Moody:(revised)
You seem to specialize in pointing out the
mote in others' eyes and ignoring the beam in your Muslim eyes. Talking about incest and homosexuality feast your eyes on what is going on in the land of the Two Holy Shrines.
http://www.westernresistance.com/blog/archives/003716.html
An excerpt: {A magazine editor in Jeddah told me that many boys in Mecca, where he grew up have sexual relations with men, but they don't see themselves as gay. "Homosexuality is considered to be a stage of life, particularly at youth."}
I often wandered about the full job description of those young preteen boys serving wine to the faithful reclined inside silk tents in your Muslim Paradise.

Audited & Revised

Anonymous,
"Western Enlightenment and respect for the individual, we cannot win this war"
Rightly said by you Anonymous "You cannot win the WAR" because as you admitted your self,
Instead of reasoning YOU ALL are raging WAR.
And Muslims can't be convinced by your deceiving, bias polices and practices. Muslims see following common problems in the ENLIGHTED WEST which hardly exist OR stands out as very little in the Muslim masses and
"are convincing enough NOT TO BE CONVIENCED" :
1- Chaos and Conspiracy theory practice towards Muslims to grab, still, occupy there lands and wealth and destroying there properties, lands and countries.
2- Your non-negotiation on real issues and brutal approach of enforcing your ideas upon Muslims.
AND WITH IN YOUR SOCIETIES HIGH RATE OF:
3- Moral degradation.
4- Incest ( One of the reasons is FORCEFULLY giving kids from natural to un-natural parents.
5- Rape
6- Child molestation. ( Reflects the SAFTY of children in your FREE SOCIETY).
7- Teenage pregnancies. ( Shows the over all moral mind set of your masses, even kids are not left out any more).
8- Drugs and Alcohol addiction. (It is an unstoppable avalanche in your WHOLE society.)
9- Prostitution (every high street has savannahs & occupied by business women in the evenings)
10- Extreme racism against colored and all other kind of human breeds. Blacks are still facing the brunt.
11- Women’s exploitation in the name of freedom.(Telling them work equally hard and earn your self. Is it possible for the mother of 2 or more to –i- raise children –ii- maintain house hold –iii- earn simultaneously. Even the strongest Will and nerves man can’t do it simultaneously the kind of attention these responsibilities deserve. AND ACTUALLY FREEING THE MEN FROM ALL REAL RESPONSIBILITIES.
12- Inhuman intervening UNBALANCED state laws about kids, women, men etc enslaving and making there lives hell.
13- High street crime rate.
14- Your enslaving & controlling corporate and mega brand INTEREST AND TAX BASED culture CRUSHING THE POOR SOCIETIES (providing freedom of EXPLOITATION to the rich masters).
And non convincing list is further very long............

hi mr mark-
you are projecting christian limitations of genetic research that never existed in islam-

heres an article with about 10 links-

http://www.scidev.net/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=readnews&itemid=1831&language=1

as you can see, the assumption is ridiculous i the extreme

have fun with the link

Mr. Mark writes:
"Unfortunately, the religionists are still denying truths that were answered 150 years ago (ie: Darwinism). Proving RNA to be the precursor to DNA will fail to impress or convince the religionists of anything, though it may well spark their issuing a fatwa against 3-letter scientific acronyms. ;)"

Sadly, you are very likely correct.

TO DANIEL IN THE LION"S DEN:

You wrote, ""Please think about this: do you think that God has had a Plan since before Creation if He had one at all or do you think that God has to keep changing His Plan?"

Why would you ask a question like that?"

The reason that I ask a question like that is because if someone believes in God I think that it is a very good question.

By the way just because someone would answer that they thought that He had a Plan does not mean that they would know the Plan.

And another thing is that if someone doesn't believe in God it just might get them to thinking; 'how' this all came about is one thing but maybe there is a 'why' did all this come about.

I would think that sometimes the interconnectedness of the physical world just might get some people to wondering.

Quite a while back I remember thinking the question, "Is this all there is?".

Just because it was quite a bit of time and different things of life I had to live thru, God in His Way answered that question.

Take care, be ready, see you and the rest of humanity in the Kingdom.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Pam writes:

"New experiments are showing that RNA can spontaneously organize in sea ice...I fully expect this question to be answered in the not-too-distant future."

Unfortunately, the religionists are still denying truths that were answered 150 years ago (ie: Darwinism). Proving RNA to be the precursor to DNA will fail to impress or convince the religionists of anything, though it may well spark their issuing a fatwa against 3-letter scientific acronyms. ;)

TO DANIEL IN THE LION'S DEN:

You wrote, ""Calling yourself a "Christian" does not mean that you are one."

But there is no standard by which to measure and define a true Christian; there is no Bureau of Standards for religious correctness or purity; you are what you call yourself, and if someone does not measure up to your standard, then that is just how it is.".

As someone once said, "If I go into a garage and call myself a car, does that mean that I am a car".

What I am trying to say so plainly is that God looks into the heart, in other words, people are not going to fool God.

When you wrote, "I know you will say the Bible is the standard.", no, Love is the standard.

Even tho it is spoken of so in your face, so to speak, in the bible, so many don't seem to see it.

As the saying goes, "The blind leading the blind and the deaf speaking to the deaf". I have a job to do and God will see me thru.

Take care, be ready, see you and the rest of humanity in the Kingdom.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

TO LIL OLEMETU:

You wrote, "everyone has a story and who are we to judge?", I don't know if you are implying that I am judging but I am not.

I agree that all of us do have a story and just because some people go thru things that others just can not believe doesn't mean that their stories aren't true.

I am just trying to do the job that God chose me for.

One thing that I would like to repeat is: It doesn't matter whether anyone believes in God or not, but God is a lot nicer than some that know His Name could even conceive of.

Take care, be ready, see you and the rest of Humanity in the Kingdom.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

"Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothèse"

For those who don't speak French, it translates as "I had no need of that hypothesis."

DITLD wrote:
"The Atheists say they do not believe in God, and the religious people reply, well then how did all this get here, and the atheist says, I don't know, but I still don't believe in God. "

It all comes down to what one demands as proof, doesn't it?

In a debate with Christopher Hitchens, religious apologist Dinesh D'Souza said, "science offers a guess at how the universe came into being. Religion gives us an answer," to which Hitchens replied, "fine, if you accept whole-cloth answers." (paraphrasing this exchange).

A more accurate rejoinder from the atheistsis, "I don't know, YET, but everything we're learning argues even more strongly against the existence of any the gods described in all of mankind's religious texts."

As Pierre-Simon de Laplace remarked to Napoleon concerning the role of god in Laplace's calculations that proved the existence of black holes, "Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothèse."

Moody, Moody, Moody,

The sins of the koran and Islam go with you no matter where you go.

As a reminder:

Islam is not perfect and the koran inherently condones sin as shown 24/7 in the 800 year-old blood feud between Sunnis and Shiites. Their actions give significant credence that greed, suicides, assassinations, maiming, and murder are condoned by the koran. Having multiple wives also gives significant credence to the sins of lust and polygamy. The condoned treatment of these wives gives credence that the koran allows the sins of anger and greed.

Ibrahim Mahfouz:said

"Moody:
You do not realy believe what you listed as predominant crimes in the West. You are simply projecting the practices of the helllhole from which you crawled out to "grace" us here. Then why are you and your likes are risking life and limb to escape your failed societies and come to the West? Not only you and your like are hypocrites and dishonest but moreover ungrateful."

What I listed in NOT MARELY A BELIEVE, IT WAS THE FIRST HAND OBSERVATION. AND YOUR SOCIETIES ON RECORD FACTS!!!

And there is nothing immoral in migrating and traveling the world. Or now further, are you ALSO trying to tell that it is only the right of superiour white monkey (in your opinion) race?

DITLD wrote:
"The Atheists say they do not believe in God, and the religious people reply, well then how did all this get here, and the atheist says, I don't know, but I still don't believe in God. "

For me, this isn't quite true. I *do* know how most of this got here.

There are a few ultimate questions that we have yet to answer, like "why is there something instead of nothing?", "what existed before the Big Bang?", and "how did life begin?"

Creationists pounce on science's inability to answer these, and claim that it proves the existence of God. It doesn't.

The beginning of life is something that we're getting ever closer to. It seems likely that DNA evolved from RNA. The Miller-Urey experiment replicated Earth's early atmosphere and an energy source (like lightning) and produced 14 of the 20 amino acids necessary for life. New experiments are showing that RNA can spontaneously organize in sea ice. To read more about this, see the February issue of Discover magazine, on newstands now. I fully expect this question to be answered in the not-too-distant future.

The other two questions may never be answered. It may not be possible for us to know. But postulating God as an answer simply ends all inquiry. If we'd let that stop us in the past, we'd still be living lives as primitive as those of Biblical people. We might ask and never have the answer, but if we don't ask, we surely never will.

We do know that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, and that matter is ultimately energy. Maybe that's all we need to know.

"but pam- you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar"

It's Pam, not "pam", and I'm not interested in catching flies.

Thomas Baum

You said:

"Calling yourself a "Christian" does not mean that you are one."

But there is no standard by which to measure and define a true Christian; there is no Bureau of Standards for religious correctness or purity; you are what you call yourself, and if someone does not measure up to your standard, then that is just how it is.

I know you will say the Bible is the standard. But it is not clear; there is much disagreement on what it means; if it were clear there would be no disagreement, but since there is, then it is not clear. And then, who is to have the last word for explaining it? Each of us would like to, but none of us can. Because no matter what you tell another how to believe, still they will believe as they do, and not as you do, until you must use force against them to force their belief, but still they will outwardly pretend to comply with your force, but inwardly, they will continue to believe as they do.

Then you said,

"Please think about this: do you think that God has had a Plan since before Creation if He had one at all or do you think that God has to keep changing His Plan?"

Why would you ask a question like that? How could anyone know the answer? You might say you know the answer, but you cannot prove your answer persuasively to other people, for all the reasons given above that you cannot persuade anyone to believe what they do not believe. And you cannot hold them guilty of some transgressions because they believe according to their own inner will and not yours, because each person is, in fact, defined by the mystery of his inner will, which is really another word for inner mechanism, or spiritual mechanism, and there is no predictable or planned way to modify the spirtiual mechanism of another person, only they can do that themselves.

Old time devils are now known as "demons of the demented". And Thomas, The Moses of the NT, Baum, you are possessed by said demon posing as god. Report to your local church for an exorcism.

to Tom Baum from Orchard Beach--

everyone has a story and who are we to judge?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M19g4KtVAGQ

TO VICTORIA:

Hi, hope that you are doing fine. I copied some of what you wrote and I would like to comment on some of them.

You wrote, "I hope Mr. Baum does not feel overly criticized for it, as he is awfully gentle- I truly believe he wishes good for just about all of humanity- and I never stop commending him for it.", close but if God's Plan is not for ALL of humanity than it is not much of a Plan.

Then, "BUT- in order for you to maintain your status as a CHOSEN one, it means that the rest of us remain UNCHOSEN-", on the surface this may seem arrogant but it isn't, if by chosen someone thinks that they are better or something to that effect than that is arrogance but if chosen means that they have a very specific job to do then what is that?

I have said before and I will say again, the Jews are the Chosen People for the simple reason that God chose them and at least one of the reasons that God chose and formed the Jews was to make this world, with our free will, safe enought by the obedience of a few for God to become one of us and live long enough to do what He came for.

Jesus said, "Many are called, few are chosen", in the semitic usage, many means all, few means who knows how many, I don't know, only God does.

Then you said, "ive recommended st john of the cross's 'dark night of the soul' to you before-
for this reason-but at the very end of it, and as an impediment to true god consciousness lies the hardest obstacle of all-
spiritual pride-", well I am not St John of the Cross, I am just lil ole Tom Baum from Orchard Beach, St John had his job and I have mine.

I am not looking for "true god consciousness" whatever that might be, I just want to do what God chose me for.

I have a question for you, does "dark night of the soul" have anything about battling satan for 24 plus hrs or experiencing hell or experiencing spiritual death?

You also mention "spiritual pride", I see and hear it all the time and not only that but self-righteousness and self-piousness too.

As I have said to other people, some people are so spiritual and/or so religious that they don't seem to have any room left for God, they seem to be filled up with themselves.

Then you wrote, "as your own bible tells you- the chosen and unchosen concept had limited ability to change the hearts of men and women toward god", for one thing I have no idea where it might say that but that is not what God's Plan is about, His Plan is for the Salvation of ALL OF HUMANITY, His Plan is to save everyone without taking away our free will.

Christianity is not about rules and regulations, it is about following Jesus, Christianity is actually very simple but it is not easy.

Christianity is not about knowing God's Name, as it says, "even the demons know Who Jesus Is".

Calling yourself a "Christian" does not mean that you are one.

Knowing the bible from cover to cover does not mean that you know what it means, many go around quoting the bible but the hatred being spewed out in God's Name only means that they seem to know the bible but do not know anything about God except for His Name.

You also wrote, "it worked for its formation, but had to be let go for all of mankind to benefit", I would like to ask you a couple of questions?

Where did what you wrote that I put in quotes come from?

Please think about this: do you think that God has had a Plan since before Creation if He had one at all or do you think that God has to keep changing His Plan?

I have met God, God is Pure Love.

I have met God the Father and I have met God the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit revealed to me that the Catholic Eucharist is Jesus, God is a Trinity.

Like I have said many times before, God is a searcher of hearts and minds not of religious affiliations or lack thereof.

People can have all the right dogma and all the right creeds but if they do not have Love, which God happens to Be, then they don't have much.

I have also said before that satan is the god of islam but that I do not hold it against Mohammed that he was deceived, satan can try to come across as mister nice guy but he isn't, he is a liar and a thief and I might add a loser.

People may try to hide behind their religion, hide behind their spirituality, hide behind whatever but it is important what you do and why you do it and what you know.

We are all made in the Image and Likeness of God, Who is Love, page one, even tho some who call themselves "Christian" have on their own torn out that page, God hasn't.

God doesn't look at what label anyone puts on themselves, he looks at the person. God has had His Plan since before creation, satan is the one who keeps changing his tactics.

Take care, be ready, night is coming but the dawning of the seventh day will get here also in God's Time, see you all in the Kingdom.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

This post has set!!!

This post has dimmed!!!

Behold the rising MOON!!!

Behold the night of MAN!!!

Daniel, rest thy moonlit soul!!!

Mark, cease thy stinging wit!!!

Seek now the MOON!!!

Be now the MAN!!!

Praise be MOONMAN!!!

Praise be MOONMAN!!!

Praise be MOONMAN!!!

MOONMAN!!!

MOONMAN!!!

MOONMAN!!!

Dear Anon -

Delusion - "something that is falsely or delusively believed or propagated b: a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary; also : the abnormal state marked by such beliefs."

Source: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/delusion

Sounds like religious belief to me.

Keep on smilin'!

I DID post that to Mr. Mark, didn't I?
Obviously, it was meant for Mr. Baum.

I hope Mr. Baum does not feel overly criticized for it, as he is awfully gentle- I truly believe he wishes good for just about all of humanity- and I never stop commending him for it.

Daniel also always provides his deep thoughts, and without hypocrisy.

There is an innate kindness in both of their posts.

Mr Mark, when he isn't assailing us with his acerbic wit, often elevates us to reason.

but pam- you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar

Previously, I wrote this"

"How do we get these impressions of order? Through our senses. But why do we have these 5 senses? We have them because they were passed on to us by the animals from which we have evolved. But why did they have their senses? They had them to navigate the order of the world. And so, we have our senses, also, to navigate the order of the world.

Each of the senses is a reflection of order, by which impressions are conveyed. Or again, each of the senses is a template, that fits an aspect of order, by which a sense of this order is then conveyed. And in our evolution, and with our senses by which we nagivate the order of the world by forming impressions of it, we also, then are able to form impressions of ourselves; this is consiousness."

Are these just my philosophical musings, a tangent, that really does not relate to anything on this forum? No. I think about these things because I wonder "why don't we know anything?"

All of the religious people make their appearances here, and proclaim their truth about God and Jesus and Mohammed, and prayer, and Heaven, but they do not know. The Atheists say they do not believe in God, and the religious people reply, well then how did all this get here, and the atheist says, I don't know, but I still don't believe in God.

I have my beliefs, which I hope are true, which are based more on the many contingencies of my life, that filled my brain up with "stuff" more than with my true impressions of what the world is really like.

So, why don't we know anything? We know how to build all kinds of machines and connect everything up with comminications systems, and we read and wrtie and talk, talk, talk, but still, how come no one knows anything?

It is because we are navigting the order of the world with the 5 senses that we inherited from the animals, but we are thinking with a brain that has morphed beyond their brains. Our senses evolved to navigate the order of the world that animals inhabit, and we are animals too.

But we think about things that are not apart of that order. We think about quantum physics, and relativity, and we think about the infinite future, and the antiquity of past epochs, which we imagine may have been any number of different ways. We think of Heaven and Hell and God and the human spirit and soul; we wonder what is consciousness and what is cosmic order. But we are anchored to the world of order that that animals inhabit, and they don't think any of these things. They live naively, in a small corner of the universe, oblivious to anything else that might be.

sheesh people-

victoria says to mr mark:

"as your own bible tells you"

she thinks he's christian..

get me outta here..

Victoria says:
"actually it's more of an homage to don marquis"

Well it's damned annoying, whatever it is. I too have quit reading your long posts - I just don't want to have to pause mid-sentence and try to decide whether you actually meant "ill" or I'll."

actually it's more of an homage to don marquis
:)

"Most religious people could be disabused of their delusion by simply reading a few books and letting loose of the fear and guilt that binds them to their superstitions."

really mr mark? you think?

really.. you can't tell the deluded from the delusional on this board.

anyway- you better get busy unburdening yourself by passing out a few books.

buh-bye..

Victoria -

Please take the time to compose your posts in something approaching standard formatting - you know what I mean. I'm just not going to plow through your posts when their formatting cries out against being read.

ee cummings you ain't...

ANONYMOUS writes:
misguided mr mark-

"well then. according to you all believers in any religious tradition are deluded..."

Agreed.

"...and you feel it is your burden to send each one of them to a psychiatrist."

Disagree. Thomas is a unique case on this blog. Most religious people could be disabused of their delusion by simply reading a few books and letting loose of the fear and guilt that binds them to their superstitions. Thomas is beyond such self-help.

Thanks for the chat.

Thank you, Daniel ITLD – you certainly did answer as best you could. I appreciate it.

Mr Mark – I think Thomas’ situation is different from many of the Christian believers you interact with here and I think he has received the kind of assistance you suggest he could benefit from.

mr mark- im not picking on you so much as - well- maybe i am a bit-

BUT- in order for you to maintain your status as a CHOSEN one, it means that the rest of us remain UNCHOSEN-

ive recommended st john of the cross's 'dark night of the soul' to you before-
for this reason-
its kind of a spiritual checklist-
but at the very end of it, and as an impediment to true god consciousness lies the hardest obstacle of all-
spiritual pride-

your goal must be to include all in your vision equally precious and valuable-

as your own bible tells you- the chosen and unchosen concept had limited ability to change the hearts of men and women toward god

it worked for its formation, but had to be let go for all of mankind to benefit

ive deliberately not read any posts so i can share without being influenced-

i justfinished praying- its my habit- 5 times a day you know-
it occurred to me that i dont share this important part of my being getting wrapped up in being 'right' or something-

i pray (as do all muslims) with my eyes open- ive done many meditations, closed eye prayers etc- but this is different in this way-
heres why for me-
im not trying to escape- or feel good-
im not wanting to dream or float-

if i do, i feel ive skimmed the surface- and i dont want to be superficial- i want to delve deep even if i dont like what i see- (and i ususally dont)
i feel like im traiing my consciuousness to be a giving force-
im deliberately and purposefully collecting my pitiful efforts at expanding my own heart (euphemism for love) to be directed outward and a contribution, a giving or enhancement- like an earning my place in the universe-

most of the time i spend expectant- and needy- and wanting-
to be taking something-

it is very very difficult to give- i have to keep refocusing when it wanders into asking again-

ask ask ask-

i think one of the things that gets in the craw of not god believers is that it seems believer types are trying to exertsome control over them in their very private spaces of the conscience and consciousness that are not really a believers business-

its not a believers business to judge, even another believers heart condition let alone another non-believers whose thought processes may be working along another line that is leading them to their own destiny-

but if my prayer leads me to enter out into the world, which im about todo- and want to be looking for people to enhance (although im not saying its within my power to do so)

at least - at the very least- the intenton to give is, for me, superior and i think humanists in general share this idea-

it think it better to feel small than large-
and i recognize people who are in positions and states of mind that ive experienced and can sometimes offer a bit of guidance- likewise there are many who are seeing in me things theyve already successfully dealt with-

once in a daydream reverie (which i elapse into more frequently than is practical) i imagined like a public sculpture type thing that was an endless series of forearms and hands-

they kind of make little "S" shapes-
but the hands are reaching up and reaching down in an endless series of helping each other up-

well, i didnt describe it very well- butthat is how i look at it-
(down to hitler and up to the god)

(i got kicked out of bible study at about 12 when i suggested that i was going to petition god and not go into heaven until he forgave everyone including hitler- i guess i thought that god wanted me badly enough- pretty arrogant for a kid- but i took them at their word when they said god is all-forgiving)

nothing seems to p**s some people off more than absolute forgiveness but i digress as ususal-
im going to read some posts now-

o mercy there lib-
LIB- THAT LINK WAS MENAT TO DESRIBE WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE REASONING- NOT FOR YOU TO ADOPT IN A NEW COMPULSION-

O - i see mr mark has some concern for the delusional state of mind of believers-
i try to sharpen my own consciousness and awareness and that includes strengthening the real love and empathy and compassion and not just empty pretty words-
it does require some discipline whcih is not my strength-
but its an open-eyed process-

i havent even touched on your previous question about what i think is the state of soul of atheists-
im still thinking (intermittently)
peace all

misguided mr mark-

well then. according to you all believers in any religious tradition are deluded and you feel it is your burden to send each one of them to a psychiatrist. you have a serious job ahead of you. better get out your walking shoes.

Dear Anon -

Thomas' posts tell us he is delusional. I am entirely serous in urging him to seek psychiatric help for his problem which is all-too common, has been long-diagnosed and is quite treatable.

Your post simply enables his delusion. That's not the action of a friend, whoever you are.

For E Favorite

I know that this thread is about done, but maybe you will take a look at it.

I do not really know what I believe, that is, it is hard for me to say. It is alot easier to reject that which seems false and say "I do not believe in that" than it is to say positively what I do believe.

There are 2 me's. One "me" is cool and calm and rational. That "me" can say that I understand suffering, that everyone suffers, that it is only by the contrasting experiences that we can know anything at all, that we experience pleasure and pain, and cannot know either without the other, that we experience them, mingled in sunshine and rain; it is almost poetry, isn't? and kind of pretty?

But the other "me" is emotional and angst-ridden, and worried, about "things" and experiences weird psychological states, and "gets in the zone" or "in a funk" and is just trying to get through each day.

I am coming to realize that I do not believe in any theology, that the whole practice of theology is a waste and for naught, and I do not even resepcte arguments based on theology. But I do have postions of belief, and I do respect other people's postion's of belief. And I am intereste in philosophical speculation, since that is about all I do. If you say that you do not believe in God, then that is your position of belief, which I can respect.

I cannot answer your question about if I would feel attached to some other famous person if they had suffered as much as Jesus. I know that Jesus is fixed, specially in my mind, and I cannot get him out of it. So it is hard for to answer the question.

uh oh. mr mark has his panties in a twist again. i understand if you sit down and place a paper bag over your head- you will stop hyperventilating.

and btw- thomas' posts tell us he is a kind soul and not attempting to proselytize. so don't worry- i feel sure he will forgive your nasty comments.

TO MR MARK:

I have no idea how God is working in other people's lives, but I too find it amazing that He has chosen me.

I sometimes wonder what you mean by "religionist" do you have a definition that you can write out.

When I write that I don't know everything, one of the things I mean is, I also don't know what everything in the bible means.

There are some things in the bible that I do know what they mean and some of the absolutely utter hatred being spewed out by some so-called "christians" is sickening.

Before I met God, I never spoke up about Him even tho I believed in Him but since meeting God, the whole Trinity, I have come to see that there are plenty of people that claim to be speaking in His Name but know nothing about God except for His Name.

I saw an interesting quote on one of these posts recently and it went something like this: "the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence".

I have met God whether anyone believes or not and I am not trying to shove anything down anyone's throat.

In fact, it is not about religion, it is not about spirituality, it is not about telling others how they should live their lives, It Is About Love.

Whether anyone believes it or not God is a Being of Pure Love.

Take care, be ready, see you and the rest of humanity in the Kingdom.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Dear Thomas Baum -

I must admit that I'm growing quite tired of religionists like yourself averring that people like me, "Can['t]...get past your all-knowing bias..."

If you or anyone else reads through my posts, you will never see an all-knowing attitude on display, let alone a bias. In fact, I rarely express an opinion on this blog, at least not in the "I just KNOW" way of the religionists. No, I cite the words, research and work of others to make my case against belief in god.

YOUR problem is that you aren't used to having your delusions about god challenged, and challenged repeatedly in a public forum. In fact, YOU are the one who revels in the smugness of an all-knowing attitude. It is YOU, not me, who wrote the following in the same post where you claimed I had an all-knowing bias: "you are wrong, I have met God and I know for a fact..." It is inconsequential that you go on to say you don't know everything, because you have said that you have met god and you know things for a fact. Apparently, you know these "facts" because you have met god and he has imparted divine wisdom to you. God has spoken directly and individually to you, picking you among the 6-billion people on earth to speak with. Amazing!

And yet, this special and divine knowledge imparted to you by god follows the Xian Bible to a tee! There isn't a thing he has told you that anybody on Earth couldn't learn for themselves by consulting the Gideon on their motel night stand.

Worse, your god couldn't even be bothered to correct a few of the myriad idiocies he foisted on the world a few thousand years ago. Not for Yahweh a correction on the mustard seed NOT being the smallest of seeds and NOT growing into a tree. Not for him a revision to the flat-earth concept. Not for him an admission that bats aren't birds after all. No updating-for-21st-century believers a corrective on the universe being created in a week nor the Adam & Eve fable.

Nope, old Yahweh appears to be the same idiot he was centuries ago, and YOU buy it whole hog.

Go figure.

You are truly delusion, Mr Baum. I urge you to seek psychiatric help ASAP.

Good luck to you.

“One obvious problem with this argument [Pascal’s Wager] is that it is subject to hijacking - whoever promises the most pleasure and threatens the most pain can induce whatever belief they want in Pascal's "rational" man.”

Indeed, imagine a religion that promises more than a vague notion of eternal life or eternal damnation. Instead, it gives you specifics that make your choice even more obvious and onerous.

Let’s say, in heaven you get an eternal vacation with your loved ones in a big house where each person’s idea of paradise is fulfilled. If you like the beach, you have a magnificent view of the ocean from your room. Your previously deceased favorite uncle is already ensconced in the house in his preferred environment – the woods. And so on.

However, if you exercise your free will to choose not to believe, not only do you go to hell, but God pulls one of your deceased loved ones from heaven to suffer eternally with you. It saddens God to have to do this, but he is God after all and this is the deal he offers.

The choice is yours.

Another Pascal quote that is gaining meaning in today's global world:

"The highest order of mind is accused of folly, as well as the lowest. Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way."

Victoria,

Pascal was a mathematical genius who was instrumental in the development of statistics, among other things. He was a little batty, and went more so as he got older, as mathematical geniuses are wont to do (c.f. Kurt Godel, Georg Cantor, Paul Erdos).

In religious circles he is famous for "Pascal's wager," an obviously flawed argument that basically says that its worth giving up any finite length of time in return for an infinite duration of bliss, even for a vanishingly small probability of bliss. Therefore, it is a rational decision to believe in the Christian god because of the promise of bliss in return for belief. This argument is reinforced on the flipside via the threat of eternal torture for those who don't believe.

One obvious problem with this argument is that it is subject to hijacking - whoever promises the most pleasure and threatens the most pain can induce whatever belief they want in Pascal's "rational" man.

Wow. I thought Pascal was an early computer language. So I looked it up-

"The Pascal language was named for Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician who was a pioneer in computer development history. In 1641, at the age of eighteen, Pascal constructed the first arithmetical machine, arguably the first computer."

What an incredible life- a genius with amazing prescience and forethought. We are still learning from him.

Victoria, Victoria, Victoria,

When you return, please address the koranic-pure reference you cited last week:

The conclusions thereof:

http://www.biblestudymanuals.net/quran9tc.htm

"In conclusion, while we can concede that the Qur'an is a fascinating book to study, it simply cannot maintain its status as the final Word of God it claims to be. The declaration of textual perfection by the Muslims simply do not stand up to any critical analysis of their content. As we have seen, the Qur'an carries numerous inconsistencies with the former scriptures, while its narratives and stories help to discredit its claim to be the true Word of God.

Popular sentiment and unquestioning fanatical devotion by Muslims are simply not adequate as a proof for the Qur'an's authenticity. When we take a sober analysis of the sources of the Qur'an, we find conclusive evidence that the confidence of the Muslims for their scripture is simply unfounded.

It stands to reason that those whose responsibility it was to compile a "holy book" which could compete with the existing scriptures, would naturally turn to the myths and legends of the surrounding civilizations and borrow many of their stories. Due to the predominance of oral tradition in the 7th-9th centuries one can understand how many of the stories became embellished and distorted over time.

It is these corrupted stories that we find all through the Qur'an, many of which were adapted from 2nd century Talmudic literature, which was popular amongst the Jews of that area. Consequently it is the glaring similarities which we find between the Qur'an and these errant sources which nullifies the claim that the Qur'an could hope to be the true Word of God. "

That looks a lot like:

Mohammed was an illiterate, lusting, greed-driven, warmongering, hallucinating Arab, who also had embellishing/hallucinating/plagiarizing scribal biographers who not only added "angels" and flying chariots to the koran but also a militaristic agenda to support the plundering and looting of the lands of non-believers.

i dont have time to read any posts- but glanced and it still seems pretty reasonable in here-

ive noticed in the past- (not necessarily here) that sometimes believers in the god and humanity and believers in humanity without the god talk past each other-

it occurs to me that if believers respect and recognize the goodness and innate value of differently believing folk, instead of having a condescending "pity" while simultaneously scrutinizing the 'emptiness' of their souls-

and beleivers in other than the god regard believers with the - well- same recognition of the goodness within them- minus the equally condescending surety of their questionable grasp on reality, and delusion...whilel simutaneously scrutinizing the emptiness of their brains-

well a girl can dream, can't she?

someone mentioned pascal- if i remember correctly, didnt he sacrifice science for theology?

luckily we dont have to make that choice- ( i mean muslims, as im one of the we)

i dont know how far he could have gone as a scientist-
he didnt seem to take into account the very obvious variable that surely god is at least as intelligent as her creation, and wouldnt be so easily trickd by his wager- but thats another story for another time-

i will come back at least to read the posts- im unusually busy busy this week-
peace

Mr Patel;

I hope you read all these comments here.

This is not a church or a mosque where the deluded gather to hear your voice,or the voices of others like you. This is the real world where a lot of people think believing in supernatural gods and demons and angels and fairies and other mythological magical nonsense is outrageous.

You should be ashamed of yourself encouraging people to believe that God's in the sky,and they're never going to die.

Bet you make a good living feeding people that claptrap. If anything's disgusting,that is.

Oh, Obfuscating Jihadist (formerly Jist),

Well you have come full circle. You recently indicated a liberal leaning and deletion of the more offensive ways and passages in the koran. However, whereas you continue to get excellent feedback from commentators on their basic beliefs, never do you provide the specific basics of your own. We therefore have to assume that you actually follow and adhere to the hallucinogenic-based, plagiarized, militaristic and anti-feminine rules of Islam and the sins inherent in such.

e.g.

1. Believe in "pretty/ugly wingie" thingies and teach your children that such things really exist.

2. Believe that the long-dead Arab did actually talk to the "pretty Gabriel" in the "Gabe" cave and therein received the good words now listed in the koran.

3. That Sunnis are superior to Shiites in all aspects of life.

4. That Islam is perfect and the koran inherently condones no sin even though the 24/7 800 year-old blood feud between Sunnis and Shiites give significant credence that suicides, assassinations, maiming, and murder are condoned by the koran. Having multiple wives also gives significant credence to the sins of lust and polygamy. The condoned treatment of these wives gives credence that the koran allows the sins of anger and greed.

We will issue this advisory after each of your future commentaries so those “newbies” understand your obfuscating ways.

E Favorite,

Aiyoyo! Lighten up. Only one paragraph related to you in my post I double addressed to you and Chris Everett and reposted here:

E Favorite : On the contrary, many non-believers know from their own past experience as believers just how lax believers can be. Such insouciance can also be easily observed, as believers say one thing and do another.

Moi : I take it E Favorite is talking about hypocrites who spoke or preach on ethics, morals and values but don't practice them. I am not disagreeing with you if you reread what I wrote. Hypocrites are everywhere, but I hope atheists would not make a virtue of being immoral, unethical and with shifting values just not to be hypocrites.

--------------------------------------------------

The rest of my post on ethics is for Chris Everett as he discusssed it at length in his posts to me. He's interesting to talk with.

Jihadist: Aye Aye Aye – Are you being purposely provocative in your narrow and simplistic interpretation of my words or are you just looking for an excuse to launch into your vast knowledge of religious ethics?

Daniel ITLD – thanks for getting back to me and I look forward seeing your writings. I notice, though, that you didn’t directly address my questions: “Do you think, Daniel, that if you had known about someone else, perhaps a well-known person, but not a religious figure, who had also suffered greatly, that you could have identified with that person instead of Jesus? For example, what if you knew of someone who had suffered longer and was in greater pain than Jesus was in his three hours on a cross?”

Of course, you don’t have to. Could you just tell me if you plan to or not?

Dear A Kafir: University of Pennsylvania's Dr. Andrew Newberg studied what happens in the brain when eight Christians speak in tongues with interesting results.

"In 2006, at the University of Pennsylvania, researchers, under the direction of Andrew Newberg, MD, completed the world’s first brain-scan study of a group of individuals while they were speaking in tongues. The study concluded that while participants were exercising glossolalia, activity in the language centers of the brain actually decreased, while activity in the emotional centers of the brain increased. During this study, researchers observed significant cerebral blood flow changes among individuals while exercising glossolalia, concluding that the observed changes were consistent with some of the described aspects of glossolalia. Further, the researchers observed no changes in any language areas, suggesting that glossolalia is not associated with usual language function. One of the researchers is a practitioner of glossolalia and a self-described "born-again Christian"."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/07/health/07brain.html?_r=1&ex=1189742400&en=b8bd8ab027f7592c&ei=5070&oref=slogin

Thomas and Melissa,

Experiencing God is not very novel anymore.

Please see: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8123-1509923_1,00.html
and
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/godonbrain.shtml

I have actually seen people whose brains are exposed to focused magnetic fields (which essentially produce large currents within the brain that are something the person had never ever experienced before in their lives) and then listened to them try to make sense of what "they" experienced. It is fascinating.

However, please be very careful with some of the circuitry that is being sold online from barely half started research area that is not very well understood, and it is not known how safe they really are.

We understand the world via our brains and when one starts interfering with it, the self report of what is being experienced becomes very very interesting to disentangle.

In short there are many many people who now have reported meeting God at the flick of a switch.

Yo! Concerned the Christian Now Liberated!:)

There is a God
God is Great
There is heaven and hell

Or if you prefer, go to the cosmos of Mr. Mark - Space, the final frontier. To boldly go where no man has gone before (Star Trek)

So, how's the Crossanization of Muslims and other stubborn ones project in On Faith coming along pussycat? lol

The Jihadist, The Jihadist, The Jihadist,

You lost your way to Reality so we had to downgrade you from Jist to The Jihadist again as it is apparent from your refusal to answer basic questions about Islam that you:

1. Believe in "pretty/ugly wingie" thingies and teach your children that such things really exist (strange though that you laugh at those who believe in Santa Clause and tinkerbells).

2. Believe that the long-dead Arab did actually talk to the "pretty Gabriel" in the "Gabe" cave and therein received the good words now listed in the koran.

3. That Sunnis are superior to Shiites in all aspects of life.

4. That Islam is perfect and the koran inherently condones no sin even though the 24/7 800 year-old feud between Sunnis and Shiites give significant credence that suicides, assassinations, maiming, and murder are condoned by the koran. Having multiple wives also gives significant credence to the sins of lust and polygamy. The condoned treatment of these wives gives credence that the koran allows the sins of anger and greed.

With such beliefs, your words of "wisdom" about other religions and worldly matters mutes anything you might have to offer and explains again your constant obfuscating.

TO MELISSA:

Thank you very much for your post, it means a lot to me.

By the way, the Fire that He speaks of is the Pure Love of God.
I have been thru a few things and I tell you and the rest of the world I am most grateful that God has a Plan and that God's Plan is for All of Humanity to be with Him in His Kingdom of Love.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Dear Thomas: you are not alone in having an encounter with the LIVING LORD of All Things.

Pascal- the French mathematician and physicist documented his encounter by writing:

"From about half-past ten in the evening until about half-past midnight. Fire. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. Not of the philosophers and intellectuals. Certitude, certitude, feeling, joy, peace. The God of Jesus Christ. My God and your God. Forgetfulness of the world and everything except God. One finds oneself only by way of the directions taught in the gospel. The grandeur of the human soul. Oh just Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you. Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.."

Its not an experience that is easily translated or understood in this fallen world. But it is a valid experience that has been noted and documented through the generations.

TO CHRIS EVERETT:

You wrote, ""Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be... All you need is love" - John Lennon" another thing that John wrote was, by the way I might not get the words exactly right, "Imagine all the people living for today, hey hey you may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one".

It is kind of amazing when you can look at God in your heart the way Jesus actually tried to teach us, as a Loving Dad, and see that God speaks to us in many, many ways.

"living for today", the seventh day will get here even tho night is coming first, be ready.

By the way thanks for the reply to my posting, also I would like to say that I can't explain God to anyone except to say that He is Pure Love, we think of Love as many things but I know, at least for me, I cannot conceive of Love as a Being, I had to experience it.

Jesus spoke of new heavens and a new earth and I don't know just what they will be, but it will be betterer than anything that anyone of us could ever possibly conceive of.

One of the things about living in an imperfect world is that we have the opportunity to do things for others, big and small, in the mundane everyday experience of life there are always opportunities presenting themselves, has anyone ever thought that God maybe has many reasons for how He made this place but that that could be one of them.

Take care, see you and the rest of humanity in the Kingdom.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

For E Favorite

I was born into a very religious Christian family, but we were not fundamentalists, far from it. I do not think that I was brain-washed, but I will admit to your term, that maybe I was indoctrinated. In a way, everyone is indoctrinated. I think I am attached to Jesus because of my childhood indoctrination. And if I had been born into some other family, in some other country, then I would not have this attachment. And that is not to say that I believe all religions are equally valid, and one is just as good as the other. (That is the accusation that I am always defending against). It is just that we are all born into different settings, to make and find our own ways, with what we given to work with.

When I think of "Jesus," I know it is not in the same way that fundamentalist people think of Jesus. But it is the word that I use, because it is the way I have been taught to understand.

You are right, that there are alot of complications that I did not go into. And there were alot of weird psychological states that I expereinced, that are not easy to describe. I had a series of cataclysmic experiences, one followed by another, each, taking my breath away, with no time to think and no way to analyze it while it was happening.

When I was in high school, I wrote in a friend's year book, that I hoped to escape my drab and boring life, and have adventures, like people in novels do. I got my wish.

I wrote something to myself, awhile back, about people whose experiences and origins are very different, but how it is possible for their thoughts and beliefs to converge. I will try and find it and post it, hopefully, in a day or two.

Yo! Concerned The Christian Now Liberated:)

Got a term paper or research project due or what? Judging by you frenetic knockings.

I am certainly not going to provide answers to your questions for your research.

Go to the library.

TO MR MARK:

You wrote, "I hope you will forgive we non-believers for feeling uneasy when you say, "God will somehow see me thru on the job He has given to me and no one human, demonic or satan himself is going to keep God's Plan from coming to Fruition," as the last, oh, 3,000 people who said something similar ended their thought by adding, "even if I have to kill every last one of the infidels in the process."".

Have you ever actually read anything that I have written beyond the fact that I have met God and see what it is I am trying to say.

Can you get past your all-knowing bias as in you know that God doesn't exist, well you are wrong, I have met God and I know for a fact that I don't know everything and you know what, that is quite freeing, even tho I never did have the need or desire to know everything.

I tell you and the rest of the world so many of the people, but not all of the people, on these posts that call themselves christian know absolutely nothing about God except for His Name.

Oh and by the way why should you or anyone else feel uneasy about what I say, because ultimately it is the best news, ["Good News" as opposed to good enough news], that mankind could possibly ever receive.

I have no worldly power, don't want any, I have no followers, I would be the first to say, don't follow me, but I am a messenger and I do have a speaking part in God's Plan for the Salvation of Humanity.

And for those of you that say you don't need a Saviour, don't you care about those of us who do, we are all in this together, like it or not, we are all brothers and sisters, like it or not.

God wins, satan loses, a tie is unacceptable.

Take care, be ready, see you all in the Kingdom.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Jist, Jist, Jist, (formerly The Jihadist),

Updating your road to Reality via gleaning your commentaries about atheists, anti-theists, music and now ethics and morality in religion brings us again to the previous observation and questions:

The echoes of your mind still need a bit of sound adjustment as to what you hold true:

1. the existence of "pretty and ugly flying thingies" (a required tenet of Islam)???
-still no response- tough one -what do you teach your children about these "thingies"??

2. the koran being based on the hallucinations of one long dead Arab????

-still no response- another tough one since the if you agree there would be no foundation for Islam

3. the correct side of the Sunni-Shiite 800 year old blood feud???

It appears you take no sides although you are a Sunni and have the upper Islamic economic hammer in most Islamic countries.

4. theocracies, good or bad???

-You apparently dislike theocracies but you live in Malaysia which is fast becoming a theocracy. Have you sent letters of complaint to your government officials and clerics??

5. the sins of being Islamic??? (false prophets/profits, greed, anger, lust, polygamy, warmongering, suicide)??

- I guess if you cannot see the problems of Islam, there is no sin but the koran's passages ooze of said sins.

6. Islamic scribes plagiarizing the codes, passages and ways of the ancients even the anti-female passages of "Prude Paul"?????

- Again, you still adhere to the "Islam is perfect" mantra so this is a problem for you to grasp. Some courses in ancient history should help you come to grips with Reality.

P.S. And no commentary on Jay Smith's conclusions about the koran???

Thanks, Thomas. I can't say I know what to make of it, but I appreciate the response.

"Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be... All you need is love" - John Lennon

Regarding the religious beliefs of others, I think my personal policy is "live and let live." I know it is futile, anyway, to try and change the beliefs of others. But when I am met with relgious aggression, which is directed at me in a mean and spiteful way, then I see no particular reason to be respectful of such a person; merely their appeal to God does not grant them a special entitlement.

I do not think I believe as Thomas Baum does. I did not have the experience of meeting God as he says he has. But I have noticed that when he posts, he is usually measured and respectful in all that he says, and so I cannot find much to argue about with him.

So I would say God bless him, and I wait to see what addiitonal things he might have to say in the future.

Jihadist,

I probably overspoke when I said, "religions are merely attempts to codify ethics." Of course there is more to religion than this, and of course different religions address ethics differently. I like the Bhagavad Gita despite the supernatural charrioteer Krishna and the warfare. We are all Arjuna. My intention was just to argue against the notion that religion is the source of morality. Perhaps its the Christian "background" that I live in, but that seems to be a common belief, with the corralary that athiests can't possibly be moral. I take issue with your assertion that the ten commandments are considered "man-formulated codification of moral, ethics and values." Not in this country.

I also hope you don't think I said that morals, ethics and values are themselves superstitions. All I intended to say is that it is a superstition to believe that morals, ethics and values have their origins in god or religion. Their origins are evolutionary.

As for the various moral philosophies, I tend to see morality as more organic than that, and I heartily second Pam's posts on the issue. Codification itself has its limitations, kind of along the same lines as the limitations of science that DITLD has been talking about. Rules are finite in number, whereas the set of possible circumstances is infinite. That's why strict, rule based justice is unjust. Context matters.

TO CHRIS EVERETT:

You asked, "I'd be very interested if you could describe, in detail, what the experience of "meeting God" was like.", I will try.

On 28 Jan 2000 I picked up one of my brothers to go visit our Mom on the first anniversary of our Dad's death, I thought it was important to be with our Mom and he agreed to go.

That morning it was like I had a feeling inside that was quite different and everything was falling into place just right for the trip, which wasn't really far only a little over a hundred miles and after I picked him up probably in the early afternoon we were on our way.

I can't really describe the feeling but it just kind of got more and more intense and then in an instant, I knew, just knew, that it was God the Father, there is no way that I can tell you how but I just knew.

There was no sensory things such as sight or sound, actually to the contrary, God didn't say a word but I do remember that I said out loud but quietly, "It is all true", I was taught in second grade that God is Love but I had no idea that that statement was literal.

When I realized that It was God the Father, I thought about pulling over and letting my brother drive but then I thought, well he can't see real well and he also doesn't have a license so I didn't.

I could think fine but I was just, to put it very mildly, overwhelmed. This is just part of the experience of the day that God the Father came into my heart.

I would like to say something, if this sounds like someone that others would classify as, well pick your term, I wouldn't blame anyone one bit because it is either true or I am the most delusional person that has ever been on the planet.

You also wrote, "The experience you refer to is totally alien to me and I can't even begin to imagine it.", I understand, believe me I understand, there was a before meeting and knowing that God is real to my life also.

I don't know if this is of any help but I tried.

I have also met the Holy Spirit and satan and experienced hell and spiritual death and other things have happened to me but the thing is, I needed to know and not just to believe that God is real, for the job that God chose me for.

What happened to me is important to me for various reasons and one of them is that God chose me for a speaking part in His Plan and thru the ways and the things that God has communicated with me, He let me know this.

How God works in and/or thru other people or how He may get their attention, so to speak, really is none of my business.

I am just a messenger, I have my job to do.

Take care, be ready, see you and the rest of humanity in the Kingdom.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Daniel ITLD – I’ve been thinking about what you said to Chris earlier about your Christianity and wanted to know more about it. I don’t mean to over-simplify and please tell me whether or not I’m on the right track.

It sounds like when you were suffering so much physical pain, that you identified with the suffering of Jesus. Do you think, Daniel, that if you had known about someone else, perhaps a well-known person, but not a religious figure, who had also suffered greatly, that you could have identified with that person instead of Jesus?

For example, what if you knew of someone who had suffered longer and was in greater pain than Jesus was in his three hours on a cross?

Hello E Favorite and Chris Everett,

Ay, yay, yay! I'll make it simple.

E Favorite : On the contrary, many non-believers know from their own past experience as believers just how lax believers can be. Such insouciance can also be easily observed, as believers say one thing and do another.

Chris Everett : Anyway, as far as I can tell, religions are merely attempts to codify ethics, mainly in terms of rules and regulations, and usually within the context of political consolidation of power. The idea that they are a SOURCE of ethics is part of the SUPERSTITIOUS aspect of religion.

Moi : With both your former Christian background, one would hope that at least, you will be familiar with and know Levicitus, the Ten Commandments. Most Christians don't literally live by the ethics, morals and values laid out in the Old Testament, nor comply fully with the sins and virtues as formulated by the early Catholic clergy.

Believers of all faiths, from Hinduism to Islam don't necessarily follow ethics, morals and values to the letter as stated in their respective Texts.

I take it E Favorite is talking about hypocrites who spoke or preach on ethics, morals and values but don't practice them. I am not disagreeing with you if you reread what I wrote. Hypocrites are everywhere, but I hope atheists would not make a virtue of being immoral, unethical and with shifting values just not to be hypocrites.

As for Chris Everett's contention, I hope you would relook not only at pre-Christian and Christianity, but also non-Christian faiths. Not all faiths codify ethics, morals and values based on "God's laws" (I'm using Christian terminology here).

As far as I know, ethics, morals and values have different origins though mostly for the purposes, in other non-Christian faiths and organised religions - developing cohesiveness and stabilisation of society with agreed, or imposed, standards and norms in the form of listed or codified ethics, morals, values and the attendent laws and justice for breaches and transgressions of them.

Surely you are familiar with the Bhagavad Gita of Hinduism, a discourse on right and wrong and what is ethical, moral and of value for man?

Surely you are familiar with the Dhammapada of Buddhism, though not a faith with God but with deified Buddha in some Buddhist strains, and an organised "religion" all the same? The Dhammapada encapsulates positive ethics, morals and values to live by.

If you are looking for the codification of ethics, morals and values sans God or organised religion, then you will have to look at Confucianism which was the basis for imperial rule in China. The mandarins, the civils servants who administered China for China's emperors for centuries, rule the masses by it. And the Chinese Emperors are sons of heaven, but not at all reflected in Confucianism or on any of the Chinese's myriad beliefs.

So, to say all religions merely attempts to codify ethics, mainly in terms of rules and regulations, and usually within the context of political consolidation of power is a bit of a stretch if one look at history here and there, d not just in Europe, and to consider current secular states.

As for your assertion that religion is source of ethics being part of the superstitious aspect of religion, that is also a bit of a stretch. The Torah of Judaism, the Sins and Virtues of the Catholic Church and the Shariah in Islam are man-formulated codification of moral, ethics and values.

As we all know, some Enlightenment figures seek to divorce the original codifications of morals, ethics and values from its religiously inspired origins.

There is nothing superstitious about morals, ethics and values. For atheists to ignore that fact is denying human nature, denying the human impulse to transgress or to do good. Unless, you are not sure what morals, ethics and values means as opposed to belief in God.

For a start and reminder - ethics is the study of moral principle and the nature of the good. Covers both custom and character. And there's normative ethics and metaethics. Pursuit of good, what is right etc.

So John Dewey said moral questions can be resolved by careful inquiry. Are you? Even on orgins of ethics, morals and values?

Oh, if you like, you can read Jurgen Haberman. He believes that free, rational discourse can provide moral guidance for society.

Perhaps you are most happy with utilitarianism? An ethical position that the morally superior position is the one that would result in the greatest pleasure and least pain for you?

If so, nothing wrong as it also takes the general good in view and cause the least harm to yourself and others. This, I think, would appeal to most atheists - replacing God's injunctions and even reasoned arguments with the simple requirement that the moral, ethical worth of an act be judged by its consequence, its social utility.

Either way my friend, that is the fundamental, the core, the basis for all religiously inspired ethics, morals and values. And not much different from the ethics, morals and values held by adherents of any given faiths and atheists.

Thanks and regards

"J"

Chris Everett said:

"Of course, this raises other issues. Order seems manifest everywhere, so is there some meta-consciousness that is contributed to FROM everywhere?"

To me, this does not seem so. The prospect of such a belief might be the God that some people are hoping to find proof of. But this does not seem practically knowable.

For, me, God is more mysterious, still, even than that. Even the word "God" is to me, both insufficient, and, trite. Some people use the word "providence" as another word for God. I say, good, just so long as it is another word.

I like that word "providence" because it has within it the implication of "provide." Where does this order come from that we know exists? Is it somehow provided? I can imagine this could be.

As I said previously, we have our senses to navigate the order of the world. These senses and the perceptions which they enable, must be very finely tuned to the order of the world, and synchronized with this order in the world, in order for them to be reliable navigational tools; perhaps when they are so well and finely tuned enough, then that is when consiousness begins.

Sometimes, the light in my basement burns out, and then I am on my last pair of clean underwear, and it is night time, and dark, and I have to do laundry, and I go down into the bssement, and it is dark, and I must feel my way around, to the washing machine, without tripping over all that stuff that is stored down there, and I have to work the washing machine controls in the dark, and hope I am doing it right.

To me, that is what science is like. We are in a dark room filled with many wonderful things, but we cannot see them. These things are all over the place, all around us, but to find out about them, we must slowly feel our way around the room, and touch each thing, and examine each thing, and after awhile, we have a pretty good idea of all the things that are in the dark room, which were not readily apparent to us.

We have impressions of order, and science is the examination of these impressions of order. Scientific truth is not any kind of "objective" truth, but scientific truth is the consensus of scientists, regarding their studies. Science does not depend upon an assumption of a set of natural laws; this idea comes after we notice patterns in our impressions of order.

The idea that the world is governed by laws of nature is an eighteenth century idea, a philosophical speculation on the contemporary advances of science which seemed wondrous to the people of that time. But science neither postulates nor proves the existence of such laws; they are our imaginings.

Scientists do their work, they examine the impressions of order that they derive from their investigations, and they come to a consensus on what patterns may be noticable; they do all this without a any kind of valid philosopy of science or theory of knowledge; they just do it; and it works; that is, science has great utility to us, because it causes us to be aware of all the many wonderful things in the world, which are not readily apparent to us.

How do we get these impressions of order? Through our senses. But why do we have these 5 senses? We have them because they were passed on to us by the animals from which we have evolved. But why did they have their senses? They had them to navigate the order of the world. And so, we have our senses, also, to navigate the order of the world.

Each of the senses is a reflection of order, by which impressions are conveyed. Or again, each of the senses is a template, that fits an aspect of order, by which a sense of this order is then conveyed. And in our evolution, and with our senses by which we nagivate the order of the world by forming impressions of it, we also, then are able to form impressions of ourselves; this is consiousness.

"Yes, I don't think there's any meaning in it at all. I think the word "universe" is a handy word in some connections, but I don't think it stands for anything that has a meaning."

BERTRAND RUSSELL

"I also believe that there are no 'laws' of physics nor any 'laws' of nature, but that they only exist in the mind of man."

The fact is that everything there is exists only in the mind of man, for as far as we know, man is the only rational being in the cosmos.

Without humankind, the cosmos would be unaware of itself, wouldn't it? The lower species are, of course, aware of themselves, but their awareness is extremely localized and limited.

Perhaps humans evolved for the sole purpose of allowing the universe to gain awareness of itself.

DITLD,

You write: "I also believe that there are no 'laws' of physics nor any 'laws' of nature, but that they only exist in the mind of man. And therefore, there is no use in an atheist putting his faith in these laws, and there is no use in relgious people using these laws to prove the existence of God, nor to promote Intelligent Design."

I think of the "laws" of nature as being man's model of nature's order. That order is apparent, but our exposure to it is incomplete and our "laws" are constantly subject to improvement, by way of revision in light of new evidence or in a more accurate model of existing information.

Philosophically, I have heard science described as "methodological naturalism." As I understand it, this means that science is metaphysically neutral, but it assumes a posture of naturalism as a defining attribute of its method. In other words, the scientific method is simply a tactic, whose use is justified only on the basis of past success. One can quibble about what constitutes success, but it is apparent to me that science is a whopping success of a sort that no other explanatory method has been.

But of course, there could always be aspects of nature for which the scientific method is useless. Indeed, one could argue that the APPEARANCE of naturalism (i.e. describability via unambiguous, well defined rules applied to observable phenomena) is due in part to our reliance on the scientific method - sort of like shining a red flashlight into the woods and declaring that the woods are red. I personally don't ascribe much to this point of view, given the absence of some similarly successful alternative method, but it seems philosophicall sound.

The elephant in the room is, of course, consciousness. Empirically, individual consciousnesses seem inextricably linked to individual brains, which are islands of intricate, dynamic complexity and order unto themselves. This correlation seems hard to deny, and leads to the idea that consciousness is itself the physical manifestation of order. Of course, this raises other issues. Order seems manifest everywhere, so is there some meta-consciousness that is contributed to FROM everywhere? What is the nature of our sense of individual consciousness? If it arises from our being "islands of complexity", what level of connectivity between us would ameliorate the isolation and give rise to a meta-consciousness at the level of the connected individuals?

On an earlier post, I described morality as being rooted in empathy, and suggested that empathy can be thought of as a refinement of the senses - instead of saying "That's me!" when we get hit on the head, we say "That's me!" when we see someone else get hit on the head. In both all we are experiencing are sensory phenomena - in the one case from the skin on the top of the head - in the other case from the retinae of the eyes. The difference is really in the brain response - in the first case the response seems to cascade up. In the second case, for a non-empathetic person the brain response is attenuated - for an empathetic person the brain response seems to cascade up, as if the experience were personal. Maybe it is. Is this a pathway towards collective consciousness? I don't know. Are our individual cells conscious?

Victoria (what happened to her - we were so responsive!) wondered what could replace religion. For me, these sorts of questions would constitute foundational "religious inquiry," not that I would use the term. Of course, humanity is back in the infancy of understanding - the infancy that we never really left when we went in the direction of religion.

It seems clear that humanity has had abrupt leaps of understanding in the past. My understanding of the archeological evidence is that mankind spent on the order of a million years making the same simple stone tools over and over again, and that sometime around 40,000 years or so ago a creative element took off and kicked progress into high gear (I could be wrong on the dates. Help?). I'm not sure if it was the beginnings of language, if it was genetic or memetic, but it indicates to me that consciousness is in flux and that we are just one point on a continuum. This may be a form of bigotry, but I often see the superstition/reason debate along evolutionary lines. The superstitious can't explain either, whereas the reasonable can explain both.

Thank you Daniel ITLD

How could I have ever thought you were the other Daniel?

I agree with a lot what Dr. Jasser writes in his article posted by Anonymous. However, Dr. Jasser ends his paper with:

"We have to remember the ideas America stands for, that there are millions of Muslims who came here because of those ideas, and if we tell them that Islam is the problem, we will not win the war."

Now this final statement does not follow from what he writes in his paper. What is the problme is Islam? The point is that we have to maintain our right to "absolute" freedom to speech and expression. That means those who examine the situation and conclude that Islam is the problem should be able to state that freely, openly and without fear. Muslims need to accept that Islam will be examined, will be questioned, and there will be many that will consider it to be the worst thing that ever happened to humanity. That does not mean that those people are correct or incorrect. The important thing is the open and free exchange of ideas. Islam does and must not get a free pass. If we are "intimidated" into not telling the muslims that Islam is problem then we might have lost the war that Dr. Jasser is trying to win in the first place.

Dr. Jasser wants to reform many things within the Islamic community and I fully support his efforts and wish him success in it. However, he does not deal with the touchy issue that many of the things he wants to reform within the community are part of Islam itself. In that sense, even his examples are clearly stating that there are problems with Islam, but he apparently does not want to say it that way. I understand the reasons why he would wish to state things the way he does, but that does not mean that everyone else should as well. A direct and forthright examination of Islam, and pointing of the problems with it and with the Sunnah of Muhammad has its place and uses and it also benefits the muslims around the world.

Ehris Everett

I like to read the comments here and gather up interesting phrases that express something I could not say myself; you said:

"...vague notions of order being the essence of existence"

I like that very much.

Something I have thought of: our consciousness is a reflection of the order that is impressing us.

For without this order, there could be no impressions; order is the essence of existence and impressions are the essence of consciousness. And our impressions of order constitute this world or ours.

I have the feeling that we were set here, for some pre-figured purpose, though it is just my feeling. And I have more than a feeling that there is more order than we can get impressions of, that we are in a confinement, and there is much more, to which we are forever, and irrevocalby excluded access. That is my feeling.

I also believe that there are no "laws" of physics nor any "laws" of nature, but that they only exist in the mind of man. And therefore, there is no use in an atheist putting his faith in these laws, and there is no use in relgious people using these laws to prove the existence of God, nor to promote Intelligent Design.

Craig,

I do not disagree with you about "freedom" at an individual level. However, we need to be aware that we do not know exactly how much freedom we can truly exert even at that level, and how much of it is that our "brains" invent so we can function. This eventually reduces to the very difficult subject of how free is "free will" and exactly what is free will, but it is clear that individuals do need to feel that they are free as individuals to make free choices if we are not to be utterly debilitated by a sense of helplessness of fatalism.

However, the more we learn about we actually make "choices" and what drives us to make those choices and how much does our biology influences it, and to what extent the chemical interaction within our brains influence those free choices, the harder it gets to define that "free" in the "free will".

DITLD,

Thanks for you honest reply. I too think that knowledge derives from "impressions of order," and I have vague notions of order being the essence of existence and at the seat of consciousness. More than that I cannot say.

A. Kafir writes: "It is not clear let alone certain that we are free to define the purpose of life."

I would have to disagree. I understand your point, but I speak of my personal life, not of human life in general. Humanity, I agree, is only starting to understand our "role" in the web of life. When I write about being free to define our own purpose, it is on an individual level, not necessarily as a species. If you ask me, we don't have any particular purpose as a species...in fact, it's (in my opinion) pure luck we even exist at all. We have a role to play, certainly, but we define that role...for good or ill.

Thanks,
Craig

Daniel in the Lion's Den writes: "But what is the difference? I do not see any. These are purely imaginary things, surely more imaginary than the atheists suppose God to be.

And what is the nature of the "objecton?" Is it written in the Koran, or some other Islamic Canon Law? Is it codified in Civil Law? The only thing I know about Islamic writings is a Koran that I scanned through, briefly, so I know almost nothing. But what is the bais for objecting to something that is so utterly abstract? If Western people find such an abstract interdiction so difficult to comprehend, isn't that understandable? "

The Muslim will quote the following Quranic verses:
*********************
7:148 PICKTHAL: And the folk of Moses, after (he left them), chose a calf (for worship), (made) out of their ornaments, of saffron hue, which gave a lowing sound. Saw they not that it spake not unto them nor guided them to any way? They chose it, and became wrong-doers.

021.052
YUSUFALI: Behold! he said to his father and his people, "What are these images, to which ye are (so assiduously) devoted?"
021.053
YUSUFALI: They said, "We found our fathers worshipping them."
021.054
YUSUFALI: He said, "Indeed ye have been in manifest error - ye and your fathers."
***********************

Then there are many ahadeeth quoted against the usage of imagery. I show two here but the run easily in the tens.
**************************
Hadith - Bukhari 3:428, Narrated Said bin Abu Al-Hasan

While I was with Ibn 'Abbas a man came and said, "O father of 'Abbas! My sustenance is from my manual profession and I make these pictures." Ibn 'Abbas said, "I will tell you only what I heard from Allah's Apostle . I heard him saying, 'Whoever makes a picture will be punished by Allah till he puts life in it, and he will never be able to put life in it.' " Hearing this, that man heaved a sigh and his face turned pale. Ibn 'Abbas said to him, "What a pity! If you insist on making pictures I advise you to make pictures of trees and any other unanimated objects."

Hadith -Bukhari 4:47, Narrated 'Aisha

I stuffed for the Prophet a pillow decorated with pictures (of animals) which looked like a Namruqa (i.e. a small cushion). He came and stood among the people with excitement apparent on his face. I said, "O Allah's Apostle! What is wrong?" He said, "What is this pillow?" I said, "I have prepared this pillow for you, so that you may recline on it." He said, "Don't you know that angels do not enter a house wherein there are pictures; and whoever makes a picture will be punished on the Day of Resurrection and will be asked to give life to (what he has created)?"
***************************

THE core idea of Islam, according to the overwhelming majority of muslims, is Oneness of Allah and nothing but nothing should be associated with him. Peoples should not pray to anything or anyone else other than Allah. Muslims object to the "abstract" being made concrete when a pictorial representation is made of it, and the religious lot among the muslims think that people will start paying respects to the images.

There is an awful lot wrong with the arguments that Muslims put forth and they are unable to comprehend praying to the statues or images as concepts versus consider the images as real entities in their own rights. Assertion of power over the Kafirs meant destroying their temples, churches, and art through the centuries. That is why there was not much of an uproar among the muslims when the famous and historical Bamiyan Buddhas were blown up by the Taliban/Al-Qaeda a few years back, or when the 11th century Buddha statue in Swat Pakistan had its face blown up by the Mullahs last year.

I have always found it amazing that muslims do not see and are unable to see the idolatory of kissing or venerating the black stone in Kaaba, and the absolute fetish they show towards venerating the actual book of the Quran in arabic when the overwhelming majority of the muslims cannot read a word of that book. But they have all the rituals of paying respect to it that are equivalent to the worst aspects of idolatory. For instance, Kafirs have been killed for mistakenly handling the Quran . Kafirs, non-muslims, are after all as filthy as urine and feces and touching the book is desecration of Allah's word that is impossible to bear for the believers and hence head(s) must roll literally.

At the time I am writing this post there have already been over 200 previous posts. It would seem, then, that everything that could be said (both good and bad) has been said. Never the less, I will add my two cents.

I appreciate the thought and effort that you, Eboo Patel, put into this post. It is well written and thought provoking. You are absolutely right that race, religion, culture, etc are all extremely complex concepts, and you are right in suggesting that it is wrong to make sweeping generalizations about these things or about the people identified by such terms.

I am not a religious person, but I am certainly not and "aggressive athiest", and I do not wish to see any large or small tents burned down because of categorical classification. However, there are people within most tents, including many religious rings within the religious tent who are dangerous to life and liberty. Burning such people (figuratively) is a bit too strong, but I am infavor of some kind of restraint on their teachings and practices.

I wish you a good day, and if your religious work promotes virtuous and spiritual living, I wish you much success.

For Chris Everett

I have had some very hard life experiences at a young age, as a young man. In a previous thread, I told Canyon Shearer that I knew what suffering Jesus experienced on the cross. And then, he had a fit because he thought that I was being blasephemous.

But I do know, through my own personal experience of suffering. Maybe that is the main thing that motivates my Christianity. When you go through your dark night, and you know you will die, and you only wish it would hurry up and happen quickly, you think through alot of things which are very difficult to express in words.

But then, I did not die. I had everything imaginable go wrong; I had the most radical medical treatments that fouled up disastrously, but I did not die. And I do not know why. Even though these things happened to me long,long ago, I think about them alot, everyday.

I do not think I have any specific thing to say, or insights to offer you that you have not already thought of yourself, or heard from other people.

I have suffered alot. But I am assuming that as much physical suffering as I have experienced, that it is not unique to me, but everyone gets their turn, sooner or later.

I do not know that I will have "life after death" but I hope so. I do not know that there is a Heaven, but I hope that there is. What could it possibly be like? I cannot even guess. But when I think of it sometimes, I get a little worried, because I hope it is alot like physical life on earth, and I think it may not be.

I am not concerned with the Jesus of atonement; I think that many Christians, likewise, are not. But I hope the suffering Jesus is there, and will help me along, when I need his help, because he suffered, too, as I have.

Faith means, believing in something that you cannot prove. So, mostly, I do not try to prove the existence of God; I know and am well aware that there cannot be a scientific proof of such a thing.

Hope means, the wish that your belief may be true. So, I do not hold up my beliefs as immutable "truth" that I must force on other people.

The only thing that I can know for sure, is that I have impressions of order. I think this is good insight, but almost no one whome I mention this to understands or agrees.

Homdoola, Inshalla! Homdoola, Inshalla! Shookria!

John McCAINE Failed the Publicity "TRUTH (opposite of MYTH) METER"

Washington is Broken!

DOWN with McCAIN, Same Sneaky Guy Different Chair!

DOWN with McCAIN,

DOWN with McCAIN, What a SHAME!

--------------------------- INSTEAD

VOTE! Vote! vote!

Mr. & Mrs. ROMnnnnnneeeey! Mr. & Mrs. ROMNeeeeeeeeeeeee For PREZ, YEA!

Thankashame me Fellow ECLATi-ON(s) & Never the OFF(s)!

Eeeeeeeeeeee Haaaaaaaaa yo ALL Cow Boy's & Gal's!

WE are Together-Forever Mitt SOURCE-ONE! Ya Ya Yo!

< ?: +)/ Ya Ya YO! Ya Ya Momma Poppa Monso's Mono's MON!

DITLD,

What about the man in the moon, the old man of the mountain, or the occasional virgin Mary on a piece of toast? To someone who ascribes to the image prohibition these must be very challenging, for they surely must show that god is engaged in idol worship! Or maybe they're proof of the existence of Satan, who is luring all those silly Catholics and Evangelicals to burn, like the Mary toast itself, in the heating coils of hell!

For Victoria

In a previous post that I wrote about fundamentalism, I took a couple of quotes from you, to use in my argument, implying that you are a fundamentalist.

Just for the record, I think of you as a religious person, but not really a fundamentalist, and I am sorry for using your quotes to make my anti-fundamentalist arguements.

(Sometimes, a person just get carried away).

SEATTLEDODGER,

You'd better be careful referring to muslims as teddy bears. That could get you into a lot of trouble!

That said, I agree that the examples you cite are just as superstitious as the images of Mohammad thing. But at least they're not (currently) being used as excuses for murder.

By the way, DITLD, your posts are among the most observant on this blog. What makes you a Christian? If you don't mind my asking, do you believe in any particular non-emperical (dare I say superstitious) doctrine (e.g. immortal soul, heaven/hell, salvation through belief in Jesus, god)? Or is it that you see Jesus as someone worth emulating? If the latter, what are the core 'practices' of your faith that charactize you as Christian?

Chris Everett: “The idea that [religions] are a SOURCE of ethics is part of the SUPERSTITIOUS aspect of religion.”

Excellent point, Chris, that I don’t think I’ve heard before. Religion as a source of ethics is as much superstition as Thor is the source of thunder and the risen Christ is the source of salvation.

seattledodger

You asked me:

"are you just trying to bait people or do you really not know?"

I am curious, but it is not necessary for you to try and answer my question. I was hoping for someone like Victoria or Jihadist to answer, since I assume they would not derail my curiosity with hostility.

I was just trying to point out that people invest an awful lot of emotion in what is actually abstract to the point of meaninglessness.

Scribbling some pencil marks on a piece of paper only forms an image of a face in our minds, but there is no face there, much less any particular person's face. It is only a particular person's face if you say it. But if you do not say it, then it is not there. And if you say it, you can always take it back, if you think you will be punished for saying it, all the while, inwardly believing that the image is of the person whom you named. But if you did not name it, but others named it, and then attributed the scribbles to you and your intention, in error, what of that?

Isn't this really about mental conformity, without reason or thought, to a fundamentalist doctrine?

It is better to think. So, I guess I am a bad person for saying that.

daniel, etc.: "But what is the bais for objecting to something that is so utterly abstract?"

are you just trying to bait people or do you really not know?

the act of creating an image of divinity (for example) may be seen as a act of human hubris and prohibited. the object, however, is not inherently 'sinful' nor indeed of any importance at all.

i like discussing religious dogma. what about that trinity thing, eh? three is one and one is three. sounds like microsoft coding to me.

and what to you think about the ritual cannibalism that xtians are into. i hear they get together each week and literally (for catholics, anyway) eat their god's flesh and drink his blood.

whoa, those are hard-core nut cases, dude. better keep an eye on that lot. muslims are teddy bears compared to them, seeing how well-armed most of them seem to be.

A. Kafir said:

"The objection is not THE picture of Muhammad but to the pictorial representation of Muhammad."

But what is the difference? I do not see any. These are purely imaginary things, surely more imaginary than the atheists suppose God to be.

And what is the nature of the "objecton?" Is it written in the Koran, or some other Islamic Canon Law? Is it codified in Civil Law? The only thing I know about Islamic writings is a Koran that I scanned through, briefly, so I know almost nothing. But what is the bais for objecting to something that is so utterly abstract? If Western people find such an abstract interdiction so difficult to comprehend, isn't that understandable?

moody: "Muslims see following common problems in the ENLIGHTED WEST . . ."

actually i tend to agree with you, moody, if not in detail, at least in spirit. the western world for two hundred years has been cynically exploiting the areas of the world that are largely muslim for the resources and influence.

there's little to be proud of when you examine the deceit, death, and destruction that has inevitably accompanied the good christians that supplanted the ottomans and continue to play their colonial games.

that's why islam is both a religion as well as an ideology of resistence. poor and traditional societies are under great stress from both economic and political turmoil. the states are weak and religious institutions are all that stand between many and starvation. hamas and hezbollah are vital sources of aid and comfort.

at the same time, islam provides an identity that is flexible and really gets under the skin of western conservatives, many of whom are quite close in dogma and ideology to those they seem to detest (see the muslim bashing common here).

religion is a functional institution and is extremely adaptable. it is strongest where hunger, disease, and oppression are strongest.

that's why many euro muslims have held onto the 'resistence' and the 'identity' aspects of islam, but are in the process of dumping the mumbo-jumbo. they are political muslims, and that's a whole different thing.

religion in the twenty-first century is epiphenomenal to larger political and social movements, such as economic globalization and the rise of asia. note the decline of the relgious right's political influence in the american republican prez nomination process.

like i said, religion dies when you build schools and hospitals instead of prisons. it's quite simple, really, and entirely our own choice.

Moody:
You do not realy believe what you listed as predominant crimes in the West. You are simply projecting the practices of the helllhole from which you crawled out to "grace" us here. Then why are you and your likes are risking life and limb to escape your failed societies and come to the West? Not only you and your like are hypocrites and dishonest but moreover ungrateful.

Jihadist: “Small catch - believers are personally less into stringent observation of their religions' stated codes and injunctions on morals, ethics and values than non-believers assume and presume”

On the contrary, many non-believers know from their own past experience as believers just how lax believers can be. Such insouciance can also be easily observed, as believers say one thing and do another.

Jihadist,

You write, "Interesting to see atheists coming up with some principles and ethics here on life that seem to be updated revisions, editions and modifications on morals, ethics and values found in religions."

Yes and no. Religion is NOT the source of ethics, so it would be wrong to think that atheists begin with religious moral prescriptions and then "update" them to suit themselves. Instead, a "moral sense" is part of our natural inheritance, just as an intellectual faculty is. This is just beginning to be understood by biologists, anthropologists, etc. It comports with observation of altruistic behavior over a broad range of species, and correlates with what one would predict from the evolutionary tendency to evolve organisms that sustain their genetic information (e.g. kin selection).

The question of the nature of "the good," and its relationship to gods, has been around for a long time. It is the subject of Plato's dialogue "Euthyphro," which I've heard is still considered central today. As I remember it, the conclusion is that if a thing is good because God declares it to be good, then there's no inherent goodness, just "might makes right." But if God is just SHOWING us what is good by its own nature, then God is just a middleman and is not the source of the good.

It's interesting stuff, but for me, as I've said before, morality is basically empathy. One way to describe empathy is as the identification of the self with the other. Another is the extension and refinement of the pleasure/pain response to include the perception of pleasure/pain in others.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, religions are merely attempts to codify ethics, mainly in terms of rules and regulations, and usually within the context of political consolidation of power. The idea that they are a SOURCE of ethics is part of the SUPERSTITIOUS aspect of religion.

Moody, Moody, Moody,

The "sins" of the West pale in comparison to the contemporary sins inherent in the koran i.e. false "prophets, greed, anger, lust, polygamy, warmongering, murder, assassinations, maiming and suicide as demonstrated by the 24/7 Sunni-Shiite blood feud.

Once again that famous quote is validated:

No one is safe until the koran is "deflawed"!!!!!

Hallaluja! Praise The Lord/ECLAT + "i"!

ROMnnnnnneeeey ROMNeeeeeeeeeeeee Romneeeee, for PREZ, YEA!

VOTE:
(((((( Peace Love Rockn Roll nRap, Mitt-ROMNEY for Prez 2008 YEA! Thanks Eclati-On's!)))))))

Humdullala!

Anonymous,

"Western Enlightenment and respect for the individual, we cannot win this war"

Rightly said by you Anonymous "You cannot win the WAR" because as you admitted your self,

Instead of reasoning YOU ALL are raging WAR.

And muslims can't be convienced by your deceiving, bias polices and practices. Muslims see following common problems in the ENLIGHTED WEST which hardly exist OR stands out as very little in the muslim masses and
"are conviencing enough NOT TO BE CONVIENCED" :

1- Chaos and Conspiracy theory practice towards muslims to grab, still, occupy there lands and wealth and destroying there properties, lands and countries
2- YOur non-negociatioan on real issue and brutal approach of inforcing your ideas upon muslims.
AND WITH IN YOUR SOCIETIES HIGH RATE OF:
3- Moral deggredation.
4- Incest
5- Rape
6- Child molestation
7- Teenage pragnancies
8- Drugs and Alcohal addiction
9- Prostitution (every high street has savanahs & occupied by business women in the evenings)
10- Extreme racism against color and human breed. Blacks are still facing the brunt.
11- Womens exploitation in the name of freedom.
12- Inhuman interviening state laws about kids, women, men etc inslaving and making there lives hell.
13- High street crime rate.
14- Your inslaving & controlling corporate and mega brand culture.

And non conviencing list is very long............

Knock, Knock -Jist (formerly The Jihadist), Eboo, John Esposito, Zudhi Jasser, Moody, Victoria, Pamela, Ahmen from Bahrain, et al- Anybody Home??,

Come on now, you can do it, what about those "wingie thingies" in your children's education, those hallucinations by the long-time dead, "cartoon- worthy" Arab, the inherent sins of Islam, terror and torture theocracies, Islamic plagiarizing of the good books, and Jay Smith's anti-koran study???

http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=14038&t=Americanism+vs.+Islamism%3A+A+personal+perspective

Americanism vs. Islamism: A personal perspective
Terrorism is simply a means to an end. The only way to defeat a tactic is either to defeat the source completely or to take away the dreams of the enablers.

Monday, January 28, 2008
By Zuhdi Jasser

My venturing into public discussions on the intersection between religion and politics is not something that I chose, but rather something I felt obliged to do after 9/11. Prior to then, I’d been dealing with many of the pathologies within the Muslim community, but as I began to see who was emerging as “spokespersons” for my faith after 9/11, I had to do something; hence the formation of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

More than six years after 9/11, we’re starting to figure out that terrorism is just a tactic. The tactic has a goal, a mission, and a dream. Terrorism is simply a means to an end. The only way to defeat a tactic is either to defeat the source completely or to take away the dreams of the enablers. Those dreams, when they are wedded to religion, become the biggest liability for those of us who are embarrassed even talking about religion and politics. What greater incendiary mechanism could there be to manipulate Western society than to cover a fascistic dream in a faith that is a spiritual path for over a billion people? And what better way to insulate itself from criticism than to cover itself in a spiritual guise?

Non-Muslim and Muslim alike, Americans, guided by the Constitution and First Amendment, have always been protective of our faith. One of my heroes growing up was Thomas Jefferson. The Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, engrained in our society a respect for the free practice of religion. Jefferson said, “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” This idea that a person’s relationship with God is his or her own and not the role of government to impose upon citizens is one of the main quarrels that the Islamists and those who ideologically feed the terrorists have with the West.

Unfortunately, many Americans have forgotten that America was founded by people who were escaping religious persecution. America is not just a flag, it’s not just our media, MTV, rock and roll, or blue jeans. It’s an idea of religious and political freedom and the freedom to be and achieve what you want, with equal access to everyone. That access is not dictated by wealth, religion, or any other immutable characteristic. That is what the Islamists fear the most.

“Islamist” does not necessarily mean only terrorists, and the simple condemnation of terror does not make someone necessarily compatible with American and Western ideals. Condemning terror—the targeting of women, children, noncombatants and non-uniformed people for the achievement of political ends—simply brings one to the table of humanity.

The root cause of terrorism is the dreams of the political Islamic state, and we need to understand what that state is. It can be either the fascistic state that believes in the totalitarian or authoritarian imposition of Islamic law throughout society or the democratic Islamic state, which believes in parliaments, elections, and discourse and debate. These two different types of government share the identification of being an Islamic state because the source of law is the same: the Quran and the tradition, or sunnah, of the Prophet.

The sunnah guide my personal life—my last will and testament, my marriage, our marital contract. But that’s something we chose in our own home. To transfer that into government gives clerics exclusive access to law, legislation, and public and legal discourse. If non-clerics want to gain access, they have to become schooled in sharia law. As important as the West’s initiative to democratize the Middle East is, we’re missing the boat if we think we’re going to solve the problems in the Middle East by simply getting those countries to have elections and parliaments. We need to bring forth the ideas of freedom, liberty, and respect for individuals, sometimes over the community. That last principle is one that came in the West’s Enlightenment.

Until Muslims understand that their faith is not threatened by the Enlightenment and respect for the individual, we cannot win this war.

Sometimes when we present these ideas, we present them behind the American flag. But being patriotic doesn’t necessarily mean that someone is looking out for the best interests of freedom and liberty in America. Islamic organizations that purport to represent Muslims may have a vision for America that simply takes our flag and adds a little crescent, turning it into an Islamic state. Some in the Muslim community may call this fear-mongering or exaggeration, but that Islamist community should not be allowed to circle the wagons and rally themselves behind victimization. Rather, they should be engaged on these ideas of the role of religious law in public life. For while the vast majority of Muslims have assimilated and reformed their own practices, by virtue of the way that they live in America, ideologically they have often been given the freedom but not the means, the task, and the challenge to understand what it is that they are living day to day.

As a result, most of the texts on Islamic bookshelves are pre-14th century. Most of the Islamic texts on law, penal codes, civil codes, etc., are based on 14th century law at best—it could be 11th or 12th century. Hence the corporal punishment, the severing of hands for theft, the stoning of women for violation of marital laws, that is still part of Saudi law. This to Westerners is barbaric, but the religious law hasn’t been reformed or advanced to bring it into the 21st century.

One of the primary problems with Islamic reformation issues is the clerical leadership and the imams. Most Muslim families would be dismayed if their son or daughter wanted to study to become a cleric or imam, which is not of the same value to a family as studying medicine, law, or engineering. So the hold upon religious, theological discussion of jurisprudence in faith has been given over to less than the intellectuals in society.

My own family escaped Syria to come to America for ideological, not economic, reasons. After the French pulled out in 1946, my grandfather had tried to be part of the democratization of Syria, which did have democracy for a few years. Then unfortunately, as we saw in many Middle Eastern countries, coup after coup occurred from the early 1950s until finally the last military coup led by the Baathists which ultimately brought Hafez al-Assad to power around 1970. The secular dictatorships are deeply wedded to radical Islam and the Islamist threat in the world. They may seem to be diametrically opposed entities, but the evolution and history of radical Islamist or theocratic movements has been an equal and opposite reaction to the dictatorships in the Middle East—- whether they are the monarchy in Saudi Arabia and the Wahhabis who came out of them, or the dictatorships in Egypt and Syria, for the Muslim Brotherhood, which also fed Hamas in Israel. This is what happened in Iran, with the Shah initially in power, which empowered the radical Islamist movement. All of this is very symmetrical, and that’s why we will not be able to bring Islam into modernity without the removal of many of these governments.

We do not have to do this militarily. We changed Eastern Europe without invading any of those countries and defeated communism without invading Russia. But we need to turn our attention to the dissidents, to those who believe in freedom and liberty, not only democracy. If we align ourselves only with democratic movements, we may end up ushering in parliaments based on Quranic law and facilitating the establishment of Islamic states that may in the short term be more peaceful to us from a strategic standpoint, but in the long term could end up dividing the world into a triangular fashion of China, Islamic states, and the secular Western states.

The conflict is over the correct source of law—Is it the Constitution and natural law or sharia; the lay individual or the clerics, or the individual vs. tribalism or Muslim collectivism?

I’ve tried to go to prayer every Friday, I attend the Ramadan holiday prayers and have probably 70-80 percent of the time found mosques that were not solely about spirituality or about teaching children morality and character, integrity, service, and humility, but rather about politics—domestic and foreign policy, issues that I believe have nothing to do with my relationship with God but rather concern things on this earth. My response in many of the debates I’ve tried to no avail to have with imams is to tell them that if God wanted us to discuss these things, the Quran would have been filled with injunctions about how to run government. But there’s nothing in the Quran about how we should run government. Yet they will take passages that do talk about war, for example, and transpose them out of context, which I believe is about history far more than it is about religion.

Back to my story. Once in the early 1990s, on leave from the military, I went to an Islamic medical association meeting. One of the only other Muslim medical officers was the head of endocrinology at Bethesda. He and I were going to present a paper on hormonal regulation and some endocrine issues at the Islamic Medical Association, which was being held in conjunction with the Islamic Society of North America annual conference. I had never been to a meeting of ISNA, the largest Muslim organization in America. Its annual meetings are attended by 15,000-30,000 Muslim activists. The keynote address was given by Siraj Wahhaj, Imam of Al-Taqwa Mosque in Brooklyn, New York, who was originally with the Nation of Islam and then converted to Sunni Islam. I was pulled into listening to this magnetic speaker, until he began talking about the constitution. He picked up the Quran and said “You know, I was on an airplane and imagine, a Jewish passenger sitting next to me asked me about the Quran I was reading—if Muslims became a majority in America, would we replace the U.S. constitution with the Quran.” He laughed and said, “Can you imagine someone wondering if a document made by humans would be superior to a document made by God?”

I got lightheaded, I sat down, and after he was done I went to the Q-and-A microphone and said, “I’m not sure if you understand American law, but you have just violated the Sedition Act as I understand it. You’re free to disagree with foreign and domestic policy, but you cannot talk about the overthrow of the U.S. constitution and its replacement by another document.” I encouraged other military personnel in the audience to leave, because they were violating their oath to this country. It was in some ways traumatic for me. I had just joined the Navy. But yet they felt that I was overreacting. I feel that it is not overreaction. There are certain things we have to know as a community and as a nation that take priority over other things.

A German judge recently gave a man the right to beat his wife because the husband maintained that it was out of his religious law that he is allowed to practice domestic abuse on his wife. That’s not the Islam I was taught, but if we become a society where once someone raises the flag of religion we stop critiquing it and stop holding him accountable to values that we share as a community, that is the day we begin down the slope of defeat.

As much as some Muslims could say I am mischaracterizing Islam or am too harsh, I think it is important to have the debate. Five years after the ISNA meeting, I met my wife and her family in Cleveland and told them that story. They said “We were there! We heard you say that.” Yet nobody did anything. Nobody stood up and agreed with me, nobody said “We may have a problem.” That same imam then became an alleged unindicted coconspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and later, in 1995, testified in defense of Omar Abdel-Rahman.

There’s a tribal mentality; somehow individuals want to create and advance the ideas of the tribal leaders. The Islamic community has reverted back to pre-Islamic Arabia, to a tribalism that has lost its values. Any time you take an idea in which the ends justify the means, it is basically corruption. Alija Izetbegovic, the president of Bosnia-Herzegovina, said that he was never more Muslim than when he was in solitary confinement under Marshal Tito for 15 years. A Muslim can hear that and think “My rights and freedoms in society are not related to my being Muslim. I have more time to sit and talk to God and be closer to God when I have absolutely no rights and I’m sitting in solitary confinement. Therefore my religion and my piety are unrelated to this earth.”

Actually, the idea that we should be selling—not on the U.S. station Al Hurrah, which actually gets very low ratings in Iraq, but on Al Jazeera, on Syrian TV—is that the way for individuals to be closest to God is to live in freedom. When you live in an environment where people around you are not fasting in Ramadan, where they are not praying five times a day, where I choose to separate from the group and go pray on my own, not in the middle of a gate at the airport demanding for everyone to see me but actually on my own, that actually is more of a demonstration to the God of Abraham, that I’m choosing to do that of my own free will. Thus, the day of judgment, if you believe in a day of reckoning, has more meaning to God. That is to me the message of our founding fathers. The most pious nations and individuals are those who can freely decide whether to act or to practice their faith without coercion from government.

Muslims will say, this is ridiculous, you don’t want religion to inspire what we do? There’s this equivalency where they then give me ten other religious lobbies in America that supposedly mix religion and politics. I’ll say that there’s absolutely no comparison, there’s no moral equivalency between religiously inspired political groups and Islamist groups that have a constructive law as a goal— the nucleus of which is completely different from one based on a human document. The key is that we hold Muslims accountable to what they view the concept of law would be if they became a majority. One finds few or no Christian, Buddhist or Hindu groups who want to bring, e.g., canon law or religious jurisprudence into American jurisprudence. Yet they may be inspired and empowered by their faith, which is very different.

I would then remember de Tocqueville, who said that military dictatorships do not need God, but democracies and lands based on freedom do. Because as you know, in the Middle East, and we see this in Iraq, when countries have lost their values after decades of dictatorship and become corrupt, there’s such a loss of values that corruption has guided and taken over that society making freedom difficult to take hold.

As a result, you have wanton destruction and lawlessness. The only thing that would control that society is some form of martial law. So you need to transition states from oppression to freedom, but that transition needs to be inculcated with values.

At the end of the day, if we believe that those values they’re going to use to drive their ideas are going to be based on morality, that morality has to come from somewhere. If it’s not going to come from Islam, then we’re going to have to convert over 1 billion people to another faith, and that’s not going to work. So that source of values is going to have to be their faith of Islam, which we as Muslims believe is a message from the God of Abraham to Muslims. But that message has to be put in a way that’s consistent with modernity and pluralism.

What can we do as a Western society within our community and what can we do, especially for non-Muslims and other organizations, to help this process along and move it along faster than the five hundred years of stagnancy that we’ve been under?

First, in our own societies, we need to be cautious about permitting parallel societies, parallel courts such as sharia courts where Muslims are given the “freedom” to set up their own legal court system. They would become an incubator for radical Islamism. Canada tried this, and the most vocal voice against sharia courts were Muslim women, even though they were told by the non-Muslims in Canada that “You don’t have to, it’s voluntary.” Once you get swept into this, it’s like fighting domestic violence in our own country. We must prevent the establishment of institutions that cater to that and allow the incubation.

Second, we see many examples like the taxicab drivers in Minneapolis who wanted to be separate from the society, not to carry people who were carrying alcohol, to impose their values on the passengers they picked up. Some may say that making a lot out of these issues is an exaggeration—“you need to lighten up.” But every opportunity I have to highlight examples, of what in medicine we would call pathegnemonic symptoms, of the pathology of Islamism, I will exploit that. Because they are doing the same thing. They are exploiting victimization issues and politics to use what we have now been calling law-fare to get us distracted, to sue individuals who are the biggest threat to their ideas. So that we’re all so busy fighting lawsuits such as the flying imams case (the six imams who filed suit against U.S. Airways in March 2007 for having been removed from a flight in November 2006 after behavior that many have called provocative) to distract us, to continue to divide society between Muslim and non-Muslim and to allow the continued inculcation of this Islamist ideology via Muslim collectivism.

A good example is Carver Elementary School in San Diego, which because of the third of its students who are Muslim wanted to move the lunchtime from 12:30 to 1:30 pm so that they could have their prayers. I wrote a column and on CNN talked about the fact that many of us grew up in public elementary schools praying and doing our own practices of faith without asking for the entire school to change its time schedule. You can step away during a break and practice your faith. Certainly I would not want schools to prevent Muslims from praying, they should be given the space to pray if they need it. Because that’s a personal faith practice. But once that personal faith practice crosses the line into society and starts changing the schedule of the general society or changing the cost to general society to the taxpayers, as we saw with the footbath incidents where the University of Michigan was paying $30,000 to install footbaths, that crosses the line of the founding principles of America. I don’t have a problem with private funding for that if they need it, fine. But not from the taxpayers. For once it comes from the taxpayers, then they should have allotted $30,000 for every other faith group in that university at the same time.

When I was growing up in the 1970s, I don’t remember Muslims asking for any of these things. It has almost become a tool of self-segregation and separating Muslims from non-Muslims so that they can continue this issue of minority politics. It’s becoming very potent and we have allowed it to take over the debate. It soaks up the bandwidth of American attention instead of allowing us to fight for freedom.

Islamic organizations today have only come to notoriety because of America’s fear of terrorism. If terrorism disappeared tomorrow, nobody would care about footbaths, schedules in schools, etc. Focusing on those issues would be the same as if a patient came into my office with lung cancer and I spent my whole time focusing on their cholesterol, headaches, and every other issue except the cancer. The Muslim community for credibility needs to start focusing most of its resources on the root cause of terrorism as a tactic, which is political Islam.

The methods of reform are manifold. First, engage the Muslim community on these issues, get informed about the difference between sharia law and constitutional law, and start to have discussion panels, not the interfaith, “kumbiyah” discussions that legitimize most Muslim communities’ leaders.

I have Frank Gaffney, executive producer of the documentary Islam vs. Islamists, to thank for connecting me with Dr. John Templeton and others. After his film, originally scheduled as part of PBS’ “America at a Crossroads,” was pulled from that series, it was shown on Fox News a couple of weeks ago. Ahmed Shqeirat, the imam who’s one of my main Islamist adversaries in Phoenix, in that documentary alluded to me (though not by name), claiming that I’m a “liberal extremist”. He went on to say that “people like me think we can somehow separate religion and politics and don’t want to acknowledge that every Muslim wants to live in an Islamic state, under sharia law.”

After the showing of the film locally, one interfaith celebration I knew of was cancelled in Phoenix. So people are starting to understand that there is a veneer of moderation from the Islamists. They know how to play the game outside the mosque, but these organizations are lacking on civil rights within their community. It’s a corruption that needs to be exposed. Ultimately, these institutions will disappear quickly once they start to be exposed to the regular American community that pays attention to hypocrisy.

So second, the Muslim community needs to be held accountable to its concept of umma. Umma is a word that is very prevalent in the Quran. It means “nation” or “community.” When an imam talks about umma, in Arabic and in his sermons, it is a threatening concept, because you then wonder at what point does an American Muslim follow the needs of the Muslim nation vs. the needs of the American nation to which he or she is a citizen. The Muslim community needs to “de-ummatize” itself, to really restrict the mechanism by which the umma is invoked. I would personally limit it to our study of theology and learning about the Quran and scripture; to charity that obviously all of our faiths seek to give; to socialization, obviously marriage within the faith is something all of our faiths try to do; and then last facilitating our hajj, our pilgrimage, and other aspects of practice and spirituality including mosques and community worship.

Third, we need to change the dreams. The dreams of most Muslims today are still wedded, because they have come from oppression and dictatorships, to religion, because the mosque was the last institution where they had a little freedom of speech, as long as they didn’t speak against their own government. That’s why the Muslim Brotherhood took over the mosques in Syria, and why the Wahhabis were able to spread texts into most of the mosques in the world, at a cost of $80 billion that they spent on spreading the radical word of Wahhabism. They were able to inculcate this literature into a lot of mosques, under the guise of most of these dictatorships.

We need to change those dreams from dreams of the utopian caliphate or Islamic states that bring them supposedly Islamic freedom to dreams of Western, individual freedom, where access to government and society is open to all. Much of the leadership on this must come from Muslim business leaders, who can argue for the kind of education that is needed.

Next, help us establish institutions. The Western enlightenment happened with the establishment of enlightenment institutions, classically liberal institutions that queried the church and government and began to question authority.

Hold some litmus tests and standards for the Muslims you engage with organizationally. They need to recognize Israel as a state, to stand against radical Islamist groups by name, not by theory, tactic, or condemning terrorism, but by name—Hamas, Al Qaeda and other groups. If they don’t have the moral courage to name the Saudis, the Syrian government, as an oppressive dictatorship, then you have to wonder where their allegiances are. These types of litmus tests are not being done enough even by our own government and the people they attach themselves to.

We need help in what I would call a counter-jihad that is still in its earliest, mitotic cell divisions. There are so many factors affecting the ability of Muslims to really contribute and get involved. One is because of fear—moderates are actually the first to be attacked; because of tribalism, because of the lack of knowledge. There are probably more people in this room who understand sharia than in most of the Muslim groups I’ve spoken to. That’s sad. It’s because the reins of understanding intellectual theology in Islam are just given up by most Muslims.

I will conclude with another Jefferson quotation that talks about the patience with which revolutions happen. “The generation which commences a revolution rarely complete it. Habituated from their infancy to passive submission of body and mind to their kings and priests, they are not qualified when called on to think and provide for themselves; and their inexperience, their ignorance and bigotry make them instruments often in the hands of the Bonapartes and Iturbides to defeat their own rights and purposes.” (Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1823)

Jefferson was talking about our country’s founding. He didn’t end slavery, but Lincoln, who did decades later, probably said it best: “America is the world’s last greatest hope for mankind.” We have to remember the ideas America stands for, that there are millions of Muslims who came here because of those ideas, and if we tell them that Islam is the problem, we will not win the war.

Dr. Jasser is founder and board chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD). A former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander, he served in the U.S. Navy as a medical officer from 1988–99. He finished his military service as a Lieutenant Commander with an Honorable Discharge in 1999 and is now in the private practice of internal medicine and nuclear cardiology in Phoenix, Arizona. This enote is based on his September 26 talk as the 12th Annual Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs. Published by FPRI.

I would totally agree with Victoria's advise that one should not decend in tit for tat way.

I was carried away due to the recent Palestine Gaze border Muslims agony.

Though my way of addressing ON RECORD non Muslim bios and atrocities was not exemplary and up to the Muslims standards BUT mentioning them purposely also felt necessary, enabling every one to see the both side of picture here on blogs.

I personally felt ONLY showing and explaining the Muslim concepts correctly was not influencing the IRRATIONAL ATTACKS on Islam, therefore I also felt it important to HIGHLIGHT world events and in practice malicious theories for COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS only!

PAM:
"We are born with a moral sense. Born with empathy. No religion necessary. We would have it even if we were raised by wolves. "

I agree with mostly what you have written. The saddest moment on nature shows that I ever experienced was a show on Chimps or Gorillas on public TV. The show showed the depth of grief a mother great ape went through when her child had died. She could not bring to part herself from the corpse of her child and carried it around, and how her social group tried to comfort her and ease her out of her grief. It was truly heart breaking.

We are born with a moral sense and a sense of empathy, but it is likely that we need an appropriate environment during our childhood for it develop and be expressed healthily. We do know that if a child is raised without language for the first 8 to 10 years of their lives they will lose the ability to learn and speak any language for the rest of their lives. We do learn our accents during the first 12 years or so of our lives. It is very difficult to acquire a new accent after the age of 15 or 16 years. Given that it is very likely that our moral sense needs to be nurtured properly and carefully during our childhood. It maybe that religions have been used to transmit and nurture this moral sense during our childhood. The human child might not be equipped to deal with subtle and complicated intellectual reasoning, and delivering the community's "moral" knowledge might require the use of stories, myths, and rituals. This is ofcourse all a conjecture, and scientist will be entangling a lot of this in the future. However, what is clear is that lack of understanding our ethics and morality structures properly does end up getting the function of religion confused with a lot of superstition and injurious to the us. The "organized" part of spirituality might the result of having to function with massive ignorance. In short, it is a little too early to say that humans do not need "religion". The religion of the future may not resemble anything like the religion of the present, just as the religions of the present do not resemble much to the religions of the past.
Apollo ruled man's imagination far longer than either Yaweh, Allah, or God has so far, and it seems more and more likely that man is outgrowing them, but it is not entirely obvious that we will not need to replace with "something". That is still an open question in my mind.

Knock, Knock Jist (formerly The Jihadist), Anybody Home??,

Come on now, you can do it, what about those "wingie thingies" in your children's education, those hallucinations by the long-time dead, "cartoon- worthy" Arab, the inherent sins of Islam, your Sunni superior class status, terror and torture theocracies, Islamic plagiarizing of the good books, and Jay Smith's anti-koran study???

"Humans really do not know the source of morals, ethics, and source. It is very possible that these are part of our evolutionary brain just as the grammar of human language is, and there may be something to the notion of the moral 'instinct' as well. "

Precisely. Many religions have "rules" about specific things like playing cards, dancing, wearing red, dietary restrictions, etc., but the morals seem to be more basic, more general, and to be found in almost every religion. These, I think, are our basic animal instincts, evolved through millions of years as social animals.

These come from empathy - the ability to project our own feelings onto another individual, and are the basis of the "golden rule." Further, we share them with many other social animals.

In "Our Inner Ape", Frans de Waal relates two stories that particularly resonated with me. One was about a chimpanzee at the Yerkes Primate Center that had a new baby. Chimps are very protective with their young when they're first born, and it can be very difficult for researchers to get a look at them. De Waal knew this particular new mother well, and had a good relationship with her, so he felt safe in approaching her. He indicated to her that he would like to see the infant. Instead of simply holding the baby up, back to de Waal, she crossed her arms over her chest, taking the baby's right hand in her right hand, and its left in her left, so that when she lifted it up to de Waal's gaze, the baby was turned to face him. Through empathy, she realized that the face would be a more interesting view than the baby's back.

He tells also of a chimp that discovers a bird in the compound that was apparently stunned by having flown into something. The chimp picked up the bird and tossed it into the air. The bird fell back to the ground and just sat there. After several tries, the chimp gathered up the bird and climbed to the top of the compound's tallest tree, took the bird by its wingtips, stretching the wings out, and sailed it into the air. The bird fluttered to the compound wall, recovered, and flew away.

The latter chimp not only had empathy for the injured bird, but understood that it had a different lifestyle from her own, and different needs.

Empathy is the starting point, behaviors that facilitate the smooth functioning of society are the necessary next step.

When two wolves have a dispute with one another, the first step is to walk stiff-legged, hair bristling, each one trying to intimidate the other with his superior size. Sometimes attitude is sufficient, and one backs down. If they feel themselves to be evenly matched, an actual fight may ensue, but typically one or the other quickly discovers that he doesn't have what it takes, and he submits by rolling over and exposing his throat. Rarely is there bloodshed. Predator animals are too well armed to have true knock-down, drag-outs - soon there would be nothing left of the pack, and without the pack, kills are too hard to come by.

We are born with a moral sense. Born with empathy. No religion necessary. We would have it even if we were raised by wolves. :)

Hello A Kafir,

Re your post to Daniel in the Lion's Den on representation on the Prophet, yes, and any pictorial representation of the Prophet is feared by the ulema will be deified by Muslims.

Thanks for your elaboration on humans and morals and ethics, and its source in your posts.

Organised religions, with its morals and ethics, as you stated, are the first "cataloging" of moral and ethical laws in a community, a society, a state.

I find what you wrote on the brain, and the "natural grammar" as very similar across the languages that similarity can be expressed with amazing variety fascinating. I can attest to that even by my casual observations in my travels here and there.

I would not be too surprised if the people thinking and looking into morals, ethics and values find them to be similar to natural grammar - a natural "instinct" perhaps, blunted or reiforced by community, society, state as institutionalised religion. It is not only neurophysiological and neuropsychological, but also anthropological and sociological.

Thanks and best regards

J"

here is a bit more cut and paste from the same link to try to entice you to actually read it:

********************************
Neuroimaging studies of moral judgment and decision-making
Consider the following moral dilemma (the trolley dilemma (Foot, 1978; Thomson,
1986)): A runaway trolley is headed for five people who will be killed if it proceeds on
its present course. The only way to save these people is to hit a switch that will turn
the trolley onto an alternate set of tracks where it will run over and kill one person
instead of five. Is it okay to turn the trolley in order to save five people at the expense
of one? Most people I've tested say that it is, and they tend to do so in a matter of
seconds (Greene, et al., 2001).
Now consider a slightly different dilemma (the footbridge dilemma (Thomson,
1986)): A runaway trolley threatens to kill five people as before, but this time you are
standing next to a large stranger on a footbridge spanning the tracks, in between the
oncoming trolley and the five people. The only way to save the five people is to push
this stranger off the bridge and onto the tracks below. He will die as a result, but his
body will stop the trolley from reaching the others. Is it okay to save the five people
by pushing this stranger to his death? Most people I've tested say that it's not and,
once again, they do so rather quickly.
These dilemmas were devised as part of a puzzle for moral philosophers
(Foot, 1978; Thomson, 1986) by which the aim is to explain why it's okay to sacrifice
one life to save five in the first case but not in the second case. Solving this puzzle
has proven very difficult. While many attempts to provide a consistent, principled
justification for these two intuitions have been made, the justifications offered are not
at all obvious and are generally problematic. The fact that these intuitions are not
easily justified gives rise to second puzzle, this time for moral psychologists: How do
people know (or "know") to say "yes" to the trolley dilemma and "no" to the footbridge
dilemma if there is no obvious, principled justification for doing so? If these
conclusions aren't reached on the basis of some readily accessible moral principle,
they must be made on the basis of some kind of intuition. But where do these
intuitions come from?
****************************************
Fascinating read.

J,

An example of the kind of research that is taking place in the area of morals and brain structure:
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~jgreene/GreeneWJH/Greene-InnatenessChapter.pdf
*******************

......Imagine the following scenario. A woman is brought to the emergency room after
sustaining a severe blow to the head. At first, and much to her doctors' surprise, her
neurological function appears to be completely normal. And for the most part it is, but
it soon becomes clear that she has acquired a bizarre disability. As a result of her
accident, this woman can no longer play basketball. Her tennis game is still top
notch, as is her golf swing, and so on. Only her basketball game has been
compromised. Could such an accident really happen? Almost certainly not. The way
the brain is organized, it is virtually impossible that something like a blow to the head
could selectively destroy one's ability to play basketball and nothing else. This is
because the neural machinery required to play basketball isn't sitting in one place,
like a car's battery (Casebeer and Churchland, 2003). Instead, this machinery is
distributed throughout the brain, and its various components are used in the
performance of any number of other tasks.
While no one claims to have seen a case of acquired “abasketballia,” there
have been cases in which brain damage has appeared to rob individuals of their
moral sensibilities in a strikingly selective way. By far, the most celebrated of such
cases is that of Phineas Gage (Damasio, 1994), a Nineteenth Century railroad
foreman who worked in Vermont. One fateful day, an accidental explosion sent a
tamping iron through Gage's cheek and out the top of his head, destroying much of
his medial prefrontal cortex. Gage not only survived the accident; at the time he
appeared to have emerged with all of his mental capacities intact. After a two-month
recuperation period Gage was pronounced cured, but it was soon apparent that
Gage was damaged. Before the accident he was admired by his colleagues for his
industriousness and good character. After the accident, he became lawless. He
wandered around, making trouble wherever he went, unable to hold down a steady
job due to his anti-social behavior. For a long time no one understood why Gage’s
lesion had the profound but remarkably selective effect that it had.
More recent cases of patients with similar lesions have shed light on Gage’s
injury. Damasio and colleagues (Damasio, 1994) report on a patient named “Elliot”
who suffered a brain tumor in roughly the same region that was destroyed in Gage.
**************************************

Jist, Jist, Jist, (formerly The Jihadist),

Well let us see how your road to Reality and away from the constant "obfusing" is proceeding via gleaning your commentaries about atheists and anti-theists and their ethics/morals to include some obfuscating about music.

Now that the atheists and anti-theists have answered your questions about their beliefs, we still await the answers the questions about your beliefs.

To wit:

1. the existence of "pretty and ugly flying thingies" (a required tenet of Islam), yes or no???

-tough one -what do you teach your children about these "thingies"??

2. the koran being based on the hallucinations of one long dead Arab, yes or no????

- another tough one since if you agree there would be no foundation for Islam

3. the correct side of the Sunni-Shiite 800 year old blood feud???

It appears you take no sides although you are a Sunni and have the upper Islamic economic hammer in most Islamic countries.

4. theocracies, good or bad???

-You apparently dislike theocracies but you live in Malaysia which is fast becoming a theocracy. Have you sent letters of complaint to your government officials and clerics??

5. the sins of being Islamic??? (false "profits", greed, anger, lust, polygamy, warmongering, suicide)??

- I guess if you cannot see the problems of Islam, there is no sin but the koran's passages ooze of said sins

6. Islamic scribes plagiarizing the codes, passages and ways of the ancients even the anti-female passages of "Prude Paul", yes or no?????

- Again, you still adhere to the "Islam is perfect" mantra so this is a problem for you to grasp. Some courses in ancient history should help you come to grips with Reality.

P.S. And no commentary on Jay Smith's conclusions about the koran??? i.e. the one Victoria cited as being "koranic" pure.

Daniel in the Lion's Den,

Idols are a no no in Islam. Pictorial representation of living forms is not acceptable as Art. Islamic art revolves aroud calligraphy and geometrical patterns. Birds, animals, human representation as art or statues are not accepted. The exception is a few hundred years among the Iranians and the Indians, and a little less time among the turks. The objection is not THE picture of Muhammad but to the pictorial representation of Muhammad.

J,

Humans really do not know the source of morals, ethics, and source. It is very possible that these are part of our evolutionary brain just as the grammar of human language is, and there may be something to the notion of the moral "instinct" as well. Religion has been around for a long time, as long as our recorded history, and it must have been useful and needed. It would be stupid to suggest that everything about religion is useless just because the religions have been used by the unscruplous to gain and extend power and suppress others. As humans probe our neurophysiological and neuropsychological structures to understand the basis of morals and ethics, they will have to study religions of the past and present carefully because that is what humans have been using to "cataloging" their moral and ethical laws. Hopefully, as humans gain better understanding and knowledge they will strip the superstition away from the religions and deal with the core values and the natural variety with which humans represent them. It may be similar to that humans have very similar language centres in the brain, and the "natural grammar" is very similar across the languages, and that similarity can be expressed with amazing variety. Our morals, eithics and values might be similar to that. Fortunately, humans are starting to address these issues and very smart and intelligent people are starting to think about these issues.

Daniel ITLD: "When Victoria wonders about the motivations of atheists and how can they go on living without belief in God, she is really wondering, what it would be like to be released from the decision of mental conformity to a doctrine and then be forced to think."

Or maybe she and other believers are wondering how anyone could give up the promise of eternal life.

easier to believe and not think about it.

Hello Jeff P,

Thanks for your post.

I don't consider this as a "good fight". Just a discusssion. We already know what atheists think on God and religion, but not too much on matters related to ethics, morals and values.

Interesting to see atheists coming up with some principles and ethics here on life that seem to be updated revisions, editions and modifications on morals, ethics and values found in religions.

Sweeping generalisations:

- Believers abide by morals, ethics and values stated in their religions that personally suit them and their objectives.

- Non-believers revise their attitudes and thinking on morals, ethics and values to suit their life and objectives.

Small catch - believers are personally less into stringent observation of their religions' stated codes and injunctions on morals, ethics and values than non-believers assume and presume.

Thanks and regards
"J"

Chris Everett - A few months ago, I asked Thomas Baum a lot of the same questions about his religious experience as you are asking now. I’ve looked around a bit for that thread and can’t find it. However, I recall Thomas’ account involved a very powerful experience that included a visit to a psych unit. Thomas, do I have that right? Mr Mark – I think you were active in that discussion. Does that ring a bell?

I have a question for Muslims, about pictures of Mohammed being blasphemous.

Just what is a picture of Mohammed? Is it defined anywhere in Islamic Canon Law? Or is it just a folk custom?

If someone draws a picture, what makes it a picture of Mohammed? If the artist says it is a picture of Mohammed, then does that make it a picture of Mohammed? Why would that make it a picture of Mohammed? I don't think it should; the identity of a person depicted in this way is purely imaginary. If imaginary representations of Mohammed are blasphemous, then is it blasphemous to imagine a picture of Mohammed without a physical drawing? What if you tried not to imagine what he looked like, but still, you kept imagining it, and couldn't help it? Would that be bad?

Alot of this is rhetorical, designed to provoke thought. However, I really do wonder, what makes a picture of Mohammed valid enough to qualify as blaspehmey? Isn't this actually putting alot of emphasis on something that has no existendce or reality? How can someone's random drawing be supposed to be a picture of Mohammed? Only a photograph could be a picture of Mohammed, and I don't think anyone needs to worry about that. I think there is probably more of a theological point here than I am currently able to understand, since it does seem to be pretty important to alot of people.

Someone, a few comments back, I forget who, referred to me as a "religionist." I am not sure what I am but I do not think I am a religionist.

I once had a friend, a co-worker, from Iran. One day, she broke down in tears, and said, "Mohamed, Mohamed, Mohamed, I wish I had never heard that name." Because, at least she thought then, that Islam had ruined her life, that it had cut her off forever from her homeland and from her family. But now, years and yeas later, she has a husband and children and a new homeland, here, and I think she is happy.

When I hear the statement, "religion poisons everything," I have to admit that I agree that it is a true statement. It has poisoned alot in my own life. Therefore, I would hardly consider myself to be a "religionist."

I do not think fundamentalist religon is going away any time soon, because this type of belief is more of a psychological state than a choice, something that, apparently a large swath of humanity is predisposed to.

I know alot about Christian fundamentalism, and by inference, something of Islamic fundamentalism. I have always regarded Christianity and Islam as mirror images of each other. What these fundamentalist "belief" systems have in common is the single decision of the believer to conform the mind to an unbending doctrine or dogma. In this sense, Communism and Naziism were also fundamentalist. The actual dogma to which one has pledged mental conformity is actually not very important to a fundamentalist, just the conformity, that is what is important.

The purpose behind this decision to mental conformity is that it is easy, and comforting. Afther the single decision to conform ones mind to the fundamentalist doctrine, no other decisons are necessary; all of your thinking is already done, and you are finished, and off the hook.

When Victoria wonders about the motivations of atheists and how can they go on living without belief in God, she is really wondering, what it would be like to be released from the decision of mental conformity to a doctrine and then be forced to think.

People who have not conformed their minds to a fundamentalist doctrine can look up at the night sky with wonder and awe, for what can it all be there for, and what it all must mean. Fundamentalists never, ever, traverse this ground, all they do is harrangue that they have the truth, and everybody else is wrong.

When speaking with a fundamentalist and trying to get them to see your point of view, it reminds me a little of the "Miracle Worker" in which the teacher Anne Sullivan tried to get Helen Keller to understand the meaning in the world all around her, to which she was deaf and blind. I don't have the energy and stamina of Anne Sullivan.

Dear Thomas Baum -

I hope you will forgive we non-believers for feeling uneasy when you say, "God will somehow see me thru on the job He has given to me and no one human, demonic or satan himself is going to keep God's Plan from coming to Fruition," as the last, oh, 3,000 people who said something similar ended their thought by adding, "even if I have to kill every last one of the infidels in the process."

Chris Everett:

And a big thanks to YOU for your input. This has been an excellent thread, I think we've all learned much from one another.

Jihadist: a few things--

I have to confess I feel like I know you a little less than I imagined. But I sincerely enjoy your posts. Thank you for taking the time to articulate your thoughts so well.

What I find exciting about these times in America, along with a flurry of literature from all reaches, is that we're able to actually talk about this at all, on a forum like On Faith. I think it's incredible to actually ask the question: is religion good for humankind? I think it's incredibly important to see the influence of the religious on our system of poliltics and public policy. (We've witnessed our Congress spend time on HR 847 about the "importance of Christmas," and Huckabee's reference to the implications for changing the constitution, but I bet you're not aware of HR 888 which is up next, which would suggest more Evangelical sentiments.)

I'm not so sure this is about opportunity to rant, or to express feelings/thoughts that we otherwise wouldn't share with our families, colleagues, or neighbors, or to "worship" Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris--they have their own web sites and forums, and if there's anything consistent about atheists, they generally don't agree on very many things. You should watch "The Four Horsemen" someday to see just how often the "new atheist" authors disagree with one another. On Faith is an incredible opportunity to put issues on the table, even harshly and heatedly at times, to be picked apart, with a range of opinion.

I believe we visit this site because it's a place where we can see thought from leading theologians, and at least in America they command a lot of respect, and (I fear to say) sway much of our thinking, at least in the South. To see someone say "no way!" to the president of Evangelicals is significant, in my view, and I appreciate that candor.

Although many of us have left our faith, we can't just "leave it alone" because so many religiously mechanical facets interact with our lives day in and day out, and many here do fear what consequences may come if the fundamental fervor isn't channeled. Like it or not, moderate Christians (at least) in general don't seem too motivated to generate the conversation about what needs to change--I think an accurate claim made by Sam Harris, and a few progressive Christians who post here. And yes, you mention facetiously that atheists are concerned about ethical things--I truly think they are, and I'd be willing to wager maybe more so than believers.

I hope I never offend you (and will never intentionally do so) but thanks for the good fights!

Thomas,

I'd be very interested if you could describe, in detail, what the experience of "meeting God" was like. I'd especially appreciate it if you could be specific about the actual phenomena you experienced, as opposed to any interpretation of the phenomena. Was it sensory (lights, sounds, images)? Was it emotional (euphoria)? Was it intellectual (thoughts, insights)?

I get the impression that you ascribe to Christian doctrine. How did your experience convince you of the truth of Christian doctrine as opposed to some other doctrine?

The experience you refer to is totally alien to me and I can't even begin to imagine it. Any help you can give to communicate it to someone like me, for whom repetition of doctrine, etc, is unconvincing, is appreciated.

TO DREW:

You wrote, "I'm inclined to agree with you that Jihadist is becoming more and more desperate as her Jihad amongst us atheists is getting her nowhere. Except for other religionists like DiTLD, and T.Moses Baum, she is influencing no-one, and is looking increasingly foolish as the logic of the nonbelievers becomes ever more difficult to deal with,or escape."

You can label me anyway that you like but I personally do not consider myself a "religionist" but I am a messenger.

I am not here to try and influence anyone but I am here trying to do the job that God gave to me.

I do find it kind of interesting that some of the people that get the most upset about what I write don't even seem to actually read and think about what I write.

By this I don't mean for them to believe or not believe what I am saying but to put me into someone's predetermined label just shows that some are not as open-minded as they think they are.

It doesn't matter if someone believes I have met God but it is a fact.

When I write that God is a searcher of hearts and minds not of religious affiliations or lack thereof, do you really think the label "religionist" applies?

God will somehow see me thru on the job He has given to me and no one human, demonic or satan himself is going to keep God's Plan from coming to Fruition.

Take care, see you and the rest of humanity in the Kingdom.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Mr. Mark, E Favorite, A Kafir, DITLD, Craig, Chip, et al

WOW! What a cornucopia! Thanks to Victoria for bring out the best in us.

Jist, Jist, Jist, (formerly The Jihadist),

Well let us see how your road to Reality and away from the constant "obfusing" is proceeding via gleaning your commentaries about atheists and anti-theists and now music.

The previous request and questions:

"The echoes of your mind still need a bit of sound adjustment as to what you hold true:

1. the existence of "pretty and ugly flying thingies" (a required tenet of Islam)???

-still no response- tough one -what do you teach your children about these "thingies"??

2. the koran being based on the hallucinations of one long dead Arab????

-still no response- another tough one since the if you agree there would be no foundation for Islam

3. the correct side of the Sunni-Shiite 800 year old blood feud???

It appears you take no sides although you are a Sunni and have the upper Islamic economic hammer in most Islamic countries.

4. theocracies, good or bad???

-You apparently dislike theocracies but you live in Malaysia which is fast becoming a theocracy. Have you sent letters of complaint to your government officials and clerics??

5. the sins of being Islamic??? (false "profits", greed, anger, lust, polygamy, warmongering, suicide)??

- I guess if you cannot see the problems of Islam, there is no sin but the koran's passages ooze of said sins

6. Islamic scribes plagiarizing the codes, passages and ways of the ancients even the anti-female passages of "Prude Paul"?????

- Again, you still adhere to the "Islam is perfect" mantra so this is a problem for you to grasp. Some courses in ancient history should help you come to grips with Reality.

P.S. And no commentary on Jay Smith's conclusions about the koran??? i.e. the one Victoria cited as being "koranic" pure.

Victoria,

You write:

"chris i refer you to mohammed mallecks post on 1-26 at 7:23AM

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/eboo_patel/2008/01/our_faith_talk_is_in_the_gutte.html#comments"

I remember that post - it's some very interesting snippets from correspondence between Neils Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Paul Dirac. Very thought provoking. As for

"scientific method itself was envisioned by a muslim scientist called ibn al-haytham

http://scimillenia.wordpress.com/"

I haven't followed the link, but I hope you don't think that the scientific method is somehow "muslim". Scientific inquiry dates back at least to the ancient Greeks and Egyptians and predates Islam by at least a thousand years. Nevertheless, I would not be surprised if there is some European bias in the historical narrative of science. Indian and Arab culture, in particular, probably deserves more credit that it typically gets, particularly in logic and mathematics (e.g. 'arabic' numerals are Indian, and both 'algebra' and 'algorithm' are westernizations of the names of the Arabs most responsible for them - although I don't know the historical details very well).

Nevertheless, I don't deny that religious people have contributed to science. Newton himself was a religious fanatic, and dedicated a far larger fraction of his life to religious scholarship than he did to physics and mathematics (he also dedicated far more to alchemy, but that's another story). But that doesn't make their contributions inherently religious, it doesn't validate any religious doctrine and it doesn't verify the existence of supernatural beings or phenomena. It mainly says that historically, mankind has largely been religious. Look further and you find that scientists overall have generally been far less religious than their contemporaries. But that's all beside the point.

You write:

"but, still- youre not answering the question-

im not trying to create a competetition, im hoping for constructive crafting of some alternative to religion by atheists-

something beyond reaction against-"

This is a good topic, but first I'd like to know what you mean by "alternative." In terms of superstitions, I advocate their removal rather than their replacement. I wouldn't challenge my doctor to craft some alternative to lying sick in bed, and refuse his prescription as being 'against.' So I'm curious, what do you imagine would be taken away if the 'atheist agenda' were to become reality? Would the change be wholly positive, or do you imagine there would be some king of collateral damage in which a legitimate human need is no longer being legitimately met?

I can imagine responses to these types of questions, but I'd be interested to hear yours. I imagine a response of "people would be morally lost - without god there can't be morality and we'd be adrift in a sea of nihilistic relativism." I think this issue HAS been addressed - I've certainly tried. For me, morality comes from the awareness of our own capacity to suffer, combined with an appreciation that others are just like us. And so on. "Without religion, people won't have a sense of community." Well, a 'deflawed' or secular 'religion' can provide that. I've mentioned Unitarianism, Ethical Culture and Buddhism, among others. Community can also be forged along non-religious paradigms - I'm not going to start making suggestions because everyone has their own preferences. What else? You name it. I don't worship the supernatural, so I've quickly run out of ideas about what anyone would see in it.

And then there's the issue of the FALSE comforts of superstitious religion, particularly the promise of eternal bliss for people that obey their church's orders to believe. Atheism won't replace that, and in fact, I find the idea totally absurd. I find meaning in being a small part of the family of man (rhetorical 'man', not sexist 'man'), and I find my immortality in the contribution I make, from family, to works, to ideas. I strive to leave the world a better place, to be an agent of enlightenment.

Hope this helps, and thanks for the dialog.

Religion is normally a choice, while race and ethnicity are not. Religionists make claims that cannot be substantiated and these claims are often contradictory.

Interfaith cooperation is not realistic, at least not as long as apostasy, blasphemy, and other sins are punishable by religious doctrines enshrined in "infallible religious texts". Humanity is our common bond. Religions are divisive and intolerant of one another.

I think the tent of religion is showing signs of wear and there's no deity going that's going to prop it up as long as people are allowed a free exchange of ideas. It's time for religions to come out of the dark (ages). This is the only life you get. Make the most of it.

Mr. Mark,

You stated : "Certainly, this forum presents a mish-mash of Xian beliefs that render it well-nigh impossible for a novice to religious discussions to have a clue as to what Xians actually DO believe.

And so it goes..."

Moi : Not only Christian, but Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim beliefs.

So, you are a musician.

Religion/belief seem like music, - fundamentally just eight notes, and believers took those eight notes and make music with major and minor keys etc - from the sublime to the pompous to the ridiculous too.

Believers of course, go for the music of belief of their preference. Of course there are innovations in music throught the ages and cross-cultural influences and fusions too.
World music. World religions.

Is classical music akin to traditional/conservative religious belief and rap is atheism? And for classical music, we are not talking about boroque and romantic and neo romantic and what not.

And I just can't get into most of country music. No accounting for taste and personal preference.

As you stated, "And so it goes..."

Thanks and regards

"J" :)

And here's a gender friendly and belief-free version (just shows you how times change):

Atheists love life. Atheists think that heaven is something for which people should work now – here on earth for all people together to enjoy.

Atheists think that they must find in themselves the inner conviction, and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue it and enjoy it.

Atheists think that only in a knowledge of themselves and a knowledge of other people can they find the understanding that will help to a life of fulfillment.

They seek to know themselves and others. They think that a hospital should be built instead of a church.

Atheists think that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said.

Atheists strive for involvement in life and not escape into death.

They want disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated. They want humankind to understand and love each other.

They want an ethical way of life. They think that people cannot rely on a god or channel action into prayer nor hope for an end of troubles in a hereafter.

They think that we are each others brother's and sister’s keepers; and are keepers of our own lives; that we are responsible persons and the job is here and the time is now.”

Hello Chris Everett:)

You stated : As usual, I don't know what to make of you. You're probably being intentionally frustrating as a sly message that we all need to lighten up, so I'll interpret you along those lines, but ARGGHHH!

Moi : Of all the posters here, you got my number. We all need to lighten up. All I did was to put in cliches/assumptions said by atheists on believers, and cliches/assumptions by believers on atheists.

Of course I am curious to know what atheists think, believe in and why not only on matters related to belief and religion, but those related to ethics and values, and on issues of the day too.

I am starting to notice that some posts by some atheists on issues not related to faith, belief, religion, God/s etc are ...........(fill in the blank). I'm sure you do too.

And yes, I had a lot of fun ragging, teasing, joshing atheists a bit in the previous and current Eboo Patel threads on some things atheists said. So, sue me.

Thanks and best regards
"J" :)

Victoria writes:

"ps- im a left-handed artist type- and sometimes when i wade in waters with logical analytical thinkers-
i dont swim as well."

As a musician, I hear what you're saying, but I don't necessarily agree.

All artists must learn much about their art, how it works - ie: the mechanics. Love and absorption of the mechanics, making them your own and finding your distinctive voice is what separates true art from mere craft.

One may look at the study books of Mozart and Beethoven to see that they learned the same mechanics of music as the also-rans and the never-wases. Examining Picasso's early study drawings of the human form, you'd never guess where he'd end up as an artist, nor could you distinguish his work from other student drawings that channeled the Da Vinci style.

I spent the better part of my life absorbed with music and as a Xian believer who had little depth of knowledge on matters scientific. That all changed in my mid-forties when I expanded my philosophical reading, move towards atheism and started to explore science. In fact, science is now my main area of interest, though I admit that there is much, MUCH remedial work being done by me in this respect.

So, while I feel comfortable discussing science on this religious blog, i would never feel comfortable posting on a scientific blog, at least not at my current level of knowledge which is broad-based and superficial, at best.

What I'm saying is that it's easier to wade into debates with logically oriented non-religious types when your arguments themselves are logic-based. You do this in your artwork through the mechanics of the art, and there's nothing that says that a person adept at applying logic (and form) in one area isn't predisposed to being able to do it in others.

In your case, you may feel uncomfortable with the logical types because their well-worn ideas are novel to you. Couple that with the fact that most of the non-believers on this blog are VERY comfortable in the religious knowledge (and have had their own faith years to draw on for experience), and the deck is surely stacked against you.

But hang in there! Conversation is the great emancipator of the mind.

Best to you.

;)

Chip said that:

Victoria asks "I DO wonder what atheists think is the purpose of life, and the mechanics of death- if there is a spirit or soul-"

People who ask this question do not have any imagination. It seems like it should be easy to put yourself in the position of atheistic belief.

I know for a fact, that being a Christian and attending church every Sunday does not make a person good, and failure to believe in God does not make a person bad. To me this is, well, flamboyantly obvious. A person who cannot see this is really not paying much attention, at all.

Another question that I often hear asked of atheists is, "well, why don't you just kill yourself?" (I have also had many conservative Christians ask me that question, as well).

I would imagine atheists do not kill themselves, because they would prefer to live. The question does not make sense anyway, because many Christians commit suicide, and many atheists do not. And what about Islamic suicide bombers? Being religous does not give a person any more of a reason to live, than it does in making a person happy, or in making a person good.

Craig writes:
"In the absence of religion, we are free to define this as we wish."

It is not clear let alone certain that we are free to define the purpose of life. We hardly understand evolutionary constraints that are built into us to know what we are free to define. We are starting to understand the "web of life" and "eco-systems" to understand the total inter-dependence of life, and how one is not entirely free to ignore the constraints imposed by our dependence on other species. We barely understand the interplay of psychological interplay between individuals to fully grasp how much autonomy we think we have is for real. Yes it is tempting to think that an individual is completely an island unto himself or herself and the purpose of his or her life can be defined independently of others, but we lack knowledge at present to know how much of that is true.

Freedom from superstition allows us to start learning and start posing questions so we can find an answer that is "real" and consistent with nature, but at the moment we can only guess at it and deal with our ignorance as best as we can without inventing ghouls and goblins.

Mr T. made an excellent, excellent, excellent point, that most religious people don't even know what their own beleifs are. My relgious beliefs seem very odd and apostate to many Christians, not because they are really so odd or bizarre, but because I actually DO KNOW what I believe and they do not.

Conservative Angry Christirans who try to bully people into belief are the extreme minority of Christians. But they make a deafening noise, and anyone could be decieved into thinking that they represent Christians. Almost every Christian whom I have ever read posting here, are such people, who make arguments that are very poor, and unconvincing. They usually seem bitter, angry, and unhappy. I always feel compelled to come to the defense of the atheist position, even though I am not an antheist myself.

Religious people are of two kinds: the kind of people who come here and like to discuss "it all," and everyone else, who don't care much, and only talk to each other about relgion, and then, not much.

To be honest, I would never need to argue about God to anybody. If people do not believe, it is beyond my control. How could that trouble me? And so what if there may be gradually less Christians in the world, and the political power, influence, and wealth of Christian institutions is on the decline? How does that effect what I believe, and how I live my life? How does that influence what happens to me when I die, and if there is a Heaven or not?

Victoria asks "i DO wonder what atheists think is the purpose of life, and the mechanics of death- if there is a spirit or soul-"

I'll give you my opinion, but it should only be considered mine and not speaking on behalf of other atheists. I think it's a conceit to imagine that there is a "purpose" to life, nor do I feel that my life is somehow lesser because I don't imagine any kind of divine purpose to my being here. I'm the offspring of a reproducing species, like any other. That being said, my personal goal in life is to try to live it with as little impact on other people as possible. I think it's my duty to my fellow human beings to not be a burden if I can avoid it - to be self sufficient - and to try to not stand in the way of other people's right to live an unfettered life in pursuit of their own happiness or meaning, as long as that pursuit doesn't hinder mine. If not for those religious folks who think it's their sacred duty to define how everyone else should live, I'd have no issues with religion, aside from it being an interesting topic to debate. I'd still think belief in supernatural beings is unfounded and a bit silly, but I'd likely be less compelled to speak out against it.

As for death, I think the end of this life is the end. I don't believe in a soul or any kind of transcendence to some other plane of being. That would be nice, but I can't think of anything less stressful than no longer existing, and I take some comfort in knowing that the raw materials that comprise me will be recycled for use by other living things. Seems fair to me.

Sorry about the last post - I didn't mean to post it but hit the wrong button.

I think Mr. Mark's got it pretty much right. There's not really a way to define atheism without refering to religion.

I like the Victoria's thought, though - "i DO wonder what atheists think is the purpose of life, and the mechanics of death- if there is a spirit or soul-".

I wonder this myself as an atheist. In the absence of religion, we are free to define this as we wish. I personally don't believe in a soul (in the religious sense). I also don't believe in an afterlife. Death is as natural a thing as there is, but when you die, that's it...no continuation of consciousness, no elevation of consciousness, no anything.

Our "souls" are apparent only in how we lived...and in the lives of those we taught something to while we lived.

Hi Victoria,

Interesting question. Just as religion has different value for many people (i.e. a sense of community, or a sense of being close to a god, or whatever), so to does atheism mean different things to each atheist.

If I may use the definition from Mr. Mark, but remove the references to god or religion -

"Your petitioners are Atheists and they define their beliefs as follows. An Atheist loves his fellow man. An Atheist believes that heaven is something for which we should work now – here on earth for all men together to enjoy.

An Atheist believes that he must find in himself the inner conviction, and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue it and enjoy it.

An Atheist believes that only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow man can he find the understanding that will help to a life of fulfillment.

He seeks to know himself and his fellow man. An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An Atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An Atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated. He wants man to understand and love man.

He wants an ethical way of life. He believes that we cannot rely on a god or channel action into prayer nor hope for an end of troubles in a hereafter.

He believes that we are our brother's keepers; and are keepers of our own lives; that we are responsible persons and the job is here and the time is now.”

well thank you chip- it is probably because i spend a great deal of time in here fending off alot of hostility towards muslims- so i try to offer positive constructive examples and specualte on how islam actually IS as opposed to how some phobes IMAGINE it is-

without descending into tit for tat-

mr mark- those are excellent questions posed-

i have to think about my own attitude or beliefs about atheists to answer

i cant agree with atheists that my being does not flow from the god-

i DO wonder what atheists think is the purpose of life, and the mechanics of death- if there is a spirit or soul-

but i still have to think about it-

however- youre welcome to deconstruct my pitiful and insufficient atempts here, as that will only make me think more- which i think we can all agree is a good thing..

i work from home on my computer, and am stealing time to be posting here-

time that belongs to someone else right now im afraid-

so i have to respect what i owe to another right now-

although this is becoming compelling

ps- im a left-handed artist type- and sometimes when i wade in waters with logical analytical thinkers-
i dont swim as well-

intuition is a large part of my nature (not esp- or psychic stuff)

i do believe in the god- and the force of evil personified as shaitan-

vividly-

im sorry - cannot stay right now but i will certainly come back although its likely not until late at night

peace chip and mr mark

Victoria wrote:

"although i cannot help but notice that your definition DID include comparisons to religious (or what is assumed to be religious)behavior."

Don't blame me, blame society which has elected to define atheists by what we are NOT. When one is defined as being an "a-" anything, one is almost forced to answer questions like yours by referencing what we are "a-" about.

Trying to answer your question "without making comparisons to religion of any kind" is a bit like trying to describe an abolitionist without referring to slavery. Besides, the definition I posted referenced only god and prayer, not any religion or any concepts that are religion-specific.

Considering that the very word "atheist" is a label that most atheist reject as surely as they would not call a Democrat an "a-Republican" or someone who doesn't collect coins as an "a-numismatist," I believe the definition I provided is about as good as one can get.

BTW - why would anyone assume that religious behavior was being described in the definition I provided? There was no mention of wars, torture or forced indoctrination of any kind.

chris i refer you to mohammed mallecks post on 1-26 at 7:23AM

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/eboo_patel/2008/01/our_faith_talk_is_in_the_gutte.html#comments

scientific method itself was envisioned by a muslim scientist called ibn al-haytham

http://scimillenia.wordpress.com/

but, still- youre not answering the question-

im not trying to create a competetition, im hoping for constructive crafting of some alternative to religion by atheists-

something beyond reaction against-

Victoria writes:

"mr mark- thanks for your effort-
there wasnt any single point in there that is not part of my own social conscience-

the only difference is an addition to- it is possible to love god and man-"
.
.

Well, that is THE salient point that all atheists are making here, isn't it? The fact that our social consciences are identical except that you believe in god and we don't?

Are you willing to agree with the atheists that your sense of social conscience and your morality do not flow from god? Or, do you hold that the atheists' social conscience and morality also flow from god but we just don't realize it? Or, do you believe that your social conscience flows from god while mine flows from elsewhere but that they both arrive at the same place?

Thanks for the comment.

Thanks for the clarification, Victoria. I've never gotten that impression from your posts.

chip- dont you think attempting to open dialogue shows a receptivity?

to say, you are not going to attmept to positively construct my alternative to religon becasue i wont listen anyway-

i didnt say atheists were demaning ME- i said i didnt want atheists to think i was demeaning THEM

its called respect

mr mark- thanks for your effort-
there wasnt any single point in there that is not part of my own social conscience-

the only difference is an addition to- it is possible to love god and man-

my father had double pneumonia once, and had to have a lung removed-
it was touch and go, and when the surgeon came into the waiting room to tell us my dad would live, my stepmom threw her hands into the air and yelled, "thank you jesus!"

i offerend my warm handshake and said, "thank you DOCTOR"

to be a person of faith, one does not passively watch injustice, or retreat into some 'prayer' as a substitute for action-

although i cannot help but notice that your definition DID include comparisons to religious (or what is assumed to be religious)behavior.

are there any definitions that stand on their own- without a reaction to- or comparison with religion?

Victoria,

You write "if i attack atheism- it will only alienate atheists- not many (if any) would be compelled to regard such attack as 'eye-opening'."

Frankly, I wish you WOULD attack atheism - with reasoned, well-articulated arguments that you feel demonstrate the falsity of the conclusion that there is no evidence to support any claim of the existence of any gods, much less any of the particular gods of the more popular religions.

Nor do I understand your characterization of the atheist posts here as devoid of discussion IN FAVOR of the atheist position. Quite the contrary. I read highly-informed discussions of the scientific theories (please don't respond with any "just a theory" nonsense) that explain the origins of many features of the universe that the religious simply ascribe to "acts of god." I read discussions of the non-religious basis for morality - the clear evidence for the evolution of a moral sense in higher animals and the tight correspondence between gene's-eye self preservation and altruism. I read atheists going to great lengths, with great patience, to go over the fallacious arguments that the religious put forward on topics such as intelligent design or the recent logical proof of existence that a religous poster (David T, I think) presented (it had a three-letter abbreviation). And I've read atheists (maintaining a remarkably high level of scholarship for a newspaper blog) clarify points of history, biography, government, doctrine and religious origins.

I've read almost nothing of the sort from the religious on this blog. No religious poster, as far as I've seen, has ever presented a reasoned argument in favor of faith (i.e. belief in the supernatural, or even less strictly, belief unsupported by evidence). I usually see: Bible quotations used as evidence in support of the truth of Bible quotations; reinterpretations of Bible quotations employed as a way of showing that the Bible quotations don't mean what they say; misrepresentations of "the atheist position" as being devoid of morality, hateful of god, fearful of damnation, and its own form of religion where some of the recent athiest books are revered as infallible.

There are rough words on both sides, but if you compare the top 20% of the atheist posts with the top 20% of the religious posts, I think it's pretty evident that the atheists are the ones making the GOOD FAITH effort to dialogue.

Mullah Victoria writes: "not more reactions AGAINST-
but actions FOR "

What is the FOR argument for eventually telling a kid that there is no Santa Clause, a tooth fairy, or a boogie man under her bed? Or is that transition to adolescence and rationality all AGAINST santa clause, tooth fairy and boogie men?

FOR atheism:

A simpler rational view of world around that is consistent with modern science. This causes far less psychosis that leads to maladjustment regarding nature. Essentially one does not waste tremendous amounts of time and effort trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Saving of all that time and effort can and often does lead to more productive ventures and results ( see most of the scientific advances in the last couple of hundred years for example ).

Victoria sez:

"without making comparisons to religion of any kind-

are there any atheists who can tell me what is RIGHT about it?"
.
.

The following definition of Atheism was given to the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Murray v. Curlett, 374 U.S. 203, 83 S. Ct. 1560, 10 L.Ed.2d (MD, 1963), to remove reverential Bible reading and oral unison recitation of the Lord's Prayer in the public schools.

“Your petitioners are Atheists and they define their beliefs as follows. An Atheist loves his fellow man instead of god. An Atheist believes that heaven is something for which we should work now – here on earth for all men together to enjoy.

An Atheist believes that he can get no help through prayer but that he must find in himself the inner conviction, and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue it and enjoy it.

An Atheist believes that only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow man can he find the understanding that will help to a life of fulfillment.

He seeks to know himself and his fellow man rather than to know a god. An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An Atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An Atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated. He wants man to understand and love man.

He wants an ethical way of life. He believes that we cannot rely on a god or channel action into prayer nor hope for an end of troubles in a hereafter.

He believes that we are our brother's keepers; and are keepers of our own lives; that we are responsible persons and the job is here and the time is now.”

Hope that helps.

Victoria writes "it rarely works with any efficacy to simply tear apart anothers belief (or non-belief) systems to change a persons mind about their own path."

Sure, that's true if the person on the receiving end is closed minded and completely unwilling to step outside their beliefs and look at them objectively. Why should "beliefs" be different than any other kind of human knowledge. If I make a statement about something that someone can show me is patently illogical and factually lacking, then there is every likelihood that the new information I'm provided will change my opinion. If that wasn't true, I still be a believer. Not everyone has their fingers in their ears yelling "lalalalalala I can't hear you." Maybe those who share their contrary opinions are giving you the benefit of the doubt rather than demeaning you? The real problem is people who equate any disagreement with their beliefs as being demeaning. It's the definition of a closed mind.

T writes:
"One thing that I notice atheists often do, which inspires them to criticize religion, is take theology more seriously than the religious do."

Indeed.

This is one of the main arguments Hitchens puts forward in his latest books. He points out that it's difficult to find a religionist of any Xian sect who agrees in whole with the theology of their chosen sect. Almost all pick and choose what they like about their religion and ignore that which they find doesn't comport with their lifestyle.

Ask your average Catholic about the virgin birth, and they'll either say they think it's a myth or fudge their response to some non-committal escape clause. Ask a Lutheran and 2 out of 5 will say that good works can get you into heaven, even though their theology disputes it. And on and on it goes.

Of all the religions, Christianity (at least as its practiced in America) seems to be the most-modular of all religions. It appeals to the general laziness of the American population. One may cherry pick their Xian beliefs from a wide menu of options. The idea that Xianity comes down to "a personal relationship with god based on personal beliefs" speaks to this laziness coupled with an absolute lack of any accountability, that is, outside of the accountability one seeks to avoid, ie: eternity in hell.

Better a lukewarm fan than no fan at all, eh, Pascal?

The few Xians who actually embrace the horror of Yahweh/Jesus seem to be the Calvinists, and it's hard to have a discussion with them on any plane as most have yet to accept the evils of scientifically conceived indoor plumbing as a reality of modern civilization.

Certainly, this forum presents a mish-mash of Xian beliefs that render it well-nigh impossible for a novice to religious discussions to have a clue as to what Xians actually DO believe.

And so it goes...

it rarely works with any efficacy to simply tear apart anothers belief (or non-belief) systems to change a persons mind about their own path.

if i attack atheism- it will only alienate atheists- not many (if any) would be compelled to regard such attack as "eye-opening".

besides, it isnt really very rational or civil.
its a low level of barbaric intercourse.

for me, just hearing about what atheists(im including all varities, not trying to exclude or demean anyone, or shove them into one group)
think or feel is worng with religion-

it isnt enough.

without making comparisons to religion of any kind-

are there any atheists who can tell me what is RIGHT about it?

is it possible?

perusing the posts by proponents of anti-theists here- i dont see any that have done so-

not more reactions AGAINST-
but actions FOR
peace

o- btw- lindy-
jihadist is an islamic banker- to answer your question

Chris Everett: "I liked your comparison of religion to a chamber pot. The difference is that a chamber pot works in reverse."

religion all to often IS a chamber pot working in reverse.

hu u kiddin eh?,

Thanks for your link. Makes me wonder where islamic sharia law and banking is being practiced.

Does anyone know?

T writes:
"One thing that I notice atheists often do, which inspires them to criticize religion, is take theology more seriously than the religious do."

I am not sure whether the "theology" of christianity or judaism is taken all that seriously. It is true that when discussing Islam the criticism does hone in on the Quran and the Ahdeet fairly rapidly.

T writes: "Patel has a point that a great deal of religion is inherited tradition rather than beliefs according to some formal theology. Most believers don't really know the theology they supposedly believe, they just go along with whatever tradition they are in"

That is true but how does that lead to that the beliefs that they are supposed to be believe should not be examined and if the beliefs are found wanting, that they should not be pointed out?

T writes: "It's not so much that different philosophers thought really hard and came up with different interpretations. It's more that different people felt certain ways, and went to the Bible and prayer to find justification for how they felt."

This does not sound right. There are not infinite number of sects, but a finite number. Individuals tend to cluster with a few individuals floating free. I think the "theological" foundations of the sects came about by the founder of these sects and they attracted the believers. It is hard to imagine Protestants with Luther.

T writes: "Formally Islam and Christianity might require members to proselytize, but there's lots of Muslims and Christians who don't feel that way. Formally, they may make bizarre claims about the natural world, but believers with more reasonable views find a way to reconcile their scientific sense with their faith."

That is not correct in details. The similarity between Christianity and Islam is stretched and ignores a very critical difference between the two at present. Only a small minority of christians claim that every word in the Bible is inerrant. Christians have gone through a history of 800 years to separate church and state, and to attain an absence of beheading and burning at the stake based on sectarian differences. In Islam, ALL sects agree that Quran is error free because it is the literal word of Allah, and there has been no consensus acheived on sectarianism at all. Can you name a single "Muslim" who categorically and unambiguously has declared that there are errors in the Quran without his or her having been declared an apostate? Blasphemy and Apostacy does result in death in most of the Islamic world and is still taken quite seriously. In contrast, there are entire sects in christianity that accept that whole portions of the bible are incorrect. There are obvious scientific errors in the Quran, just as there are in the Bible. The reaction to that fact however is very very different. Can you name a single Muslim writer or thinker who takes it upon himself to high light thoses errors to push for reform within Islam without having being declared an apostate or bullied into retracting his statements? Most muslims choose the sane way of keeping silent and keeping their opinions on the matter to themselves. One of the contributions of the ex-muslims is to take the advantage that the internet offers for their safety to open the examination of islam and its beliefs to rationality, logic and scientific thinking. This has not been possible in the past because losing one's head literally is not very conducive to productive thinking.

SEATTLEDODGER:

I liked your comparison of religion to a chamber pot. The difference is that a chamber pot works in reverse.

One thing that I notice atheists often do, which inspires them to criticize religion, is take theology more seriously than the religious do.

Patel has a point that a great deal of religion is inherited tradition rather than beliefs according to some formal theology. Most believers don't really know the theology they supposedly believe, they just go along with whatever tradition they are in.

When these believers (again, not all of them, but many) turn to theology, it's as a way to justify what they already feel is right, rather than as a way to figure out what's right. That's how one can get strictly pacifist non-hierarchical Quakers, Catholics with a strict hierarchy and "just war" theory, and other Christians who believe their faith requires war--all supposedly inspired by the same God and the same book.

It's not so much that different philosophers thought really hard and came up with different interpretations. It's more that different people felt certain ways, and went to the Bible and prayer to find justification for how they felt.

So, atheists criticizing religion often take the formal theology too seriously. Formally Islam and Christianity might require members to proselytize, but there's lots of Muslims and Christians who don't feel that way. Formally, they may make bizarre claims about the natural world, but believers with more reasonable views find a way to reconcile their scientific sense with their faith.

There are far more atheists, agnostics, existentialists and free-thinkers on this forum than orthodox religious people, because, mostly, orhtodox religous people just like to "discuss" things with each other. Take it from me, I know, from my own experiences.

John Stephens wrote "I was kind of hoping this web site would prove to be fertile ground for understanding, not rancor."

I think it does. It's far more interesting and illuminating than a mutual appreciation society would be, don't you think? I'm not sure why people have such thin skins when confronted by strong disagreement with what they believe. What Mr. Patel considers bile, I consider honesty free of any candy coating. Certainly some people go too far, both atheists and believers, and some people are just plain crazy. All of it is interesting and entertaining.

I found your last post about your personal disposition towards organized religion to be quite fascinating and not boring at all. Thank you for sharing it. What I found most interesting about it is that I agreed with pretty much all of it. It seems but a small step away from disbelief, which makes me curious as to why you seem to find the atheist position so unpalatable, and why you still hold Jesus in such high regard since when stripped of the his supernatural aspects he's pretty much just your garden variety humanist and revolutionary.

Atheists in this day and age do tend to argue their positions rather stridently, but I think that's pretty easy to understand given that every culture in the world is dominated by religion (those self same organized religions you don't seem to be a fan of either), which makes being an atheist a pretty frustrating thing over the last hundred years or so. Robert Ingersol, "The Great Agnostic" was the most popular orator of his day and he was just as hard on superstition as Hitchens or Harris. Since the Enlightenment it's really been the period between the 1920's and now that's been so militantly anti-atheist where atheist voices didn't have much of a foothold, at least in the west.

There's a whole lot of bottled up frustration being expressed. How else would you expect societal pariahs to express their opinions? Apologetically? People who feel backed into a corner tend to lash out. It's simply human nature. I think a great many atheists feel like the character Howard Beale in the movie "Network"...

"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth; banks are going bust; shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter; punks are running wild in the street, and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it.

We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. And we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be!

We all know things are bad -- worse than bad -- they're crazy.

It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, "Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.

Well, I'm not going to leave you alone.

I want you to get mad!

I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to write to your Congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street.

All I know is that first, you've got to get mad.

You've gotta say, "I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!"

So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell,

"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!!"

Perhaps if such a large percentage of the population didn't spend so much of its time reading the same outdated books over and over again (books that contain a great deal of barbarism and ignorance) or engage in so much meaningless ritual, and disavowed superstition and myth, we might actually start to make the world a better place for everyone, not just those of a particular tribe at the expense of those of different tribes.

As far as I can see, religions haven't brought us any new ideas in a few thousand years. That's not to say they haven't done many good works around the world. They certainly have. It just seems to me that every real advancement in the human condition has come from secular knowledge, science, and human compassion and ingenuity, not from prophets or miracle workers. How much more numerous might those advancements be if so many people weren't so distracted by gazing at their own metaphysical navels?

Look. After 2000 years of religion we are still arguing about God,or gods. That should tell us a lot about how unlikely it is that a god ever existed.
It's in the nature of the human animal to wonder what it is all about,and the primitive human animal who first thought up a godperson as an answer to the confusion,just added more confusion.
The God idea is damn foolish,though it might have been a great and comforting idea to our ignorant ancestors. Religion is so 5th century. Time we dumped it.

Mr Patel;

You say...

" I suggested substituting racial or ethnic categories for the religion references in their writing, and pointed out that we would never let anybody get away with making broad negative generalizations about blacks or Indians, so why is it okay to do it about Muslims, Christians or Jews?"

A black man cannot do anything about being black.
An Indian can do nothing about being Indian.
But a person who believes in magic and superstition should be challenged by folk who have good reason to doubt that such a universe exists outside of the human imagination.

After all,as far as we know,gods are simply make believe,and not actual entities.

Comrades,

I hate religion too, especially Christianity. I tried to end their freedoms, suppress their message, raze their buildings of worship, and purge them from my utopian society.

Make sure you crush any dissenting points of view. You are always right, they are always wrong. Talk down to them since they are fools. Do not quibble amongst yourselves but keep your eyes fixed on the higher prize, freedom from religion, the end of religion itself.

Suppressing freedom is the baby step towards real freedom. I see you are well on your way to accomplishing our goal, on an "On Faith" blog no less! Continue this fight at all costs. Show no mercy! Impose our will! Do not let dissenters have a voice!

Like I always say, "Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach.”

-Uncle Joe

Jihadist - I have no problem discussing my positions with you. However, you obviously did not read my post. Here is what you quote me as saying - "However, I find it outrageously offensive when a religious person tries to convince me that my worldview is empty and soulless and I should accept whoever as my personal saviour.".

I did indeed write this. Here is the very next sentence in that very same post - "I expect that any religious person would find it just as offensive if I were to say their worldview is based on lies, bloodshed, and totalitarian control of humanity in the name of their god."

If you are going to quote me, I would appreciate it if you would at least read my entire post.

Thanks,
Craig

Drew;
you say;

..."it is in the nature of indoctrination that logic and common sense cannot penetrate the hard shell of forced belief".

I think it's the hard shell of superstition that's impossible to penetrate with good sense.

J,
Couple of definitions first from a dictionary:
atheism:
a disbelief in the existence of deity or the doctrine that there is no deity

Theism: a belief in the existence of a god or gods; specifically a belief in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of the human race and the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world

Hitchens in his talk with Sally Quinn makes a distinction between deism and theism and clearly he is talking about the deity or deities that interfere in human affairs. And he also distinguishes between agnosticism and atheism. He is unsatisfied that either of those two words capture what he believes, and he wants an appropriate word for it.

A atheist is one who ascribes to atheism, that is he think that there is no deity.
A theist is one who believes in theism, that is that there is a god or gods.

Now what is the word for someone who thinks that the belief in the existence of god is silly and nonsensical. I don't think people have decided upon it as yet. I believe that Hitchens is coining the word Antitheism for it. Then an antitheist is one who beleives that it is "bad" to believe in the existence of an active god. That is how I understood what Hitchens was saying. He says he is contemptuous of theists for the most part; that is he is contemptuous of those who believe in a deity or deities that interfere in human affairs because of their belief. He did not say that he is "anti-theists" (please note that 's' at the end).

Now you say:
"As for A Kafir asking whether I am implying Mr. Hitchens is being irrational is saying he is anti-theist? Yes he is, and a wee dastardly too.

He can say he is anti-God.
He can say he is anti-Christianity/Christians.
He can say he is anti-Judaism/Jews.
He can say he is anti-Islam/Muslims.
He can say he is anti-Abrahamic faiths.

But he did not, only he is "anti-theist".

He did not say he is anti-Hinduism/Hindus, which is both polytheistic and monotheistic.

He did not say he is anti-Buddhism/Buddhists which runs the gamut from Zen to Theravada to Mahayana etc."

An atheist who said there is no God, religion poisons everthing, but not all religions apparently."

He defines himself not as an atheist but as an antitheist. So it is incorrect to call him an atheist under the circumstances. He is not anti-God because God is fictional for him. He does view the belief in a God that actively participates in the affairs of men negatively as opposed to merely not believing in a God without judging the belief. He is not anti any of the other stuff because there is more to them than just the mere belief of an active deity.

His criticism of Islam is beyond his merely being an antitheist, but one needs to read his other writings to discuss that.

You say: "Mr. Christopher Hitchens, in stating he is anti-theist, is stating he is anti-monotheism, anti-Abrahamic faiths."

No. He is saying that he is against the belief in God or Gods who manage or interfere in the affairs of humans.

You say: "I repeat - Mr. Hitchens saying he is anti-theist, would be like me saying I am anti-atheist."

If you define anti-atheism first. Absence of the belief of atheism is theism. You could define anti-atheism as being actively against the belief of atheism, and then an anti-atheist would be just fine and I see no bigotry or problem with it. However, I suspect that what you are implying is different. I suspect you are saying that Hitchens is against theists, that is he is anti-theists, against or hateful towards people who believe in theism. He is not against them but he is contemptuous of them because of their belief for the most part.

You write: "I take it Mr. Hitchens don't travel to Asia much to know the diversity of beliefs, both theists and polytheists."

Not true. He has traveled extensively to Asia. You can find his interviews that he gave across the globe over the years.

E.Favorite;

Re your comments on Jihadist,you say;
..." she is fighting against an increasing sense that atheists may have it right after all".

I'm inclined to agree with you that Jihadist is becoming more and more desperate as her Jihad amongst us atheists is getting her nowhere. Except for other religionists like DiTLD, and T.Moses Baum, she is influencing no-one, and is looking increasingly foolish as the logic of the nonbelievers becomes ever more difficult to deal with,or escape.

But, as others have said, it is in the nature of indoctrination that logic and common sense cannot penetrate the hard shell of forced belief.
The child is mother to the woman, and father to the man.

eboo patel, this contribution has even less substance than your last. religious belief is not an inherited attribute. yes, one generation can attempt to 'pass' their religion to the next, but the same can be said for the family chamber pot. and at least you'd get some use out of the chamber pot.

affluence and education killed poor baby jesus in europe a century ago (that, and the slaughter in fields of flanders). europeans discovered that, amazingly, you don't need god when you have the national health service.

here in the states, xtianity is on life support. church attendence is plummeting, thus the phenomenon of a few 'mega' churches replacing the traditional, small congregtions across the american heartland. at least you can get daycare cheap, so god still has a few uses.

if jesus is pretty much yesterday's news, even the new kid, mohamad, is looking a bit under the weather. sure, islam is extremely salient politically right now; it's the obvious recourse for those traditional societies that are under pressure from globalizationa and modernization.

but i met an interesting lad the last time i was in london who sybolizes the problem for islam (and it's future). he was a young morrocan lad selling weed in camden town (not bad actually, though we're a bit snobbish about that here in seattle).

he called himself a muslim but he hasn't 'submitted' to any gods. the next generation of european 'muslims' will not be muslims in sense other than cultural.

ding dong, your gods are dead.

You raise several interesting points, Mr. Patel, and I agree with most of them, but not all.

First, I agree that some of Mr. Hitchens' remarks are over the top, and Mr. Harris's more so. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion speaks less shrilly but reaches the same conclusion: We would all be better off without religion. While I agree with that conclusion, I protest that it is somewhat irrelevant to the real world. Religion is not going to disappear in the lifetime of anyone now living, so the practical question is, What should people of good will be doing in the meantime? Your piece on the NPR site provides the best answer to that question I have seen.

That said, I think Messrs. Dawkins, Hitchins, and Harris are closer to the truth about religion being findamentally different from race and ethnicity than you apparently think they are. One can change one's religion. Ayaan Hirsi Ali comes immediately to mind. Your example of mixed-race merely shows that race is not an absolute category, not that people can actually change their heritage. If you will forgive me for saying so, I think your statement, “The term 'race' has at least as much to do with how an individual with a particular skin color chooses to engage the community and history of people with a similar skin color as it has to do with the physical fact of that skin color itself,” is simply wrong for most people. I am Caucasian, and I would never be able to convince anyone that I am anything else. Similarly, "Jewish" has at least three meanings, religious, cultural, and racial, and I think you are confusing them, as many other people do.

I don't quite know what to make of the young man in your previous post who complained that he was discriminated against because he was religious rather than because he was Christian. Specifically, it is not clear to me what actions he considers directed against his religiosity in general as opposed to specifically Christian practices. You claim this is a problem faced by more and more religious people, but I think a couple of specific examples of the behavior you are condemning would go a long way.

Finally, I completely agree with you that the real clash of civilization is between the totalitarians and the pluralists. I think we atheists would be a lot less defensive if pluralist Christians did a better job of showing us that religious totalitarianism is unacceptable to them, too. It is un-American to advocate that the government send your fellow citizens to prison for the crime of not sharing your religious beliefs. I need to hear a lot more Christians make that point a lot more forcefully before I stop believing that religiosity, which in this country usually means Christianity, is a threat to our liberties. I am confident those people are out there, I just don't hear them very often. If they think the Dawkinses and the Hitchenses and the Harrises are wrong about them (and I hope they are wrong), let them show us why.

For Jihadist

You didn't meantion me; I wish I would be able to meet you someday, but of course, I think that will not happen.

Because my own Christians beliefs have "blossomed" into something more than the standard teachings of most churches, and because I won't keep my big fat mouth shut, I understand how atheists feel. Most religious people use the word "Godless" with absolute disdain and contempt. Muslims have that awful word, "infidel" and Christians have that other awful word "apostate" which is what I am. In fact, I should just start calling myself an "apostate Christian." But to me, those are just silly, school-yard words that people use, to hurt each other's feelings. Calling someone fat or ugly would be just as effective, and equally inappropriate.

And there is another word "blasephemy," that religious people like to toss around alot; only a believer of the blasphemed religion can be a "blasephemer;" non-beleivers cannot be; to accuse outsiders of blasephemy is to assume the position of God, and then to speak for God, as God would speak. When someone hurls the accusation "blasephemer" at me, I question their mental health, because I fear that they may themselves and God confused.

One last thing, you have repeatedly grouped Sam Harris and Christopher Harris together, but they are actually quite different, and nothing at all alike, in the things that they write, and in their styles and tones. I will admit that Christopher does seem a little bitter at times on the subject, but even he does not come close to some relgious people whom I have had discussions with who become red-faced with hysteria. I think it really is true that as reviled as atheists are, that for religious people, the greater enemy is the "apostate."

Chip -

If one wishes to cherry pick, then, sure, Jesus said some good things.

But for everything Jesus said that was good, he also offered a counter that was quite despicable.

For instance, Jesus said to love your enemy as yourself. He also said to hate your family. Apologists will say that one takes Jesus out of context when putting a negative read on his admonition to hate your family, yet they never make the same claim for the "love your neighbor" quote. To me, both statements are absolutely clear in their simplicity, and I take them at face value.

If we wish to interpret these quotes beyond face value, then I could easily assert that Jesus saying to love your neighbor "as yourself" is an admonition to engage in masturbation with your neighbor, loving them as you would yourself. Xians would call that blasphemy, yet they have no problems at all finding a positive spin for his saying to hate your family.

As far as "wisdom," Jesus was locked into the OT. He was quite clear that the law would be in effect until heaven and earth passed away. That hasn't happened yet, so I'm going to assume that all of the 600+ laws of the OT are still in effect, at least for the Jews. That would include stoning your kids to death if they talk back to you.

And what kind of "wisdom" did Jesus possess when he got everything wrong about the natural world? Jesus was god, yet he believed in Adam & Eve, not evolution. He believed that the mustard seed was the smallest of seeds (it isn't) and that it grew into a mighty tree (no mustard plant grows into a tree). He believed the story of Noah's flood (2 Peter 3 calls those who DON'T believe the Biblical accounts of creation & the flood "willfully ignorant"). Jesus - ie: god - believed that illnesses were caused by evil spirits.

Jesus - ie: god - believed that people born deaf and dumb were that way because of deaf and dumb spirits. Comically, Mark reports that Jesus heals a boy with a deaf and dumb spirit by calling for the spirit to leave the boy. Somehow, this deaf spirit hears Jesus' words...and then, the dumb side of the spirit "cries out."

Jesus believed that diseases like epilepsy were caused by Satan. In John, Jesus said that god punished people by making them cripples. However, god made one blind man blind from birth not because he or his parents were sinful, but so that Jesus could show up and restore his sight (I'm sure the blind man appreciated those years of blindness he suffered through so Jesus could do his party trick. We can only hope the long-suffering and newly-sighted man wasn't run over by a Python-esque oxcart as he left the scene of his healing).

Wisdom of Jesus? I don't think so.

Jist, Jist, Jist, (formerly The Jihadist),

Well let us see how your road to Reality is proceeding via gleaning your commentaries about atheists and anti-theists.

The previous request and questions:

"The echoes of your mind still need a bit of sound adjustment as to what you hold true:

1. the existence of "pretty and ugly flying thingies" (a required tenet of Islam)???

-still no response- tough one -what do you teach your children about these "thingies"??

2. the koran being based on the hallucinations of one long dead Arab????

-still no response- another tough one since the if you agree there would be no foundation for Islam

3. the correct side of the Sunni-Shiite 800 year old blood feud???

It appears you take no sides although you are a Sunni and have the upper Islamic economic hammer in most Islamic countries.

4. theocracies, good or bad???

-You apparently dislike theocracies but you live in Malaysia which is fast becoming a theocracy. Have you sent letters of complaint to your government officials and clerics??

5. the sins of being Islamic??? (false "profits", greed, anger, lust, polygamy, warmongering, suicide)??

- I guess if you cannot see the problems of Islam, there is no sin but the koran's passages ooze of said sins

6. Islamic scribes plagiarizing the codes, passages and ways of the ancients even the anti-female passages of "Prude Paul"?????

- Again, you still adhere to the "Islam is perfect" mantra so this is a problem for you to grasp. Some courses in ancient history should help you come to grips with Reality.

P.S. And no commentary on Jay Smith's conclusions about the koran???

hu u kiddin eh?,

Thank you.

The notion that religions aren't INHERENTLY idealogical is ABSURD. What is CREED? What is DOCTRINE? Religions assert unsubstantiatiated claims about the nature of reality. THAT IS IDEOLOGY!!! The only "religions" that don't are the ones, such as Unitarianism, that have been "deflawed" (as CCNL likes to say) or Ethical Culture, that were secular from the get go.

Obfuscation and misdirection can be tantalizing and can bring up other interesting and important issues beyond those that are to the point, but ultimately it's just another sad example of BAD FAITH by someone OF FAITH.

Back to Hitchens' contempt for the religious... It's hard when you're asked point-blank about something like that. He deserves some credit for trying to be honest, but it does seem like he's putting things too strongly. From the sounds of Quinn, it sounds as though he's putting things stronger than he really believes.

Consider this: If a Muslim or Christian was asked point-blank, "Do you feel pity for atheists?" how would they answer? How many would honestly say they don't feel pity? If they said they do pity atheists, is that bigoted?

Jihadist;

Drew : If you tell a young child that there's a three headed God in the sky, he will believe you.

Jihadist: Not my kids. Perhaps those weaned to believe in Santa Klaus, the Tooth Fairy, Witches etc

You even deny the obvious truth that a child can be made to believe anything he's told?

If this was not true, no kid would ever become religious.

You deny,deny,deny,like a typically indoctrinated supernaturalist. If you only knew what you are missing. But it's in the nature of indoctrination to prevent that ever happening.

"Come now, religion is not an ideology like Nazism or Fascisim or Communism, unless, of course, you are implying all religions and beliefs are ideologies.

Of course I am aware some like to call Islam an ideology, thus, perhaps making it perfectly all right for Mr. Hitchens to be anti-theist or anyone anti-Islam as he/they would be on the same level of acceptability as being an anti-communist or an anti-Nazi."

COME NOW, Jihadist:

"The Council of Islamic Ideology was established as Advisory Council of Islamic Ideology on August 1, 1962 under the Article 199 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan 1962, which provided for the constitution of the Council (Articles 199 - 203), its functions (Article 204), rules of procedure (Article 205), and the establishment of Islamic Research Institute (Article 207). [The Constitution of Pakistan 1962, Articles 199 - 207]

Advisory Council of Islamic Ideology was re-designated as Council of Islamic Ideology in the Article 228 of the 1973 Constitution with provisions for its composition (Article 228), Reference to the Council (Article 229), its functions (Article 230), and Rules of Procedure (Article 231). [The Constitution of Pakistan 1973, Articles 228 - 231).

The office of the council was located in Lahore where it continued to work until 26 September 1977 when its offices were shifted to Islamabad. The Council shifted to its own building on September, 1995.

Since 1962 the Council has held 156 meetings, revised laws of Pakistan, recommended several legislations and submitted more than 72 Reports.
The present plans include, in addition to reviewing laws, drafting recommendations and dealing with references from the President, Governors and Houses, research, publications, seminars, conferences and a website."

http://www.cii.gov.pk/about/history.asp

http://www.cii.gov.pk/searchgoogle.asp

Islamic nations institute "thought control" and have "religious police".

Dear John Stephens -

I don't know where you got your misinformation about Josephus, but it IS misinformation of the most-rank order.

The two passages in his writings that mention Christ have been conclusively demonstrated to be forgeries from the 4th century, most-particularly, the Testimonium Flavianum. CTCNL has provided a succinct debunking of your statement below.

Josephus became a believer in Jesus? Not even the greatest apologists for Josephus claim that.

You need to get the basics straight if you hope to debate in the forum. Unlike the average church goer, the non-believers here have actually read the Bible and are well-versed in the typical lies that get floated to provide third-party support for the existence of the various godmen of antiquity.

Try again.

Jihadist:

Thanks for your reply. Sorry about the cartoon mixup, thanks for the clarification. Danish, that's right. Never saw the cartoon myself, but only paid attention to the issue as it became news that a death sentence had been put on this guy. That was shortly after so much murder generated because of the "Satanic Verses" stuff.
We had a similar sensitivity issue here in the states by a cartoonist named Berke Breathed, the guy that writes Opus. Several publishers were afraid to run his comic strip--I wonder why..

Nevertheless, sorry it seems sweepingly bigoted to you for me to ask the question: Is religion better for the world? I don't find that bigoted at all, and would be curious to understand why you think it might be. I'm asking from the standpoint of measurable, definable criteria.

T writes: "His choice of "anti-theist" is a little troubling, but it's hard to think of what the alternative would be. He means he's anti-God, not that he's anti-believer."

Although I don't know it for a fact, I would strongly suspect that 'God' is not a theist. I
think that Hitchens means exactly what he says.

You are, apparently, some variety of Fool, Patel. 'Jewish' is both a faith and an ethnicity. Your imaginary adult friend is a personal choice. Being an ethnic Jew is not. Get it yet, or should I get out the crayons and stickers? Believers... sheesh!

Chris Everett: “As usual, I don't know what to make of you [Jihadist]. You're probably being intentionally frustrating as a sly message that we all need to lighten up.…”

That’s one possibility. Another is that she is fighting against an increasing sense that atheists may have it right after all.

Religious belief is nothing more than wishful thinking combined with willful ignorance.

Jihadist, you say, "Mr. Hitchens saying he is anti-theist, would be like me saying I am anti-atheist."

In the video, Hitchens describes what he means by calling himself anti-theist. He means that not only doesn't he believe in God, but he's glad there is no God, he finds the idea very unattractive. So, him calling himself anti-theist is purely a statement of his attitude towards religion for himself, not saying anything about his attitude towards believers.

Elsewhere he does talk about his attitude toward believers... I'll have to think about that more. I'm not at all a fan of Hitchens, he certainly doesn't speak for me, although on the points we agree he says it better than I could.

His choice of "anti-theist" is a little troubling, but it's hard to think of what the alternative would be. He means he's anti-God, not that he's anti-believer. So, you could call yourself "anti-atheist", but what would you mean by it? Many, many very tolerant religious people who are inoffensive to me are anti-atheists if that means they think it would be better if I was religious. That's a point I disagree with them about, but I don't think it's bigoted.

T: “When I try speaking to my religious friends I tell them, "I respect you and your right to choose your religion, but I don't respect your religion." Is that hateful?”

No, but it may be a bit more honesty than many believers know how to deal with. I had a long conversation about this back in October with a believer named “Demos” here on “on faith” and he simply couldn’t accept my reasoning. For the full conversation, see http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/georgetown/2007/10/an_atheistevangelical_dialogue/allcomments.html

John Stephens: “I was kind of hoping this web site would prove to be fertile ground for understanding, not rancor.”

I wonder if you really mean “grounds for acceptance of religious beliefs, not disagreement based on evidence and logic.”

Jihadist: “…Mr. Hitchens and Mr. Harris, who I now know are the infallible gods of atheism whom some atheists will valiantly defend, as believers would for Buddha, Moses, Jesus and the Prophet. Only catch - one can libel and slander the dead but not the living. So, Harris and Hitchens are "sheltered"?”

Then again, perhaps mischaracterizing atheist authors allows you to discount their thoughts and atheists’ reactions to them?

Jihadist, hint: Read and understand my statement before you respond to it.

Jihadist,

You write:

"Atheists have simple beliefs constantly reminded to believers and recapped as follows:

- God/s is a delusion.
- Religion poisons everything.
- Religion is the cause of all human miseries.
- Believers cannot stand "truths" and facts.
- Believers are irrational and illogical.
- Without religion and belief in God/s all will be well in the world."

Frankly, after so much dialogue, I'm amazed that you don't seem to comprehend the basic points that virtually every atheist here is making in a clear, unanimous fashion, especially given that you repeatedly characterize atheism as "simple".

- Atheists are against DELUSION, not the cultural aspects of religion.
- DELUSION is inherently negative, at least to some degree, simply because it is false. Of course, with religious delusion the negatives are clear: global tyranny, violence and moral and intellectual stultification over hundreds of generations.
- Without religious delusion a major source of suffering in the world would be removed. By no means does this mean "all will be well in the world."
- You also say elsewhere that atheists believe in the infallibility of Hitchens et al. Poppycock and you know it.

As usual, I don't know what to make of you. You're probably being intentionally frustrating as a sly message that we all need to lighten up, so I'll interpret you along those lines, but ARGGHHH!

Jihadist writes: "TJ : The doctrines of the Abrahamic religions are extreme in their sweeping demonization of non-religious people and even people of differing religions.

Moi : Are you sure? As far as I know, most Muslims are most outraged of their own, or former Muslims or non-Muslims who demonised them first.
Of course there are Muslims who have a "holier than thou" mindset and attitude and even call their fellow Muslims kafirs for not seeing faith the same way as they do.

But of course, domonising of the religious by the religious is not restricted to them. We now have a new trend of irreligious demonising the religious. And Democrats demonising Repbulicans. And Republicans demonising Democrats. And America demonising Iran. And Iran demonising America.

What else is new of people demonising people who don't share the same views as them?"

Weak. Try again.

.....and oh, by the way, I just saw from the previous Eboo Patel thread that Chris Everett and Mr. A. Kafir were disquieted in my calling Mr. Christopher Hitchens a bigot and making bigoted remarks.

Mr. Everett gave the example that if Mr. Hitchens being anti-Nazi will not be considered bigoted.

Come now, religion is not an ideology like Nazism or Fascisim or Communism, unless, of course, you are implying all religions and beliefs are ideologies.

Of course I am aware some like to call Islam an ideology, thus, perhaps making it perfectly all right for Mr. Hitchens to be anti-theist or anyone anti-Islam as he/they would be on the same level of acceptability as being an anti-communist or an anti-Nazi.

Mr. Christopher Hitchens, in stating he is anti-theist, is stating he is anti-monotheism, anti-Abrahamic faiths.

And did I not gave an explanation what a bigot is in the previous thread? You can look it up in any dictionary of you don't like my defination.

I repeat - Mr. Hitchens saying he is anti-theist, would be like me saying I am anti-atheist.

Bigotry covers race, creed and gender. In Mr. Hitchen's case, it is bigotry against creed, as in belief, as in believers. Monotheism, the Abrahamic faiths covers a wide range of believers-from Hasidic Jews to Quakers to Sunnis to Catholics to Baptists to Mormons and there's too many.

So, give a new defination of bigotry if you must to your satisfaction, one that does differentiate the bigotry on race, gender and creed.

Is is possible for atheists to accept and consider that some atheist writers can and do make statements that are,for lack of better word, erroneous?

Surely everything Hitchens and Harris say and do is not regarded by their fans as infallible, that they can do and say no wrong?

Are we witnessing the phenomena of atheists who can be as "blind" as the believers they despised or despaired in putting their adulated ones on superhuman faultless and flawless pedestals?

As for A Kafir asking whether I am implying Mr. Hitchens is being irrational is saying he is anti-theist? Yes he is, and a wee dastardly too.

He can say he is anti-God.
He can say he is anti-Christianity/Christians.
He can say he is anti-Judaism/Jews.
He can say he is anti-Islam/Muslims.
He can say he is anti-Abrahamic faiths.

But he did not, only he is "anti-theist".

He did not say he is anti-Hinduism/Hindus, which is both polytheistic and monotheistic.

He did not say he is anti-Buddhism/Buddhists which runs the gamut from Zen to Theravada to Mahayana etc.

An atheist who said there is no God, religion poisons everthing, but not all religions apparently.

I take it Mr. Hitchens don't travel to Asia much to know the diversity of beliefs, both theists and polytheists.

And Mr. Everett, don't get into is this "baiting" and "counter-baiting"?

After all, Mr. Hitchens, in stating he is anti-theist, baited. It is up to us whether we bite or bite back. And hair-splitting of course, on what is bigotry, and who are bigots.

Thanks, regards and good night.

"J":)

Hello Drew,

You : If you tell a young child that there's a three headed God in the sky, he will believe you.

Moi : Not my kids. Perhaps those weaned to believe in Santa Klaus, the Tooth Fairy, Witches etc perhaps?

You : As an atheist this is how I see religion. I suspect most atheists see religion this way. Any wonder that Hitchins and Harris believe it to be important enough to fight against?

It's a battle that needs to be fought.

Moi : Of course it is a battle for atheists to fight. To prove they are rational and logical after stating all believers are illogical, irrational, delusional and what have you.

Hey, don't look at me. Atheists set up their own standards and tells all and sundry how smart they are. So, it is a battle for atheists of their own chosing and making. Not only on God/s and religion, but on everything else.

Want to fight for seperation of church and state? Or to fight against believers just for believing in God/s and being members of organised religion?

Want to fight against global warming, eradication of poverty and illiteracy, HIV/AIDS or to full time fight against believers for just believing in God/s and religion?

Pick who you fight with. Or what you will fight against. Pick you own battle. Your own war. And consider the time, the opportunity and the cost.

Jeff P :"Hate speech?" Please, give me a break. Sounds like the Dutch cartoon issue.

Moi : The Dutch cartoon issue? It was Danish.
The Danish editor of a section of his newspaper commissioned those cartoons. A few months before he rejected some cartoons on Jesus because it was not ask or solicited by him. Muslims sees that as deliberate.

Jeff P : Bravo to the folks in this day who have the courage to ask the question: Is religion better for the world? I say, hold their feet to the fire, let them prove their worth to society.

Moi : Religion is useless to you but not for billions and proving their worth to society in ways that surely you are not blind if you see your believing family members, friends and colleagues. Is this a sweeping and/or bigoted remark by you?:) .

Mr. Mark : Like political parties, religions and their gods come and go. The seemingly eternal battles for popularity between competing political parties and/or religions change with the direction of the secular winds.

This isn't true of race or gender, is it?

Moi : I'm not sure about tranvestites. But belief in a deity, a supreme being, a supernatural God still exist. Religions come and go in different forms, in new forms, in new permutations just as politics. The fact is, religion still exists with belief in God/s still extant, from Great Mother Goddess of the Earth to just God.

Whoever said faith and religion is static? Gender may be permanently male and female for many species on earth, but some are asexual/dual specie. Sex change operations in humans is possible. Race is not that permanent. There is still intermarraiges and intermixing of ethnic groups going on today from God knows when in history.

TJ : The doctrines of the Abrahamic religions are extreme in their sweeping demonization of non-religious people and even people of differing religions.

Moi : Are you sure? As far as I know, most Muslims are most outraged of their own, or former Muslims or non-Muslims who demonised them first.
Of course there are Muslims who have a "holier than thou" mindset and attitude and even call their fellow Muslims kafirs for not seeing faith the same way as they do.

But of course, domonising of the religious by the religious is not restricted to them. We now have a new trend of irreligious demonising the religious. And Democrats demonising Repbulicans. And Republicans demonising Democrats. And America demonising Iran. And Iran demonising America.

What else is new of people demonising people who don't share the same views as them?

Taffy : Would you be happier if Hitchins and Harris pretend that gods exist,so that you could remain comfy in your delusions? You'd like that wouldn't you? Your column is an insult to ones intelligence.

Moi : Hitchens and Harris can write and say anything on why God does not exist is religion is bad for manking. But some of their generalisations and sweeping statements about believers are no better that the believers they accused of being bigoted and narrow-minded or illogical.

Mr. Mark : To be facing a tsunami of well-founded and -argued push back from non-believers across the board must be absolutely unnerving.

Moi : What Hitchens and Harris wrote and say don't even reach the wider Muslim world. Eboo Patel is a Muslim in a majority Christian American state. What Harris and Hitchens wrote and say about Muslims and Islam will have more impact on American Muslims in facing the tsunami of anti-Muslims and anti-Islam Americans reactions. Taking out on who is closest.

What is your cultural identity: Historically, and even today, the goal of Islam (and in the past of Christianity, no longer) has been to burn down other religions.

Moi : I take it that you read history of the world extenstively and intensively.

Sam Harris :"Even the contemporary literature on consciousness, which spans philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience, cannot match the kind of precise, phenomenologlical studies that can be found throughout the Buddhist canon." p217 'The End of Faith'

Moi : Mr. Harris, I take it, has been to Tibet, Sri Lanka, mainland Southeast Asia, Korea, Japan and China to see various strains of Buddhism? Of is he seperating reality of Buddhists in Buddhist majority countries or from reading of selected Buddhist texts?

What is your cultural identity : Remember, the punishment for apostacy is death according to Allah. So please ask your Allah to show some tolerence on the non-believers first.

Moi: Is that so? Show me the Suras. Remember, Shariah, like secular and civil law is man-made. Treason is punishable by death. Are we so ahead of religion in saying punishment by death for treason of one's country is acceptable but of faith reprehensible?

Tell this believer that secular laws and values are better in its reasoning.

MB : Kind of like the faithful that declare that you can't have high moral values without being religious (e.g. Mitt Romney et al.) I'll ease up when the Big Tent includes Atheists and Agnostics.

Moi : Is that why atheists and agnostics are screaming? For being excluded from the Big Tent?

Craig : However, I find it outrageously offensive when a religious person tries to convince me that my worldview is empty and soulless and I should accept whoever as my personal saviour.

Moi : And believers find it outrageously offensive when an atheist tries to convince then that that are all illogical and irrational and can never be rational and have reason if they still persist in believing in God/s.

Mr. Mark : Is it just me, or does today's Patel column have you yearning for the comfort and security of the old, "I may have lost this battle, but you'll get yours in the afterlife" arguments of the "old religionists?"

Moi : No. It is just that believers find a new front, one opened by atheists that was never there before. Just as Muslims, in spite of their internal disagreements will close ranks on some issues, believers, regardless of faith, do close ranks against non-believers who are, er "rude".

For me, the first shot in this "atheists vs believer war" was fired by one who called himself an "anti-theist".

Actually, and in truth he is a singular waste of time for any believer. All those who said God does not exist or God is dead etc, are all dead, and God/s and religion is still alive.

Hitchen's and Harris are lot of fun.

Thanks and regards
"J"

im trying valiantly to shove you into a little box jihadist- but you're making it very difficult for me.

why cant you just be a good predictable little believer and satisfy my wide assumptions.

and stop using your faculites of reason to make sense!

A Kafir : "You conflate jews and judaism."

Moi : As far as we outside the US and Europe can see, we can't tell the difference between Jews or Jewish and Caucasians.

Of course there are non-Caucasian looking Jews. Just as there are Hispanics who look like Malays and Hispanics who look like Scandinavians in the US. Being Hispanics means having a Latin (Spanish heritage). Being cultural Jewish is more ambiguous - ranging from cultural Jews to practicing Jews etc.

A Kafir : Now ibn Warraq uses the word "cultral muslim" to distinguish between beliefs. He considers himself a cultral muslim because he does not believe that the Quran is divine or Muhammad any thing special. Cultral Muslims are those who no longer say the Shahada or believe in the tenets of Islam but still hold on to the culture of the predominant muslim region where they grew up.

Moi : Actually, the term used by Muslims for those types are "nominal Muslims". Not cultural Muslims. Even Salman Rushdie said himself to be a cultural Muslim. More accurate for him to say he is a cultural Indian. And more accurate for him to say he is British.

So, are you saying cultural Muslims like Ibn Warraq are ones who don't fast but celebrate Eid El Fitr like a kid?

By the way, "nominal Muslims" don't make a federal issue in being both "Muslim" and atheist and in vilifying Muslims for their beliefs. Only "cultural Muslims" do perhaps.

Is Ibn Warraq confused? Or into a self-identified neo-identity as a "cultural Muslim" which Muslims do find amusing and bemusing.

Hello Mr. Eboo Patel,

A quick one in reaction to your essay here and a wee fun with Mr. Hitchens and Mr. Harris, who I now know are the infallible gods of atheism whom some atheists will valiantly defend, as believers would for Buddha, Moses, Jesus and the Prophet. Only catch - one can libel and slander the dead but not the living. So, Harris and Hitchens are "sheltered"?

Judging from the illuminating, revealing, educational and informative posts in the thread of your last essay, there is a chasm of what we understand from our own experience and perspective - by belief, by ethnicity, by citizenship, by values, by education and even by gender too.

Let us call it being culturally cocconed in our own cultures. Even in the US, African-Americans and Hispanics have their distinct cultures. Even African-American English and Baptist churches are different from mainstream American English and mostly Caucasian Baptist churches.

Identity is who we chose to be, ideals we chose to have, belief we held, interests we pursue and who we identify with and relate to.

Needless to say, there are those who chose to relate to and identify with Mr. Hitchens and Mr. Harris on what they believe or disbelieve in, and what they mean for atheists in particular and what others think of them in general.

Perhaps we should consider what is unacceptable to a group is acceptable to other groups. And what is unacceptable of them by others, is acceptable to them and their like-minded ones.

I'm with you in not finding broad generalisations of any group acceptable, not only on race and gender but on faith. I see this as a difference in (or if one prefers a stronger word) clash in values and views.

Mr. Mark, in one of his previous posts in another thread, accurately characterise this as part of the "culture war". And E Favorite, in one of his previous posts in another thread, characterise that discussion there as to "ante up".

Mr. Harris and Mr. Hitchens has anted up their culture war on belief/religion and of course, believers' reactions are expected on what they say and why, what they mean and for what purpose and what have you.

For some atheists like Harris and Hitchens when it comes to believers, perhaps we should consider that it is that "simple", that black and white for them.

Perhaps we should talk about identity that is not only gender, ethnicity and citizenship, but also personal faith. The sum comprising the whole in a person.

Perhaps we should talk about "deracination" of people too, by personal choice or in being imposed by the majority ethnic or cultural group.

Perhaps we should remember that non-believers do identify themselves as atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, secular humanists, spiritual atheists etc rather than simply atheists - to indicate what kind or type of non-believers they are.

You stated : "Barack Obama and Tiger Woods have similar skin color. But Obama, son of a black Kenyan father and white Kansas mother, chooses to call himself an African-American. Woods - whose mother is Thai, Chinese and Dutch, and whose late father (a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army) was African-American, Chinese and Native American – highlights his mixed ancestry, calling himself a ‘Cablinasian’.

Speaking for myself, with a Dutch Catholic maternal grandfather, a Jewish maternal grandmother, Indonesian Muslim grandparents, I am too fair for Indonesians and Malaysians, said to have a beautiful golden tan by Europeans, alway assumed to be Latin American/Brazilian.

I identify myself as Malaysian by citizenship, that I am "ethnically" Malay as I happily go by Malay customs and traditions, and a Muslim by faith and practice.

I do not want to go further than my maternal and paternal grandparents on other ethnic and religious antecedents that I most certainly have and will not share here.

It would seem that some atheists chose to take a "component" of their previous identity out, i.e. belief or belonging to a religious group, and replace them with a new one - humanism, ethical culture and such. But believers can be that too without being athiests.

You stated : "Religious identity is equally if not more complex than race."

Yes it is. I am Muslim, a Sunni of the Shafie school, very partial to the Mutazilis, love some of the Iranian Shiites' theological discourses, am averse to theocracies and frankly admire people of other faiths who are devout and spiritual in their own faiths among others.

But then, a Muslim - Sunni, Shiite, Ahmadiyya etc, when asked, will always say he or she is a Muslim, never mind the actual complexities of his or her own personal belief as are for Jews or Buddhists or Christians or Pagans or Mormons or atheists etc.

Like believers, atheists have a range of personal views and values that may differ with their own co-believers/non-believers and be similar with those outside their broad categorisation as atheists, Christians, Jewish, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus etc.

It is possible that I can have and enjoy dinner with Mr. Mark, a witty, steady anti-theist atheist, and E Favorite, an earnest and heartfelt secular humanist, and have interesting discussions on politics and the arts. Only on Mr. Harris and Mr. Hitchens do I have a slightly different perspective from them. I do like what they said on everything else not related to their personal disbelief and my personal belief in God.

You : Smith suggested that we view what we commonly call religions as “cumulative historical traditions” that have multiple dimensions. These include certainly beliefs and dogmas, but also philosophy, art, heroes, community, etc – aspects that religion shares with identity groups defined by race or ethnicity.

Yes, Muslims do share a cumulative historical traditions, and seem less discomforted in knowing of and appreciating other cumulative historical traditions. Except of course, for some really, really bad ideas like communism or pornography. Not that some Muslim don't peek into porn and enjoy lapdancers or even become communists.

You stated : "To call oneself a Jew, a Muslim or a Catholic simply means that you have chosen to enter a big tent with millions of other people who call themselves the same. It says nothing about which circle you stand in inside that tent."

Yes, and to enter into an internal debate to move forward for one's community of like-minded people and oneself. We can say Hitchens and Harris are on the peripherals of the tents looking in and shouting to get the attention of those inside the tents, and "warn" them of the dangers of religion. Perhaps better for them to point out the believers who really terrified, frightened not only atheists but will cause great harm to all regardless of belief.

Atheists are not engaging in too much on their own internal debate on premises, priorities, methods and approaches here or elsewhere it seems. They want in on discussion of faiths they left behind but not to leave alone. That is, perhaps, why we have quite a number of committed atheists coming in On Faith threads apart from atheist panelists in On Faith. One only wonder if they are as passionate in real life in articulating what they stated here to their family, friends and colleagues are still believers. Or they need to affirm their own non-belief perhaps. Only they know why.

You stated : "Religious communities around the world are going through a profound transformation. Their tents are full of heated debate, not least between the pluralists and the totalitarians within each community."

Yes believers are going through a profound transformation and intense internal debate in every area.Harris and Hitchens wants to interject with their own conclusions and observations. They need to use "exciting" words and statements that is generalised, sweeping etc to get the attention of believers any which way they can, and excite both believers and non-believers into sometimes excitable comments on their own excitable remarks.

You stated : "It’s a shame, considering the complexity and importance of these debates and the fact that they involve billions of people, that the only goal that the aggressive atheists have for the tent of religion is to burn it down."

Of course some aggressive atheists wants to burn down religion and consign it the ashes of history with their Molotov cocktails they think is sufficient to nuke all religions from existence. Atheists have simple beliefs constantly reminded to believers and recapped as follows:

- God/s is a delusion.
- Religion poisons everything.
- Religion is the cause of all human miseries.
- Believers cannot stand "truths" and facts.
- Believers are irrational and illogical.
- Without religion and belief in God/s all will be well in the world.

Oh yes, it's also about that ethical culture thing atheists love. And, you know, the focus on reason, logic, inquiry and an ethical life and such...

If only Mr. Harris and Mr. Hitchens would study contemporary statistics more thoroughly, objectively and non-selectively. And current economics and demography and sociology and anthropology and political science and international affairs and relations. All those too. But it is too much to ask of them perhaps. After all, they are just humans.

Thank you and best regards

"J"

Eboo

You are more incoherent than usual. How many different angles will you approach your defense of the irrationality of theism before you retreat or surrender? Chances are, like most theists, you will never surrender but simply recycle your tired old dialog as rational people bore of you and your new victims emerge.

Eboo

You are more incoherent than usual. How many different angles will you approach your defense of the irrationality of theism before you retreat or surrender? Chances are, like most theists, you will never surrender but simply recycle your tired old dialog as rational people bore of you and your new victims emerge.

I was kind of hoping this web site would prove to be fertile ground for understanding, not rancor.

If you want to know why I believe as I do, I am willing to tell you. If you want to tell me why you do not, I am willing to listen. Enough with the ad hominems, already, and dismissing facts as fiction is just silly and childish.

I don't go to church because after studying the doctrines of over one hundred churches and attending many, I have never found one that believes as I do. Most are shockingly superstitious, mind-numbingly illiterate, knee-jerk responsive, brainwashed, or worse. Radio and television are choked with con artists fleecing the sheep in the name of Jesus. Ersatz Christians invaded Iraq. Fascistic fundamentalists have perverted our politics to the detriment of the country and the danger of the citizenry. Just for the record, it was the religiously intolerant who killed Jesus through their influence on the ruling elite.

After spending years as an iconoclast and atheist, I well understand the animus many have against religion in general. I am diametrically opposed to the world church order which seeks dominance through politics and mercenaries such as Blackwater. Keep your eyes open, sports fans, it's coming.

Mostly, I resent the world church because I can't get a beer on Sunday.

My Christian creed is simple: Do no harm. That includes gays, atheists, agnostics, and anyone else not like me. I don't have to agree with someone in order to be kind to someone.

I do not believe in blind faith. Blind faith is for fools and madmen. Humility and discretion preclude details, but I have had experiences that confirm my faith.

Lastly, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and Tojo, just to name four, did not believe in God and murdered millions, so religionists don't have a monopoly on evil. It is evil, whether from religionists or secularists, that must be destroyed. In that, we could find a common bond.

My apologies for boring you to tears.

John Stephens,

Your way off base with the Jewish/Roman historian Josephus. Some references for you to read before making added commentary:

1. The works of Josephus,

http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/josephus.html

2. A Critique of Josephus' works,

http://www.mtio.com/articles/bissar24.htm

"Scholars fall into three main camps on the first and longer paragraph on Jesus (18:63) which occurs amid events during Pilate's administration: 1) it is entirely authentic; 2) it is entirely a Christian forgery; or 3) it contains Christian interpolations in what was Josephus' authentic material about Jesus. The first option, held by very few, would seem hopeless: no Jew could have claimed Jesus as the Messiah who rose from the dead without converting to Christianity, and Josephus did not convert. The second position, popular in late nineteenth-century skeptical scholarship, has some minor current support. A large majority of scholars today, however, share the third position (favored in these pages), particularly in view of the newly-discovered Agapian text which shows no signs of interpolation."

Josephus must have mentioned Jesus in authentic core material at 18:63 since this passage is present in all Greek manuscripts of Josephus, and the Agapian version accords well with his vocabulary and grammar elsewhere. Moreover, Jesus is portrayed as a "wise man" [sophos aner], a phrase not used by Christians but employed by Josephus for such Old Testament figures as David and Solomon. Furthermore, his claim that Jesus won over "many of the Greeks" is not substantiated in the New Testament, and thus hardly a Christian interpolation but rather something that Josephus would have noted in his own day. Finally, the fact that the second reference to Jesus at 20:200 merely calls him the Christos without further explanation implies that a previous fuller identification had already taken place.

Josephus' second reference to Jesus in connection with the death of his half-brother James (20:200) shows no tampering whatever and is present in all Josephus manuscripts. Had there been Christian interpolation, more material would doubtless have been presented than this brief, passing notice. James would likely have been wreathed in laudatory language and styled "the brother of the Lord," as the New Testament defines him, rather than, as Josephus, "the brother of Jesus." Nor could the New Testatment have served as Josephus' source since it provides no detail on James' death. For Josephus to further define Jesus as the one "who was called the Christos" was both credible and necessary in view of the twenty other Jesuses he cites in his works. In fact, the very high priest who succeeded Ananus, who instigated the death of James, was Jesus, son of Damnaeus. Accordingly, most scholars concur with ranking Josephus authority Louis H. Feldman in his notation in the Loeb edition of Josephus: "...few have doubted the genuineness of the passage [20:200] on James" (Louis H. Feldman, tr., Josephus, IX [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965] 496)."

3. The autobiography of Josephus:

livius.org/jo-jz/josephus/josephus.htm (add www to the front of the address since only two full net addresses are allowed on commentaries)

From Professors Crossan and Watts' book, Who is Jesus?

"That Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate, as the Creed states, is as certain as anything historical can ever be. The Jewish historian, Josephus and the pagan historian Tacitus both agree that Jesus was executed by order of the Roman governor of Judea. And is very hard to imagine that Jesus' followers would have invented such a story unless it indeed happened. While the brute fact that of Jesus' death by crucifixion is historically certain, however, those detailed narratives in our present gospels are much more problematic. "

“My best historical reconstruction would be something like this. Jesus was arrested during the Passover festival, most likely in response to his action in the Temple. Those who were closest to him ran away for their own safety.

I do not presume that there were any high-level confrontations between Caiaphas and Pilate and Herod Antipas either about Jesus or with Jesus. No doubt they would have agreed before the festival that fast action was to be taken against any disturbance and that a few examples by crucifixion might be especially useful at the outset. And I doubt very much if Jewish police or Roman soldiers needed to go too far up the chain of command in handling a Galilean peasant like Jesus. It is hard for us to imagine the casual brutality with which Jesus was probably taken and executed. All those "last week" details in our gospels, as distinct from the brute facts just mentioned, are prophecy turned into history, rather than history remembered."

Conclusions:

Josephus' verified there was a wise person called Jesus/Christos. He was crucified. He had a brother named James and had "Greek" followers. His followers were called Christians. That is it. No description of Jesus' birth, "miracles, ways, sayings, death details or resurrection.

MR. MARK:

Don't be shy, Son, tell us how you really feel.

You might like to read Josephus, a Roman Jew and historian a generation or so removed from the time of Christ. Like any well-educated historian, he gathered the facts from folks who were in Israel in the time of Jesus or who knew those who were. He confirmed the scriptural accounts of the life of Jesus and subsequently came to believe in Jesus Christ.

John Stephens writes "It is a persistent vanity expressed by many of the nonreligious that they are smarter than those who believe in God. Wiser than Solomon? Wiser than Jesus, who was wiser than Solomon?"

Jesus preached some wonderful things. Love your neighbor. Care for the less fortunate. Turn the other cheek. That's all great stuff, though not especially original unless you believe no one had thought of those things in the entire history of man before he came along. There's much to admire in the teachings of Jesus but to give him credit for inventing being a decent human being is an irrational conceit unburdened by anything resembling objectivity. Of course we're wiser than Jesus was. We've had 2000 years of advancement since then in every sphere of human knowledge. Jesus never spoke out against slavery, for example. You'd think it might of dawned on him that it's inhumane and unacceptable and since it was so commonplace in his day it would have been important enough that he'd spoken out against it - that it might have edged out graven images on the list of things not to do.

Wise? Sure. In his time. By modern standards? No, not particularly. And even in his day, I'm sure there were countless people in the world every bit as nice as he was, who didn't do magic tricks and weren't trying to convince anyone they were the son of god. Are they lesser than he was? If the answer is yes then it's not really his wisdom that people admire (since surely there have been countless others equally wise and benevolent who don't happen to be in the Bible). It must be the magic tricks.

Indian Institute of Islamic Studies

http://www.csss-isla.com/IIS/aboutus.php

The point of distinguishing "identity" from belief is to say that there's a difference between someone's beliefs and their identity. I know atheists who Jews, and Croatians who are atheists. They have their ethnicity and their beliefs. There are Jews who are Muslims, because of their ethnicity and beliefs.

I don't know any Catholic, Muslim, Quaker or Mormon atheists. I know people from these traditions who value parts of the tradition, but aren't believers. Some will take part in ceremonies for the community or music. A typical atheist criticism of religion would not criticize these people, because they have habits, culture, identity, but not belief.

Atheists are becoming vocal again after a period of keeping their mouths shut. I'm pushing 40, and was teased in elementary school for being an atheist (before I knew the word). But I had the feeling that "tolerance" was pushing in the direction of religion not mattering, and in the long run we'd be fine.

It's seeming now--in the U.S. at any rate--as if the tolerance of one religion for another doesn't extend to the tolerance for no religion. There are lots of arguments about how "At the core our faiths teach many of the same things such as compassion, love for the Earth and our fellow people..." While I'm pleased whenever I see people getting along rather than fighting, this kind of tolerance is less acceptance and more finding common ground--and it's ground atheists don't share.

So atheists have started to speak up again. Some of them may be too ornery. It can be hard to be both polite and honest. When I try speaking to my religious friends I tell them, "I respect you and your right to choose your religion, but I don't respect your religion." Is that hateful?

John Stephens writes:

"It is a persistent vanity expressed by many of the nonreligious that they are smarter than those who believe in God. Wiser than Solomon? Wiser than Jesus, who was wiser than Solomon? More intelligent than Moses, who was a successful military commander for Pharoah? Smarter than Gandhi, who freed India from British Rule without firing a shot? Superior to the Dalai Lama"

Give me a break.

Setting aside the fact that Solomon, Moses and Jesus were fictional literary figures and not actual people, yes - there are many people who exhibit far greater wisdom than these barbaric mental midgets. You know - real people. And there are many people alive today who are wiser than Gandhi and the Dali Lama as well.

Take a quick look at American history. It's fairly littered with people who make Jesus and Solomon look like grade-school wannabees. Check out the work of scientists, philosophers and authors available at any local bookstore and you can do much better than the pathetic "wisdom" of the so-called holy men.

Vanity? The vanity is imagining that unabashed ignorance, racism, misogyny and hatred born of our barbaric past qualifies as wisdom in a contemporary world. How does one arrive at such a deluded position? Certainly not by reading the very words themselves, but rather, with a very large assist from the guilt and fear that religion and its practitioners depend on to convince themselves that up is down and black is white.

In the United States, a person half white and half black is generally considered to be a Negro.

In Brazil, that same person is considered to be a Caucasian.

Either way, what does it matter? It is character, not color, that determines the man.

Eboo Patel -

You sure have a way with words and you sure used a lot of them in this essay, but your argument still stinks.

I don't understand the combative and occasionally vitriolic attitude some folks have regarding all religion.

I recall bleeding-heart liberals bemoaning the fate of those poor, poor Indians. I'd ask which Indians they were referring to, and I'd get the deer-in-the-headlights looks.

The American Indian tribes were as different from one another as the Irish are from the Italians, or the Russians from the Spaniards, having distinctly different languages, cultures, and beliefs. Some Indian tribes were sophisticated and noble; some were ruthless savages. In the 1800's, the Dog Rib Indians slaughtered every man, woman, and child of the Yellowknife tribe up in Northwest Territories, Canada, rendering them extinct as a people. Lumping all Indians together is as patronizing and insulting and ignorant as despising them for being aborigines.

Religions are distinctly different, as well. The doorbell pushers are a nuisance, militant missionaries are a pain in the butt, and we all know about the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, the crusades, and so forth, but how do you hate Quakers or Amish? How about the gentle Jains, who literally wouldn't hurt a fly? Were Jesus and Gautama Buddha such bad guys?

It is a persistent vanity expressed by many of the nonreligious that they are smarter than those who believe in God. Wiser than Solomon? Wiser than Jesus, who was wiser than Solomon? More intelligent than Moses, who was a successful military commander for Pharoah? Smarter than Gandhi, who freed India from British Rule without firing a shot? Superior to the Dalai Lama?

What atheists and so-called secularists cannot accept is the fact that some persons have had experiential reality confirm their faith, which is to say, some men have seen and heard God personally, and witnessed miracles.

The fact that atheists and secularists have not had such remarkable life experiences is simply due to the fact that they weren't invited to the party, or refused to accept the invitation. It's okay if one doesn't wish to dance, but there's no reason to hate everyone who attended the ball.

Remarkably well written and cogent.

Another case in point is the Taliban's destruction of the Buddhas. Those statues were not just religious expression, they were art, culture, and an ancient architectural heritage that belonged to the whole world. One may just as well destroy the pyramids and the sphinx because one doesn't worship Ra. What a terrible shame.

No man is an island entire of itself, but a piece of the continent, a part of the main. (Or, something like that.) It's baffling why so many persons endeavor to find some reason to express contempt for others, if not for one reason, then another. No reason for being boorish and narrow-minded is any justification.

"What is desired in a man is kindness." [Proverbs]

Killing begins where kindness ends.

Re Harris and Hitchens going "beyond the pale." Mr. Patel, calling nonsense "nonsense" is simply telling the truth -- even if you do it in a tart-tongued way. If you want to look at what is truly "beyond the pale," take a look at some of the language -- and pictures -- used historically by religion to frighten people into belief in drivel. That is really disgraceful.

Thomas Moses Baum;

Hate to break it to you, but there is no god. I've been up there and looked around. There's nobody up there. Trust me.

All my love. ScB.

Hey Everyone.

We are making it happen by speaking our minds on these very threads. We are being acknowledged right here: like many agnostics and atheists have said right here, that we have to speak out whenever we can so that the supernaturalists know that there is opposition to their zaniness.

Without opposition, superstition can only thrive.
We are the rational opposition,and I'm proud to be a small part of it. We are being heard.

Religion! Look at it this way;

If you tell a young child that there's a three headed God in the sky, he will believe you.

It you tell that child that this God has five arms, he will believe you.

If you tell the child that this God has eight legs he will believe you.

If at school all other children believe these things too, and if teachers also confirm these 'truths', the child will grow up believing in a three-headed God with five arms and eight legs.

It may be difficult to ever persuade him that this God is patently ridiculous,and invented by our very superstitious ancestors,who knew no better than to make up such nonsense.

As an atheist this is how I see religion. I suspect most atheists see religion this way.Any wonder that Hitchins and Harris believe it to be important enough to fight against?

It's a battle that needs to be fought.

"Except that it turns out that he is actually black and has chosen to pass for white his whole life."

Mr. Patel,

Aren't you furthering the very notion you argue against by suggesting that a person with some black background is required to present himself as black? That if he doesn't, he's "passing"?

A person with one black parent and one white parent has both black and white grandfathers. So, what is your point?

TO FREETHINKING AGNOSTIC:

You wrote, " Science, logic and reason have proved that no god or gods exist."

This is an absurd statement.

They have neither proved nor disproved the existence of God or of gods.

If you or anyone else would like to read, actually read and/or comment on my posting of 1-28-2008 at 12:35 PM go right ahead.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

If you're religious but had no choice, you're pathetic (the traditional meaning - eliciting pathos). No loss of respect for you, but righteous anger at those who crippled you.

If you're religious and had a choice, you're a foolish dunderhead. Loss of respect for you!

If you're irreligious but had no choice, you're lucky. No feathers in your cap, but count your blessings.

If you're irreligious and had a choice, you're clear-thinking and observant. A FULL MEASURE of respect for you!

I agree...but you religious folks seem to grab the whole mob when you want to club us poor non-religious folks into accepting your dogma as the basis for laws, human behavior, et al. because of the vast numbers of "faithful".

What we non-religious people are saying is that it is near impossible to accept any of the Abrahamic "religions" as having any rational basis and therefore anyone who approaches these "faiths" looking for any basis to accept their conceptual fairy tales beyond parental or social indoctrinations is looking in vain. Christian concepts are particularly unsound with bizarre after life imaginations which have no basis in any scriptural revelations from the preceptor, Jesus; rather they are the rationalizations growing from the attempt by Paul and others to bring the death of Jesus to fit the Jewish basis for the Kingdom of God (on Earth, I might add). It is a truly amazing feat to see the exploding conceptualizations of imagination used to get around the contradictions inherent in the Bible and writings of the early theologians.

So, rather than being hate crimes, the discussion is an attempt to break through the mind-numbing indoctrination and oppose the mindless attempts by the "faithful" to impose their conditions on all life!

RE: "It’s a shame, considering the complexity and importance of these debates and the fact that they involve billions of people, that the only goal that the aggressive atheists have for the tent of religion is to burn it down."

Perhaps atheists seem eager to burn the tent down because we're treated like pariahs, told constantly that we're going to hell, equated with devil worshippers, denied political office (try to run for dog catcher as an atheist), and generally looked upon as if we have two heads.

Here's a novel idea: Stop judging and condemning those with different beliefs and start practicing some of that Christian compassion I keep hearing so much about.

Get the plank out of your own eye before you worry about the mote in your neighbor's eye.

You ask: "Why does Kallen suggest in one sentence that it is easy to change your religion (Judaism), and in the next sentence that being a Jew is a matter of ancestry and heritage, no matter what your spiritual beliefs may be?"

Well, the answer is that being a Jew has a double meaning - it is both a religion and a people. Spinoza, for example was issued the writ of cherem by the Jewish community of Amsterdam (essentially an excommunication) for his atheistic views and yet is still referred to as a Jewish philosopher.

Perhaps most importantly, the history of anti-Semitism makes it clear that visceral hatred of the Jews as a people owed nothing to their religion. During the Inquisition one of the major targets of the inquisitors was the population of Spanish 'Conversos', Jews who had converted to Catholicism, often generations previously. And of course the Nazis regarded one as a Jew - regardless of what religion one practiced - based on whether or not they could find Jewish ancestors in one's family tree.

Finally, you may even have read the sad news of Rabbi Sherman Wine's passing last July. He was a Jew. He was a Rabbi. And he was an atheist. These things are not mutually exclusive.

So Horace Kallen's statement still holds, one can change one's religion but not one's grandfather. And a Jew may still be a Jew, no matter his/her religion.

I doubt very much that "only goal that the aggressive atheists have for the tent of religion is to burn it down." This statement should be taken with a large grain of salt, seeing as how it was written by a man who subscribes to the view that Christians are somehow being "persecuted" by atheists. This is hardly the fact.

Atheists are only asking that America continue to keep religion out of politics, and that the religious respect the fact that people have the right not to have religious symbols and sayings thrust into their faces in public places, have the right to demand that they not be forced to pay taxes to support religious institutions, have the right to demand that public institutions such as schools and court rooms be religiously neutral, in effect to keep religion out, so that no religion is placed above any other religion. However, Christians in particular seem to think that these requests are "persecution" because it prevents them from public displays of religion.

It seems to me that athesists may have good reason to speak their mind, they think, with good reason, that religion is a major cause of suffering, cruelty, and conflict in the world. If they also think that belief in religion is belief in a fairy tale, well they are entitled to their opinions, just as religious people are entitled to believe that the atheist is going to hell. If you keep your religion or lack of it to yourself then no one is offended. If you go around trying to get other people to agree with you by means other than gentle persuasion (in other words, by force of law, in injection into politics, or by other means), then you will offend many.

As I was browsing at Border's book store, I saw an interesting Cover Page of a Magazine called FP (Foreign Policy) and the title "World Without Islam". Of course, I salivated and almost bought the magazine. But good for me that I browsed first and saved my $7.

Graham Fuller (the author) starts by saying that world would be no different today if Islam had never been invented. He said other people would be killing each other just like Muslims do today.

Fuller said Middle-East would have been the same with various sects of Christianity, Jews fighting and killing each other.

He also took a cheap shot at my religion-Hinduism by saying that if Islam had not been invented, Hinduism would have been ruling in Malaysia, Thailand, Pakistan etc.

He also said that he is not surprised why Muslims have taken to terrorism (due to Christian/Western imperialism) but why they (Muslims) did not do it earlier.

But if I were to analyse Fuller's article carefully, the bottom line is that he is indirectly saying that invention of Islam has been a waste (he said world/humanity would have been in the same place without it).

And Fuller let me just add few accomplishments of Hinduism and which have immensely benefited humanity:Kamasutra, Tantric Yoga ....

Stipulating that I have not an ounce of hate for Mr Patel

this is one of the most intellectually sloppy columns I have read on this site (excluding Cal Thomas and Charles Colson, of course).

Other commentators have vividly outlined the failings and I won't repeat them.

I will just point out that this site is here for vigorous discussion, and often for strong disagreement.

A fundamental question is whether is is justified to have Faith in a God who intervenes in human affairs and to believe that such an entity exists.

It is well within the bounds of this discussion to argue that there is no justification for such a belief. Most of us who feel that way have no hate for ANY class of people.

To dismiss the argument because you think Christopher Hitchens is impolite (or, fantastically, engaging in Hate Speech) is a pretty silly position to take.

We atheists here, by and large, want people to deal with the question.

Eboo, you made a good argument, but it had a fatal flaw. That flaw was quickly identified and pointed out to you. Instead of agreeing that your argument was flawed, you have rushed to save a broken analogy.

It doesn't work.

If you're brainwashed from day one that green is red, and red is green, at what age will you admit your understanding is flawed? Or will you go to your grave insisting others have it wrong....? Better yet, is red really green? Or is it actually BLUE?

I did not see any of the previous articles in your series nor did I see any of the commentary on your article. However the points you raise in your article concerning the complexitiy of religious identity seem to me to be hitting the mark in some respects and missing the boat in others. First, I would like to say that although I did not read the article by Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, any statement attributing all members of a group with certain characteristics amount to an expression of prejudice. If this expression of prejudice is intended to provide a rationale for actions against the group as a whole then yes I and any rational person would consider it hate speech.

However that is different than maintaining that religion is something you are born with, and will always be with you. Religion is a matter of choice and how you express you religion is also a matter of choice. Just because you are a fundamentalist Baptist does not necessary mean that you oppose the right of gay people to express their love by being happily married. Just because you are Jewish to not automatically mean you observe kosher, or decline to work on the Sabbath. I identify myself as a Methodist, but when my minister advocates prayer in school, I do not feel obligated to follow sheepishly along with his beliefs. Most religious people are the same, (at least in the west); we pretty much make up our own minds concerning our beliefs. And while religion is a part of a person's identity, in many if not most cases being trained in it by his or her family, it is not an unchangable circumstance with which you are born look how many altar boys grow up to be career criminals. It seems to me that the only example that the author gives to back up his viewpoint is that of a atheist of Jewish descent. However, he fails to recognize that originaly the term "Jew" was an english corruption of the Latin word for "Judean" which was more a description of nationality than of the religion Judaism. There are many followers of Judaism now that are not of "Jewish" descent and vice versa. His term "Cultural" Muslim sounds like he is referring to someone who observes the customs of Islam but is not necessarily devote. However, it fails to realize that these customs are themselves based on the religion and following them is in fact a form of observing Islam and again your choice. Where you stand on various issues espoused by other members of your faith may or may not have anything to with you identification with that faith. There are many people who were born and raised Cahtolic who became Protestants because of the Church's stand on abortion and others that are vehemently opposed to the Church's stand but remained Catholic nonetheless. Again it is a matter of choice. I cannot see this as equating with a black person choosing to pass as white to escape the impact of racism, or a Gay person pretending to be straight to keep from being exposed to those that routinely discriminate against Gay people in housing, and employment, and to hide from exposure to constant ridicule and humiliation.

My answer to "Anti-Religious Judgment" is "Religious Judgment". Same thing.

Mr Patel,

Hitchens' "hate speech" was his stated loss of respect for an adult if he heard them say something like "I will pray for you". That's not different in kind (though it is in severity), for Mr Hitchens I presume, or for me, than losing respect for an adult if they said (with a straight face) "That's OK, we'll write Santa Claus at the North Pole and see if he can't bring you a new one for Christmas." In both cases, it's not identity or heritage that causes a loss of respect for a person's faculties, but rather their spoken words and ridiculous beliefs. In the movie Boogie Nights, Don Cheadle's character responds to seeing a card trick with a comment like "doesn't it scare you when you're summoning those evil spirits?" This amusing line was to establish that the character, while decent as a person, was very gullible and, frankly, stupid. Perhaps the movie's audience was bigoted to laugh at this, and instead should've been very respectful of this character's religious views about evil spirits and card tricks.

Your current blog post is an attempt to justify the position of the previous blog post - that's it's somehow bigotry for atheists to judge or speak ill of people based on religious beliefs, just as it would be if based on race. As was pointed out by many replying to your previous blog, this is completely mistaken, as beliefs are chosen, while race is not. In this post, you've tied to duck this obvious error by obfuscating the issues of race and religion. You seem to argue that race is more than skin color, it's a social construct and identity characteristic; and to some degree a matter of choice. Likewise (if somewhat contradictorily) you argue that religion is more than a belief system, it is also an identity characteristic, and to some degree is not a matter of choice. As you correctly say, these issues are hugely complex. They are also irrelevant; they are red herrings for this question. Hitchens' comment was not about someone's religious heritage, or raised cultural religious identity - it was about their openly stated beliefs. As you cite Kallen, religion "is certainly about far more than a belief system". But the stuff that is "more than a belief system" is not what Hitchens was referring to. His comment here was about beliefs. Hitchens has no complaint with a belief-based atheist who is by culture or heritage a Muslim, Hindu, Christian, or Jew. His complaint, his "hate speech" as you suggested, was from his contempt for ridiculous beliefs - not heritage or culture or identity, but belief.

One can maintain religious identity while modifying one's beliefs. This might lead to some religious debates, but those theological arguments would still take place within the same religion. I'm sure there are many devout Christians who deny the young earth claim, even though their other family members believe otherwise. That might lead to debates, even arguments, but it doesn't mean that they've lost their identities and heritage as Christians. Elaborating on this in detail would run afoul of the huge complexity on issues of identity, but the essential point still stands - they would still be Christians by culture, heritage, and identity, after varying from their parents specific theological positions. As you point out, religion "is certainly about far more than a belief system." So there is no avoiding responsibility for one's beliefs based on an appeal to identity and religious heritage - and it's your argument that establishes this.

What is troubling about your post is that you seem to be attempting to absolve individuals from responsibilities for their beliefs. You seem to be arguing there is no personal accountability for a person's beliefs so long as they raise some religious identity flag. "It's not me who believes this, it's my religion - leave me alone. I couldn't help what religion I was born into - I'm helpless and it's not my fault." I don't think I need to go into detail saying what's wrong with this post-modern viewpoint. In fact, I suspect you don't believe it yourself - it was just the only argument you could find to cover your previous blog's mistaken position.

Rather than trying to undermine the importance of personal accountability for beliefs, your ultimate goal would've been better served by demanding greater respect for it. I infer that your goal in your past two blog posts was to challenge what you see as religious bigotry by some atheists like Hitchens and Harris. I (an atheist) actually agree with you, but for different reasons than your failed defense in this post. You were on the right track, and I fully agreed with you, when, in your previous blog entry, you took issue with these atheists lumping all in a given religion together, no matter how mild or fanatical the beliefs within that religion were. Your argument would've been better had you said "If Hitchens and Harris really accept that it's appropriate to disparage religious beliefs based on their evaluation of the content of those beliefs as absurd, then how can they remain consistent when they then castigate an entire religion in all its manifestations, knowing the huge variation in beliefs and rationality of the beliefs that exist within the same religion?" As an atheist, I believe Unitarians are wrong, but I believe that most Evangelicals are not only wrong, but also warrant a loss of respect and confidence in their intelligence, judgement, veracity, and perhaps emotional stability. Both groups are Christians, yet I judge them very differently because I hold people accountable for their beliefs, and when those beliefs are ridiculous - ridiculous sometimes to the point of questionable sanity - then I judge the person holding them accordingly.

In particular, some of Hitchens' tirades against Islam have been grotesque. He repeatedly attacks the whole religion, knowing full well the huge variation within its one billion adherents. By all means, take him, and Harris, to task for this obscene willful blindness - the pretending that one can speak meaningfully, and with stern judgement, about any of the great world religions while ignoring the massive variations in the followers' intensity and types of beliefs.

Regarding your "Buried in the typical bile" comment, I've often wondered if you and the other bloggers here get depressed to see your efforts at well written thoughtful analysis and commentary met with so many hateful and idiotic replies. I hope not. Even when I disagree, I appreciate your efforts and hope you continue with your blog.

Gareth Harris:

You might be interested in "Superstition in All Ages (Common Sense)" by Jean Meslier. He was a French parish priest in the seventeenth century who went into seminary for an education and to please his parents, but was an atheist. He was amazed and horrified by the hypocracy of religion, so he secretly wrote this book (Common Sense was his title). The book was discovered after his death and ultimately published by Voltaire under its current name. It's a totally unique masterpiece of atheist analysis from that era.

Eboo has a point...

Certain athiest(s): "Religion poisons EVERYTHING"

Barak Obama: "Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King — the majority of great reformers in American history — were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public-policy debates is a practical absurdity."

Not all athiests are as ascerbic as that, and religions/religious individuals have plenty of poor examples. But both sides could use less stereotyping and more civility. Neither side has the moral right to be condescending, insulting, and dismissive offhand of the integrity of the others' pursuit of truth.
As someone else alluded above, just because certain religious people have done it in the past, doesn't excuse it being done by the non-religious today. Tit-for-tat is poor and lazy moral justification.

Eboo has a point...

Certain athiest(s): "Religion poisons EVERYTHING"

Barak Obama: "Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King — the majority of great reformers in American history — were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public-policy debates is a practical absurdity."

Not all athiests are as ascerbic as that, and religions/religious individuals have plenty of poor examples. But both sides could use less stereotyping and more civility. Neither side has the moral right to be condescending, insulting, and dismissive offhand of the integrity of the others' pursuit of truth.
As someone else alluded above, just because certain religious people have done it in the past, doesn't excuse it being done by the non-religious today. Tit-for-tat is poor and lazy moral justification.

Chuck, I meant to comment on your post as well, (and then I'll shut up.)

By far the most dangerous thing to a religious person is another, different, zealous religious person. There is no "people of faith versus non-believer" battle out there. Look at the wars in the world, currently. Faith is too diverse, although the politicians would have some believe that it's categorically easy to label everyone in that picture, which would be insulting to me if I were still a believer.

Freethinkers have been thriving throughout all of human history, and where they haven't been repressed, have given humanity progress in the arts, sciences, and philosophies. Where they were repressed, they moved along (around the Mediterranean) and enlightened the cultures where they were accepted.

I believe (as you do) that bad behavior is bad behavior, but disagreement will thrive, and should, in regard to the claims made by the religious. If a belief system cannot accommodate a secular, rational-thought, humanistic existence where the expressions of free speech and of democracy are valued, and freethought is possible, then yes a battle should ensue.

I'd not be surprised that a number of the religious folks would fight that war on the side of a secular society and those feeling "emboldened."

Unfortunately the time regarding "response" is at hand. I don't believe it's as "tit for tat" as you suggest in your post, but instead where people see decisions made for the majority of people based on the belief-systems of an outspoken few, then the "emboldened" will start to be heard. And the only way I see a threat that freethinkers should be worried would be if our society should became a controlling theocracy. But then, we should all be worried about that.

Eboo, you found bile?

If i'm not mistaken, bile is a form of biological detergent used to break down otherwise indigestible globules of fat.

If your essays stimulate the production of bile, I'm sure there's a good reason for it.

Eboo,

This is so important to your well being that it needs repeating:

You continue to indicate that religion is "stuck on you" and no one can escape. Actually it is quite easy. In your case, simply follow the Five Minute Deprogramming of Islam as shown below:

Using "The 77 Branches of Islamic "faith" a collection compiled by Imam Bayhaqi as a starting point. In it, he explains the essential virtues that reflect true "faith" (iman) through related Qur’anic verses and Prophetic sayings." i.e. a nice summary of the Koran and Islamic beliefs.

"1. Belief in Allah"

"aka as God, Yahweh, Zeus, Jehovah, Mother Nature, etc." should be added to your cleansing neurons.

"2. To believe that everything other than Allah was non-existent. Thereafter, Allah Most High created these things and subsequently they came into existence."

Evolution and the Big Bang or the "Gib Gnab" (when the universe starts to recycle) are more plausible and the "akas" for Allah should be included if you continue to be a "creationist".

"3. To believe in the existence of angels."

A major item for neuron cleansing. Angels/devils are the mythical creations of ancient civilizations, e.g. Hittites, to explain/define natural events, contacts with their gods, big birds, sudden winds, protectors during the dark nights, etc. No "pretty/ugly wingy thingies" ever visited or talked to Mohammed, Jesus, Mary or Joseph or Joe Smith. Today we would classify angels as fairies and "tinker bells". Modern devils are classified as the demons of the demented.

"4. To believe that all the heavenly books that were sent to the different prophets are true. However, apart from the Quran, all other books are not valid anymore."

Another major item to delete. There are no books written in the spirit state of Heaven (if there is one) just as there are no angels/"pwtfft"s to write/publish/distribute them. The Koran, OT, NT etc. are simply books written by humans for humans.

Prophets were invented by ancient scribes typically to keep the uneducated masses in line. Today we call them fortune tellers.

Prophecies are also invalidated by the natural/God/Allah gifts of Free Will and Future.

"5. To believe that all the prophets are true. However, we are commanded to follow the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) alone."

Mohammed spent thirty days fasting in a hot cave before his first contact with Allah aka God etc. via a "pretty wingy thingy". Common sense demands a neuron deletion of #5. #5 is also the major source of Islamic violence i.e. turning Mohammed's "fast, hunger-driven" hallucinations into horrible reality for unbelievers.

Accept these five "cleansers" and we guarantee a complete recovery from your orthodox Islamic ways!!!!

To echo the sentiment posted earlier by What Is Your Cultural Identity...Mr. Patel, I have never seen you post here. I would be extremely interested to see your responses to some of these posts.

Thanks,
Craig

You're part of the religious intolerance problem in America.

No non-believers want to "burn down" religion. That's a lie: most non-believers don't care AT ALL what other people do, including worshiping a supernatural deity.

What we *don't* want is anyone's individual views of religion to be forced down *our* throats. We don't want religious superstition used as an excuse to force pregnant women to give birth, whether we want to or not. We don't want a religious test for political office, as there is de facto at this time in the U.S.

We can't stand idiots like Mike Huckabee, who wants to remake the Constitution to "fit with the Bible."

Baloney. Worship as you please, but shut the hell up about it to other folks, and don't pretend as if you're superior for some reason.

If most of America is Christian, then most crimes in this country are perpetrated by Christians.

Be humble. Your own bible tells you so. Judge not. That's all the publicly loud Christian fanatics do.

Mind your own business.

And quit lying about what non-believers think about religion. I haven't heard a single person call for banning religion - or "burning it down," either.

What a divisive lie, typical of the religously deranged.

Protected class, my butt. Unprovable religious myth can't protected. I'll rip the goofiness in the dogma of most religions for the rest of my life, and enjoy that it irritates the hell out of religious liars like you.

I actually wrote this (I'm atheist) - "the dialogue has degenerated into petty name calling.", not Mr. Patel.

Cheers,
Craig

What is your Cultral Identity writes: "Do you know your great-great -great grandfather's religion? Are you sure that he was not a Hindu?"

Eboo "PATEL" is obviously a Gujrati Ismaili Muslim. Their conversion to Islam is a story in its own right and quite funny. They were not converted by force, but by deception and in stages. Eboo's ancestors were hindus and they accepted a few "Pirs" (saints, holy men?) who were running from persecution by the true muslims from Iran. These guys were coming just as the Zorastrians of iran fled from Islamic barbarity to find refuge in Gujrat.

Here is a bit of the background of the Indian Ismailis off the net:
****************************
Pir Sadr Al-Din, who can be dated with some likelihood in the later fourteenth century, is credited with the conversion of the Khojas from the Hindu caste of the Lohanas and to have laid the foundation of their communal organization, building their first jama'at-khanahs (assembly and prayer halls) and appointing their mukhis (community leaders). The center of his activity was in Ucch in Sind. A substantial section of the community seceded in the sixteenth century under the pir Nar (Nur) Muhammad Shah, who broke with the imams in Iran claiming that his father, Imam Shah, had been the imam and that he had succeeded him. This community, known as Imam-Shahis or Satpanthis, has further split on the issue of leadership and lives chiefly in Gujarat and Khandesh. It has tended to revert to Hinduism but shares much of its traditional religious literature with the Nizari Khojas.

This literature, which is known as Sat Panth (True Path), consists of ginans or gnans, religious poems composed in, or translated into, several Indian languages and meant to be sung to specific melodies in worship. Most of them are attributed to the early pirs but cannot be dated accurately and may have undergone substantial changes in the transmission. They include hymns, religious and moral exhortation, and legendary history of the pirs and their miracles, but contain no creed or theology. Islamic and Hindu beliefs, especially popular Tantric ones, are freely mixed. While idol worship is rejected, Hindu mythology is accepted. Ali is considered the tenth avatar (incarnation of the deity), and the imams are identical with him...."
***************************

The majority of muslims do not consider the Agha Khanis as muslim. They are barely tolerated largely because of the diplomacy of Agha Khan and their policy of lying low and avoiding trouble. However recently the young Ismailis are reading Islam on the net and rejecting the ancestral blend with hinduism and moving more towards the arabized traditional Islam (saudi petro dollars help).

Eboo writes "the dialogue has degenerated into petty name calling."

That's just what religionists and religious apologists like yourself fear most - people who call religion by its name.

SUPERSTITION!

Are the atheists you are writing about actively involved in any tangible oppression of religous groups by the use of "hate speech"? I think not. Does hate speech not imply overt or covert threats? I think that you would be hard pressed to find in their arguments the sort of menacing speech nececessary to label them as hate speech.
Hate speech targeting religious groups would contain language maintaining that religious groups should not have the same rights as non-believers. I do not think your atheists are advocating the suspension of your human rights. Furthermore, it seems to me that hate speech as a crime would imply that such speech be directed at a minority group which could feasibly incur injury or other harm from the hate the speech incites - since being a minority implies vulnerability. Since believers contitute a clear majority of the species, I hardly think you are in any danger.
It seems to me you are crying about the fact that you are a good little mamma's boy.

Mr. Patel writes:
"It’s a shame, considering that billions of people are religious, that the only goal aggressive atheists have for the tent of religion is to burn it down."

As opposed to many occupants of that tent who wish to burn the actual atheists, as well as each other?

He didn't suggest that it was "easy" to change your religion. He pointed it out that it is possible.

Big difference.

Dear ARTISTKVIP -

Wow. I don't know who you believe will take the time and energy to wade through the non-punctuated mess you just posted, but it sure as hell isn't me.

Is it just me, or does today's Patel column have you yearning for the comfort and security of the old, "I may have lost this battle, but you'll get yours in the afterlife" arguments of the "old religionists?"

;)

I don't understand how people have posted claims that it has been PROVEN no deity exists. It is simply not possible to prove this assertion, nearly as impossible as proving the existing of a deity. You are taking the existence, or lack thereof, of a deity on faith, reasoned or not. it is not possible to scientifically test and prove the hypothesis either way.

i like your articles...
you take the time to develope an idea and useually touch on most sides of an issue whichh i respect when a person takes the time to honestly put forth what is obviously not htte point they believe but they do not succomb to cheap shots or semihidden jabs in the guise of a fact or even a compliment... you have brought up much 4 people to think about with your words which is one of the greatesst things i think... someone can do... compell... another... to honestly explore... lines of logic and reason and of faith which by definition at tymes has neither but is undeniablely as much of a guiding forcce as the others but in a seperate distict way. i would not want to subject science to the rules of faith nor would i be well served by requiring scientific undenialably reapeatable in small controled test prove that faithis doing exacty what we all know it does...if we our selves could dictate the time and when and the what we would not need God would we? one thing i might add to your thoughts is that most races do not exuberantly tell all others of different races they are going to hell for not being thier race or require that you give them money to be a member in good standing to a race.... maybe in some way we are not comparing apple to apples or that... at either... others have the right to speak to religions the way religiions have already spoken to them, and in my opinion have the right 2 do if they choose.. these may be truths the churchs of all faiths do not wish to examine... but to which i have undeniabley encounterd... many... times in real life...what would jesus say about all the big empty buildings that shelter the people with nice houses once a week if that... when there is so much suffering in the world ...somthing tells these are monuments not to God who owns everything anyway or to jesus who was pretty specific in mathtew 10:7 and other places... and preached outside or wherever two or more were gathered in his name...i suspect the monuments and sometimes the killing and the actual denying humanitarian aid 2 punish a few guity people... are done built to symbolized the percieved righteousness and a becon to attract more money and attention to the congregation and preacher rather than what jesus asked for.... who are these moddern day star struck celebrities of all religieons... and who do they represent... then ther is power and fear... which isupect plays a role somewher in the debate..sothese are the questions of an artist so please by all means check 4 truth if any

I agree, in part, with those who suggest (in so many words) that adherents to religious doctrine have been "dishing it out" for centuries and, thus, should now be prepared to "take it". However, I will simply add that, if atheists now feel justified and emboldened to attack and belittle people of faith, they are also validating the behavior and have no standing to suggest that they themselves should be not be attacked and belittled. If the behavior is wrong, it's wrong regardless of the perpetrator. And as an additional caveat, I will mention that there are many, MANY more people of faith than there are atheists so, if push comes to shove, I suspect that atheists could ultimately find themselves on the receiving end of even greater attacks than they have known of late. I'm not suggesting that such attacks would be justified. I'm simply saying that, there may be unintended (and undesirable) consequences for those who, right now, are feeling so emboldened.

Sy. Q:

I liked your comment. Thank you, and I too believe that there will never be a shortage of things/economic inequalities/other reasons for human beings not to get along with one another. Tribalism seems to be a built-in, even protective mechanism that has come through the genes over the generations.

No, certainly religious influence is only one of many (but we are discussing this in light of Mr. Patel's claims and within an "On Faith" forum..)influences that divide us.

What I like about the writings of the "new atheists" is their willingness to point out very specifically where harm is done indeed in the name of religion acting unilaterally, as a independent force.

RBE1 makes a good point where I think it could literally doom us as a scientific community and how it could influence countless millions of our children to look upon scientific endeavors with scorn and distrust. How can we afford to lose even 1 IQ percentage point with regard to our scientific base and knowledge?

Where does that leave us with places like the "Discovery Institute," the creationist museums that are popping up like dandelions over the fields of America, and the legal battles that happen over the teaching of evolution in our classrooms? Is the correct answer just "well, home school them and teach them what you want them to learn...?" Is that the solution? In Texas, there's legislation (and guess what chance it has of passing here...) where an institution wants to be able to offer on-line creationist biology degrees and the like--allow people to be "credentialed" with MS and PhDs in these "fields" and equalize the playing field in academia?

It truly scares me.

Very interesting article. I think the issue begs the question:

Is there a connection between belief and genetics?

I'm an athiest but wear a crucifix, occasionally go to mass and am active in the lives several godchildren. I enjoy being part of the community but don't believe any of the mythology. I've tried but I just can't.

I figure my lack of belief is a "genetic defect". Not in the sense that anything is wrong with me but in the sense that over the history of human civilization, being believers gave populations advantages over populations of nonbelievers. Therefore, believers survived and dominated.

History seems to provide much circumstantial evidence for this hypothesis. I need to look no further then my home country of Mexico where the Roman Catholic church is still dominant. In general, Mexicans are a mix of Spanish genes and pre-Columbian American genes. When the Spanish arrived in Mexico there was a great clash of cultures between the multi theism of the pagan natives and the Catholicism of the Spanish conquistadors. Catholicism won. Obviously, among the native populations, the ones who survived the conquest were the ones that could adapt to the new conditions (Catholicism). This "not so natural" selection favored not only believers but believers who could easily change their system of belief. Today, Mexico is fertile ground for all kinds of spiritual missionaries not only Evangelical Christians but all kinds of eastern and new age philosophies are growing rapidly here. Mexicans seem to be predisposed to believing any or all of these. Coincidence?

This is of course, pure conjecture. I have no training in genetics and I'm sure that if a connection exists between genes and faith, it is very complex and is influenced by social, cultural and other factors as well. But you have to admit that it seems like a reasonable hypothesis.

Poor Patel seems to think that the introduction of confusion is its own argumentative improvement. Alas....

When someone is accused of racial hate speech, the question whether he is guilty as charged has nothing to do with the nuances of self-identity, and everything to do with the unreflective simplicities of bigotry. The very charge implies a level of thoughtlessness in the accused, and this is the primary reason that Patel's initial comparison is not only off base, but rather depraved, because it implies, not only that people like Hitchens have superficial views of religion (they don't--or better whether they do or not doesn't matter, the burden of proof not being theirs), but that religion itself is so multi-faceted that no one religious identity can really be attached to an individual with any degree of certainty--an argument that most proponents of specific religious creeds would be ashamed to make. In his attempt to defend his poor analogy, he's insulted both believers and non-believes alike.

The only, really rather slight, favor that Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, and Dennett ask of people who claim to have specific religious beliefs (and this is the relevant domain, other aspects of identity to the side), is that they allow those beliefs to be subjected to the same scutiny to which we subject all our other beliefs. If someone believes, say, that the world is about six-thousand years old, they ought to be able to present their evidence. I take it that they have, and that the evidence is extremely wanting. If the belief is held, even after it has been soundly refuted, we are free to make the informed judgment that the person holds an irrational belief, and when this process is repeated often enough to the same effect in other cases, we may plausibly judge said person to be foolish.

It just so happens, that because religious beliefs are usually shielded from this type of investigation, they constitute a particularly ripe field of dodgy reasoning. If a house contains one room that all occupants are forbidden to clean, we shouldn't be amazed to find that room filthy.

Typical Bile??
Is that the way you respond to criticism of your positions, Eboo. In my opinion you are one of the most intellectually dishonest commentators on this forum. Granted that some of the posts might use a language that you may find offensive,but majority of the forum participants are criticising your views in a civilized manner. And you NEVER engage anyone in the discussion. Your only engagement is by cherrypicking a few arguments and then building illogical arguments to oppose them.

Your analysis using the terms race, religion and culture is deceptive. We all know your religion is Islam? Do you know your great-great -great grandfather's religion? Are you sure that he was not a Hindu? The genetic make-up of majority of muslims in India is Indian meaning their ancestors followed one of the Hindu religious practices.

And what about your great-great-great grandmother? In the muslim population of India, some of the paternal DNA can be traced to middle-east while almost the entire maternal DNA is Indian. So even if your paternal lineage may have come from middle east, your maternal lineage is almost certainly Indian. Was change of religion on your maternal lineage an act of faith? Or in typical misogynistic Islamic fashion, all you think of is your grandfathers but not the grandmothers?

I was amazed by your totally unsupported assertion that the so-called aggressive atheists have a goal of burning down religion. Historically, and even today, the goal of Islam (and in the past of Christianity, no longer) has been to burn down other religions. Don't accuse the atheists of harboring intentions that your people of your faith actively harbor today. Remember, the punishment for apostacy is death according to Allah. So please ask your Allah to show some tolerence on the non-believers first.

I think that the aggressivness would diminish somewhat if and when religious groups ceased attempting to portray religious dogma as a form of science, and thereby ceased attempting to inject religion into the teaching of science in our schools.

Ashkenazi,

You are correct about the short hand for the short hand for "jewish" ethnicity. However, there is no getting around that the common usage of jewish. I imagine, eventually the the black jews of ethopia, the lost tribe certified as jewish of North East India, and the occasional jew in china will all eventually lay claim to the heritage of being jewish and not a jew.

In all seriousness, I know mizrahi jews, recently from Bombay, who are atheists, and they refer themselves as "jewish", and they do not think much of the Ashkenazi humor made popular in hollywood. Their sense of humor apparently bypasses yiddish completely. However, they do seem to enjoy bollywood glitz which I have never understood.

I believe that Mr. Patel would do well to juxtapose the writings of Hitchens and Harris with the poisonous rhetoric that has emanated from all major religions: be it orthodox jews, orientalist catholics, or extremist muslims. Just as these extremists do not speak for the broader religious community, or "the tent" as he puts it, these atheist authors do not speak for the entire atheist community. Let me be clear, I have NO RESPECT for organized religion whatsoever, but I do respect any human being who while embracing the dogma of his/her choice still remains respectful of others. I feel that the author of this article, though harboring a good intention of defending his and others faiths, has become grossly hypocritical in assigning the views of a few prominent atheists, to the community of the many. Shame on you for making the very mistake that you have attempted to castigate

My 2 cents:

Say a man is in the religion of football. Football is a religion with a billion adherents, many of whom are born into, and also to which many convert. Lets say the hypothetical man went into this religion because he thought it gave him discipline and that the vast majority of the others went into it for other and/or the same reasons. We could also say that throughout history this religion had been politicized used to justify many acts of abuse and murder. Would it still be right to claim this religious tradition as worthless and continually bash it? This is a bit convoluted, as I could have just plugged in any modern Abrahamic religion, but the point is the same. Atheists are quick to point out that religion is part of many if not all of the history of the world's conflicts, and that, as a believer I can concede. However, I ask if there was no religion, do you not think some other excuse would be made for said conflicts? If you look deeper at many of the conflicts in world's history, there are far more compelling reasons to have engaged in them: economic, political, racial superiority, etc. It is a vast and gross oversimplification to state that religion is a root of all evil in this society as it certainly seems Harris and Hitchens and their like claim to do. Can you say that religion can bring out the worst in human nature? Of course, but there are a million things that bring out the worst in human nature: poverty, disease, etc. many of which are just as if not more so culpable for many of the worst problems of human history. I, nor Eboo, as many suggest, is trying to muzzle criticism of religion or any critical perspective of religious history, but religion is only one thread in the complex makeup of human history, and to oversimplify religion as the greatest evil of human history is simply illogical. I am not some ardent anti-atheist, I have liked most of the atheists even better than many of the co-theists in my life as I have found them more tolerant, more understanding, and in some ways more kind than co-theists, although I am sure there are many who are not: it does not make atheism a vilifiable choice.

Gareth Harris: I'd love to hear more of your story, especially as a Priest.

I'd also like someone, perhaps in the social sciences in the near future, to actually do a legitimate study with the premise that religion is helpful to societies.

Never mind the personal beliefs that people hold dear to their hearts, just simply whether or not there are measurable differences in rates of, say, murder, abortion, divorce, prostitution, disease, indices of well-being, poverty, and individual freedoms. Compare "religious" countries to non-religious with some clearly-defined criteria.

Personal salvation stories with very intense and real "feelings," as well as revealed personal conversations with the gods as answered prayer will always be available to the individual, and we shouldn't hope that logic and reason will drive away the supernatural yearnings we have as human beings.

But we can and should seek to know whether or not religion is benign, as it appears not to be at first glance. I think Gareth Harris makes a good point of conversation.

Anon writes:

"I believe very view people choose their religion.

Religion is usually thrust upon us when we are too young to understand or resist.

Very few of us are able to stand back and see that our religion is silly,not just because others of different religions are as sure as I was that my religion was the one true religion,but because religion makes no sense if one really thinks about it. Its all in the mind.And its all put there when we are infants.And most of us are stuck with it for life.
I don't mind being Welsh.I cannot change that. But I did mind being a Christian,because it is a belief system that seemed the more ridiculous the older and smarter I became.
I am free at last. And it wasn't easy."

So you chose your religion! True it might have been painful due to religious brainwashing as a child but for all adults, religion is always a choice.

Mr. Patel,

You can't be serious! After reading the posts for your last column this is the column you came up with? Calling comments made by atheists bile? I haven't been reading your column for that long, but for some reason I expected more from you.
I find it hilarious that after listing religions in your column you only use judaism as an example of ethnicity or heritage:

"Why does Kallen suggest in one sentence that it is easy to change your religion (Judaism), and in the next sentence that being a Jew is a matter of ancestry and heritage, no matter what your spiritual beliefs may be?"

This is because judaism is the only religion that considers itself a race. I would like to ask you the question, in your family how many grandfathers ago converted your family to Islam? As an Indian hindu, I know that your family was forced to convert one way or the other from another religion.
Islam and christianity are not races or ethnicities; they are religions that were brought to different parts of the world and were either forced upon or "taught" to the inhabitants of that country. All current muslims and christians were a different religion before their ancestors were forced to convert.
How can a hispanic catholic for example, or you as an Indian muslim, practice a religion that was forced upon your family? Do your family members that came before the conversion not count? Are they in hell because they did not bow to Allah?

Simple. The notion that "Jewish" is both a religion and an ethnicity is totally incorrect even though many Jews would still make that mistake. The original Jews of Israel spread out in the Diaspora in herds. The vast majority of modern Jews wending their way across Europe landing in Eastern Europe in the 19th century and then migrating en masse to the US or Israel in the 20th Century. This group is ethnically described as Ashkenazi and is ethnically a mix of ancient middle eastern blood with various European groups. Saying "Jewish" to mean "Ashkenazi" is a shorthand most of us have adopted, but it is a misnomer. Ask a Sephardi, Sabra or Bukharan Jew if you don't believe me. If you ask me, I am Ashkenazi and not Jewish. Problem solved. I grew up with some cultural pressure to identify as Jewish, but I outgrew it like a child outgrows the need for Santa Claus.

I am an atheist, and I am at times appalled by what I see as a lack of reason in the world. I often dismiss religious points of view as being based on ignorance or fear. I have been known at times to have lower opinions of people who are religious.

I have read much of Harris and Hitchens, and I do tend to agree with their points of view.

That being said, I agree with Mr. Patel's sentiment here, and I think he makes a cogent, well-reasoned argument. I also feel that Mr. Harris and Mr. Hitchens, as well as some posters here, do themselves and atheism a disservice by denigrating not the belief, but the believer.

I have had my morality questioned and my soul cast into eternal flame by well-inentioned people whose belief I dismiss. I choose not to respond in kind.

Mr. Patel, I liked very much your quote from Smith. It describes for me the reality of religion experienced in community - people gathering for a variety of reasons based on many impulses: some reasoned, some emotional, some expressed, some not. I've for some time thought that the story of Jacob getting the name Israel ("he who struggles with God"), after the nighttime tussle with God/his conscience before meeting the brother he wronged, showed that the name Israel was a descriptor for faith/morality/goodness strugglers everywhere. I'd suggest we're all "children of Israel" in this non-lineage sense - atheist, theist, or blogger - though it depends on how and why you appropriate the label. And fighting over labels, of whatever, seems to be where our civility breaks down so often.

You land on this planet from another world and you see a chimp and a human. Do you guess they are somehow related or do you say "hey, isn't it clever how God made humans to look a lot like chimps"? Humans need to start using common sense. Either God is trying to trick us to believe he doesn't exist or there is no God. Look at the geological evidence, the fossils, and the genomes of the organims (from evolution) on this planet and the history of the world beocmes clear; religions were spawned at the time we were able to write down our thoughts and create our own Gods. Time to wake up people. We need more people like Hitchens who are brave enough to stand up against this nonsense.

The people who make a big deal about their religiosity tend also to be grumpy or even vicious about what other people do or don't believe. Religion ought to be practiced privately by consenting adults, and otherwise kept quiet about. Its traditions are too disgraced.

I would take Mr. Patel's comments more seriously if he had been just as critical of the vicious attacks on atheists, including humanists and agnostics, that have been flowing out of the mainstream religious community for many years. Overall, I find the atheists I know more compassionate and understanding and accepting of other religions that are the "religious" (so-called) Christians, Muslims and Jews. I think Mr. Patel is generalizing the hateful views of some atheists as if those views are shared by many. In fact, I think there is less tolerance, and certainly more influence, by the vast multitudes of people who adhere to the mainstream religions-- they continue to institutionalize discrimination against atheists all over the world. Even in the U.S., it is not safe to reveal that one is an atheist- the discrimination is tangible and widespread.

CHIP - I agree that verbal attacks here (and on any other column) are not solely perpetrated by atheists. I also understand the very nature of the atheist argument (being based in fact and truth) can be very offensive to a believer, since it's not something that is believed, but rather, known, and can be backed up with empirical evidence.

However, I find it outrageously offensive when a religious person tries to convince me that my worldview is empty and soulless and I should accept whoever as my personal saviour. I expect that any religious person would find it just as offensive if I were to say their worldview is based on lies, bloodshed, and totalitarian control of humanity in the name of their god.

So if I choose that path, what will result? Then am I not just as vile as religious zealots? I do not accept religious dogma, theory, or viewpoints...but I will listen to them with respect, because I expect the same. Even if that respect is never given to me, though, it does not matter. The truth is there for all to see...and the religious "tent" will collapse under the weight of it without any hurtful comments from me.

Cheers,
Craig

I mainly know about Christianity, but what I say fits other relgions, as well. Conservative Christianity, at least, has a mean streak of bigotry and intolerance entrenched in it. The frustration of atheists is a reaction to that. If Christians do not want to hear anti-Christian things from atheists, then they should stop regarding them so derisively, and with such smug superiroty, Individuals hate atheists because atheists appeal to their own doubts, which they wish to deny. And relgious orgnaizations regard atheisits as a political threat, that may weaken their power and wealth.

To all of the religious people of the world, if you want acceptance in your personal beliefs, then you be tolerant, as well.

The natural reaction to anything branded as "hate speech" is to stop that speech, usually by any means necessary.

To call frank discussion (and sharp intellectual challenges) of religion "hate speech" is to take the first step back toward a world in which religion gets to do what it does best--giving people a reason to murder and physically attack those who don't drink the Kool-Aid.

Take your veiled threats out of this debate, and fight fair, with logical arguments.

For shame!

Kind of like the faithful that declare that you can't have high moral values without being religious (e.g. Mitt Romney et al.) I'll ease up when the Big Tent includes Atheists and Agnostics.

Aww. Do the poor "billions" of adherents to various human mythologies feel insulted by the big mean atheists? That's an awful shame. Too bad you can't irritate the atheists by telling them they are damned to eternal hellfire, since they'll just (continue to) laugh at you.

If people -- be they "billions" or millions or thousands -- continue to believe in supernatural, omnipotent sky faeries and strive for public recognition of their imaginary deity(ies), and justify their public policy initiatives based on mythological books that they insist upon believing literally, then they deserve to be on the receiving end of scorn and ridicule.

Certainly, the most aggressive proponents of any viewpoint deserve critical analysis of their statements.

But I have to wonder about the last sentence of this post:

"It’s a shame, considering the complexity and importance of these debates and the fact that they involve billions of people, that the only goal that the aggressive atheists have for the tent of religion is to burn it down"

Is this any different than the perspective of religious fundamentalists or evangelicals who, to continue this metaphor, aggressively assert that we should all be under the same tent, in the same circle? Or the notion that even if one doesn't join them there, that everyone should be governed by laws which reflect their narrow interpretation of morality?

As an agnostic/atheist I certainly don't support either fundamentalists or atheists who believe they possess the only true knowledge of how to govern. However, I am convinced that when it comes to governing a pluralistic society, atheists who remove invocation of religion from public discourse on how to have the right idea. (Note that this is not the same as saying that religious people should not publicly express their beliefs; it only means that such beliefs should remain personal and should not enter the decision-making of government).

We're too quick to dismiss the ideas of people who burned witches at the stake, Crusaded one religion against another resulting in the deaths of millions over the Semantics of their various beliefs, those who used their religion to justify Colonialism...we're too quick to dismiss the ideas of people who believe that every word of a 2000 year old work of fiction is truth? How much time do we need to give these failed ideas and defense of religious authority no matter the source? Science, logic and reason have proved that no god or gods exist. It is up to us, to protect and expand the ideals of freedom, knowledge and equality, not to pray for them.

The best purpose of religion is that it gives a feeling of commune to individual in his infancy of mind, beyond certain level of psychological consciousness mind does not need religion then again every individual cannot reach that level of consciouness. For such individuals religion is certainly necessary to survive. Nothing godly abot religion but its an indicator that shows that most humans mortgage their thinking n close their minds.

jai hind

"Men may change their clothes, their politics, their wives, their religions, their philosophies...they cannot change their grandfathers."

Perhaps in his next post Eboo will share the history of his grandfathers in India. How many generations back did one of his grandfathers convert to Islam. Was it a willing conversion or was it forced as were so many in India?

Was his ancestral conversion for faith or survival?

Turn about is fair play.

Regardless of the dimension of religion, community or creed or some mix, they all suffer from the fact that they can never provide a reasoned foundation for decision-making, and more often than not they are used as justification for terrible decisions. I see nothing in Mr. Patel's commentary to suggest otherwise.

Craig writes "It would be pretty clear to any 5 year old that the dialogue has degenerated into petty name calling and worse."

That's true of any online forum about any subject anywhere. It's simply a fact of human nature and has nothing whatsoever to do with any specific quality of atheists. To assert that it is something specific to atheists as Mr. Patel is doing is simply disingenuous and speaks of the very same myopia he's complaining about. To wit, he admits that there are raging debates within specific religious identities about ideological or scriptural positions but seems to imply that if anyone outside of the tribe engages in the argument then suddenly it's tantamount to racism. Biases are like accents. you hear everyone's but your own.

Eboo writes: "I stated that Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris had gone beyond the pale in their sweeping demonization of religious people ... the only goal that the aggressive atheists have for the tent of religion is to burn it down."

When Christians proselytize do we attach the negative label "aggressive" or do we attach the positive label "evangelist"?

When we attach the label "atheist" we mean the other doesn't believe in our gods - they may have gods of their own, or they may not.

Atheist is not a synonym for anti-religious!

Buddhism in some forms is a mystical religion without gods.

Nazism was considered "... not some heretical deviation from Christianity, nor merely a 'substitute for religion', but rather a 'substitute religion', an Ersatzreligion rather than a Religionersatz."

Incidentally, Sam Harris clearly does value what some religions have acheived:

"Even the contemporary literature on consciousness, which spans philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience, cannot match the kind of precise, phenomenologlical studies that can be found throughout the Buddhist canon." p217 'The End of Faith'

Eboo,

You continue to indicate that religion is "stuck on you" and no one can escape. Actually it is quite easy. In your case, simply follow the Five Minute Deprogramming of Islam as shown below:

Using "The 77 Branches of Islamic "faith" a collection compiled by Imam Bayhaqi as a starting point. In it, he explains the essential virtues that reflect true "faith" (iman) through related Qur’anic verses and Prophetic sayings." i.e. a nice summary of the Koran and Islamic beliefs.

"1. Belief in Allah"

"aka as God, Yahweh, Zeus, Jehovah, Mother Nature, etc." should be added to your cleansing neurons.

"2. To believe that everything other than Allah was non-existent. Thereafter, Allah Most High created these things and subsequently they came into existence."

Evolution and the Big Bang or the "Gib Gnab" (when the universe starts to recycle) are more plausible and the "akas" for Allah should be included if you continue to be a "creationist".

"3. To believe in the existence of angels."

A major item for neuron cleansing. Angels/devils are the mythical creations of ancient civilizations, e.g. Hittites, to explain/define natural events, contacts with their gods, big birds, sudden winds, protectors during the dark nights, etc. No "pretty/ugly wingy thingies" ever visited or talked to Mohammed, Jesus, Mary or Joseph or Joe Smith. Today we would classify angels as fairies and "tinker bells". Modern devils are classified as the demons of the demented.

"4. To believe that all the heavenly books that were sent to the different prophets are true. However, apart from the Quran, all other books are not valid anymore."

Another major item to delete. There are no books written in the spirit state of Heaven (if there is one) just as there are no angels/"pwtfft"s to write/publish/distribute them. The Koran, OT, NT etc. are simply books written by humans for humans.

Prophets were invented by ancient scribes typically to keep the uneducated masses in line. Today we call them fortune tellers.

Prophecies are also invalidated by the natural/God/Allah gifts of Free Will and Future.

"5. To believe that all the prophets are true. However, we are commanded to follow the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) alone."

Mohammed spent thirty days fasting in a hot cave before his first contact with Allah aka God etc. via a "pretty wingy thingy". Common sense demands a neuron deletion of #5. #5 is also the major source of Islamic violence i.e. turning Mohammed's "fast, hunger-driven" hallucinations into horrible reality for unbelievers.

Accept these five "cleansers" and we guarantee a complete recovery from your orthodox Islamic ways!!!!

Mr. Patel - It is unfortunate that so many people have apparently misunderstood your comments...but then perhaps I have as well. It would be pretty clear to any 5 year old that the dialogue has degenerated into petty name calling and worse.

Here's the thing, though...atheists finally CAN speak out against the stranglehold religion has had on society for so long. Is it wrong to speak out against the religion-driven conflicts, or the intolerance taught to children? Of course not. Is it wrong to verbally attack a specific person based on religion alone? Of course it is.

You say - "It’s a shame, considering that billions of people are religious, that the only goal aggressive atheists have for the tent of religion is to burn it down.". It is indeed a shame. It would have been much easier if believers were willing to look OUTSIDE of their "tent" every now and then to take a look at the rest of the world.

Respectfully,
Craig

"he seeks to put religion beyond criticism. That is not toleration or pluralism. It's hypocrisy."

Any religious ideology that requires complete submission of its followers and punishes criticism and dissent with death is NOT "toleration, pluralism, or mere hypocrisy"-

It is totalitarianism.

Oh good. More atheist bashing from Mr. Patel. Rather than admit he made a specious argument in his last essay, he equivocates his position (which is still silly and disingenuous) and puts the blame back on the atheists rather than on his own poor reasoning. Does it not occur to him that this sort of thinking is precisely what many atheists (myself included) find so overbearing and obnoxious about religionists?

"Why does Kallen suggest in one sentence that it is easy to change your religion (Judaism), and in the next sentence that being a Jew is a matter of ancestry and heritage, no matter what your spiritual beliefs may be?"

Do you honestly need to ask that question, Mr. Patel? Judaism is both a religion and an ethnic/tribal identity. The above question makes about as much sense and wondering how it's possible that people who consider themselves Irish might not also consider themselves Catholic if their ancestors were Catholics. Whether you agree with the position or not, many (most? all?) Jews see Jewish tribal identity and the religion of Judaism as separate things. I'm guessing Mr. Patel already knows that but is willing to distort or conveniently forget common knowledge in service to his argument. Once again this is intellectual dishonesty and exactly the type of thing to which atheists will give no quarter.

To the points about race, it matters not what Tiger Woods decides to label his race, or how he considers his racial identity. That is his choice (just as religion is a choice). What isn't his choice is the exact nature of his mixed heritage. Mr. Patel equates the thing with its subjective label as if they are one and the same, and as if Mr. Woods choosing one label or the other changes what isn't his choice. Again this is a silly argument and in no way invalidates (or even dents) the criticism of equating race and ethnicity with religion.

The question of identity is interesting because I think Mr. Patel is demonstrating exactly the point I made in the previous thread, which is that many religious people so intertwine their identity with their religious beliefs that they see them as one and the same. They aren't, and seeing them as inseparable is at the very root or the kind of virulent tribalism that's been causing war, violence, bigotry, and discrimination since time immemorial.

Consider a political partisan. If someone were to claim that they were a Republican in the same immutable non-optional way that they're a Caucasian no one would think twice about labeling them a zealot, even if they were an extremely nice person. They would still be elevating their political persuasion to a level it doesn't deserve. We've seen that kind of thinking on display in the Republican party for the last couple of decades and the results have been disastrous. The invasion of Iraq is a perfect example of people being so wedded to their beliefs that no counter arguments could penetrate, and when the results weren't anything like their faith predicted, they simply moved the goalposts rather than admit that the entire premise was faulty. Their loyalty for their ideological tribe (regardless of where they stand on the ideological spectrum encompassed by their party) trumps their loyalty to reason, or to humanity as a whole. Mr. Patel is engaging in a similar sleight of hand in this essay. Rather than admitting that his premise is faulty, he simply takes atheists to task for not placing the same value on his voluntary and optional religious beliefs as he does, regardless of how they compare to empirical and reasoned truth.

It's precisely this kind of unreasonableness that Hitchens, Harris, and company, rail against (and rightly so). It may be benign in more liberal believers with pluralist tendencies, but in fundamentalists and ideologues it's truly a dangerous and destructive phenomenon, and it should be pointed out and criticized in both. Even in someone interested in multiculturalism, pluralism, and interfaith relations like Mr. patel, this phenomenon manifests itself as a tribalistic us versus them mentality. Atheists are the "them."

If you want to truly embrace pluralism then you have to drop the conceit that your optional religious beliefs are sacred, immutable, and not open for criticism. Otherwise, no matter what kind of pluralist message you think you're supporting, you're laying bricks in the wall that will forever keep mankind divided into warring factions. You don't see adherents of Aristotle playing the victim card when their philosophy is criticized by those who favor Plato. That would be ridiculous by anyone's standards. It's just as ridiculous when religious people play the victim card when criticized by non-believers for their entirely optional (and irrational) beliefs.

CONCERNING RACE, RELIGION AND BEYOND:

Race, aren't we all members of the human race?

Religion, sometimes people get faith and religion confused, they are not the same.

Since eight years ago today something happened to me that in due time people will know did happen, I am going to post what I posted on Eboo Patel's "Our Faith Talk is in the Gutter" on this site also.

Just thought that I would say Hi to whoever is interested and also to the disinterested.

It was 8 years ago today that God the Father came into my heart and did not say a word, didn't have to.

That was on a Friday and today is a Monday but it was the 28th of January.

While we are all bickering back and forth about whether God is Real or not guess what, in due time all will know.

So many people seem to think that it isn't important what you do and how you treat each other but only if you know God's Name, that is patently absurd.

IF God created us and wanted us to hate each other and treat each other with contempt because we don't believe in Him then He wouldn't be worthy of respect even if he was god.

Also if God was such an egomaniac that knowing His Name was more important that how we treated each other than he should be avoided at all costs.

IF God created us and gave us free will and didn't have a plan for everyone to be in His Kingdom eventually, considering that God by definition knows everything, including whether we would ever take personal responsibility for our actions during our lifetime, then He would be most cruel and heartless.

This is not to say that we aren't responsible for our actions, quite the contrary, whether we believe in God or not we are responsible, but do we accept that now or will we accept it later.

IF God does have a plan that is for all of His Creation to be with Him and He does, doesn't it seem sad that so many of the people that profess to believe in Him cannot even fathom that God could be so forgiving and compassionate even to the point that they seem to say, even shout, THAT'S NOT FAIR, well maybe God isn't fair but is a Being of Pure Love and just doesn't meet their expectations of revenge.

Vengeance and revenge are two completely different words and their meanings are very, very different.

In other words when God said, "MY Ways are not your ways and MY Thoughts are not your thoughts", well something to think about, is it not?

Take care, be ready, see you in the Kingdom.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Patel's post is an obscure way to save a bad argument. One chooses their religion, and one doesn't chose their race. Equating the two so as to criticize atheists for criticizing religion is nonsense. That Jews may be ethnically Jews even if believers in another religion, or that Jews by be religious Jews even if not ethnically Jews is the exception that proves the rule. Patel's point does not validate his original argument.

Patel's attack on atheists as "aggressive" for daring to criticize religion, means only that he seeks to put religion beyond criticism. That is not toleration or pluralism. It's hypocrisy.

To me, the purpose for religion is to teach us about God and what he wants for us, how to fulfill our existance and return to him. I believe religious belief is a personal choice. We choose how to live our lives.

As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon), we believe:

In the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all people the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all people; If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

With this, it is always more important what God thinks of you than anyone else....faith is not about heritage or social status.

To me, God's opinion is all that matters on all things spiritual and all things religious...if you have a doubt or questions, ask God in prayer for the truth. Everything else is just an opinion.

In his previous column, Mr Patel said:

"The fact that their (Hitchens & Harris) books are award-winning best sellers just illustrates how filthy our discussion about religion has gotten."

In today's effort, he writes:

"Buried in the typical bile on the comment board of my last column is an interesting thread about the nature of identity."

Hmmm...the filth and bile of those who disagree with Mr Patel. I wonder if Mr Patel finds any filth and bile in his own arguments? Or, perhaps he's simply channeling our friend, Canyon Shearer?

Quite a reaction, wouldn't you say? I guess it comes with the religious territory. After all, if you've been able to push people around for centuries, controlling and ruining lives by the millions, I guess that even a single incident of your nose getting bloodied would come as a shock. To be facing a tsunami of well-founded and -argued push back from non-believers across the board must be absolutely unnerving.

Yacob says...

"There is NO bitterness
like that of the devout
Who believe in a LIE
And finally find out,

Nor is there ANY strength
like that based on TRUTH (opposite of MYTHology)
Discovered through long suffering
which began in ones YOUTH!"

Amen to that!

Eboo Patel writes: "To summarize, I stated that Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris had gone beyond the pale in their sweeping demonization of religious people, and wondered aloud whether their approach could potentially qualify as hate speech."

You'd love that wouldn't you? If you had your way,it would be an offense to speak sense about religion, just as it used to be in the good old days, when folk were tortured andor killed for not agreeing with superstitious people like you.

Get a grip man.There are no gods.

Would you be happier if Hitchins and Harris pretend that gods exist,so that you could remain comfy in your delusions? You'd like that wouldn't you?
Your column is an insult to ones intelligence.

The last post was mine.

I believe very view people choose their religion.

Religion is usually thrust upon us when we are too young to understand or resist.

Very few of us are able to stand back and see that our religion is silly,not just because others of different religions are as sure as I was that my religion was the one true religion,but because religion makes no sense if one really thinks about it. Its all in the mind.And its all put there when we are infants.And most of us are stuck with it for life.
I don't mind being Welsh.I cannot change that. But I did mind being a Christian,because it is a belief system that seemed the more ridiculous the older and smarter I became.
I am free at last. And it wasn't easy.

No BACHAN.

I'm sure ASH meant to say-

"that nobody likes a wino."

I have tried working within and without [pun intended] the institutions of society and religion for most of my life as bot scientist and priest.
My observation is that RELIGION IS NOT BENIGN and is not about personal belief but is a disease humans are susceptible to like cancer - and is really about the control of others for one's own benefit. Jesus tried to liberate us from religious people and you see what happened to him - he was killed and made into a god.
Thus my conclusion is, as has been stated before:
We shall not be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

Anonymous writes (10:23 am):
"A KAfir is a LIER"

LoL!!

And do you know of a human who does not lie down to sleep? Ofcourse, I am a lier, but mercifully I am not a liar like Mullah Victoria.

Bile? Perhaps the comments are a reflection of your essays. I have to agree with the other comments. If you want to spend an essay pointing out the complexities of racial and cultural identity, that would be a worthy goal. For instance, Barak Obama is as much a white man as he is black man, and yet we all refer to him as black.

However, your attempt to equate the complexities of racial identity to those of religious identity simply muddies the waters. People are often born into the religion of their parents, but they can and do walk away from it. The same cannot be said of race or ethnicity.

What people like Hitchens, Harris, Dennet, and Dawkins do is to point out that religion should not automatically get a pass when asked whether it does more harm than good. Why are religious people so afraid to have an honest debate on that subject? Instead you attempt to cloak yourself by saying that asking harsh questions about someone’s unsupported beliefs is tantamount to using racial slurs. Nice.

I'll even give you another chance.

Eboo Patel writes: "To summarize, I stated that Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris had gone beyond the pale in their sweeping demonization of religious people, and wondered aloud whether their approach could potentially qualify as hate speech."

The doctrines of the Abrahamic religions are extreme in their sweeping demonization of non-religious people and even people of differing religions.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Again, why do your religious doctrines deserve a free pass while Hitchens and Harris do not?

Like political parties, religions and their gods come and go. The seemingly eternal battles for popularity between competing political parties and/or religions change with the direction of the secular winds.

This isn't true of race or gender, is it?

Unless and until Mr Patel and like-minded apologists for today's popular religions acknowledge that their religions have no more claim on truth and reality than did Mithrasism or the worship of the ancient Greek gods, they'll continue to talk through their victim-lined hats.

I found this defense of Mr Patel's previous column even less compelling than the original. Mr Patel's argument rests on the idea that when one compares apples to oranges, they are still comparing fruits. Reasonable people see it a bit differently.

Perhaps if you addressed some of the very excellent points made by posters in your last column instead of making up an argument that only a mental midget could find convincing, people would take you, and by extension your religion, seriously.

This is an extremely poor essay Eboo Patel.

Where to start?

Religious belief, as it comprises a more prominent public voice and is becoming an instrument of public policy, should and will be properly scrutinized, evaluated, criticized, debated, and written about in harsh reality.

Push the agenda, and you'll feel us push back.

I've read all of those authors you criticize, and see no "demonization" of believers. I've heard them speak, and they are polite, intelligent and considerate, unlike so many Bible-thumping preachers who are ready to rapture. Where "belief" has caused division, damage, injustice--yes it is called out.

"Hate speech?" Please, give me a break. Sounds like the Dutch cartoon issue. Prove to us that various religious beliefs can be more helpful than harmful, that belief-systems are something more than mutually exclusive at their core, and how "billions of people who believe"--never mind they all believe different things entirely--is a benefit to the human race, particularly as the moderate in their belief allow their faith to be hijacked by fundamentalist zealots.

Bravo to the folks in this day who have the courage to ask the question: Is religion better for the world? I say, hold their feet to the fire, let them prove their worth to society.

Within the Christian faith, I'd risk an answer: the whole point of that faith is not to "conform" to "the world." "The world" is a sinful, lustful, god-hated place. Thus, you see the dilemma--the rest of us live in that world, and only want to see it get better, fairer, with a decrease of injustice and suffering--humanism at its best.

ASH

You need to correct your statement "that nobody likes a winner"

A KAfir is a LIER

Eboo,

Didn't you mother ever tell you that nobody likes a whiner?

Eboo,

Cultral Muslims are apostates of Islam. Ibn Warraq, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Abul Kassaam, Irfan Khawaja, Wafa Sultan, are all cultral muslims. The Muslims do not allow anyone in the big tent who does not accept that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is Allah's prophet to start with. Then you want to deny the sever sectarianism in Islam where muslim are not even willing to accept other muslims in their tent. Bahai's wanted to be in the tent and they were dumped out unceremoniously and many were killed and are still being killed in Iran. Ahmeddiyas wanted to be in the tent and they were ejected and have been facing the wrath of the "true" muslims. You wrote about Hajj. Ahmeddiyas who say they believe in Allah, and they accept that Muhammad was Allah's prophet but they still are not allowed into mecca or medinah. Pakistan puts on their passports under their religion as Ahmeddiya and not islam.

Eboo you cannot muddle the facts by trying to create new races of Catholic, Protestent, Muslim, Hindus, etc.

Eboo writes: "Why does Kallen suggest in one sentence that it is easy to change your religion (Judaism), and in the next sentence that being a Jew is a matter of ancestry and heritage, no matter what your spiritual beliefs may be?"

Eboo you keep making the same mistake again and again. I guess it is because your Quran makes it consistently. You conflate jews and judaism. Here is "who is a jew" take for wikipedia for example:
*******************
Generally, in modern secular usage, Jews include three groups: people who practice Judaism and have some Jewish ancestral background or lineage (sometimes including those who do not have strictly matrilineal descent); people without any Jewish ancestral background or lineage who have formally converted to Judaism and are melding into an established Jewish community; and those Jews who, while not practicing Judaism as a religion, still identify themselves as Jewish by virtue of a lineage and their own cultural and historical identification with the Jewish people.
***********************

Come one man, you can grasp that much!! The rest of your article is baloney based upon not grasping this simple fact.

Then you follow the same switch and bait tactic you seem to excel at:

"To call oneself a Jew, a Muslim or a Catholic simply means that you have chosen to enter a big tent with millions of other people who call themselves the same. It says nothing about which circle you stand in inside that tent."

That is patently false. Jew is treated as a "race" or as an ethnicity. There is no convention of treating Muslim or Catholic as a race or ethinicity. There is no convention of using Muslim or Catholic as an ethnicity or race by anyone I know. Please provide that usage by any reputable writer. Let me make that clear for you. Sammy Davis Jr. was an African American who had converted to judaism. He called himself a jew because of his beliefs and not because of his "race". Richard Gere calls himself jewish because of his "race" and a buddhist because of his beliefs.

Now ibn Warraq uses the word "cultral muslim" to distinguish between beliefs. He considers himself a cultral muslim because he does not believe that the Quran is divine or Muhammad any thing special. Cultral Muslims are those who no longer say the Shahada or believe in the tenets of Islam but still hold on to the culture of the predominant muslim region where they grew up.

You are trying to create a new usage for the words Muslim and Catholic without any real precedent, and without the history that led to the usage of "jew" as a race and as a religion. You need 2000 years of wandering and discrimination and having many jews converting to acheive that. Muslims and Catholics do not have that history.