those searching for the truth.  And deliver me from those who have found it!”

Some of this discussion misses the point.  It doesn’t matter if the influence of religion upon the world has been benign or malign--or should I say, it matters, but it doesn’t bear upon the matter at hand, which is the truth or falsity of religion.  For those of us who believe it’s false, because it’s a delusional account of the origins, everyday operation, and future disposition of the world, we would still believe that even if religion made our world a flourishing (for want of a better word) paradise.

One line is not a ‘rant’. How silly of you!

You are vomiting out your own irrationality based on prejudice to no logical purpose.

If you have a thesis, lay it out, and then go back and read ALL I’ve written before you dump your prejudices on me or anyone else.  I have supreme respect for those who believe in no divine being but who are grounded in deep, moral principles and thorough scientific exploration.  I don’t believe in Noah’s flood, so right there your own rant departs from any sense I can make of it.  We don’t believe in Biblical inerrancy - it’s passages are metaphor and come from ancient ways of trying to explain the world prior to scientific understanding.  It’s often, not always, a good moral guide (Leviticus has good as well as stupid stuff; it’s designed to have people be honest with one another and show justice to the poor in all transactions) and it’s great literature in many places.  But we don’t believe it is literal truth. 

We in the mainstream,progressive faith community embrace science wholeheartedly and absolutely.  There is simply no way to understand the creation of the universe and the flow of evolution without science and scientists.

Now what do you have to say? 

You know nothing of faith, little of religion if you determine all people of faith are the same as Jerry Falwell and his ilk. That is illogical and rests on a massive failure of empirical analysis.

I expected that rant from a faith-based person! Show you have a god in whom you can have faith.Faith itself begs the question! How can one get value from Biblical metaphors for the Deluge and such other than might makes right? So much of the Tanakh is tawdry and what good is found elsewhere and before it was written.It has no historical values and as a road to God , who cares? See” God : The Failed Hypothesis “ and “ Has Science found God?” for Victor Stenger’s take on science disproving the god notion, which is incomprehensible .Learn to read as Dr. Drange says!Inerrantists have no monopoly on nonsense as the previous writer shows!

Irrational rant clearly is not the sole province of aburdist religious fundamentalism.  This commentary by Morgan-Lynn makes NO sense at all.

What is the metaphor for the evil Deluge and sending oneself-ones son to death as a sacifice when that is barbaric?Jews non longer even sacrifice other animals!No, the Tanakh and the Testament have much evil and all the good one can find elsewhere.Demonstrate that Yahweh-Yeshua exists! Even the metaphorical Hell is hellacious.Yeshua limited his notion of love: he did not denounce slavery; so, one could love ones enemy and enslave her!Rational people do not turn the other cheek! One reads onto that passage a good notin that is not there- try to avoid a bad situation.Yeshua advocated faith rather than the habit of reason .See Dr. Albert Ellis’s book on self-esteem for his ciriticism of Yeshua. One expects theists to compose nonsense.Faith is a demanding mistress or mastert hatforbids one to accept the fact that there is no ultimate purpopse , no divine love and no future state. No one should have to worship and no rational being wants worship!Yahweh was such an irrationalist. Demonstrate God.I’ve shown in my posts there probaly is no god.

Philip T makes great points.  Progressive people of faith would entirely agree. Surprised?  Perhaps it would be helpful if your only role models weren’t fundamentalists?  Jerry Falwell and company have very little to do with us - and hate us for agreeing with you. 

Literalists seek comfort in Biblical absolutes (some even in the flat earth) because it is a politically chaotic world in which they have no say and no control.  It’s scary out here in case you hadn’t noticed!  But the rest of us embrace science, see faith as a moral not material guide, and understand that much of the Bible comes from a very ancient time when nomadic people had need of rules because life was even more uncertain for them than it is for us.  Want and scarcity were ever present.

I laughed out loud at the ‘if I believed in cups would I read about them’ statement.  You obviously never encountered an obsessive china collector!  Artists read and study widely on the meaning of color.  What a perfectly silly thing to say.  I have NO idea what your point could possibly be here.

Science has need to be very wary of the believer who not only disdains but repudiates science or appropriates it to a dishonest use.  But you ought to know it means science is triumphant because now religious people are intent on ‘proof’ that God is all powerful! It’s an absurd quest but one that has even forced the National Park Service to posit Noah’s flood as the creation of the Grand Canyon.  (THAT is disgusting to the rest of us who believe in evolution and scientific inquiry.) The desperation of the fundamentalist to prove the creation of the world on their own terms comes from the equal desperation to prove this is the End Times.  It all emanates from powerlessness and peripheralization in a global society.  From the Salem witch trials until today, Americans have often used religion when it can no longer use political will.  It is very sad, and it creates real problems, BUT it does NOT represent the mainstream values or processes of most faith people.

Hey Science Guys - we accept you!  We accept your world view, the scientific method, the findings. Get over it!  You want Jerry to kick around, be my guest, but you have to learn what the majority of us are like before you tar with the same brush.  We are among your ranks and among your strongest allies.

There is nothing wrong with logical “faith”.
I have “faith” in the statement 2 + 2 = 4. But what does that actually mean? If I have two objects and another two objects, then I will have four objects when I put them together. This applies to ANY OBJECT, ie tennis balls or forks. Just because this is true today, does not mean to say its true tomorrow. In all likelihood, its most definitely true ALWAYS.

I “believe” in e=mc^2. Proven by experiments, theory and logic, this statement makes reasonable sense. It may be in need of modification as time evolves, but the idea is perfectly sound and logical. Matter and energy are interchangable. You “lose” a bit of stuff, and you convert it to energy. Example. Rocket fuel and propulsion.

Tell me, then, childishly religious people, why do you need someone else, namely a male God, to tell you what you have to do in order to get a ticket to see God? The way I see it, is selfish motivation. Christians only do it to please God, and not themselves. Paradoxically, it’s not selfish, but the end does not justify the means. The idea of a reward is selfish in itself.

Here are some points to make:
1) Why should God be male? Anthropomorphism is the idea here. As a guy, I would like to make the statement that females were the default sex. Maleness was a welcome mutation.

2) If God is omnipotent and omniscient, then God cannot have free will, because God cannot change what he already knows. Example: I know that tomorrow will rain. But I will make it snow. Here are two possibilities:
a) either God did not know it will snow, or
b) God knew He would make it snow, because God has no free will.

3) The Bible believe in a flat Earth and other erroneous statements. Galileo was tortured for his scientific discoveries, only to be tortured in the period called the Inquisition. The Vatican announced their mistakes in the year 1992.

4) Vegetarianism is linked with high IQ. Preliminary studies suggest people with high IQ tend to be vegetarians (British Medical Journal). Only God would allow/permit such barbaric acts of eating meat. Jesus ate lamb, did he not? Eating meat is unethical, but man is the top of the food chain. Either God is unethical, or that God is simply a manisfestation of human emotions that does not transcend human-ness.

5) The Bible is violent, untrustworthy and full on inconsistencies. The evidence is clear in the Bible and the Koran.

6)Suppose I believe in cups. Do I read books about it? NO. Suppose I believe in the immaterial idea of the word “green”. Do I read books about it? NO. Christians believe in God and yet they read books about God! It sounds like denial to me! The Bible is materialistic, old and has been mistranslated through Hebrew, Greek, Latin and other languages, that words have lost their meaning. The word “broiled” is in the American version, no? And yet “broiling” is exclusively American.

7) Praying is an illogical activity. It does absolutely nothing. Has anyone ever prayed for surviving a common cold? Suppose two Christians pray to the same God when playing a tennis tournament. Who should God choose? Isnt God biased?

8)The idea of Sin is perfectly rubbish. Who created Sin? If Sin was created by God, then God is responsible for ALL SIN. If Satan created Sin, then God has no control of it. Either way, Sin is inevitably out of control.

9)The term ‘necrophilia’ could be associated with the belief that Jesus may be resurrected. By this definition, isnt Jesus a zombie? And also, wanst Jesus
a) magical b) attracted to male attention c) Jewish d) selfish and demanding? The episode of the fish and honeycomb demonstrates the lack of generosity.

10) There is overwhelming evidence that the Earth is not 6000 years old. Its not even millions, but billions.

Absolutes of all types presuppose total knowledge.  That’s arrogant.  For a large portion of the faith community (mainstream and progressive Protestants), the notion of God is ethereal, not absolute.  What if God is the collective intelligence and heart of humanity?  The fact that people can and do come together in altruistic ways to improve life may be what God is.  No one can be certain.  The value of faith lies simply in the recognition that there is something - SOME thing - bigger than ourselves.  And for that we are most grateful.  Is it a conscious being that knows all?  No one can say one way or the other.  Is it clear that decency trumps indecency as a mode of life?  One has only to look at the Holocaust and other human horrors to say yes.  Evil doesn’t need a devil - we can find that on our own and have proven it time and again.

It is equally arrogant to assert that all faith is stupid.  It is a powerful moral compass for many people with or without a anthropomorphic, omniscient entity.  The trouble with religion is the trouble with all self-satisfied knowledge - it’s just another form of ego superiority and disdain for thought, for reflection, for accepting other human beings as our equals.  Nazi Germany did not embrace god but science in its horrific quest to find a final solution and create a 1000-year Reich.  The neo-conservatives wishing for the same US domination of the world do the same.  It’s not faith but realpolitik that guides them.

People don’t need god to be absolutely wonderful human beings.  Michael Harrington, author of the transformational book, “The Other America” was an aetheist whose moral center and humanity were without peer.  Who cares what he believed about a Supreme Being???  Those who think God is essential as a ‘get out of jail free’ card probably do, but the majority of thoughtful people of faith do not.  Michael Harrington and many of his ilk do more good in the world than all the Jerry Falwells put together.  And all the people who use their faith to do the same equally make the world a better place to be.  That’s all it’s about.

For what it’s worth:

I find the attacks on FAITH absolutely mind-boggling and humorous at the same time. I can’t understand how so many self-proclaimed and self-promoting “intellectuals” can be so FOOLISH and so blatantly ARROGANT. How blind can you be? By attempting to disprove FAITH through your blind reliance on groundless Reason and Logic, you, in fact, validate it.

Look at the facts my friends! There is growing Scientic Evidence in many areas of Science that Support the idea of “FAITH” and “GOD”. Get your heads out of the sand and start accepting reality, instead of hanging on to outdated Darwinian and Freudian nonsense. You see and hear, but you don’t understand because you don’t want to. You write with such “eloquence”, but in the process you decieve yourselves. I never fully understood the meaning of the word “delusion”, until I considered the life of an Atheist. Now, I am convinced that I have discovered the full meaning of that word. 

Athiesm and Agnosticism will soon be discarded as relics of outdated philosophies. Why not escape your demise before it’s too late? Guess what? FAITH will deal the final blow to your foolish logic.

You don’t realize, but you too are people of faith. Your bibles are the writings of Darwin, Freud, Dawkins and others. Psuedoscience, faulty logic, and your arrogance are your gods, so spare me the humor of your diatribe.

Why would a rational person want to talk so much to a god when that god presumable already knows what the person has to say.God cannot be omniscient ,because He cannot know something before it happens. Natural selection causes new life forms, so God violates Occam’s razor and keeps Him from being omnipotent.Indeed, the use of God as an explainer violates Occam’s razor period! If God is not a god of the gaps, then what would be His role .The god notion is just “hid[ing] our ignorance behind a theological fig leaf.” One expects theists to maintain silly ideas! Francis Collins, against the evidence that evolution has given us moral values, prefers to invoke God as his sole argument for our sense of morality.  It is time for such as Dr. Albert Ellis to help theists overcome their “ mustabatory ‘ need for God ! Dr. Francisco Jose Ayala speaks wrongly that the believer needs God to overcome dread and to find meaning.We make our own- passions,purposes.

“When one speaks to God, that is Faith. When God speaks back, that’s schizophrenia”

Freud.

Faith is good. It is inherent in the human condition to believe in something intangible that is our mortality and destiny. It is normal for human social grouping to share common values, religion as organised expression of faith is healthy.

What is not healthy is when political leadership manipulates and corrupts the ideal of faith as manifestly ordained as their right, a moral superiority incumbent with the their office to exert a non-accountable authority “God spoke to me..” an instrument to guide the soverign actions of the nation. You can’t impeach God.

“It is still bad taste to be an avowed atheist. But now it is equally bad taste to be an avowed Christian.” ("Introductory Remarks” Heretics)

“There is no bigot like the atheist.” (Magic)

“There are arguments for atheism, and they do not depend, and never did depend, upon science. They are arguable enough, as far as they go, upon a general survey of life; only it happens to be a superficial survey of life.” (ILN 1-3-31)

G.K. Chesterton

Today the US is the fount for the most troubling instance of Religion as a genuine motivator of oppression and war, as opposed to a cultural artifact of and rationalization for an otherwise utterly political act.  The incumbent President is a True Believer who appears, according to inside reports, to be motivated by a singular dedication to bringing about the ‘Second Coming’. 

Let it be said that the vast majority of the Christian community not only does not believe this but actively repudiates it.  The small minority who are wedded to creating the End Times in the here and now - for which the fall of Babylon (Iraq) is a key component - simply have the unlikely fortune to be in power at the helm of our nation.  That ought to be of concern to us far more than Islamic fundamentalism.  The latter is largely a reaction of people being stripped of their resources, political independence, and cultural integrity.  It’s why Mr. Harris’ analysis seems faulty - it’s not the perception of most historians who know the centuries-long battle between the Ottoman Empire and the West. 

What is accurate is that for the first time perhaps ever in our nation’s history, a True Believer has his finger on the nuclear button and believes, at least potentially, that blowing us all to Kingdom Come would be a good thing, a righteous thing, and his mandate from God. 

Be afraid.  Be very afraid.  But know also that the progressive faith community shares the revulsion at this distorition of history, fact, and belief.  We who all believe in justice, logic, and democracy and all those other good things really ought to be allies instead of sniping at one another.  We in the progressive faith community don’t give a rip about the state of your immortal soul (should such a thing exist) - we would like to stand united with anyone who shares our opposition to theocracy, mystically-driven public policy, and grandiose visions of prophecy operating as fact.

United we stand - divided we’re all potential victims of this incredibly frightening view of history, the world, and the new ‘divine right of presidents.’

Sam Harris has given a strong and compelling insight into the conflict and confusion about the role of religion in Western and Eastern societies. Ms Scholes I feel has articulated a clear and firm picture