Religion as a Black Market for Irrationality

An interesting description of how people come to believe something. I wonder how often this is true. I offer myself as a case where it wasn't so. As an atheist I did want to believe in God, particularly the God of Christianity (who wouldn't?), however I fail on all the other steps.

How about a steps of deconversion? How many atheist really deconvert for rational reasons, considering how many describe the process in emotional terms?

Extremely well put. I have had a lot of arguments with people who fail to use reason and live their lives in the hope of a better life in "heaven" while showing gross dysfunction in this one. How sad. But they love it, it makes them feel great to be praying to an imaginary daddy because they feel full of sin without this illusion. They send thousand of dollars to their church even though they owe twice as much in credit card debt that their church friends charged after they borrowed the cards because of a need . How noble to be stupid and foolish. But you should help your fellow believer even though they take advantage of you. How holy. Great article Sam.

A very insightful essay.

"As is well known, such cognitive gymnastics can be greatly facilitated by the presence of others...."

Thus the well know Christian phrase: "where two or more are gathered in his name....".

How to Believe in Notheism (as opposed to Monotheism)

Six Easy Steps

1. First, you must want to reject the possibility of God.
2. Next, understand that rejecting this possibility in the absence of evidence is especially courageous (ejecting saliva upon 5000 years of religion is for darers).
3. Then, realize that the human ability to believe in God can easily be ridiculed by pointing to 'absence of evidence', and saying these words might itself constitute evidence for the non-existence of God. (If you have doubts about that, have no fear, just ascertain yourself that all believers are irrational stupidos, and you will immediately feel the relief, your self-satisfaction will be back).
4. Now consider any need for further evidence about your reasoning to be a form of temptation by stupidos, spiritually unhealthy, or a corruption of the scientistically motivated intellect.
5. Refer to steps 2-4 as acts of courage, as only atheists can possibly have it.
6. Return to 2.

Sam Harris is a master of the art of controversy. Along with Richard Dawkin's they form a formidable duo in the attack against religious perception and phenomena for the better. I think that a new consciousness of the comparitive theological anomalies which exist everywhere is long overdue. I respect these thinkers and I believe they represent a line of thought manifest through no less than Schopenhauer, Darwin, and the great theological/political thinkers of the past 250 yrs. I think the profundity which their message brings to the table is no less than true worldwide consciousness of the nature of religious workings. While they are profound opponents to the religious order, I still believe they help send a message of understanding of religious texts, and understanding of the applied nature of this exciting science of thought.

R.J. George

One of the ideas that seems to be driving Mr. Harris' argument is what is called evidentialism in the philosophical literature. Evidentialism is roughly the view that one is only justified (i.e. within their intellectual/rational/epistemic rights) in believing a proposition if that proposition is based on sufficient evidence. Mr. Harris obviously believes that belief in God is not based on sufficient evidence, and is therefore intellectually subpar at best (irrational at worst).

However, there are two problems with evidentialism. The first feeds into the second, so I will start with it. What exactly is evidence? What can count as evidence and what cannot? Does it have to be publicly accessible (i.e. if I have evidence for something, I should be able to share it and have others see it too)? Does it have to be strong enough to convince an impartial 3rd party in order to count as evidence? The reason I bring these up is that Mr. Harris may (I don't know exactly what his views on the matter are) have a high standard for what counts as evidence; it can't just be any willy-nilly reason (in fact, it has to be high enough to rule out mystical experience or intuition).

However (and this is the 2nd problem) what is the evidence for evidentialism? What publically accessible reasons can Mr. Harris provide (or can anyone provide) that can convince an impartial 3rd party that evidentialism is true? The challenge is this: if he has too high a standard for what counts as evidence (ruling out things like intuition or a priori aprehension), then his evidentialism more than likely will not meet this standard. However, if he lowers the standard in order to justify his evidentialism, then it loses its bite against religion.

Religious people should not tremble at his charge of irrationality until they see an evidentially justified evidentialism that actually has some bite.

Notwithstanding happy childhood memories of mine and others' beautiful Easter bonnets, frilly pink dresses, candy peeps, chocolate bunnies and green eggs and ham, there's no better way for me to spend my adult Easter than catching up on my reading of the truly inspired Sam Harris. Thanks Mr. Harris for rising above the imaginary to the real.

RfjK57 U cool ))

RfjK57 U cool ))

"Fatih" is not the antithesis of understanding (ie. processing of evidence). Faith/disbelief is (1) the credible/not credible evaluation of evidence, and (2) the "what does that mean" for evidence accepted as credible. Faith is not "circumventing reason," faith is the "therefore" based upon how we have "reasoned from evidence" the world to be comprised. Everyone has a "faith," and proceeds in "faith" that their understanding of the world (by evidence) is correct. Therefore, step 2 is a "straw man" that is not proposed by the Christian faith.

Hahha! That is brilliant, bravo!

Dr. Albert Ellis said that 95% of Americans are emotionally disturb. Multiple examples: divorce rate, crime, drugs, smokers, religion, etc. People are highly irrational. Maxie Maultsby, a Rational-Emotive psychotherapist, defines rational and irration with his criteria of rational thinking: Rational thinking is based on objective reality (give me the evidence), life preserving, goal producing, prevents unwanted personal conflict (anger, depression, anxiety, etc., and prevents unwanted environmental conflicts such as with people. A persons thinking should meet at least 3 of the 5 criteria. The primary criteria is evidence. Ask yourself why people end up in psychotherapy: they smoke too much, they suffer from obesity, they drive too fast, their not realizing their goals in life, their not feeling the way they want to, and they have too much conflict with others. Belief in God is irrational: no evidence of his existence, creates unwanted feelings and behavior (many religious people experience anger, guilt, fear, depression), and unwanted conflict with others. Irrational thinking individuals based their religious beliefs on feelings, not evidence. They can't offer any evidence but subjective opinions. Many people support their believes with feelings. "I feel it is right so it is right." Reason escapes them. How many people do you know that ask themselves if their thinking is based on evidence. Arguing over the existence of God is meaningless conversation and a waste of time. Religious individuals are not critical thinkers or logical thinkers. Many individuals think they are rational thinkers but it is unlikely. Rational thinking individuals feel the way they want to, are healthy (doesn't smoke, drink excessively, or eat excessively), realize their goals, and get along with people, and beliefs are based on objective reality. Rational person knows the difference between must and want, need and prefer. He knows awful and terrible doesn't exist. He knows that when he is angry or depressed he or she is thinking irrational. I find arguing with a religious person is a waste of time. Harris and others argue with religious scholars but they won't change their position. Like Nietzsche said, "Faith is not wanting to know." Religious people are driven by emotions, not evidence. Harris' arguments reveal the importance of evidence.

I am glad to find this forum !
http://unikont.com
So interesting there was that I fell asleep...

Hello! Good site!

Thank you!

Hello! Good site!

Thank you!

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Thanks again, Sam Harris.

Lapses in rationality occur in the dark. Having just completed a master's level course on gnosticism, I can tell you how true that is. But the problem is that many of the people who have those lapses know it. They believe they are better served by "intuition", something they believe can be divorced from the cognitive. It is the "feeling" that guides them--they do not trust rationality.

What can you say to such a person?

In fact, it's foolish to assume that a God doesn't exist. Interestingly, instead of accepting that a God exists and living the life he has given them, people choose to "believe," in a God - until it becomes irrational to do so. What does Christianity serve them? Nothing. Their "religions" are the black market for ALL irrationality.

post me back at princmos@excite.com

I love your reports and essays. They are enligthening,
Receive my congratulations
Professor Sylvia T. Herrera

Hi Father O'Marlowe,

I read your post, but I cannot agree with some of what you are saying. I would remind you that we are instructed to worship God with all our heart, mind, spirit and body. The Apostle Paul reasoned from the Scriptures numerous times in the book of Acts, and we are to renew our minds daily in the Word of God. He has called us to reason with Him and to meditate on what He says. In that way we will be true worshipers of God because we must worship God in spirit and in truth.Without an accurate knowledge of God we are open to all kinds of deceptions.

Thanks for your support!

Father O'Marlowe

Heavy stuff man.Beyond perceptive.

Hey Father O'Marshmallow, well bejasis, ye sound like an Irish priest, defrocked or is it unfrocked? and no wonder if ye're involved with the Catholic anathematised, demonised Ouspensky supernaturlaism?
When d'ye celebrate yer next black mass? And do you always get first go with the sacrificial virgin?

Harris left out one important part of how to believe in God (perhaps because it isn't relevant to the article or perhaps because it's stating the obvious). It's not as simple as WANTING to believe in God. Before that step, you must first have the ability to believe in God.

Yes and it is surely lovely to see the honest Christians here beating off the atheists with their ridiculous notion that there is no God the Father.
What sacrilege! What idiocy!
To atheists I say save yourselves before its too late.The end is nigh.Stop now with your silly logos.
It has no place in righteous souls..
Twas the devil himself who created the brain to undermind God's creation of the soul.
It is through the brain that Satan infects the mind with doubt and thoughts that suggest that there is no God. Weak minds can be overwhelmed by such devices,and confusion and anxiety can lead to 'thinking'. As the poet has said ,"The truth arrives when thinking stops".
Thoughts impede the truth. Ouspensky has said that with practice we can stop all thought;the necessary condition in which to observe God and His divine spirit.
Peter Huff and Thomas Baum prove this truth with their every utterance; thinking is anathema to true belief,and is a hindrance to seeing the actuality of Our Lord.
Keep up the God work boys.

Where are you reeling this carp in from Mr. Ken Mock? Which pool are you fishing from?

Through a process imprinting during early childhood development, your cortex is systematically contaminated with societal concepts to define for you the world as defined by said society...Sadly this contamination is difficult if not impossible to shake in later life...You can dupe yourself into thinking (intelectually) that you can rise above your roots, but in the end early imprinting wins out - when push comes to shove......

Thomasian Christianity and Buddhism are designed to help you escape this vortex of societal conceptual contamination so you can once again see [t]ruth...As Jesus said "an old man will look to a child of seven days"...The child of seven days represents pre-contamination before the ability to see truth was diluted or neutered....

I myself believe that only the occasional sage can pull this off and the rest of society will remain chained up in the [C]ave believing the shadows to be truth.........

Bernie Bee, you said,

"It can also be asked, with justification, who actually recorded what had happened if the only eyewitnesses were bribed to say otherwise?"

They were not the only eyewitnesses, and this is a sharp point made in the empty tomb narrative and later, the resurrection narratives. Word would undoubtedly circulate, as recorded in the Gospel accounts as to the Risen Lord and then the confirmation in His physical appearing to over 500 people, most of whom, at the time of writing were still alive.

But the Bible records women at the tomb with the guards, also at the time of the earthquake who would have reported the unusual circumstances.

"After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake...His appearance was like lightening, and his clothes were as white as snow. The guards were so afraid...The angel said to the women..." (Matthew 28:1-5)

So besides the guards, the women were there.

To continue your thoughts,

"And why did the Roman soldiers report to the Jewish chief priests instead of their own superior officers?

I'll let Frank Morison wrote "Who Moved the Stone?" as a reply to many of the skeptical questions, including his own, on what he thought was a myth, only to come away a believer reply,

"It was pointed out that it was an unheard of thing for soldiers, particularily Roman soldiers, to sleep at their post of duty; that even if they declared they had done so nobody would have believed them; and finally, that the reasons given for posting a guard at all were themselves highly improbable and belonging to a later and secondary epoch.
I accepted these statements at the time without question...[now Frank gives evidence to the contrary]But all the accounts are in fundamental agreement on two points:
1. Pilate was approached and gave permission for such a guard to be set.
2. The guard kept watch during the night preceding the visit of the women.
Now the reported approach to Pilate is extremely significant. The position of the Jews in relation to the remains of Jesus was peculiar and in a certain sense delicate. Although He was a Jew and had been prosecuted at the instance of the Jewish leaders, the punishment and sentence was Roman. Technically, the body of Jesus was Roman property and the disposal of it a Roman concern....Had the priests a strong incentive, or indeed any incentive at all, to concern themselves about the tomb of Christ?" p. 152, 153, 154, 155

"Now on the morrow, which is the day after the Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees were gathered together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest haply his disciples come and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: and the last error will be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, Ye have a guard: go your way, make it as sure as ye can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, the guard being with them (Matthew 27:62-66) p. 156

So in these Biblical accounts you have the reason for the posting of the guard and the reason for the cover up, in that if Jesus has risen from the dead, all that He preached and has been said is true, and He is who He said He was. That takes away worshipers from Judaism. It also creates a revolution in the Roman world of the time that could be thought of to have political implications and allegiance to One other than Caesar.

The point to be noted is that Christianity could have been squashed extremely fast if the Jewish or Roman authorities could have produced the dead body. Because they could not, they payed the guards to say that His disciples had stolen the body so that the resurrection accounts would not be taken as an actual historical physical resurrection, but as a myth.

"Can you bring yourself to see that there seems little doubt that the story is a later—as well as somewhat implausible—fabrication?"

No, can you?

I will not be able to respond, if you have any more questions until Sunday or Monday.

Hello Bernie Bee,

Thanks for the post. It is seldom that I do not detect a hidden agenda at undermining the Bible, but I sense that you are sincere in your questions, so I will do the best I can at answering them.

I don't know a lot about Herod the Great except that his Herodian dynasty roots emerged from the Hasmonean dynasty and Herod ruled in Israel from 37-4 B.C., and was an alleged convert to Judaism.

Here is what Craig L. Blomberg had to say about the infantcide,

"Thus, although there is no independent confirmation of the story in Matthew 2:16 of Herod ordering the massacre of the young children of Bethlehem, the account is entirely in keeping with his character and actions at the end of his time in office." Jesus and the Gospels, p. 20

So although it may seem unlikely to you that an historian such as Josephus did not record the massacre, to confirm its authenticity, the question would be two fold, how many boys aged two and younger were actually killed in Bethlehem and surrounding region, and how would you rate the Biblical account as an accurate historical document?

If Josephus did not research the Biblical accounts, what are the chances that he overlooked the massacre of a remote region comprising Bethlehem?

As for Herod's political motives, Matthew 2:2 gives reason for Herod wanting the death of Jesus to eliminate later rivalry to his throne.

The accuracy of the historical narratives have been attested to by many over the centuries. It is not until the 19 & 20th century liberal revisionists do we have the massive push to discredit the historicity of the Bible. That is an interesting study in itself.

However, the Biblical text does mention numerous political figures of the first century that secular historians and archaeological digs have confirmed existed.

But regardless of how people interpret the findings, 20 centuries removed, as a Christian I have the sure Word of God, who does not lie, to confirm the truth.

I will continue with your thread on the next post.

Peter, unlike Timmy I’m prepared to believe what you say with regard to your biblical-derived truth provided what you say is reasonable.

I mean I find it nigh impossible to follow the story where almost at the start there are anomalies such as where the writer of Mathew wants to fit in the ‘prophetic’ verse that is fulfilled after Jesus’ birth (presumably at home) so that he sends Joseph, Mary and Jesus into hiding in Egypt to escape from King Herod who has heard through “wise men from the east” that the “King of the Jews” has been born. This says Mathew is:
‘That it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, “Out of Egypt have I called my son”.

Herod then slaughters all the children of two years and under in Bethlehem and the surrounding area, “so that it might be fulfilled, according to the prophet Jeremiah”:
‘In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.’

Don’t you find the difficulty with this story is that however tyrannical Herod the Great might have been, he would not have got away with mass infanticide? The Romans would hardly have turned a blind eye to it and the people would certainly not have tolerated it. Moreover, there is absolutely no record of such an outrageous act anywhere in the history of the period, neither in Josephus (who carefully compiled a list of all Herod’s other crimes), nor anywhere else, not even in Luke. The general history of the period is quite well recounted and such a horrific deed would certainly not have gone unrecorded.
In any case, can you really believe that God would have permitted the birth of His Son to be heralded by such cruelty?

Also unique to the Mathew gospel is the interesting story and comment concerning the popular Jewish explanation of Jesus’ disappearance from the tomb. Mathew relates that after the crucifixion, when Jesus’ body had been placed in a sepulchre, the Roman guards first sit through an earthquake and then witness an angel of the Lord (whose countenance was like lightning and raiment white as snow) roll back the stone from the tomb and sit on it. According to the story, “they did shake, and become as dead men”. As well they might!

Jesus’ actual resurrection and exit from the tomb is not recounted. But at the conclusion of their watch the soldiers go into town and tell the chief priests what had happened. At this they are bribed with large sums of money to spread the story that Jesus disciples had come during the night and removed his body from the tomb, while they (the soldiers) slept. Mathew then adds, “And this saying (story) is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.”

Now quite apart from the unlikelihood of anyone accepting a bribe if they had just witnessed an obviously divine event, Mathew’s story is clearly told to counter the prevalent belief that Jesus’ body had disappeared from the tomb because some of the disciples had come and taken it. And his comment, that the story was related “until this day” presumes that a considerable period had elapsed between the supposed events and Mathew’s writing of them.

It can also be asked, with justification, who actually recorded what had happened if the only eyewitnesses were bribed to say otherwise? And why did the Roman soldiers report to the Jewish chief priests instead of their own superior officers?
Can you bring yourself to see that there seems little doubt that the story is a later—as well as somewhat implausible—fabrication?

Although only just two examples from the Holy Book that leave me floundering, I really would be thankful to know what you make of the foregoing.

Again, not an answer to my question Gerry. How do you know what is true Gerry? Are you the standard for truth?

They possessed what they thought is truth. You possess what you think is truth.

How could they have possessed truth Gerry? They went against the One who is true. Ethically speaking, we don't make truth up, we discover it by thinking God's thoughts after Him.

What was their standard for truth?

I agree with you Justin. Atheism is a complex belief system based on naturalism.

Evening Timmy,

When you say,

"One can choose to be 100% sure about anything if they want.
It's really quite easy. Just say it. And it is so."

Really! What would you base you 100% batting average on? Your own subjective opinion? Science? We know that science is a poor standard. How much will evolutionary science have changed in ten years? My God never changes. He is the same forever, plus He never lies.

"Why should I believe anything you have to tell me?"

I don't expect you too Timmy. Without the grace of God you conform exactly as He has said you would.

"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."

"the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful mind cannot please God." (Romans 8:7, 8)

The trend to me seems that atheists like to tout their 'religion' as one that is completely reasonable and, in fact, the only reasonable explanation. Naturalism is a faith in itself. It fails to explain the widely-accepted notion (by atheists and the religious) of the big bang. It cannot explain the Cambrian explosion. It can't explain the human need for relationships. It can't explain the initial creation of DNA. It can't explain the creation of complex protein machines such as the flagellum. And the list goes on. There is a lot of bad science out there. People are twisting science to support their own belief instead of looking at the evidence and using the most plausible explanation. It takes a lot of faith to believe there is no God.

Hitler was dead sure of German superiority. "Providence" asked him to invade countries, just like Bush.
Stalin was dead sure of communism. To create "paradise of justice" on earth, no price was too high.
Pol Pot was dead sure of his "revolution".
Saddam was dead sure of his dictatorship.
Bush is dead sure about his divine mission to wage aggressive wars, for which the German generals were hanged. They were as sure as Bush to possess the truth.

They all possessed truth.

A decisive element of human dignity is doubt, curiosity, question, development, process. That is life.

Possession of "truth" is death. Be careful with bragging about your possession of your truth, Peter. Even for you, there is no "truth" outside your brain!

Peter,

"I'm 100% sure that God exists."

One can choose to be 100% sure about anything if they want.
It's realy quite easy. Just say it. And it is so.

"Why should I believe anything you have to tell me?"

Back at you sir.

Morning Timmy,

My quote,

"Is that absolutely true Timmy? Or should I say, how sure are you of that Timmy?"

Your reply,

"As sure as you are of anything Peter."

I'm 100% sure that God exists.

"None of us are sure."

Are you sure of that last statement Timmy? How can you be? Then please do not include me in your irrationality.

"You are the only one claiming to be sure about anything."

No I am not. You just don't come in contact with people who are sure in your circle of friends. That is why you are the skeptic(s), never able to come to certainty about anything as you yourself have just admitted in writing. Why should I believe anything you have to tell me? Why should anybody? You don't know.

Well, there is a wealth of posts to respond to but no time today.

Thanks for the chat!

Thanks Gad, I am well aware of the Infidel Guy. I have listened to four or five debates between him and Christians. He has an agenda that he is promoting, but I will look at the article on my days off.

Thanks Timmy. Same here: I gave up religion years before I knew anything substantial about Darwin. I simply refused to cultivate a split brain: One for reality and one for obvious lies. Lies are the dominant factor of, among others, the present US administration, and it is no wonder that it is tightly connected to the champion liars of the Pat Robertsons and their ilk (Bush himself is even too stupid to realize that he is lying all the time). If people (voters, ha!) were not so damn socialized to accept any sort of lies, religious or other, the lie politics would be less successful.

Luther must have struggled with this problem from the bigot vantage point, otherwise he would not have condemned reason as the satanic arch-fiend of faith.

So please, nobody of the religious camp tell me they regard reason as a worthy tool! They use reason for sophistry, Peter Huff is a colorful example, but never for a realistic assessment. Never.

The famous "credo quia absurdum" of the church father means, properly translated: "I believe in lies (I add: and I am proud of it)". That is where we still stand today, alas.

Peter Huff,

"Rubbish, evolutionary science more than likely brought you to the conclusion that there is no God. "

Nice try, but Rubbish.
I didn't believe religion long before I even knew what evolution was.
Why?
Because, being an open minded person, I tried to find God with the help of a couple of different christian ministers. I remember the experience well. I was told all of the things that I needed to do find god including asking Jesus Christ to come into my heart. I did everything I was supposed to do, including having faith. I believed. My god Peter I can't tell you how much I faith I was able to summon up but it was a lot. I believed with shivers. I asked Jesus to come into my heart. Many many times. Nothing happened. No revelation. No reward of confirmation for my leap of faith. Just the same feeling I had always had. The minister of course tried to tell me that the feelings that I had always had are God and I would just have to believe that and never expect confirmation, and one day, God would confirm it for me. In the mean time I had to believe that God would punish me for masturbating. I was told to believe that my thoughts are god. So I do.

Here are my thoughts that I was told "are god".

Religion is man made for obvious reasons.
The Bible is not the word of God.
Anyone who claims to know anything about God is an impostor.
If God exists, he/it speaks directly to me and doesn't want me to believe what anyone else says about him without proof. God will let me know when someone is telling the truth. God let's me know what is right and wrong and doesn't want me to listen to anyone else about that. And God is emphasizing to me right now actually that I should especially not listen to Peter Huff. "He is one of those confused impostors that I told you about" says God.

God is telling me that those who are agnostic to the big question, and atheist to man made gods have it right. Follow your heart and rely on your reason. And most importantly, do what you can to help Peter Huff see the light and discard the bible and listen only to me. And know that he need not tell anyone else about me, because I speak to everyone directly and they don't need his interpretation of me.

So I do what I can.

For the literalist, a version of genesis:

In order to create the nearest neighboring star within the same week as the earth, god had to travel thousands of times faster than light. He then had to accelerate a little, say, to some billions times faster than light, create a few trillion stars in a hurry and than return to the Near East nomads home to relax for the weekend.

Where are the limits of ignorance? There aren't any!

Peter,

"Is that absolutely true Timmy? Or should I say, how sure are you of that Timmy?"

As sure as you are of anything Peter.
None of us are sure.
You are the only one claiming to be sure about anything.

Saturday, October 6, 2007: On "absolutes" and "relatives." I think this is a completely false dichotomy.

It's a completely false dichotomy because, to some extent, every "absolute" is also a "relative," and every "relative" is also an "absolute."

From the standpoint of everyday human experience, a diamond or a piece of granite rock is certainly an "absolute."

But, on the other hand, looked at under an electron microsope, both an apparently "solid" and "hard" and "immutable" and "unchangeable" diamond, and an apparently "solid" and "hard" and "immutable" and "unchangeable" piece of granite rock, are actually very much "mutable" (that is, changing and changeable), perforated (that is, filled with all kinds of open spaces and "holes"), and not so "hard" as we humans might have first thought if we had not looked at a granite rock or diamond under an electron microscope.

So, both a diamond and a piece of granite rock are simultaneously "relatives" and "absolutes."

There we are talking about a phenomenon in physical reality.

If we look at a phenomenon in social reality, we see something similar.

Supposedly, for instance, the Middle Ages of Europe were a very "solid" and "unchanging" period of time, in which the place of all men, women, and children, was "fixed" by the nature of the society. Each person had "his" or "her" "place" in the social and economic and political and religious "scheme of things."

But, in reality, this supposedly unchanging and "immutable" situation was imbued and suffused in its core "being" by a kind of molecular change which, at first, was too slow to perceive.

However, eventually, the change "sped up," and then, in the period of the Renaissance, and later, the Enlightenment, and then, in the period of the democratic revolutions, we saw this "speed-up" of change become much, much, much faster, until it literally exploded the entire kind of Middle Ages-based society apart, and replaced it by a more modern capitalistic sort of society.

Again, looking at the Middle Ages from the standpoint of history -- which means, looking at it from the standpoint of a developmental sort of perspective in which change is inherent to the perspective itself, -- we see that the notion that in the Middle Ages, everything was "unchanging" was an illusion. It was appearance. But underneath the appearance, the reality was quite different.

Again, this means that here, an "absolute" was also a "relative" and a "relative" an "absolute." But each was the other at a different moment or point in history. That is the point.

--Allan Greene
a/k/a tompaine1917@yahoo.com
a/k/a ag_1863@hotmail.com

Thanks, Gad! After reading this article, I can refer to religion in these days only as an institutionalized effort to keep as many people as stupid as possible. Of course, it was the major purpose of monotheistic religions from the very outset. ("Tree of knowledge", forbidden!)

And it works, alas.

And my last remark to Peter Huff: Is there any nonsense, paradox, self-contradiction imaginable which can NOT be "proven" by the bible? I don't think so. The knee jerk reaction of the faithful: God can do anything. Where nonsense dominates all thinking, bolstered even by "moral" claims, nonsense cannot be falsified. Think about it, if you can.

Where did the water of the flood come from, god opened the windows of heaven and drained the firmament of course!

I highly recommend this article, it is well worth the read.

http://www.infidelguy.com/heaven_sky.htm

Inquisition - heliocentric system - Galilei/Bruno etc.

Peter Huff etc. - science - atheists/agnostics.

With the sole difference (hopefully!):
We are out of your reach to be burned at the stake.

Since Einstein had such an extremely low opinion of human intelligence, mankind will have to wait at least another 350 years until "creationism" is finished.

The evolutionary box is the only one that is NOT magic.

But you will stay with the herd, as you so well described. Good luck.

BTW: I am an artist, not a scientist.

Gerry, Gerry,

You are confusing me with Charles. We are two separate people.

When you say,

"An atheist develops his ideas by thinking for himself without being told. Nobody ever, ever told me NOT to believe in Christianity. It was a pretty long process, btw."

Rubbish, evolutionary science more than likely brought you to the conclusion that there is no God. You've been swimming with the school of mudcats all this time. Sorry I mistook you for a herd dweller, not realizing you hadn't made it out of the water yet. (It's a joke Gerry, maybe a poor one, but nevertheless, a joke).

Gerry, ideas are influenced. You have heard, read and been taught enough about evolutionary science that you are stuck in that magic box. You cannot think outside of it to test any other hypothesis. I can't blame you for that. It is deceivingly believable to most people.

"Your circular reasoning is almost amusing: "The divine scriptures prove that the scriptures are divine". And you think I should buy something like this?"

So is your evolutionary science: Science assumes that evolution is true to prove that evolution is true. In other words, you use science to prove science is true. It's pretty hard not to get involved in circular reasoning. In order to prove something is logical, you have to use logic. Therefore, you use the very thing you are trying to prove.

"Do you really believe that the Grand Canyon was dug out by the biblical flood? Pretty couragious idea: Where did all the water come from? From Turkey to Arizona? Remember, the earth was still flat at that time, lol! Unbelievable."

I do believe the Grand Canyon was a result of the global flood. Do you want to know where the water came from? The Bible tells us, but then I'm sure you do not want me to quote Scripture, do you? And yes, unbelievable to you because you refuse to think outside your evolutionary magic box.

Take care and have a great weekend Gerry! Unfortunately I'm working this weekend.

Is that absolutely true Timmy? Or should I say, how sure are you of that Timmy?

Peter,

"You can't Gerry. Neutrality is a myth."

Like moral absolutes.

Charles Huff,

no, I don't believe in the supernatural.

Nature is infinitely "super - ior" for me, and the god idea is plausible, but in reality dimensions inferior and more primitive as to what miracles, secrets - and "revelations" nature has in stock for us.

God is a man-made transitional concept mirroring human attributes like love, revenge, hatred, murder, forgiveness, reward, trade, sometimes even justice, but preferably the more dark side of these attributes (genocide, e.g.). Nature belittled. The god concept serves to explain what at a given time is unknown - yet. Interesting that you for the first time even speak of religion adapting to modern times - hark!

Thor was the god of thunder, and the present Christian god is a wildly discussed political compromise arranged towards the end of the 4th century (Arians, Athanasians etc.). The "trinity" concept arrived at at this occasion doesn't make the slightest intelligent sense to anybody, and I have never heard any definitions by believers other than illogical blather, which has been learned "phonetically" (I remember!) by people when they were children.

You would have a hard time showing me where I contradicted myself in all these posts. I know very well what I am talking about and what I have been talking about.

No Christian can develop a Christian idea without being told extensively, logically. Or did you invent Christianity all by yourself?

An atheist develops his ideas by thinking for himself without being told. Nobody ever, ever told me NOT to believe in Christianity. It was a pretty long process, btw.

Your circular reasoning is almost amusing: "The divine scriptures prove that the scriptures are divine". And you think I should buy something like this?

Do you really believe that the Grand Canyon was dug out by the biblical flood? Pretty couragious idea: Where did all the water come from? From Turkey to Arizona? Remember, the earth was still flat at that time, lol! Unbelievable.

Gerry,

You defeat your own arguments every time you post. Examine what answers you are given first please.

You say: Nobody ever channelled me into any way of thinking as opposed to you. Nobody taught me my "world view", even if this seems impossible to people like you who have been brainwashed from their childhood onward. I don't "borrow" my ideas: I developed them as irrefutable all by myself, something you will never be able to unserstand, having been wired the way you are.

Answer: Most Christians have also developed their own ideals on their faith and have also "developed them as irrefutable all by" themselves. Of course we can understand.

You also say: Don't you finally understand that no bible quotation proves anything except that it is a quotation from a bronze age collection of writings by dozens and dozens of contradicting superstitious authors, which was, (and unfortunately still is, q.e.d.), the norm in those days?

Answer: Modern religion is too the archaic forms the same as is science. I could use your own quote with regards to scientific enquiry. Of course it is still relevant as the basis for our continued growth and understanding. Just as man once believed that "humors" defined their world (based on then present science), today we know that to be false.

Many christians have no problem accepting the bible as a guide, divinely inspired to help us see the truth of God's message. of course it was filtered through the societal and personal bias of the times because ALL men/women are creatures of the times and philosophy of their times and we are taught that each is flawed. God wants us to CHOOSE him over any other path and so we have free will.

Just look at the scientific arguments of nature vs. nurture. You too are part of this cycle and are defined by what you have studied (did you really do all the experiments yourself or do you rely on experts?), the people you surround yourself with (you obviously would never feel comfortable with some of the other posters as companions), and the city, state, country that you live in (the laws that define your sense of right and wrong).

Nobody ever channelled me into any way of thinking as opposed to you. Nobody taught me my "world view", even if this seems impossible to people like you who have been brainwashed from their childhood onward. I don't "borrow" my ideas: I developed them as irrefutable all by myself, something you will never be able to unserstand, having been wired the way you are.

OK then, I sure hope that your "eternal truth" will be more and more unmasked as a scheme to suppress people's minds, of which you are such a splendid example.

I cannot be neutral if the question of reality vs. superstition is at stake: I choose reality and honesty, not fake and make belief. No neutrality there.

Vast parts of your article could have been written by me, concerning your herd thinking, by just changing a few words. Don't you even realize that you have just described your own limitations by accusing me of it? Example:

(Your words): "...channeled just as you have been channeled into your way of thinking. It is difficult to break away from the herd mentality when you are living with the herd, day after day."

I don't have any herd around, as opposed to you, the herd mentality seems to be your professional surrounding. I have just very few good friends, and we have other topics to discuss, like art, music, attention, learning, perception, communication, languages, pedagogy, history, politics (also US politics, alas.)

Don't you finally understand that no bible quotation proves anything except that it is a quotation from a bronze age collection of writings by dozens and dozens of contradicting superstitious authors, which was, (and unfortunately still is, q.e.d.), the norm in those days?

One other thought Gerry,

When you say,

"Of course I am not neutral! Why should I?"

You can't Gerry. Neutrality is a myth.

Oklahoma norm, please define good and tell me where your standard comes from and why you can be absolutely certain that it is good?

Ever considered that what Sam Harris is doing is bad and detrimental to society? If you haven't then you are stacking the cards and they are not neutral.

There again Gerry, you completely discard anything supernatural, but your worldview cannot explain the very things you use and take for granted every day, such as how you can obtain "good" without and absolute standard, how logic comes from a chance beginning (i.e. intelligence from non-intelligence), how living beings come from non-living matter (basically how we get uniformity of nature such as natural laws, that work from a blind, chance, random beginning. Why should they continue to work tomorrow as they have in the past and present?), how you can have certainty in knowing anything is true without an absolute, objective, ultimate standard (and what that standard is), how to explain the origins of life.

So your worldview is shaky in its analysis of reality. You simply do not have the answers.

Then, as an atheist, you look at the evidence with your rosy colored glasses on that prevents you from seeing reality in the color it really is.

God has given use abundant evidence to His existence, but the Bible says the fool has said in his heart that there is no God. (Psalms 14:1) The Bible is an historical document that reveals God's dealings with mankind. The names, places, cultures have been confirmed over and over again. Your revisionist historians who are twenty centuries removed from the actual times and documents have planted the seeds of doubt in your mind. They have as much bias as you admit that you have by saying you are not neutral.

You borrow your ideas from a myriad of subjective opinions, all the while counting them as true with no means of certainty as to their validity.

Your number one god, evolutionary science, is a monster, constantly evolving. What is true one day is discovered to be false the next. The geological table, as proposed by Charles Lyell cannot be seen in the real world. Darwinian evolution has also "evolved", punctuated equilibrium is now in favor. Your dating methods are in question and so are your transitional links. As for fossils themselves, the reason you have so many fossils buried in rock layers throughout the earth is best explain by catastrophic events, or as the Bible reveals, the Great Flood. You refuse to look at the evidence from this perspective because you would have to release your highly prised presuppositions. Louis Pasteur has shown the absurdity of life arising from non-life. Events that Darwin witnessed on the Galápagos Islands do not show transitions between kinds, but only adaption within the kind.

Then you have the irreducible complexity in simple living organisms. To think that these organisms could spring to life without numerous systems all functioning together is hard to fathom. Take away any one of these complex systems and you do not have a living organism. Just looking at the design of a DNA molecule shows the complexity and intelligibility of a grand design.

As for your children thinking for themselves, they have been channeled just as you have been channeled into your way of thinking. It is difficult to break away from the herd mentality when you are living with the herd, day after day. I'm sure they are smart, intelligent children, nevertheless they still filter everything through the worldview they have learned, as I am sure you are too.

As for Christianity or the Bible being a fairy tale, these mythical religions that atheists say Christianity built from do not faintly resemble Christianity and atheists would be extremely hard pressed to demonstrate such. Christianity has its source in the Old Testament. There is a unity between the testaments that prophesy, for one, confirms.

http://tektonics.org/copycat/raglan.html

I have answered the question you posed, you just chose not to accept my answer,

"You haven't answered the question I posed above: Both the criminal atheists and the criminal believers in their wars "knew" what is good."

"All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." (Romans 3:12)

How did the criminal atheist "know" what is good? From the posts on this and other forums I very rarely find an atheist sticking his/her neck out and saying that they can know anything with absolute certainty. Unless you presuppose God as that absolute, objective standard what is your standard for affirming any absolutes or knowing any certainties?

As for the believer, his/her knowledge of "good" would have to conform to God's revelation for him/her to know for certain that what he/she calls good is actually good.

Ahh! Sam and Christopher, the "Good Cop / Bad Cop" of, shall we say, since Sam has suggested dropping the use of the label "Atheism," "Profound Religious Skepticism."
At this time, I'm taking a 4 unit class at CSU San Bernadino, Palm Desert. Its title is "Myth and Epic." One of the course texts is "The Power of Myth," the text of a dialogue that between the anthropologist, Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers.
The fact that Moyers graduated from a Baptist theological seminary, in Texas with a BA in Divinity and became an ordained minister did not seem to disqualify him from the sensitive role of directing the converstation between the two men.
But that's not my point. My point is that it is plain to see how primitive mans' irrational faith in the primitive myth that he devises has led in an unbroken line to the irrational beliefs of modern man in modern religion. Best, Russ Hoburg

Sam Harris is doing more good for humanity than all the theologian in the world. Thank you Sam!

As to the moral of my children:

If I would demand that they start "believing" - or else! - they would put me under tutelage - I would lose their respect completely.

Of course I am not neutral! Why should I? If someone tells me a story which has very lttle resemblance to reality, to put it politely, and even demands that I believe it, I am completely "biased" to discard it!

I have two wonderful children who have learned to think for themselves, who are not depending on fear and reward in a fictitious afterlife but who are highly moral, successful and widely respected personalities. They have learned to easily look through the power play which is religion from the very start, and they do their share to dismantle it successfully. And I am proud of them: They just know what is good both for themselves and for others.

It has been said so many times by Mr. Mark, Duckphup, Chip and others, that we don't need the crutch of fairy tales to know what is good.

You haven't answered the question I posed above: Both the criminal atheists and the criminal believers in their wars "knew" what is good. All four groups were great patriots, defending their "absolute good". All groups were "told" what is good, just like you. What I strongly reject is the notion of people proseytizing their god joker to prevent people from thinking for themselves.

Hi Gerry,

I find your argument hard to understand. You seem to be mixing categories. Nevertheless, David summed it up better than I could in the illustration you previously gave. There is none good, but God. Absolutes come from God. So when you say,

"What is an "absolute good" for one side is an "absolute bad" for the other. Both may be equally patriotic - which is supposed to be an "absolute good"."

Why are you arguing for absolutes? Do you actually believe there are such things? If so, you are in the minority of atheists that I have spoken to, so what is your moral standard for measuring good? Tell me that.

Your statement below,

"The "atheist Nazis" went to war with the "atheist communists". Which ones are the "absolute good" ones?"

Neither.

"When the pious Christian protestants went to war (30 years' war) with the pious Christian catholics, which ones are the "absolute good ones"?"

Neither.

"Your idea of absolute morals, even derived from the bible, Quran or any other "Revelation" (in quotation marks, please note"!) has crumbled like a card house."

No it has not, and it is derived from the Bible. I do not look to other religious books as anything more than false teaching, with enough truth mixed in to lead people astray.

"It is too bad that people like Peter Huff and others don't have the intellectual courage and intellectual honesty to abandon their prejudices, based on superstition."

Thanks for your comments Gerry. Spoken from someone who, in his mind, is truly unbiased and fair on his assessments. I can tell from your language that there is no bias in you. You are totally neutral and objective.

"What's worse, they most probably teach children to think along their inconsistent (to say the least very politely) ideas."

I'm sure no more than you do to your children Gerry. "Daddy, where do values come from that we may know that something is truly good?" "Child, we make them up, each to his own preference. We call them as we see them!"

Sorry for the sarcasm, I use it to illustrate a point and because I find the atheist position amusing. They talk about "good" but their standard is subjective and shifting.

October 4, 2007: I am an atheist, but I think that both those people who are religious who somehow think that it's bad ideas that cause people to do bad actions, and those atheists who think that it's bad ideas that cause people to do bad actions, are mistaken.

I think people do what we conventionally call, immoral or unethical or bad actions, pretty much contingent on and conditional on the sorts of material realities in which they originate, are born, and live. In that sense, I think material reality does, indeed, "determine," if you will, not only the bad ideas people have about material reality, but the bad actions they may come to do.

What is very characteristic of America and, to some extent, America's junior partner, England, is this moralizing concept that places the "cart" before the "horse" in philosophy. It has the "cart" pulling the "horse," rather than the other way around. But if we're to look at the origins of ideas in a right-side up way, not an upside down way, it seems to me we ought to place the material reality within which ideas originate underneath and at the basis of whatever kinds of ideas we're talking about. It also seems we ought to place the material reality within which people are born and live underneath and at the basis of the kinds of actions they do.

This view today is no longer a popular view in America. It used to be more popular in the period of the 1930s. Even earlier than that, when such a great American lawyer as Clarence Darrow could say that, for instance, material reality causes crime, the kind of political liberalism espoused by Darrow, at least in my mind, got it right. But today, it's more popular to moralize when, in reality, what we're all losing sight of is the underlying nature of the kind of material reality in both America and on the planet that is feeding into the enhanced craziness of the lives of humankind both internationally, and here in America.

That underlying material reality has been a long time developing. But we're never going to get anywhere unless we begin focusing on it, rather than on the purely idea-based superstructure, the ideological superstructure, the surface phenomena, of the conflicts over ideas.

Ideas and the conflict over them are fine up to a point. But the conflict over ideas ultimately has to get to a point of becoming a conflict of modes of human practice and modes of human action.

Otherwise, everybody's simply yapping, and nothing is developing in terms of concrete good actions and good practices out of all that yapping.

--Allan Greene

October 4, 2007

I am an atheist. But in my view, there is a fatal flaw in thinking that the source of bad practice is bad ideas. In my view, it reverses the place of "cart" and "horse." It places the "cart" "pulling" the "horse," rather than having the "horse" "pull" the "cart."

Bad ideas have an impact, but only contingent on and conditional on material realities within which such bad ideas originate. There is, within given realities, a limitation to the extent to which bad ideas can have an impact if said material realities are such as to inhibit them from having such an impact.

Both devoutly religious people who think human moral practice follows from being religious on the one hand, and those kinds of atheists who think also in their own way that human moral practice follows from "good ideas," make the same mistake. They ignore the underlying kind of material reality in the context of which such humans live and operate.

--Allan Greene

You are so good!
No need for me to comment: you said it all.
And I enjoyed it.

~K

TO PETER HUFF: Concerning your post of 10-1-2007 at 11:34 PM, I made some comments on 10-2-2007 at 2:27 PM. Remember God is God, we aren't and God the Trinity has a Plan and has had His Plan since before creation. Creation itself is part of God's Plan, remember night is coming when no man can work, be ready. The dawning of the seventh day will get here too. Take care, see you in the Kingdom. God wins, satan loses, a tie is unacceptable. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

You can substitute the boxing parable by "nations" or "religions" or "tribes".

What is an "absolute good" for one side is an "absolute bad" for the other. Both may be equally patriotic - which is supposed to be an "absolute good".

The "atheist Nazis" went to war with the "atheist communists". Which ones are the "absolute good" ones?

When the pious Christian protestants went to war (30 years' war) with the pious Christian catholics, which ones are the "absolute good ones"?

Your idea of absolute morals, even derived from the bible, Quran or any other "Revelation" (in quotation marks, please note"!) has crumbled like a card house. It is too bad that people like Peter Huff and others don't have the intellectual courage and intellectual honesty to abandon their prejudices, based on superstition. What's worse, they most propably teach children to think along their inconsistent (to say the least very politely) ideas.

Steve Cornell,
You are like a man who, finding in the forest a book labelled "The Origin Of Species", cannot accept that it is the work of an intelligent designer.

When people like Timmy ask questions such as,

"But Peter there are 2 billion of them. How do you know that you are right and they are wrong?"

There are many reasons, but to boil it down, God's word is truth and conforms to what is real. So we are not going to agree.

In the questions Timmy posted, again the standard is the Word of God.

BTW, are his figures of 2 billion Muslims the most recent poll?

http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html

Hello David,

I have read some of his books. Way back in the late 1980's, early 1990's I read his book, A Shattered Visage, The Real Face of Atheism, and Can Man Live Without God, along with Henry & John Morris, The Long War Against God. Excellent reading in tracing how some of this thinking came about. I will look out for that teaching on his website. I have not read his new book on Atheism yet.

Someone you might be interested in is Greg Bahnsen, Pushing the Antithesis, or Cornelius Van Til. You can find some of their writing on the web.

One of the Christian/Atheist debates was between Greg Bahnsen and Gordon Stein in which Gordon Stein was totally inadequate in defending Atheism and the case for the non-existence of God. It's a classic audio that you can also find on the web. James White also has a sharp mind for apologetics.

Also R. C. Sproul has excellent teachings @,

http://www.ligonier.org/rym.php

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0801099382/ref=sib_dp_pt/105-5249011-9950825#reader-link

Take care my brother in Christ Jesus! Thank you for the chat!

Peter,

Thanks for the link. I'm gonna check it out tonight when I have a little more time. I always appreciate suggestive readings. If you wouldn't mind I would suggest something as well that really developed my faith and also gave me some insight on how to defend Christ. There is an apologist named Ravi Zacharias. This guy is brilliant. He has a CD called "Truth". It is one of the best sermons I've heard in a long time, especially dealing with absolute truths and the embodiment of Truth which is Jesus. I learned a lot of philosophy from this man and his teachings and how to root out the illogic in today's secular society. I never did realize how illogical atheism really was until I listened to Ravi. Great guy and great teachings. Just a suggestion if you ever get around to it.

Take care my friend.

God bless

Timmy,

I'll give you an A for effort, but your wasting valuable surf time arguing with automatons!

Rejecting "aprez moi le deluge" in favor
of the article of faith, (since there is
no scientific basis basis for it) that
assuring the continued long term survival
of human civilization at its best is our
highest goal seems to be of no concern to
Sam. Science may trace the origin of this
faith to evolution, but that does not alter
its status as faith.

Is homosexuality good or bad? What is the moral absolute?
Is condom use good or bad? What is the moral absolute?
Is pre-marital sex good or bad? What is the moral absolute?
Is marijuana use good or bad? What is the moral absolute?
Is showing cleavage good or bad? What is the moral absolute?
Is wearing lipstick good or bad? What is the moral absolute?
Are women and men equal in stature? What is the moral absolute?
Is owning 2 homes and three boats good or bad? What is the moral absolute?

What is the definition of mission impossible?
Find 5 Christians of different denominations who agree on all of these moral absolutes.
Find five Christians of different denominations who even believe that there are moral absolutes.

Good luck.

Hi David,

Here is something that you may find interesting. I found it on Gene Cook Jr's Unchained Radio website for today. Wednesday's are entitled "Atheistic Wednesday" in which the subject of atheism is discussed. Gene has had some good debates with atheists in the past.

Click on,

http://tnma.blogspot.com/

Then copy the web link "Cruel Logic" and watch the short movie.

"As for his position of moving to Afghanistan and living with the Taliban, they do not believe in the same God that we do"

But Peter there are 2 billion of them. How do you know that you are right and they are wrong?

"although they do have the sense to recognize that there are moral absolutes"

Exactly. 2 billion muslims believe in a different moral absolute than you. And 3000 christian sects also believe in different moral absolutes than you do. Some believe that gay marriage is good. Some believe it is bad. And they are all christians. Some believe that condom use is good, and some believe that it is bad. And they are all christians. Which one is right David/Peter?

Your moral absolute exists only in your own head dude.

When all of these people have the "good sense" to recognize that there are moral absolutes, but they all have different versions of these moral absolutes, where is the moral absolute?

Well there's one in Davids head.
There's another similar but slightly different one in Peter Huff's head, and so on, and so on, and so on, until somewhere along the line, people realize that there is no moral absolute that anyone can agree on, and this realization results in democracy, as opposed to the tyranny of one version of the mortal absolute.

Part of the problem with this conversation is that you both make the same mistake in assuming that the rest of us live in the world inside your head, as opposed to the world of reality.

Timmy,

Sorry, but I'm done with our conversation. Best to you.

Gerry, I believe your boxing analogy needs a bit of specification. We are talking about moral absolutes and I'm not quite sure how that fits in to your analogy of a good boxer or a bad boxer. Are you asking if the boxer who ko'd the other person is a good or bad person? And based on what? Boxing skills? First thing I would like to acknowledge is that Christians do not believe anyone is "good". We are all bad, no matter how well the left hook is... :) Our standard of measure of good or bad is the moral law that represents the perfection of our Lord Jesus. None can and none will ever keep that moral law perfectly, therefore when measuring "goodness" we measure "goodness" based on perfection. Are you perfect? I'm not, no one is and therefore no one is good. It's not relative that no one is good, it's absolute based upon what we measure "goodness" with. We measure it with perfection. How do you measure "goodness"?

Peter,

Thanks again. I feel like coming on the "Sam Harris show" on this thread is like stepping into the lion's den, huh? But we know how that turned out. Take care my friend.

In Christ,

David

Hi Craig,

You said,

"Sam Haris is a national treasure. People like Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Michelle Goldberg, to name but a few, do a great service for all of humanity. I admire their courage to express their honest thoughts. Their fight against ignorance, hate, bigotry, makes them all public benefactors."

There again, your view of them as wise, loving, unbiased in contrast to ignorant, hateful and bigoted is not neutral either, just as their's is not. They have an agenda to promote their particular brand of philosophy as the one that makes the most sense. The reason you judge them this way is because you agree with what they have to say, not because they are wise, loving and unbiased.

You are putting your faith in people who are not all wise oromnibenevolent or objective, to make sense out of this world.

Gerry, you said,

"What about the two boxing couples? Which one of the two has the absolute of good and bad? The atheists or the believing? Both judge good and bad differently, not absolute."

There again, you are assuming that two people pounding each others brains with their fists can be good, as long as you have a winner. Your option is either A or B. In this case neither A nor B.

Sam Harris is a national treasure. People like Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Michelle Goldberg, to name but a few, do a great service for all of humanity. I admire their courage to express their honest thoughts. Their fight against ignorance, hate, bigotry, makes them all public benefactors. They give hope to a world that has increasingly gone "mad."

What about the two boxing couples? Which one of the two has the absolute of good and bad? The atheists or the believing? Both judge good and bad differently, not absolute.

Hi David,

Again, Timmy's logic is way out there. He is trying to make sense of this world while denying moral absolutes. To him, truth is what he says truth is, good is what he deems good in his eyes.

As for his position of moving to Afghanistan and living with the Taliban, they do not believe in the same God that we do, although they do have the sense to recognize that there are moral absolutes. Unfortunately, they are confused as to what they are. As you pointed out before, they have concluded A, therefore A is the truth.

Just because people do not recognize His absolute standard does not negate that it is there. One day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Until that day people will continue to suppress the truth.

Thanks for your kind words. Blessings in Christ Jesus the Lord!

Gerry says,

"Faith is irrational by definition: If I know, I don't have to believe: I know!"

Are you absolutely sure of that Gerry? You know on what grounds?

"So what's wrong with 2+2=5?"

It is not consistent with what is real. Believe it if you will, but good luck operating on such a belief.

"Yes I do live in a world with moral absolutes. The problem is that the world does not obey them. See the logic yet?"

No.
If the world does not obey them, then you don't live in a world with moral absolutes. Unless you live inside your head. This is the only place where these moral absolutes you speak of exist.

Oh no wait. There is a place where god's moral absolutes exist in the real world, not just in peoples heads. The Taliban still control a few villages in Afghanistan. Also in the remote tribal regions of Pakistan there are villages where God's moral absolutes are followed to the letter of the law. I find it hard to believe that you wouldn't have moved there by now. People live exactly how you suggest we all live. By God's moral authority alone.

Have you ever thought about moving there?
If no. Why not?
Sounds like paradise if you are someone who thinks that everyone should live by God's absolute moral authority. It makes no sense at all for you to live in a heathen secular democracy when there are places where you can live among people who believe exactly as you do. God's moral law is absolute.

I will understand if you are unable to answer this question.
It's a tough one.

Hi David,

Forgive me for butting in. I wanted to add my two cents, for what it is worth.

Timmy said,

"You need closure and absolutes so desperately and they're just not ever coming for you. And yet I have no pity, cause your kind of a dink."

Proverbs 9:7-9 says,

"Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult; whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse. Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you. Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning."

There is a point where I refuse to debate any longer with certain individuals, but continue to post on these forums to show the inconsistency of any position that denies the God of the Bible. My hope is that God will use it to to His glory by opening eyes to the truth of His Word. I understand why Timmy is like he is, because God, in His word has revealed such matters.

God makes it perfectly clear in His word, that men are seeking to define good in an exercise of their own alleged autonomy, so I don't get frustrated when someone refuses to believe as Timmy contends we do?

Again his statement, "morals are subjective"
shows that he can never come up with a moral belief that is consistent and valid for all people, so he is never certain whether his values and the values of his collective group are "good." We, on the other hand, have a belief that does not depend on our subjective opinion, but on God's objective standard. We can make sense of "good."

He said,

"Still waiting for an answer about the little boy raping priests.
Why did the moral absolute of God not work there?
How will it ever work?"

My suggestion would be Romans 1:18, as a starter.

Peter Huff: "I have never alleged that 2 + 2 = 5. That would be totally irrational." (!!!)

Faith is irrational by definition: If I know, I don't have to believe: I know! So what's wrong with 2+2=5?

Just for the prison ratio: Of course the statistical 1:50 is AFTER considering the population ratio!

Can you imagine I had this idea, too?

Peter Huff,

I just read your last post. Well done. I appreciate the expansion on relatives and absolutes. I know I'm merely playing the argumentative role and it's very appreciative to include examples from your viewpoint as well. I think the biggest question for atheists is what you asked. If morals are subjective, then how do you know what is good and bad? I'm sure you have heard of a logical fallacy that entails that the majority of people conclude A, therefore A is the truth. This is a typical logical fallacy by atheists.

Anyway, thanks for the input. I enjoy these conversations, but of course it does require a certain amount of respect as an individual to engage in these arguments, which is something I am not recieving from the disrespectful Mr. Timmy. Therefore, I'll just drop it.

Take care Peter,

God bless you brother.

Timmy,

Thanks for calling me a "dink" and "crazy". Obviously by those remarks you have indeed stooped to a level that cannot win an argument.

Yes I do live in a world with moral absolutes. The problem is that the world does not obey them. See the logic yet?

"Still waiting for an answer about the little boy raping priests.
Why did the moral absolute of God not work there?
How will it ever work?"

Again, you've proven it to yourself that morals are absolute. You are assuming that it is immoral to rape little boys. I agree with you that it is. It is absolute that raping little boys is immoral. The priest probably believes the same thing, but disobeyed that moral law. I wonder how you can deem yourself logical in this situation to claim that morals are relative but yet claim in an absolute sense that raping little boys is immoral? Self contradictory Timmy.

So really I'll just end this conversation with you on a high note. I've proved my points sufficiently and to deny absolutes is to deny the exact meaning in your words. Funny how someone can claim that morals are relative then make absolute moral statements. It is difficult to have a descent conversation with someone so ignorant and unintellectual as you Timmy. If you would like, feel free to live in your contradictory world without logic. Maybe one day you can see how illogical your arguments have become.

And a hint for you next time you want to approach someone in a meaningfull conversation. Keep the insulting language to yourself. In the end the only person that looks bad is you. And that's absolute!

Bye for now.

I find the logic being used by Gerry and others totally befuddling.

For one, the prison argument does not hold any ground. First, the percentage of prisoners professing to a belief in God outstrips the percentage professing atheism by one massive majority because in society in general the population statistics of professing believers are hugely superior to those believing in atheism. Therefore it would be logically more reasonable to believe that there are going to be fewer atheist in prison, based on population statistics alone.

Second, there is a big difference between those who profess to be Christian and those who have been regenerated and are given new life in Christ.

Just because someone claims to be a Christian does not necessarily make it so. The Lord Himself explains that there will be many who say, "'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will plainly tell them, 'I never knew you. Away from Me you evil doers.'" (Matthew 7:22-23)

Third, sometimes adversity can bring a person to a point in their life that they finally see their lack of autonomy, their helplessness, their sinfulness before a holy and pure God and their need for a Savior.

When Gerry says,

"Atheists are far more moral than the "faithful".

That is a generalization and may be true in some cases, but whether or not it is true does not answer the question of where morals come from and why his particular morality should apply to anyone else. It does not answer the question of what is Gerry's measure for morality. All the time he denies the Christian God he applies the very standards of good that is revealed by the word of God - "Do unto others as you would have them do to you." That shows the inconsistency of his worldview.

Then again, even the statement, "Atheists are far more moral than the "faithful" implies that what he is saying is true. How does he judge truth without an absolute standard to measure truth by? Does his saying it is so make it so? Is he using his god, science, as the measure? Why should I believe it is anything more than his subjective opinion? There is no documentation. Even with statistical evidence, the conclusion can depend on countless factors. How does he know the statistics are not biased? Dig hard enough and you can always come up with someone to support your argument.

Atheists such as Hitler, Stalin, Marx, Mao are being more consistent in their worldview. They determined, by power, what the "good" of their particular societies would be. Eliminate or silence those who oppose.
Good is what we say is good. Into the gas chamber for you. You are no longer serving the best interests of our particular society.

As for Gerry's statement,

"But, of course, if you think god created logic, and god can make that 2+2=5, as the desperate Peter Huff thinks, then you win."

That is totally absurd. God is not self contradictory. We, as humans, discover His truth by thinking His thoughts after Him. I have never alleged that 2 + 2 = 5. That would be totally irrational. God uses logic through His word in communicating with us. In order to be understood, what He says would have to be understandable.

"No one can come to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6) is a logical statement. It explicitly implies that without Jesus there is no other way to have a relationship with the Father. That theme is supported throughout the Bible. God uses contrast to make His point, that no one can come any other way, other than by Jesus. That excludes every other religious belief and if you want to argue that the others are false I will gladly support your premise.

The statement "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!" (Galatians 1:8)explicitly implies that there is only one correct preaching of the gospel and that those who preach another gospel will be eternally condemned.

Hello David,

Every day you make me laugh. You must be a gift from God.
lol.

"There are no absolutes."

The above statement includes the above statement.

Get it?
No?
Didn't think so.
lol.
You need closure and absolutes so desperately and they're just not ever coming for you. And yet I have no pity, cause your kind of a dink.

I just have one question for you David.
Do you currently live in a world with moral absolutes?

Your entire life will be lived in the kind of frustration you show here on this thread, David, because you need everyone to believe in your moral absolute in order for it to work, and they never will. Why? Because morals are subjective.

BTW. I have never stated that there is no god.
There may well be.
But you are claiming to know who God is and what he/it wants from us.
And there is no more delusional hubris than that.

Still waiting for an answer about the little boy raping priests.
Why did the moral absolute of God not work there?
How will it ever work?

Looking forward to my next laugh.
Gosh I love the rantings of crazy people.
lol

Two atheists have a boxing match. One goes down k.o. The winner: Good!! The looser: Bad!!

Two believers have a boxing match. One goes down k.o. The winner: Good!! The looser: Bad!!

Question: Do the believers or the atheists know what is "absolutely" good and bad?

Hi David,

You make some excellent arguments that the atheist and agnostic believers keep trying to dodge.

I'll give Timmy points for trying to answer the question, but you rightly show him the futility of his position, that he can never be sure of whether his standard is good without appealing to an absolute objective ultimate standard. It is just his personal feelings at work that are clouding his judgment.

The same is true in the response from Gad to my post, he keeps evading the question, all the time throwing up one smoke screen after another to divert the issue. Here is his response to refute moral absolutes,

"The rest of what you wrote is just pointless dribble. You need not reply back to me, your arguments are always the same circular pointless nonsense and theres no value in it for either of us."

Again, not an answer that can make sense of my arguments.

Well Gad, for the most part, that is about the best response I seem to be able to muster from an atheist. Great logic there. Way to refute the argument.

Again, your saying so does not necessarily make it so.

The atheist talks about the Christians circular reasoning, but when you probe them, they are confronted with the same problems they accuse us of, circularity, without any objective standard to base their opinion on. The closest objective standard they can appeal to is science. That is constantly changing as we learn more about God's glorious creation.

Why is good "good?" Because I (the atheist) say it is good and because the society I live in has adopted this standard as being the good standard. So how do you determines that your society is right in their assessment of what good is?
Because I (the atheist) have determined this to be so and because the majority in this society believe it to be good. Therefore, that makes it good. Round and round we go.

It points to the irrationality of their belief time and time again by their inability to explain why something is good. How can they say something is good when on the other side of the world someone is calling their "good" bad? How can a good standard ever be bad? It would not be good if it was bad. So who is right, the atheist here, or the someone on the other side of the world? Without an objective standard it is impossible to have good because the measure for "good" keeps changing and can never be established with any degree of certainty.

How can murder or rape be both good and bad? A conflicting value system leads to adoption of the standard by force or, as you said earlier, become an anarchist and adopt your own standard of good. I might add, that this is the same attitude that got mankind into this situation of relative "good" in the first place. "Did God really say?"

It goes to show the absurdity of their worldview. They cannot make sense of good for they can never determine whether their good is anything other than a subjective and relative good that can change with the wind, as soon as the collective leader changes.

Timmy rightly pointed out that we see this collective standard change, depending on where you live or who controls the power. His conclusion is faulty, however, in saying that because we see these relative standards around the world, as practiced by different collective groups, that therefore good is relative.

As for his statement,

"Do you see all of the Christians battling it out on this blog over who's interpretation of God is right, David? There is your moral absolute theory up in smoke buddy."

The reason there is disagreement between believers is because there is a true standard that we appeal to, and when someone falsely interprets that standard we can appeal to the standard to bring about correction or refute the argument. (2 Corinthians 10:3-5 or 2 Timothy 3:16). God's word is truth. As Christians we are told to study to show ourselves approved, workmen who correctly handle the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)

The atheist falsely believes that because there are so many interpretations out there that a person cannot arrive at a true understanding of anything Biblically. But they never apply that same standard to any other book or even to the newspaper they read ever day as they interpret it. They know language has meaning, and the meaning relies on the context. They believe that understanding can be derived by communication. Language would be incapable of conveying anything understandable if ever person interpreted it differently. Communication would be incomprehensible.

There are certain fundamentals of the faith, that it you deny, you have crossed over from belief to unbelief.

I'm enjoying your posts Dvid. Good points!

David,

I modify my statement:

"Thus, the BELIEF (instead of "fact") that there is no god does not mean that behavior within a coherent society is arbitrary." That is the meaning of this observation. We are talking about the effect of religion on morals. The only observable one (statistically) is negative. That statement, of course can be argued: If a tiny minority of prison inmates are atheists, you can still spin some tale about those poor, righteous criminals, who in reality are a benefit to society (maybe the prison guard union, lol!)

Let's stay on a certain level of argument and not shift that level as an escape whenever a contradiction looms around the corner.

Let us not play the old Epimenides paradox game "All Cretians lie. I am a Cretian". That is fun, but no description and no real argument.

I make a statement.
You say: That is an absolute statement!
Conclusion: Then, my statement that I make a statemnt is wrong. I don't make a statement.

See? That is infantilism. (A statement, lol!)

oh by the way Timmy,

you say that there are no absolutes. Is that the absolute truth? If you say yes, then you are self contradictory. If you say no, then what you just said is not the truth.

Timmy,

Your whole argument died when you said this:

"There are no moral absolutes.
There are no logical absolutes.
There are no absolutes period."

If there are no absolutes, "period", then what you just said was meaningless and in effect you have said nothing. If there are no logical absolutes, then what you said was illogical and therefore meaningless. If there are no absolute truths, then you just lied and in effect again said nothing. And because a catholic priest molests a boy, it doesn't mean that moral absolutes do not exist, it merely means that those absolute morals were not followed.

Even your fellow agnostic Gerry made an absolute statement:

"Thus, the fact that there is no god does not mean that behavior within a coherent society is arbitrary."

The problem with this statement is that it is illogical as well. To make an absolute statement that God does not exist pre-supposes infinite knowledge. I can't tell you that a black rock with purple stripes does not exist in this whole universe because I do not have infinite knowledge of this whole universe. So if you or Gerry make an absolute statement that God does not exist you pre-suppose infinite knowledge. If you pre-suppose infinite knowledge then you must posit an infinite being which is exactly what you are denying. Therefore, illogical by all means.

So if there are no logical absolutes would you say something can exist and not exist at the same time? If you say no, then that is a logical absolute. If you say yes they can, then you are by far illogical and what you have to say really has no meaning since you do not have a logical mind. Another question is can something bring itself into existence? Another absolute logic?

Did I prove you wrong?

And is truth relative? Because if you say the truth is relative, then that's contradictory as well. Because if the absolute truth is that the truth is relative, then that's illogical. So truth cannot be relative.

Any questions or do you now want to agree to absolutes? Or you can remain illogical in your worldview and in effect pointless.

RJ Buchanan: “I let [my faith] go on my own with no outside prodding, so I wonder, since I’ve been unsuccessful in influencing anyone else to do the same, if it’s possible to change a mind before it’s ready to be changed"

Looking at it optimistically - maybe what you’ve done is planted the seed of skepticism, which will then grow at its own pace. Maybe that’s what all the publicity for the “new Atheism” is doing too. Certainly more people coming out allows the faithful to see us as normal, good people.

When it comes to faith...faith must always be based on the fact of a 'first see-er' or 'first contact' that is telling the truth.

We do not come up with ideas to base faith on all on our own.

All religious faith is based on someone else's reports.

If this persons report is based on lies, than the faith must evaporate.

I am not shy to benefit from spiritual and religious tools. The only requirement is that the tool can be tested for practical application. And if the tool can't be tested and requires faith, I have to let it go for the most part since there are so many lies that religion of man is based on and no one can prove or disprove any of it.

See:

http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/index.php?topic=133.0

That is the beauty of being a freethinker. We can think for ourselves. As such, when we get a toolbox we can decide which tools to use for the job. Some tools are used a lot, other tools are left alone for the time being, and still others are trashed when we see they are broken and useless.

Traditional freethinkers do not accept me as one of their group, since I draw from spiritual paths as well as wordily areas to garner wisdom to live at peace. Traditional freethinkers do not like anything that comes from religion. Kind of a misnomer isn't it...I'm a freethinker...but I must block out everything that comes from religion and spiritual traditions and whatever other prejudice I wish to inject into the equation?

Psychologist William James once said, "A great many people believe they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."

Religious practicers as well as atheists need to open their mind and see things without the delusions that both sides of this topic are stuck in.

'Honor dies where interest lies.'

As an agnostic freethinker my interest is in discovering truth.

When we limit personal prejudice we can open our minds to truth and peace. And realize the truth of Blake's words that "all deities reside within the human breast."

If it is religion that atheists or theists need to adopt, they only have to look as far as the religion of humanity. But just paying secular humanism lip service will not do any good. Our talk of spiritual values must match our actions.

I discuss this topic of faith with an ex-rabbi towards the end of this thread:

http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/index.php?topic=51.0

From my own perspective since religion is riddled with lies and ambiguities, the need for faith is where I leave off.

I test the spiritual traditions for veracity. Those areas that cannot be tested or otherwise proved are let go of and those that can be tested are either peace producing or peace destroying.

If peace destroying I let them go and if peace promoting I try to implement some of them in my life.

A lot of people get confused when I talk about inner peace.

Some of them call me a 'self righteous twit' or worse.

Well, just because I talk about this peace subject a lot, does not mean I practice it in all waking and sleeping hours.

Sometime I destroy me own peace as well.

But at least I do know the formula how to get back to a place of inner peace if I desire to return to that place.

Peace is always a personal choice as no one can do it for us.

Inner peace does not take faith...it takes testing and practice.

"Just as water floes downhill without effort but requires outside forces and energy to make it move uphill. So the human consciousness falls to its lowest levels of the senses without effort and energies to make our consciousness gravitate to more than our base desires." ~ Hindu Sage

Take care,


V (Male)

Agnostic Freethinker
Practical Philosopher
AA#2

Thank you, Sam. I have yet to disagree with you on even the smallest detail, in any of your writings.

Is there an alternative to religion widely known by religious people? I assume that the majority of the faithful imagine the only alternative to their religion-induced comfort is converting to another religion-induced comfort. I have yet to convert a believer to unbelief, though I’ve spent the past few years trying earnestly. I’m very curious to know whether or not you get many letters from genuinely religious folks who have dropped their faith in favor of reason and now have our kind of contempt for religion.

It seems that unless there’s an alternate easy chair to rest their fears in, they won’t let their beliefs fall down from their own weight; propping them up with all their might, during every logic-spewing earthquake that comes along. I let mine go on my own with no outside prodding, so I wonder, since I’ve been unsuccessful in influencing anyone else to do the same, if it’s possible to change a mind before it’s ready to be changed.

I think that a genuine alternative would help; something with the effects that religion has by taking away fear of not existing. Supporting science, actually, seems to be conducive to this. The way I see it, eventually, if we further science, immortality (barring the end of the universe itself) will be a reality. If that “belief” could be adequately explained, perhaps even the fearful mind that resists reality could be persuaded to change, more frequently. If (though this thought may be “out there” somewhere) the option to have ones brain frozen upon death existed, then after learning of the potential scientific progress brings, a similar “comfort” might be induced, if the belief was genuine that within time, the technology will exist to bring that brain back to life, in another body, in another time, maybe even on another world.

This is far-out stuff, though closer to reality than mythology.

Anyhow, great read as always, Sam.

RJ Buchanan

Hello David,

"I'm merely speaking about an infinite being or deity if you like. I call Him God. But you get my point. So when I ask apart from God or a god if you like, please understand I mean an infinite being and am not trying to define God in theological terms."

If this is such an abstract non descript God, how do we know what his absolute morals are?
You mean the morals in the bible? That's a specific God.
That's Yahweh. He has different morals than Allah, and Buddha.
Ergo
There are no moral absolutes.
There are no logical absolutes.
There are no absolutes period.

There is only subjective morality.
You say subjective morality is not possible.
That is the world we live in David. It's called democracy dude.
Why are moral relatives good for society?
Because they create democracy instead of tyranny.

David, the world of moral absolutes that you dream of is just that. A dream. A fantasy. It is not ever going to exist.
It is the moral absolutists who are causing all of the problems in the world today.

Explain, David, why hundreds of Catholic priests raped little boys. In your ridiculous example your jewel thief said that he didn't care if killing was illegal. It didn't stop him from doing it anyway, and that's why moral relatives don't work. Well these priests were men of God. And God's word didn't stop them from raping little boys. What's the difference David?
Where is this moral absolute of God you speak of David?
It doesn't exist bro.

Do you see all of the Christians battling it out on this blog over who's interpretation of God is right, David? There is your moral absolute theory up in smoke buddy.

David,

your colorful story lacks one decisive point: The fact that morals are not absolute in a religious sense does not mean that everybody can act as a criminal. That is a highly transparent intellectual fallacy of yours. There are, on the contrary, very compelling moral standards without god, otherwise there would not have to be any juridical system. And the societal, atheist moral standards seem to be 50 times as binding for an individual as your pious moral standards, judging from the prison inmate proportions (50:1).

Thus, the fact that there is no god does not mean that behavior within a coherent society is arbitrary. (Between different societies, however, it is the religious moral that is completely arbitrary: Guantanamo etc.) Your story crumbles like a card house. Atheists are far more moral than the "faithful".

But here sgsin we encounter the typical way of religionists to argue trying to numb and cheat one's unsuspecting mind: Presenting a straw man, alleging that the other part has created it, trying slyly to sneak past a logical fallacy and then - bang! - believing to have proved the "truth"! Sad state of affairs. I believe in evolution, less so because of the past than because of the future!

But, of course, if you think god created logic, and god can make that 2+2=5, as the desperate Peter Huff thinks, then you win.

"There again you fail to recognize God's justice for punishing a disobedient people who had made a covenant with Him and had broken it."

LOL. You fail to "recognize" the point, right after god said "thou shalt not kill" god orders people to kill. If killing is wrong then it is wrong all the time, otherwise it is moral relativism, and if god is good then he can do no wrong, since he kills people then killing must be good. Your S&M relation with god, we are bad boys punish us and teach us to please you, is no justification for god killing anyone if killing is absolutely wrong.

"You fail to recognize that God is our Creator and that He is sovereign over mankind. He, as the Just and righteous Judge determines the standard and has judged the rebellion of His people. It teaches us many object lessons about the Holy LORD that I will not get into here."

We are gods property, he owns us, he allows us to please him, but when we fail to please him he has to kill and torture us to show us how much he loves us, isn't he wonderful! You know how sick and twisted that is!

"You fail to recognize that these people were not innocent before a just Judge."

You fail to recognize it doesn't matter, if killing is wrong it's wrong, if it is based on the situation and/or changes with the times (picking sticks on the sabbath) it is moral relativism.........

No where does the sovereign LORD condone rape.

Rules for raping your slave girl:

21:10 When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive,
21:11 And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife;
21:12 Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;
21:13 And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife.
21:14 And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.

And where do they get the virgin slave girls to rape, by killing their mothers, fathers and brothers.......

31:15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
31:16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.
31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
31:18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

There is much more in the bible on rape and slavery , but then you know that, you just chose to see it as the greatness of god, because without him we would never know the right way to rape virgin girls and beat our slaves. And those are good things because they "teach us a number of things, one of which is having a submissive heart and mind towards our all knowing, all powerful Creator."

The rest of what you wrote is just pointless dribble. You need not reply back to me, your arguments are always the same circular pointless nonsense and theres no value in it for either of us.

After so many posts and arguments and intelligent explanations nobody in his right mind can still argue that atheism is a "faith" comparable to religion. It has been proven over and over again, that not collecting stamps is not a hobby.

The underlying problem shines through this discussion more and more: Why do people adhere to a completely debunked argument, like 2+2=5? That would have to be the core of this discussion. It would entail questions on how the human brain works, how it is wired, how it learns.

Some of the arguments remind me of Pawlow's experiments. Peter Huffs bible quotation prayer mill cannot have any claim to reason, and without some residue of reason there is no sense in a discussion.

Timmy,

I see you base your decision on my character on an "!". No wonder why you make no sense buddy. Anyway, you still haven't shown me why moral relativism works in society. Again a question dodging....you related to Ahmadinajad Timmy? Ouch, low blow. I'm only giving you a hard time since you gave it first.

Here is a prime example why moral relativism does not work if for some reason you just can't watch the news and make an educated guess why it doesn't.

What if relativism were true? An illustration:

The setting: A thief is casing a jewelry store so he can rob it. He has entered it to check out any visible alarm settings, locks, layout, etc. In the process, he has unexpectedly gotten involved in a discussion with the owner of the jewelry store whose hobby is the study of philosophy and believes that truth and morals are relative.
"So," says the owner, "everything is relative. That is why I believe that all morals are not absolute and that right and wrong is up to the individual to determine within the confines of society. But there is no absolute right and wrong."
"That is a very interesting perspective," says the thief. "I was brought up believing that there was a God and that there was right and wrong. But I abandoned all of that and I agree with you that there is no absolute right and wrong and that we are free to do what we want."
The thief leaves the store and returns that evening and breaks in. He has disabled all the alarms and locks and is in the process of robbing the store. That is when the owner of the store enters through a side door. The thief pulls out a gun. The owner cannot see the man's face because he is wearing a ski mask.
"Don't shoot me," says the owner. "Please take whatever you want and leave me alone."
"That is exactly what I plan to do," says the thief.
"Wait a minute. I know you. You are the man that was in the store earlier today. I recognize your voice."
"That is very unfortunate for you," says the thief. "Because now you also know what I look like. And since I do not want to go to jail I am forced to kill you."
"You cannot do that," says the owner.
"Why not?"
"Because it is not right," pleads the desperate man.
"But did you not tell me today that there is no right and wrong?"
"Yes, but I have a family, children, that need me, and a wife."
"So? I am sure that you are insured and that they will get a lot of money. But since there is no right and wrong it makes no difference whether or not I kill you. And since if I let you live you will turn me in and I will go to prison. Sorry , but that will not do."
"But it is a crime against society to kill me. It is wrong because society says so."
"As you can see, I don't recognize society's claim to impose morals on me. It's all relative. Remember?"
"Please do not shoot me. I beg you. I promise not to tell anyone what you look like. I swear it!"
"I do not believe you and I cannot take that chance."
"But it is true!" I swear I'll tell no one."
"Sorry, but it cannot be true because there is no absolute truth, no right and wrong, no error, remember? If I let you live and then I left, you will break your so-called promise because it is all relative. There is no way I could trust you. Our conversation this morning convinced me that you believe everything is relative. Because of that, I cannot believe you will keep your word. I cannot trust you.
"But it is wrong to kill me. It isn't right!"
"It is neither right or wrong for me to kill you. Since truth is relative to the individual, if I kill you, that is my truth. And, it is obviously true that if I let you live I will go to prison. Sorry, but you have killed yourself."
"No. Please do not shoot me. I beg you."
"Begging makes no difference."
.... Bang....

If relativism is true, then was it wrong to pull the trigger? Perhaps someone might say that it is wrong to take another life needlessly. But why is that wrong, if there is no standard of right or wrong? Others have said that it is a crime against society. But, so what? If what is true for you is simply true, then what is wrong with killing someone to protect yourself after you have robbed him? If is true for you that to protect yourself you must kill, then who cares what society says? Why is anyone obligated to conform to social norms? Doing so is a personal decision.
Though not all relativists will behave in an unethical manner, I see relativism as a contributor to overall anarchy. Why? Because it is a justification to do whatever you want. Sounds good to me Timmy. How bout it. Relativism anyone? So far so good...we haven't killed everyone in the world yet, right?

You said Timmy,

"You say that you have shown me how moral absolutes work?
You haven't even shown me that they exist. Anywhere but in your own head I mean."

I didn't need to you did it for me, thanks...

You said,

"" Rape is ok to some and to you it might not be?

Right. To me, it's not okay.

So you say that rape is immoral, correct? Is that absolute to you? If so, then there are absolute morals and you are wrong. If you say they are relative, then you cannot disagree with someone saying that rape is morally ok, of course unless you want to take the illogical road. But please explain this: you claim that moral relativism is the only way a society can function, but yet you make a morally absolute statement that rape is not ok. Amazingly contradicting, wouldn't you say. And obviously since society does run off of a morally relative philosophy, please show me one bit of evidence in today's world that that is a good thing. Turn on the news one day and tell me that moral relativism is a good thing.

On to logic. I'm not sure where I got "eternally" from, so let me rephrase that. I really meant to ask if there are any logical absolutes? For example is it a logical absolute that something can exist and not exist at the same time? I'm sure you will agree to no. Therfore there are logical absolutes. Another example I would hope that your logical mind can agree to is that something cannot bring itself into existence, correct? Otherwise it would have to have existed before to bring itself into existence which is totally contradictory. Another example of logical absolutes. So what I need you to tell me is how in a purely physical universe (a naturalistic worldview per se)can logical absolutes exist conceptually with no God. Conceptual absolutes cannot be measured, put in a test tube, weighed or captured, yet they exist. Tell me how in a naturalistic worldview apart from an infinite being how this can be possible?

Now you ask which "God" and name a bunch. I'm not getting into theology with you. I'm merely speaking about an infinite being or deity if you like. I call Him God. But you get my point. So when I ask apart from God or a god if you like, please understand I mean an infinite being and am not trying to define God in theological terms. I think the point I'm trying to make to you and E Favorite as well is that absolutes exist and logically in a naturalistic worldview that is not possible. Just waiting to hear what you have to say about it.

How are you Rob?

You seem to be contradicting yourself again. You said,

"Child raised in the Middle East as a fanatical Muslim who is taught to kill infidels becomes a suicide bomber and executes his plan. He has no knowledge of ‘what is right’. In his mind he has acted to the highest standard. I am not sure a loving God would hold this against this person."

Sure he does. Thou shall not kill. (i.e. Don't take the law into your own hands and kill innocent humans who have been made in God's image. God has decreed that governments are the authorities that will punish wrongful actions and protect their citizens, not the individual citizens - Romans 13:1, 2)

He kills anyway, despite the inner convictions of his mind (his conscious), because he suppresses the truth of God and believes a lie. He has acted according to his highest standard, the standard he has created or been coxed into believing. Either way God will hold him accountable, because God does not sweep justice under the rug. If He did then He would not be true to His very nature of goodness.

You said,

"God does not give us moral absolutes. Moral absolutes are man made."

In answer to your first sentence, yes He does. To your second sentence, no they are not. Man cannot determine, apart from God, why any moral standard is good or why the measure for that standard is right. "Good" by its very nature needs an absolute standard or else it becomes your opinion verses my opinion. As such what gives you the "right" to determine my opinion is wrong, or visa versa? What gives your collective group the right to say that an Islamic militant group is wrong in flying planes into buildings? They believe it is serving the greater good of their collective group. Why should I accept your collective groups standard? What makes its standard "the standard?" Feelings do not necessarily make a standard right.

An atheist is a walking contradiction, all the time becrying the Christians belief in absolute morals while stating his own subjective ones as "the norm."

You said,

"The writings of traditional religion are not so much wrong as incomplete."

No, they are wrong where they deviate from God's perfect standard. Contradictory standards, just as contradictory definitions of God cannot be right since they are stating opposing things. They are contrary to the laws of logic.

God has revealed His standard to us, His Word -the Bible, and in the process given us many infallible proofs that He is who He claims to be.

Your argument is very weak. To say there is no absolute standard is to invoke an absolute standard (that isn't even absolute, since it is your subjective opinion) It is a self refuting statement. You can never negate absolutes without using an absolute. In order for "there are no absolutes" to be true, that statement would have to be absolute, so therefore you have just denied your original premise and contradicted yourself.

Only an Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnibenevolent, eternal God has a standard that is ultimate, objective and absolute. You can't justify anything without Him. It just becomes mere opinion, mere feeling, whether that feeling is shared with others or solely exclusive to your own beliefs.

You'll notice in these posts that the atheist is always stuck as to why something can be looked upon as good. His standard changes as his collective group standard changes over time or he has to bale out and establish his own standard as he determines it. Whether it is the subjective opinion of he, himself, or the subjective opinion of his group, you still have nothing more than subjective opinion. So why is it good? When man is the measure anything can happen. Nazi Germany is a prime example.

Hi Gad,

You said,

"Exd 32:27 And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, [and] go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.
Exd 32:28 And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men."

There again you fail to recognize God's justice for punishing a disobedient people who had made a covenant with Him and had broken it.

"When Moses went and told the people all the LORD's words and laws, they responded with one voice, "Everything the LORD has said we will do." Moses then wrote down everything the LORD had said." (Exodus 24:3-4)

You fail to recognize that God is our Creator and that He is sovereign over mankind. He, as the Just and righteous Judge determines the standard and has judged the rebellion of His people. It teaches us many object lessons about the Holy LORD that I will not get into here.

You fail to recognize that these people were not innocent before a just Judge.

You said,

"BTW the commandments are only 10 of over 600 laws, but no one ever seems to romanticize over any of the others, like how to rape your slave, how to beat your slave, how to sell your slave, how to kill your daughter if she is not a virgin etc. etc.."

No where does the sovereign LORD condone rape. As for the teaching on slavery, it is another spiritual object lesson for us today as well as revealing the actual history of the Israelites under the theocracy of God. It teaches us a number of things, one of which is having a submissive heart and mind towards our all knowing, all powerful Creator.

You yourself Gad are a prisoner and slave to your sinful nature. You just have a hard time recognizing it in your rebellion to God. It is something that you cannot escape unless God sets you free.

"The sinful nature is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God." (Romans 8:7, 8)

That would be every man, woman and child who has inherited that sinful nature from Adam and Eve. Since the first sin, we have seen at work in us a rebellion to submit to God's ways, we have learned from our ancestors and have a desire to determine for ourselves the meaning of good and evil, and as such have resisted and disobeyed what God has said is good and in our best interests, due to the pride that is in us that will resist His word.

"We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good." (Romans 7:14-16)

"Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." (John 8:34-36)

As mentioned above Gad, you are a slave to sin. If you think you are free, try to keep your mind from immoral thoughts as defined by Jesus in Matthew 5:21 or verse 27, just for a week. Try denying yourself from your addiction, your idol worship, whatever it may be, whether it is money or sex or football or gossip or gambling or from your particular worldview. Say to yourself, I'm not going to look at the world today through atheist's eyes. See how long you can hold out. Then you will know how free your mind really is.

Only the Savior can set us free from our sinful natures and from condemnation from God. (Romans 8:1-2)

This article is a joke. People do not even perform step 3, in that there are arguments in favour of the existance of God, and numerous ones at that.

Nor is step 4 in the list valid.

Harris is simply projecting a false view of what people who beleive in God actually think, which is dishonest and lacks any conection to how people who are religious actually think.

I just had to chime in moral absolutes, I can not resist. I am a theist, though I am a spiritual mongrel, but I do believe in God.

This physical realm is made up of things that are relative. Without dark there is no light, without hot then we can not know could, without sadness we can not comprehend happiness. It is all relative. The concept of time is relative. And morals are relative.

Is it ok to commit suicide? According to some interpretations of the Bible it is not. Would it then be OK to give ones life to save another? I am still ending my life.

A man is shooting people at a university. If I rush him I may die. If I just stand by others die and I have not prevented “evil” from killing innocents. If I have a gun can I shoot him to save others? Can I drop a nuclear bomb to kill and maim 200,000 to save millions? Can I sacrifice 1 baby to save a million?

This is a slippery slope indeed.

Religious teachings are not that specific, they are incomplete.

Child raised in the Middle East as a fanatical Muslim who is taught to kill infidels becomes a suicide bomber and executes his plan. He has no knowledge of ‘what is right’. In his mind he has acted to the highest standard. I am not sure a loving God would hold this against this person.

When we look at the concept of multiple time lines and parallel universes, which are theoretically possible according to scientific theory, absolutes fade away. In one time line I am an unrepentant murder, the other a saint. Then when I die where do I go when I die? This paradox is created by absolutes but resolved by relativity.

God does not give us moral absolutes. Moral absolutes are man made. The writings of traditional religion are not so much wrong as incomplete.

The question is then asked if there are no moral absolutes then what is there to stop a society from anarchy and killing. It is about what works and what does not, that is how life is set up to work. In my case I believe that was set in place by intelligent design others just think it is the way it is. Either way that is how I perceive life works.

Killing without thought or moral conscience will hold back or destroy a society. One based on love, kindness, compassion and freedom will flourish. It is not about pleasing a being that is omnipotent, after all could he need? He can create what ever he wants?

It is about demonstrating what you want to be, about creating yourself anew in the magnificent moment of now. It is about being what you want to create. I would think that would be fine with a humanist.

Hello David,

"I said God gave us moral absolutes."

Again. Please specify.
Thor?
Zeus?
Budhah?
Allah?

Do you think that everybody's idea of God is the same as your God?
Do you think that everybody's God provides the same morals?

"I gave very specific reasons why moral absolutes work."

They don't even exist. So they can not work.
What moral absolute did God give us on the subject of Slavery?

"Why do moral relatives work and how can they especially when being relative."

This is the point that you are missing. Moral relatives are the only thing that can work, because, as I have demonstrated to you, there are no moral absolutes. The myth of the moral absolute is the fantasy that causes religion.

" Rape is ok to some and to you it might not be?

Right. To me, it os not okay. To an alarmingly large number of Catholic priests, it is okay. Only people who know god can tell right from wrong, right David?

"Isn't there a slight contradiction there?"

Yes. A sickening one.

"How can relatives work to better the whole of mankind. They can't! Tell me how they can, please?"

First of all, as a side note. Your exclamation point at the end of "can't!" made me chuckle. It says a lot about you. But I digress.

By accepting that there are no moral absolutes, we can deal with sharing the planet with billions of other people in a democratic way. Any one group who tries to push their moral absolute on others is endangering the peace with an exercise in futility. The collective, democratically creates a set of laws based on the morals that are agreed to be obviously common. Rape for example. It is illegal. It is against society's moral code and we have decided democratically, overwhelmingly in favor of punishing rapists. But we also overwhelmingly agree that when it comes to private morals, that is, morals that do not harm other people or infringe on anyone else's ability to live their lives, we agree to not legislate, but to live and let live. Cause why not? Why be a jerk?

Accepting that there are ONLY relative morals is the only way that we can live as a peaceful society. The only thing getting in the way of us having an even more peaceful world, are people who think that they have a moral absolute for us.

And finally:
"And again, does logic exist? Is it eternal?"

Yes.
No.

Now, which God has the moral absolute David?
Jupiter?
Buddha?
Allah?
Yahweh?

And which interpretation of those morals?
Jewish?
Muslim?
Catholic?
Lutheran?
Anglican?
Fundamentalist?
Greek Orthodox?
Unitarian?
Jews for Jesus?
Charlie Manson?
David Karesh?
Joseph Smith?
You?

You say that you have shown me how moral absolutes work?
You haven't even shown me that they exist. Anywhere but in your own head I mean.

Look above in the posts David. Do you see Thomas Baum and Peter Huff going at it in complete disagreement about god?
THEY ARE BOTH CHRISTIANS
Moral absolute? Are you kidding me?

Timmy,

I never said "religion" gave us moral absolutes, I said God gave us moral absolutes. Religion is man-made, God is eternal. I gave very specific reasons why moral absolutes work. You are avoiding the question. Why do moral relatives work and how can they especially when being relative. Rape is ok to some and to you it might not be? Isn't there a slight contradiction there? How can relatives work to better the whole of mankind. They can't! Tell me how they can, please?

And again, does logic exist? Is it eternal?

E Fav,

You said (somewhat offensively),

" I realize that your faith in supernatural beings and belief in ancient stories will not allow you to consider my views -- and my reason won't allow me to consider yours"

I do consider your views and am awaiting an answer to your view of logic being absolute. I'm making a logical assumption here that you feel I do not possess "reason". I do. I have reason to have faith in God. You too have reason. You have reason to not have faith in God. What your telling me is that I possess a lack of reason therefore deeming me incapable of hearing your worldviews. Not at all my friend. I'm still awaiting them instead of the "believers are irrational" assumptions made by so many extreme atheists here, when rationally speaking atheism in it's own is a faith. We both have faith E Fav, I just wish you could humble yourself enough to realize that. And maybe if you would let me, I can give you evidence for an eternal being, also known by me as God. But instead you would rather have Timmy answer for you instead of engaging in a conversation about absolutes. Are you somewhat fearful of the fact that relativism is self contradictory? And that believing in absolutes just might make you question if and absolute being could be real? Please be honest.

If you do not feel it necessary to engage in this discussion that's fine with me. I don't want you to feel that you are purposely avoiding me. I would rather us stay friendly and skip it until maybe the next OnFaith question.

Best to you

TO PETER HUFF: You wrote, "You call yourself a prophet of God, but in Hebrews 1:1-3 we have the Lord Jesus. Why do I need another prophet?", I've never called myself a prophet, but I have called myself a messenger and only because God chose me, I didn't chose Him but I have said yes. Also I do not consider Jesus a prophet but God Incarnate, the second person of the Trinity, God is a Trinity, a Trinity of One, I can't explain it, it just is and I have met the whole Trinity. You also wrote, "You, on the other hand, have a God who will see people separated in hell, because He was unable to save them completely", I have no idea what that sentence even means but I would like to say something concerning hell, Jesus, Himself, went to the uttermost depths of hell that is how God Incarnate won the keys to hell and He will use them in due time, remember God has a Plan. Hell is not some monolithic place but everyone who goes will know that they built it themselves, the captives shall be released. Jesus also went thru spiritual death which is different from hell and He won the keys to that too. You also wrote, "Why does the Bible speak of the Lake of Fire for those who are not written in the Lamb's Book of Life?", I look at that as God's heavy duty washing machine, you can either asked to be cleaned or God will clean you in due time, God is a consuming fire of PURE LOVE. Concerning Jesus on the cross, you wrote, "When Jesus died upon the cross, did He die to just make salvation possible or to purchase a specific people for Himself from every tribe and tongue and nation of this world?", Jesus said, "FATHER FORGIVE THEM", do not add or subtract, it is pretty straightforward, no asterick. We are to carry on the work that Jesus started as in, "COME FOLLOW ME". And in reply to, "Therefore, God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden.", if God didn't have a good reason for this then He wouldn't be the God, Who is Pure Love, that I met, lots of people want to underestimate God and His Plan, I am not one of them. Remember new heavens and a new earth, the dawning of the seventh day, God did say, "I will send the simple to confound the wise". Take care, see you in the Kingdom. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

TO ROB ADAMS: Thank you, take care, see you in the Kingdom. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

We already know that religion is mere self-hypnosis.
Mr. Sam Harris is still preaching to the choir.

When are we getting explanations on FOX television how religion grew out of the tribal rules set by village elders?

Timmy - thanks for addressing David. I couldn't have said it so well.

David - I have nothing to add to Timmy's remarks, but do wonder what it was in my most recent post that you found uncivil. COuld you quote the passage?

David,

faith is a "virtue"?

Funny how this discussion always slides down the intellectual hill to end in this irreal moral debate (remember the prison inmate proportion atheists : believers = 1:50, population proportion already considered!). No serious neurologist, psychologist, historian or sociologist (I know, some people get a knee jerk when they see a word starting with "soci..) would ever assume that there is an absolute moral derived from a superstition: Superstitions change.

Even bible believers can read that the bible itself contradicts this idea! Why should anyone in his right senses "believe" in a "holy" entity that says "thou shalt not kill" and a few pages later brags about killing thousands and thousands of human beings! What "absolute morals" are we talking about?

Faith a virtue? How can someone who knows that his own evolution started with a semen cell and an egg cell be unhappy with such an incredible "natural miracle", and instead ask for a guy walking on water or similar "breaches" of the rules of nature in order to be impressed.

God didn't model you from dirt and plant you in front of your computer of which you don't know how it works (science has developed it), but which you nevertheless use to negate science! Too funny...

Well put. To further emphasize the irrationality just replace the name "God" with, let's say..."Billy". They're both 'man-made' names, so what's the difference.
*For extra fun do this in both the Old and New Testaments using good 'ol boy names - in place of Jesus, Paul and Mark - use 'Bubba', 'Jim-Bob' and 'Scooter'. I tried this tactic in a friendly 'debate' with a Christian acquaintance with no less than amazing results (gasps, seizures, stroke etc.) What's in a name, eh?

Well put. To further emphasize the irrationality just replace the name "God" with, let's say..."Billy". They're both 'man-made' names, so what's the difference.
*For extra fun do this in both the Old and New Testaments using good 'ol boy names - in place of Jesus, Paul and Mark - use 'Bubba', 'Jim-Bob' and 'Scooter'. I tried this tactic in a friendly 'debate' with a Christian acquaintance with no less than amazing results (gasps, seizures, stroke etc.) What's in a name, eh?

Well put. To further emphasize the irrationality just replace the name "God" with, let's say..."Billy". They're both 'man-made' names, so what's the difference.
*For extra fun do this in both the Old and New Testaments using good 'ol boy names - in place of Jesus, Paul and Mark - use 'Bubba', 'Jim-Bob' and 'Scooter'. I tried this tactic in a friendly 'debate' with a Christian acquaintance with no less than amazing results (gasps, seizures, stroke etc.) What's in a name, eh?

Well now Timmy if anybody had made such an accusation last night they wouldn't have been far out! Had just returned from a meetin' o' the clans, still in freefall, or floatin' above the chimney tops. Those Drambuie 'cocktails' sure are mighty strong stuff and havtae confess I overindulged and am now paying dearly for it!
Have one helluva hangover, the ratta tat o' the keyboard is more than I can bear.
Pray for me!

Hey Bernie,

Good to see you again.
No one has accused you of being drunk yet, that's good.

Hello David,

Where to begin?
How about here:

"Without faith in God there is no starting point to moral absolutes and then morals become relative, of course depending on your philosophy"

By God of course you mean Thor right?.... No?

Jupiter?
Zeus?
Allah?
Buddha?
The Hindu multiplicity God?
Yahweh?
I think you mean Yahweh right? The Jewish God?
His "word" is the moral absolute you are talking about. Right?
But he condoned slavery.
Unless of course you take an interpretation of the Bible that works its way around that slavery stuff.
But now you have to choose one interpretation from many to follow.
Which one?
The Jewish one?
The Christian one?
The Muslim one?
They all read God's moral laws differently.
And that's just this one God.

So let's say you choose the Christian interpretation of Yahweh.
Now you have to choose from the over 3000 different christian sects, each with their own interpretation of God's morals.

David. You claim religion gives us moral absolutes?
Which one. Your religion's moral absolute?
What about all of the other religion's moral absolutes?

Do you see David how this moral absolute that you speak of is a fantasy? 3000 Christian sects alone, not to mention the hundreds of other religions and gods, and you claim that religion can give us moral absolutes? And you say this with a straight face?

I know.
The whole world needs to convert to YOUR Christian sect's interpretation of God's morals, and then there will be one wonderful moral absolute, that just happens to correlate with everything that you believe. Good plan.

You know who else has this very same belief?
Radical Islam.
When everyone finally submits to the will of Allah as prescribed by his one and only prophet, Mohammed, there will finally be peace under a "moral absolute." Finally everyone will agree that a woman's testimony is worth half that of a man. The way God wanted it.

Gee, I just can't see how people think that it is religion that is causing all of these divisive problems we have in the world?

And David, None of your "evidence" for God meets societies standard for evidence which can be found in our legal system along with Do not kill (anyone, not just Jews), Don't Steal, Don't do you neighbors wife, etc.
Your "evidence" is actually something we call 2000 year old hearsay. Designed to fool, for purposes of subjugation. Religion is not a provider of morals. It is a hijacker of common human morals.

Now tell me how your moral absolute works again?

On the subject of the Ten Commandments:

The commandment "thou shall not kill" has to be taken in context, reading the bible it is clear that the context is Jew is not to kill Jew, except when ordered by god, everyone else is fair game for all manner of horror and genocide.

Case in point, right after bringing down (and breaking) the tablets with the Ten commandments, Moses, on order of God, has 3000 people killed..... So much for thou shall not kill........

Exd 32:27 And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, [and] go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.
Exd 32:28 And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.

BTW the commandments are only 10 of over 600 laws, but no one ever seems to romanticize over any of the others, like how to rape your slave, how to beat your slave, how to sell your slave, how to kill your daughter if she is not a virgin etc. etc..

More reading for those who are interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments
http://www.flamewarrior.com/tencomm.htm

Hi Gad,

I'm working tomorrow and 5:30 a.m. comes early. I definitely would like to push this reasoning of yours further. I will look at your site and, the Lord willing, reply to you on Wednesday or Thursday.

Thomas,

I answered some of your comments on other forums and you never responded. You call yourself a prophet of God, but in Hebrews 1:1-3 we have the Lord Jesus. Why do I need another prophet? We as Christians have the more sure word of prophesy and you would do well to pay more attention to it my friend. (2 Peter 1:19)

My Savior is able to save completely those who come to Him, because He ever lives to intercede for His people (Hebrews 7:24; Matthew 1:21).

You, on the other hand, have a God who will see people separated in hell, because He was unable to save them completely. Why does the Bible speak of the Lake of Fire for those who are not written in the Lamb's Book of Life?

When Jesus died upon the cross, did He die to just make salvation possible or to purchase a specific people for Himself from every tribe and tongue and nation of this world?

John 6:44 says, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him on the last day."

Romans 9:14-16, 18, says, "What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For He says to Moses,
'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.'
It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy...Therefore, God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden."

God is sovereign, not man.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - no by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8, 9)

"Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers." (1 Timothy 4:16)

Well said David!

Good old E fav, you sure do know how to keep a conversation civil, huh? (sarcasm)

I have reason too E, you want to hear it or not? I will give evidence to the existence of God if you would like? Of course I believe your faith in the absolute is relative therefore negating the logic in your position. Not much reason for that, huh? You believe absolutely that murder is wrong, but believe morals are relative and of course insist it's some biological evolution that gave us morals. If that were the case then why aren't morals agreed upon? Slavery was morally ok 200 years ago. It's not today, right? If 200 years from now society deems it as morally correct, then how do we really know what is truth on the matter? I'm sure you agree truth is not relative right? That is self contradictory. Therefore what is the truth about slavery? Good or not? Morals are absolute E. Prove to me otherwise. And if morals are absolute they must come from an absolute being.

Question for you E Fav. Is logic absolute? Let me give you an example since you make so many illogical statements.

Can something exist and not exist at the same time? No, right? So does logic exist eternally?

Don't disappoint me E Fav, we've come so far together..... Love ya bro!

Sam, you've done it again. Thanks for being so eloquent for those of us who aren't so gifted.

david - you assert there is evidence for God, but don't give any.

God said (if you believe the bible account, and I don't) "Thou thalt not kill" He also did a lot of killing himself in the old testament, of non-Jews. The stricture against killing was for people in your own tribe. It was OK to kill outsiders. So I'm not impressed with the God of Abraham's morals.

My basis for morality (and yours too, since we are both human) is innate - built into our genes as a matter of survival and cooperation in groups.

These are my views. I have no interest in debating them or trying to convince you of a perspective that goes against your faith, Having participated in or watched numerous discussions like this on this forum, I realize that your faith in supernatural beings and belief in ancient stories will not allow you to consider my views -- and my reason won't allow me to consider yours.

Bernie Bee,

No. I like new cars. No offense to Stan and old ladies... ;)

E Fav,

Yes, there is evidence for God. You just do not seem to agree with it.

I agree that murder is immoral. Some do not, obviously since there are so many murders every day. So you say you do not think it is nice to kill. I'm sure you would agree that some philosiphies in certain generations and cultures would disagree with you. So what makes you right? On what foundation do you have to say whether or not murder is nice or not. Or is it relative?

I believe it is absolute that murder is not nice because God made it that way. Of course this is because I pre-suppose God, but at the same time, that is where I build my moral foundation and my absolute basis for morals. My faith is a virtue for this reason because I do have a basis for a starting point for moral absolutes where as you do not, so what right do you have to say whether it is nice or not to murder. On what basis do you hold to that opinion especially in light of the disagreement posed to you by so many murderous people in history and in this world today? Is it absolute that murder is not nice?

Thanks for not shooting those arrows, but this suit is getting kinda hot and I'm not ready to take it off yet....I know the worst is yet to come. I've stepped into the lion's den here on the Sam Harris thread......scary.......

:) Peace

david - I have some comments, but no slings and arrows.

faith is not a virtue because there's no evidence that God exists. faith in the easter Bunny is not a virtue, it's just a misguided belief. Same with God.

I don't follow "moral relativism." I don't kill people because it's not nice, not because I'm afraid of retribution from God.

In all honesty, if I ever really wanted to kill someone, I probably wouldn't, for fear of being caught by earthly cops and having to spend the rest of my one life in jail.

Good day David. I can see what your on about is relative but would you buy a second-hand car from Stan? (Only one previous owner...a little old lady)

Thank you for running this article.
Those who are "offended" by it should remember that many of us are offended by the continuing prestige, resources, and attention given to "religious" beliefs.
I am tired of religious people claiming they have the right to be free of any criticism of religion in all public forums. Atheism and paganism do not enjoy such a luxury--nor should they.
After all, what exactly is the difference between believing in an afterlife because Jesus discussed it, and believing in an afterlife because Huckleberry Finn discussed it?

Ok I'll step up to the plate and take the shots from the atheists on this question:

Is faith a virtue?

Definition of virtue:

vir·tue (vûrch)
n.
1.
a. Moral excellence and righteousness; goodness.
b. An example or kind of moral excellence: the virtue of patience.
2. Chastity, especially in a woman.
3. A particularly efficacious, good, or beneficial quality; advantage: a plan with the virtue of being practical.
4. Effective force or power: believed in the virtue of prayer.
5. virtues Christianity The fifth of the nine orders of angels in medieval angelology.
6. Obsolete Manly courage; valor

Yes.

Any questions?

Just kidding. Here's the why from my perspective.

I believe faith is a virture because with faith in God we also have faith that morals are a set of laws that are absolute in nature and for the good of mankind. Without faith in God there is no starting point to moral absolutes and then morals become relative, of course depending on your philosophy. But that is the point. Moral absolutism is in itself the only logical way a society as a whole can agree to what is moral vs. immoral. Othewise in a moral relative society where moral relativism is agreed upon, no actions can be deemed as immoral simply because it is relative. I can murder someone or break into someone's home and it's morally ok because remember....morals are relative and to me this might not seem to break my own personal morals. Having faith in God is also having faith in a moral law and that that moral law being given by God is perfect in nature as so is God. If all followed this set of moral laws, then there would be no evil. My personal beliefs are that a moral law was given to us by God but no one could keep it. To be able to not break one of those laws would mean that we are perfect, which I'm sure anyone would agree that no one is perfect, of course unless you are a moral relativist. :) So, faith is a virtue because of our faith in the not only God, but the moral law that was provided for us to TRY to live by. We may not be able to keep this moral law perfectly but without it how are we to know what is moral and immoral? I can go into the whole argument about why we need Jesus because of this moral law, but I'm sure that would bore you, so I'll just pass.

So in your responses, I'm curious to why not having faith in God is a virtue? How and why do you explain the moral absolutes in your lives, but then believe that morals are relative?

I hope that this was a sufficient answer. I'm gonna go put on my helmet and metal breastplate now, because I know the arrows are coming.....

Good day to you all.

Why does Sam need bodyguards? Has the Pope put out a fatwa or papal bull or whatever on poor wee Sam! What next!

Very interesting way to look at it. It's true what you say. Good point made!

I add from my own point of view personally, it's like our own belief system we create for ourselves is based on our past fears, negative emotions from experiences which we have not yet learned to overcome and conquer. Rather it (our fears and emotions) have conquered over ourselves.

We believe in a religion as a way to avoid realizing the truth within ourselves. Our ego or intellect that creates this belief system is a cover up so that we are guaranteed to feel (superficially) safe for the time being. It doesn't last. Nothing we conjure up in our minds to believe in lasts. The only true way is when one can finally realize for one self the one everlasting eternal self, that part of us that cannot be destroyed and will last for eternity. We are all having a human experience until we come to realize this truth for ourselves. To have that self-realization, become aware more, be fully awake in what one calls having a grand illumination.

It is entirely an individual thing. One awakening to it is more than likely going to be a different experience than another person having their awakening.

Be Present! Be Still and Come to Know! All famous words we have heard in religion, however, meaningless words until one comes to the awakening of the power of oneself. Then we can understand what was really meant by those words and come to accept the truth not just the way it was told to us by church goers and clergy men. These words have been so misinterpreted for so long, it is like we have become zombies just reciting words that were drilled into us by the church.

To affirm "I Am Master of Myself;
I Am All Powerful;
I Am Peace;
I Am All there is!"
The meaning suddenly hit me what that means. It has nothing to do with the ego controlling others and showing physical strength. This power referred to is not force but a power instilled through silence, humbleness, acceptance of what is and letting go of all fear, expressing more love.

This is our true nature that comes out naturally.
This is when we begin to see and feel the difference between what's rational and irrational. Only when we attune ourself to the stillness, peace of mind and come to know in that state of mind.

This is the challenging factor we have to contend with as humans since the day we were born: the ego. It has to be this way so that we can learn for ourselves what makes sense through our own experiences, what is rational or irrational.

There is no wrong and there is no right way. Whatever happens is right for us. It is an experience we have chosen as the best way for ourselves to learn, to grow, and to expand. We are our own judge. That is our own higher self within that knows. If we need to have more harsh experiences, we will have to keep having more lives to live them out until we learn whatever it takes individually. Only you know the answer for yourself. This is why I believe in a rational commonsense reincarnation.

Hi, Bernie - I was hoping you'd turn up here - and in such good form!

I saw Sam Harris at the recent Atheist Alliance conference. He's surrounded by bodyguards. Big guys. The way you know Sam harris is around is the sight of two huge, very mean-looking guards. Sam is the little guy in the middle.

Hello there Timmy! Great to see you back again and in usual good form! Haven’t been able to get even half way through all the posts on here and the other current Blogs elsewhere but delighted to see such as E Fav, Woolly (DyedInTheWool), Mr Mark and the dazzlingly brilliant Duckphup as ever demolishing all irrational posters with such learning and erudition (making a bonfire of the inanities no less!)

Couldn’t help but notice your plaintive plea for somebody to tell you why Faith is a Virtue. In the absence of a single response so far let alone an explanation I did a bit of research and trust what I’ve discovered will go some way to placate you:
Well then, the late, lamented, punk superstar, Sid Vicious had a sister, Faith, who married Stan Virtue, a second-hand car salesman. As far as I know they’re still together so Faith became and is still a Virtue.

Now maybe you (or more likely, Father O’Bubblegum, the unfrocked Irish priest on here), can help me to come to terms with the following wistful and very profound but mystical thoughts floating about in my mind all day that may ring a bell for all religionists on here and goes like this:
“What is truth?
“And what is fable?
“Where is Ruth?
“And where is Mabel?

Well what and where are they!

Truth is, that wee bit o’ doggerel is really for Soja in Australia should she show up in here as she always expects a wee poem from me! Well there it is Soja!

How Not to Believe in the Gods of Abraham

1. Think for yourself

2. Read their so-called 'sacred' texts without guidance (aka brainwashing) from a religious leader, be it rabbi, priest, paster or mullah.

3. Take a large highlighter and mark every example of misery in god's name... you'll need a case of pens. (or even better, visit http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com - they've alredy done it)

4. Being a devout follower of Rule #1, realize tht based on the expereicne of Rule #3, all three text are garbage and put the books away for safe keeping till winter.

5. When winter comes, burn the books to keep warm, for the heat of their burning will provide the only tangible, honest comfort they can ever offer.

6. Never, ever under any circumstances, repeat steps 2 or 3 more than once. Life is too short to waste time on delusions.

- Jon Keith

How Not to Believe in the Gods of Abraham

1. Think for yourself

2. Read their so-called 'sacred' texts without guidance (aka brainwashing) from a religious leader, be it rabbi, priest, paster or mullah.

3. Take a large highlighter and mark every example of misery in god's name... you'll need a case of pens. (or even better, visit http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com - they've alredy done it)

4. Being a devout follower of Rule #1, realize tht based on the expereicne of Rule #3, all three text are garbage and put the books away for safe keeping till winter.

5. When winter comes, burn the books to keep warm, for the heat of their burning will provide the only tangible, honest comfort they can ever offer.

6. Never, ever under any circumstances, repeat steps 2 or 3 more than once. Life is too short to waste time on delusions.

- Jon Keith

One interesting aspect of religion, not that I claim to be an expert, is its wonderful double hook safeguards. But then, that is life outside of religion, isn't it? "Too many cooks spoil the broth" while "Many hands make light work".

Interestingly, the bible professes that one should turn the other cheek, while keeping a view on taking an eye for an eye, depending on the mood.

How is it that charismatic, and many other, Church leaders are able to rake in huge salaries and drive exotic cars when it is easier for a
Camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it shall be for a Rich man to enter heaven?

Dont forget though, that the rich man who is prevented from entry to heaven will be doubly peeved since he is missing out on the action, where upon arrival at this humble place (not), he would have witnessed streets paved in rare gems, gold and riches beyond imagining. These riches of which the city of Heaven is built. Why is it not a place in the woods, with quiet trees and a clear streem running through it?

Lest we forget, and lest our faith weaken and become corrupted, and we raise the question, we need rapidly refer to the biblical verse where it is a happy person who sees and believes, yet a far more worthy person who fails to see, and despite this, yet still believes.

Anyway..... A friend and I had a recent discussion relating to the fringes of evolution and Darwinism, because I had recently found a copy of a book by Robert Ardrey entitled "The Territorial Imperative", and we side-tracked. It was interesting however that the Dinosaurs ruled the earth for an immense period, top of the food chain and preventing all other creatures from any form of dominance. They then demised, at which prompt time, a multitude of beings leapt from the "primordial soup", took wing and foot and hoof, and flew ran and galloped forth. Do you see your ancestors there, hauling butt to some high ground where they would sit and contemplate the invention of fire.

This brings me to an interestimg point, one that I am far from qualified to carry, but one which I find intriguing. If you follow the link http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html
you will find a very interesting and lucid motivation for our coincidental existance being rather one of some design perhaps, and less than coincidental.

And you thought that the cliche "there is no such thing as coincidence" was silly?

Father O'Marlowe,

are you for real? Of course Luther said that knowledge is an impediment of faith. That means, we should strive for the utmost possible stupidity. And that is what actually happens in religious brains as yours and in your religious pedagogy (which I regard as criminal to our children). According to you, Bush is not even stupid enough, although he already does quite well, considering his "success" in Iraq.

It will take many years, probably centuries before mankind will be healed from such cancerous nonsense.

BTW, Luther also favored killing all Jews and burning all "witches".

Dennis Campbell: "some atheists as well seem loath to admit of the possibility that some parts of religious moralities are perhaps worth consideration. “

I don't know any atheist like that. Speaking for myself, what I loath is religious people presuming (as you, an atheist, also seem to do) that there is such a thing as a "religious morality" separate from "human morality."

People have an innate morality - unrelated to religion. The worst misconception is that atheists cannot be moral and that if it weren't for religion, people would be out raping and pillaging each other.

Just to clear one thing up:

THERE ARE NO WITNESSES TO THE RESURRECTION!

What you have that you are calling witnesses and evidence is actually 2000 year old hearsay 20 times removed. It would be thrown out of any court anywhere while being serenaded by gales of laughter.

The book is true because the book says it is true?
You believe that?

I have some swampland for sale in Florida, maybe you'll buy that too.

If religion is an invention, a creation or a projection of people, then to paint it as inherently vicious, destructive and an intellectual disability says that people are inherently vicious, destructive and impaired. That logic escapes me. People create beauty, tolerance, love, grace and inspiration; they also create evil, intolerance, hate and destruction. I’m not convinced that casting the human creation called religion as somehow inherently bad is justified.

I am an atheist, that means I reject notion of some unseen god. That does not mean that I automatically consign all religion associated morality as bad, any more than I’d paint all people as bad or good. What is bad to me about religion is that it’s arguments are held to be unchallengeable, they are, after all, supposedly the dictums of an unquestionable god. But if we remove that unseen god from the equation, then perhaps religion, as any human-made philosophy or ideology, can be appraised on the basis of what they prescribe and proscribe, in a manner not constrained by the “authority” of an unseen god.

Theists do not seem to much like that idea, having their religion subject to such unfettered criticisms, but some atheists as well seem loath to admit of the possibility that some parts of religious moralities are perhaps worth consideration. “Thou shall not kill,” seems to me to have some qualified merit for consideration, though too simplistic. Perhaps that’s another valid criticism of religion, it is too simplistic. Perhaps that simplicity was more applicable when it was written a thousand or so years ago in that culture and time, in a population that was almost completely illiterate, but it is less so now.

But arguing that religion is simplistic, rigid and unchangeable might also serve to overlook the possibility that it sometimes has something to offer. Maybe this in impractical, since theists resist and reject cherry picking, and atheists want to chop the whole tree down.

Dennis

If religion is an invention, a creation or a projection of people, then to paint it as inherently vicious, destructive and an intellectual disability says that people are inherently vicious, destructive and impaired. That logic escapes me. People create beauty, tolerance, love, grace and inspiration; they also create evil, intolerance, hate and destruction. I’m not convinced that casting the human creation called religion as somehow inherently bad is justified.

I am an atheist, that means I reject notion of some unseen god. That does not mean that I automatically consign all religion associated morality as bad, any more than I’d paint all people as bad or good. What is bad to me about religion is that it’s arguments are held to be unchallengeable, they are, after all, supposedly the dictums of an unquestionable god. But if we remove that unseen god from the equation, then perhaps religion, as any human-made philosophy or ideology, can be appraised on the basis of what they prescribe and proscribe, in a manner not constrained by the “authority” of an unseen god.

Theists do not seem to much like that idea, having their religion subject to such unfettered criticisms, but some atheists as well seem loath to admit of the possibility that some parts of religious moralities are perhaps worth consideration. “Thou shall not kill,” seems to me to have some qualified merit for consideration, though too simplistic. Perhaps that’s another valid criticism of religion, it is too simplistic. Perhaps that simplicity was more applicable when it was written a thousand or so years ago in that culture and time, in a population that was almost completely illiterate, but it is less so now.

But arguing that religion is simplistic, rigid and unchangeable might also serve to overlook the possibility that it sometimes has something to offer. Maybe this in impractical, since theists resist and reject cherry picking, and atheists want to chop the whole tree down.

Dennis

Sam,

If I can make a suggestion to your use of referencing god.

First, I'd like to see it in small caps to emphasize the fact that it is not a noun.

Second, The following quote "you must want to believe in God" should read the following:

you must want to believe in a god.

The former leads the reader to possibly believe that there is in fact a god, but we simply do not believe.

With the addition of "a" The later states emphatically that god has been distilled to a matter of faith, something we can all agree on.

There are so many anonymousss around that I never know how to single one out. I would like to address this to the one who took me to task for doubting the supposed bodily resurrection of Jesus.
You say -- amongst other things --: Why would anyone die for a lie?
Surely you must be joking! Muslims have been dying in suicide bombings over an over again for what is nothing other than a blatant lie about virgins in heaven etc. (I think the real translation of the word virgins is raisins!). Ditto for Japanese Kamikaze pilots in the last word war.
So why should the early Christians not have been willing to die for a lie? If Jesus did appear to them after he supposedly died then I presume he never really died and must have appeared to his disciples -- injuries and all (doubting Thomas!).
You seem to conveniently forget that the world's major religions are all mutually contradictory and their holy books tell mutually conflicting stories. Why should anyone give precedence to the NT stories as opposed to those in the Qu'ran -- which claims that Jesus was NOT the Son of God but merely a prophet of lesser stature than Muhammad?
Far better to take them all with a pinch of salt.

Moreover, I am afraid that your contention that people cannot change their beliefs is contradicted by my own personal life story and those of many others who have grown beyond religious superstition. Maybe one day you will grow beyond what you now believe.

Thomas Baum.

Thanks for the response and yes you answered my question. While I am not exclusively for or against Christianity I like the way you present it.

Even if you are wrong and the atheist are right, your message is still nice to hear.

Keep proclaiming my friend!

Sam,

Objectively, in order for me to continue to believe in specific religious claims, it should at least be shrouded in plausible credibility and not contradict objective reality.

The ever increasing challenge for religions in general (and for Mormonism in particular since I happen to be a member of this church) is that there is a fast and growing body of scientific evidence that completely -and I might add- convincingly refutes foundational religious claims.

Yes, it is no longer just the absence of "proof" that makes it more difficult to accept such claims as the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon, but a growing wealth of indisputable facts (archealogical, linguistical, anthropological, DNA research, etc.) indicate various devine claims to be incredulous.

It is not easy for me to admit this. Like many of my faith, I have invested much in my religion and never doubted its religious foundations.

However, I cannot turn my back to objective reality any more. I had lost and denied my ability to look at the real world dispassionately and unprejudiced for too long.

Thank you, Sam, for bringing sanity to this world of competing strains of delusional philosophies.

Helios

charlill:

Adam and Eve, were either black or white or brown, African or middle eastern or Chinese, which were they? And since I don't recall god creating any other people in the bible where did all the human diversity come from? Christians claim that white has never come from black (or vise versa) as proof that evolution is false, yet that is exactly what had to have happened even if you believe in god. So what your answer?

The white racist have an answer, Cain (Ham in the case of Noah) were made black as there curse by god.

If that's not what you believe, then you have answered your own question, human diversity has to be a natural process, god or no god.

TO PETER HUFF: God said, "I will write My Law on their hearts", some people call it a conscience, some call it hard-wiring, call it whatever you like. Jesus said, "Judge not, lest ye be judged", "The measure you judge with, will be the measure that you are judged with". Something to think about. God's Plan is for all of His children, if you have ripped out Page one, you are the one that did it, God didn't. ALL OF HUMANITY are God's children and His brothers and sisters. Page one, "Let Us make man (mankind) in Our Image and Likeness. Take care, see you in the Kingdom. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

I have read both books written by Sam Harris and I totally agree with his views on Religions having so much control over our society. I have taken a more serious look at news these days and I have notice alot of religious influence going on in our goverment. The people we have elected to protect us from religious extremists and all types of social attacks on our freedoms, are the very same ones who say at the end of every speech "god Bless America". I thought, most states have voted to seperate State and Religion. So, when is our goverment going to follow through on that note. I don't care what religious God you believe in, if you are a political figure your religion should be seperate from your work for our country.

TO ROB ADAMS: You wrote, "As for Thomas Baum I believe he may be one of those people I spoke of earlier in my posts. He may be someone who has transcended his religion and operates outside the box. He gets the ‘real’ message of his religion. Thomas correct me if I am wrong but I get the sense that to you the message is more important than the dogma.", without the message and God's Plan for all of humanity, all of the dogma and all of the rules and regulations are meaningless. When I write, 'God is a searcher of hearts and minds, not of religious affiliations or lack thereof', I mean exactly what it says. If God was anything remotely like what some people that call themselves "christian", it would be beyond horrible. I can't say that I "transcended my religion", it was God, Who in His Way revealed Himself to me, the whole Trinity. Another thing that I have said many times is that: it is important what you do and why you do it and what you know. Knowing God's Name is not some kind of magic, even the demons know that, if you do believe that Jesus is Who He said that He is, He does say, "Come follow Me". He doesn't say, become arrogant, judgmental, condemning, and holier than thou. I hope I have answered your inquiry, God really is a Being of Pure Love and one day all will know it. We have free will and speaking for myself, I definitely have a fallen nature. Take care, see you in the Kingdom. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

TO KIM: You wrote, "Nothing like twisting words Thomas.... you must be a preacher.", actually what words did I twist? No, I am not a preacher, I am a proclaimer and the "gospel" or "good news", which is what the word gospel means is that: God wins, satan loses, a tie is unacceptable. I am the person that the Old Testament Moses was referring to. Take care, see you in the Kingdom. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

TO KIM: You wrote, "Nothing like twisting words Thomas.... you must be a preacher.", actually what words did I twist? No, I am not a preacher, I am a proclaimer and the "gospel" or "good news", which is what the word gospel means is that: God wins, satan loses, a tie is unacceptable. I am the person that the Old Testament Moses was referring to. Take care, see you in the Kingdom. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

TO KIM: You wrote, "Nothing like twisting words Thomas.... you must be a preacher.", actually what words did I twist? No, I am not a preacher, I am a proclaimer and the "gospel" or "good news", which is what the word gospel means is that: God wins, satan loses, a tie is unacceptable. I am the person that the Old Testament Moses was referring to. Take care, see you in the Kingdom. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Charill,

Also visit, https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/

Charill,

visit www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey

Charill,

visit www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey

Charill,

visit www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey

The whole question of the existence of God is tied up, in my view, with the problem of the ancestry of man. If, as some believe, mankind originated in Africa, why is every human being not black; if man was black in the first place, how did the other segments of mankind appear, who, in short, was our ancestor. If those who deny the existence of God, or other divine being, cannot fully answer this question, it is no wonder that so many people turn to a supernatural being for a satisfactory explanation.

Peter Huff:

Witnessed miracles are the corner stones or most religion, and life-death-rebirth (resurrection) is a very common theme. You've got a computer, do the research, it's there if you want to find it.

Here's one of the India's that came back after death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sai_Baba_of_Shirdi

The physical resurrection of Jesus, as per many contemporary NT exegetes and also many contemporary Catholic theologians, did not happen. Ditto for the his ascension and Mary's assumption.

Heaven is a spirit state or spiritual reality of union with God in love, without earthly -- earth bound distractions.(no physical bodies possible)

Christ 's and Mary's bodies are therefore not in Heaven. For one thing, Paul in 1 Cor 15 speaks of the body of the dead as transformed into a "spiritual body." No one knows exactly what he meant by this term.

Most believe that it to mean that the personal spiritual self that survives death is in continuity with the self we were while living on earth as an embodied person.

The physical Resurrection (meaning a resuscitated corpse returning to life), Ascension (of Jesus' crucified corpse), and Assumption (Mary's
corpse) into heaven therefore did not take place.

The Ascension symbolizes the end of Jesus' earthly ministry and the beginning of the Church.

Only Luke's Gospel records it. The Assumption ties Jesus' mission to Pentecost and missionary activity of Jesus' followers The Assumption has
multiple layers of symbolism, some are related to Mary's special role as "Christ bearer" (theotokos). It does not seem fitting that Mary, the body of Jesus' Virgin-Mother (another biblically based symbol found in Luke 1) would
be derived by worms upon her death. Mary's assumption also shows God's positive regard, not only for Christ's male body, but also for female
bodies."

See http://wiki.faithfutures.org/index.php/017_Resurrection_of_Jesus for added details.

Thanks, Sam Harris, for once more explaining in a rational way, irrational behavior. Group dynamics will easily sway those who are on the fence about their beliefs. I once attended a prayer breakfast for a charismatic catholic women's group. I was still attending church then, going through the motions without being convinced any longer, but being at that group hysteria gathering, I almost wanted to be able to speak in toungues and roll around on the floor...or at least faint dead away. But, dyed in the wool skeptic that I was even then, I just could not pull it off. Go figure. Years later, after much thinking and reading and studying I came to the conclusion that no one has ever been able to prove to me any of those crazy things in the bible or in the catholic doctrine. It was my awakening. I became a free thinker and started communicating with other like-minded people until finally, at present I am a card carrying member of American Atheists. I am the same person I've always been only I stopped pretending to believe in all those superstitions and myths. My favorite quote: the bible is just a fairy tale, like the ones by the Brothers Grimm, only a whole lot more gruesome.
Since this country is teetering on the edge of becoming a Christian Nation, I am speaking of Western religion since that is the only one I am familiar with. If this country ever replaces the Amendments with the Commandments I am leaving for Canda.
Monica, California

Having grown up as a Baptist preacher's kid and having attended (albeit briefly) Bob Jones University I always wanted to have a clear understanding about why I couldn't believe in a "God" after leaving home and learning to possess and develop my own mental faculties. I "reasoned" that the beliefs I always struggled to believe in while growing up could not exist simply because my "reasoning was a compulsion" and my reasoning simply led me to the conclusions that Mr. Harris, Mr. Hitchens and others are able to write about.

June,

Is it safe to assume you believe in moral relativism?

Are you one of those "truth is relative" folks too?

I really would like to know why moral relatives would be a good thing in society.

Peter is right. You may not believe in God...we do...and we have a reason for ethics and moral absolutes.

I'm really curious to hear the "India resurrection" claims that you make. Hmmm..

Gad,

There may be claims of people rising from the dead in our day and age, but to my knowledge none of the ancient myth based religions made a claim like this.

Jesus Christ is unique. There are historical accounts of Him rising from the dead and a transformation in people who trust in Him as Lord and Savior. So when you say,

"Do you know how many claimed and eye witnessed resurrections there are in history? There are people living in India right now who claim to have saw their leader come back from the dead. By your criteria if you don't believe every such claim as truth (from all of history), then your criteria for truth is invalid."

Please give me some examples of such accounts, both from the past and in India today.

Hi June,

I'm tuning in late here, but in answer to your question from a Christian perspective, without an absolute, ultimate objective moral law giver - God - it just becomes your subjective preference and opinion over and against my subjective preference and opinion.

Good and bad, right and wrong, truth and falsehood just become subjective or collective opinions that have a standard or measure that is constantly changing. Just give it enough time.

So, when you say that what Hitler did in Nazi Germany was "wrong" in the killing of six million Jews, the question is why? It was right for Adolph Hitler and the German society of that time. What gives you or your society the right to say it was wrong?

When Islamic terrorist fly planes into buildings, why is it wrong for them to do this? With over 100 million militant Muslims who are willing to sacrifice in the name of Allah, what gives you or I the right to say that what they are doing is wrong? Since God has laid the foundation for ethics by His Word, the Bible, I can say that both the examples cited above are morally wrong.

Without God try and make sense of ethics.

Sorry, I don't have time to read all 400+ comments to see if this has been said before.

I have always been puzzled why so many argue that there can be no morals without a global enforcer.

As I see it, morals ultimately come from self-interest coupled with self-awareness. The self-aware mind realizes that how one behaves toward someone else will invoke a response in kind, and so a man who kills his neighbor's son can at the very least expect his own son to be killed in return. And so the interest in preserving one's own family leads to the inhibition against killing one's neighbor or stealing his cow or raping his wife.

No "god" is required for this reasoning.
As has been said many times, did the people of Moses REALLY need 10 commandments in order to stop stealing and killing and raping? Clearly these "commandments" emerged in tandem with self-awareness, and were only much later written down as "good ideas".

Anonymous,

You ask "Why would anyone die for a lie?" I answered "People die for lies every single day, not because they believe that they are lies but because they believe that it is the truth", and you agreed that that was true.

Now you make a special case for the resurrection of Jesus, that people witnessed it and then died for it, therefore, since no one would die for a lie, it must be truth. This is a miracle based truth claim, if someone sees a miracle (and lives, fights, dies or kills for it) that makes it truth. So which major religion past or present is not based on eye witness accounts of miracles? Do you know how many claimed and eye witnessed resurrections there are in history? There are people living in India right now who claim to have saw their leader come back from the dead. By your criteria if you don't believe every such claim as truth (from all of history), then your criteria for truth is invalid.

As an ex Christian myself and after an extensive four year research of my own. I have reached the conclusion that all religions are a curse upon mankind. Both God and the New Testament Jesus, born of a virgin, impregnated by a ghost, as the son of a God, are myth. For those interested in my own testimony and my essays go here
www.geocities.com/inexileau/index.html

As an ex Christian myself and after an extensive four year research of my own. I have reached the conclusion that all religions are a curse upon mankind. Both God and the New Testament Jesus, born of a virgin, impregnated by a ghost, as the son of a God, are myth. For those interested in my own testimony and my essays go here
www.geocities.com/inexileau/index.html

As an ex Christian myself and after extensive four year research of my own. I have reached to conclusion that all religions are a curse upon mankind. Both God and the New Testament Jesus, born of a virgin, impregnated by a ghost, as the son of a God, are myth. Ffor those interested in my own sire go here
www.geocities.com/inexileau/index.html

Yes Hitchins is foolish if he thinks a little logic will stand between me and my God.
The reason my faith is so secure is that I know it is on another level from logic and reason and overrated rationalism.
There's more to life than making sense. Sense is for the weak and unsteady.
The highest virtue is accorded those who believe in the least likely,and the most seemingly irrational.
Any fool can believe in logic and earthly common sense.
It takes a man of true Faith to believe in the apparently unreal.
God exists.The proof is that the bible tells us so. And we know the bible is true,because God says it is.
I wish our schools would stop filling our kids heads with knowledge.Martin Luther observed many centuries ago,that knowledge is an impediment to true belief.
If we focused more on religious studies and the truth of the bible,and less on science,we wouldn't have so many danged atheists.
Peace be upon yous, F.O.

The rationale are completely bereft of logic.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ got many responses and I would like to further elaborate.

"Wow, you have not spent one single second thinking about this, before you "scream yes I have" know that that would only reflect even more poorly on you. People die for lies every single day (unless, for example, you believe that the 9/11 hijackers enjoying their 72 virgins right now), not because they believe that they are lies but because they believe that it is the truth, that's the rub........ A far better question for a theist to ask would be "Why would anyone kill for a truth?"

Big difference my friend. Those who declared that the resurrection was truth, were those who actually witnessed the event. They died for this reason. The muslims on 9/11 did not witness any event in the Quran. They believe it to be truth and therefore die for it yes, but the overall difference being that the early apostles were witnesses to this event and that makes for a pretty convincing case. But of course you will not agree. For some reason witnesses are good in court to determine outcomes these days, but not concerning the resurrection, right? Especially in light of the many people who saw Jesus after the resurrection. I'm not here to convince you so much to believe in it's truth, I'm merely stating that assumptuious evidence on your part is not very valid. Another point is that I wonder why the books in the Bible are not considered credible historical documents? Just because they are Holy Scripture for Christians? I do believe the evidence is overwhelming in favor of the Bible being historically correct. Now it's on your part to convince otherwise.

But why? What's the point right? No matter the evidence are either one of us gonna change our minds? Nope. I'll say there is more than enough evidence, you won't. I'll be called an idiot brain washed Christ follower and I'll remain silent. Please, feel free to follow in the ignorant ways of Harris and co. The kind of dialogue he presents is just what you extreme neo-atheists love, huh? But unfortunatley it gets no one no where.

Jerry Hancock,

Did you have faith that your wife loved you before you ever met her or knew of her existence?

Did god stand up in front of a room of your peers and declare his undying love for you?
Does God cook you dinner every night.
Does god have sex with you and whisper sweet nothings in your ear?

People use reason to decide if their wife loves them or if their wife is being faithful (different meaning completely) to them.
Reason #1. She tells you she loves you
Reason #2. She demonstrates her love by the things that she does for you and the affection that she shows you.

There is much physical evidence that your wife loves you.
You don't need faith (in the religious definition) to believe it.

If your wife came home unusually late one night smelling of men's cologne, you would hope that she has a story that makes sense, so you don't have to rely on faith alone that she has not fooled around. And if she had fooled around, would that automatically mean that she doesn't love you? Or just that's she's human.

What I'm trying to tell you is, metaphorically speaking, God smells like cheap perfume and his story makes no sense.
My REASON tells me that it would be foolish of me to have faith in him.

Reason is the foundation for the kind of faith you are talking about.

Hope this clears up you confusion.

The Flaws in Contemporary Religions, continued:

5. Hinduism (from http://www.hinduism.co.za/founder.htm) - "Hinduism cannot be described as an organized religion. It is not founded by any individual. Hinduism is God centered and therefore one can call Hinduism as founded by God, because the answer to the question ‘Who is behind the eternal principles and who makes them work?’ will have to be ‘Cosmic power, Divine power, God’"
The caste/laborer system and cow worship are problems when saying a fair and rational God founded Hinduism."

6. Buddhism- "Buddhism began in India about 500 years before the birth of Christ. The people living at that time had become disillusioned with certain beliefs of Hinduism including the caste system, which had grown extremely complex. The number of outcasts (those who did not belong to any particular caste) was continuing to grow."

"However, in Buddhism, like so many other religions, fanciful stories arose concerning events in the life of the founder, Siddhartha Gautama (fifth century B.C.):"

Archaeological discoveries have proved, beyond a doubt, his historical character, but apart from the legends we know very little about the circumstances of his life.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/BUDDHISM/SIDD.HTM

Bottom line: There are many good ways of living but be aware of the hallucinations/embellishments and myths surrounding the founders of said rules of life.

motivations for the practice of "faith"
The clergy of most religions (All?) have a vested interest in the security of their positions. Most have housing, clothing, shelter, prestige, audience -in short, all the needs of the non thinking life. The brain's atrophication has always been a necessity and aim for clergy's success. "Thou shalt not think", is the first (but unwritten) commandment of all religions of faih.

The Flaws of Contemporary Religions continued:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

3. Mohammed, an illiterate, hallucinating Arab, 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. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iman_(concept)

This agenda continues as shown by the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the Islamic train bombers in the UK and Spain, the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani koranics, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases and the Filipino koranics.
And who funds these acts of terror? Islamic Iran, the Third Axis of Evil and also the "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.

4. Luther, Calvin, Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley et al, founders of Christian-based religions, also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingy talking flying fictional thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).

The Flaws of Contemporary Religions continued:

2. Jesus, the illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter possibly suffering from hallucinations, has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth to a mamzer (Professor Bruce Chilton in his "Rabbi Jesus"). Analyses of his life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists)via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.

The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics. http://www.faithfutures.org/Jesus/Crossan2.rtf
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html

The Flaws of Contemporary Religions:

1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was probably a mythical character. If he was real, he was at best a combination of at least three men. 1.5 million Conservative Jews and their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT. http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/ConservativeTorah.htm

If the reason for Hiroshima, genocides, famines, wars, etc., is that mankind has free will then any god has lost his/her omnipotency and proclaims and precludes impotency. Further, if no one is ever saved from these events in any true sense, physical salvation, and quite possibly spiritual salvation, is impossible.

Therefore, there is no god. We are certainly "lost out here in the stars," billions of them. But that is what has always been and so there is no opportunity to truly credit or blame a divine concern or disinterest. It's as simple as that. And it's truly all right not to have what we never had.

If the reason for Hiroshima, genocides, famines, wars, etc., is that mankind has free will then any god has lost his/her omnipotency and proclaims and precludes impotency. Further, if no one is ever saved from these events in any true sense, physical salvation, and quite possibly spiritual salvation, is impossible.

Therefore, there is no god. We are certainly "lost out here in the stars," billions of them. But that is what has always been and so there is no opportunity to truly credit or blame a divine concern or disinterest. It's as simple as that. And it's truly all right not to have what we never had.

What bothers me about Sam Harris's comments is that he equates "faith" with self-deception--in effect saying that faith is "wishful thinking" and that only reason is the way to know something. Consider this: can you PROVE your wife loves you? That she is faithful? So if you believe she is, does that constitute self-deception and wishful (fantasy) thinking. Reason is only ONE way of knowing something and it is based on our assumption of logic commonly accepted (which has over time shown to be flawed as new research emerges). So why the declaration that reason is the only way to know something--it seems to me to have equal chance of being replaced by NEW reason (knowledge).

This is all such a waste of time, and yet I just can’t resist putting my two cents in.

Theists, I don’t know whether there is or isn’t some kind of god(s) (although I strongly suspect there isn’t, and there is no good reason to think there is), and I’m sure you’re all decent people, but your “arguments” are exercises in self-deception. There are so many problems with the arguments theists have posted in the comments section of Sam Harris’s, Christopher Hitchens’s, and Susan Jacoby’s essays, I don’t know where to begin.

The reason for doing what one considers good is because ONE CONSIDERS IT GOOD. This is reason enough for most people. Whatever the origins of morality are (God, mindless evolution, a big rock) doesn’t matter in the least to me nor, I would guess, to Hitchens, Harris, or Jacoby. If I am morally outraged by government corruption, and someone comes along and demonstrates to me how my moral outrage is the result of a long, mindless process of evolution, how does that change the fact that I’m morally outraged? That moral outrage is a part of who I am. You might as well tell me to stop loving my nieces because that love is the result of evolution. I. DON’T. CARE. The fact remains that I love my nieces, whether or not God exists, and whether or not I have his stamp of approval.

Theists claim that if morals come from God then they are somehow more legitimate (for lack of a better word) than if they are the result of a mindless natural process. How does that follow? It doesn’t. Not in a logical sense, anyway; maybe it does in a PERSONAL sense to YOU, but in no other sense does it “follow” that if morals come from a person-like entity who is not the result of a mindless process, only then can they be “legitimate.” If fact, from my perspective, if there is a God, his moral sensibilities are no less subjective and random than my own or anyone else’s.

And, of course, there’s the whole question that goes back to Socrates: does God will things because they are good, or are things good because God wills them? If God wills things BECAUSE THEY ARE GOOD, then morality does not come from God and he is not the “basis” (whatever that means) for morality as you claim. Morality in this case is independent of God, and he simply follows it. On the other hand, if things are “good” merely because God wills them, then all normative terms (moral, immoral, good, bad, ought, ought not, etc.) simply mean “God wills” or “God wills not,” and there would be no reason to be “moral” (i.e. to do what God wills) except pure self interest -- that is, because God happens to be more powerful than you and can dish out reward or punishment if he is so inclined. And in this case, God could say that rape and child porn and child abuse were “good” and, presto, these things would automatically, by definition, be “good.” And to say that God is “good” would mean ONLY that God acts according to his will, nothing more; it would be to say “God wills what he wills.” There would be none of the evaluative/normative appraisal that people normally imply when they call God “good” or terrorists “evil.” And to say that God was “morally perfect” would mean ONLY that God follows his will perfectly, nothing more.

Here’s something else theists never consider. If we are the result of godless evolution, there might still be a realm of moral truth that is not merely the creation of human beings. It’s possible that the realm of moral truth is similar to the realm of mathematical and logical truths, and billions of years of evolution simply produced minds that are advanced enough to apprehend this realm of moral truth. Who the f knows?! Who knows anything?

And even if what Hitchens and Harris consider “objective” moral truths are merely their own subjective moral sentiments, so what? So they are merely expressing their own subjective moral sentiments, and according to those moral sentiments, the Bible and the God of the three major monotheistic faiths are morally reprehensible in many respects. If you were honest with yourselves, you would admit that your own moral sentiments agree with Hitchens’ and Harris’s, and that certain parts of the Bible and certain aspects of the traditional concept of God are reprehensible to you, too. But instead of using Hitchens’ and Harris’s criticisms to rethink your own dogmatic beliefs, you dodge the issues they raise. For example, according to the Bible, slavery is acceptable to God. Is it acceptable to you? If not, you either have to disagree with the biblical God or deny that the Bible is the word of God and admit that the biblical God doesn’t exist. The Bible condones the stoning of adulteresses and disobedient children. (And Jesus apparently has no problem with these things either, since he believed the Old Testament was the word of God and said he did not come to abolish it and that not one bit of it shall perish.) Hitchens and Harris find such behavior morally repugnant. If you were honest, you would admit that you do, too, and that therefore the God of the Bible is either morally repugnant, or he doesn’t exist and these rules were simply the expressions of a primitive, morally backwards people.

And lastly, there is the biggest moral problem with traditional theism of all -- a contradiction at the very heart of Christianity (and Islam, as far as I can tell). God is morally perfect; absolutely, 100% flawless; he is pure love; his love is unconditional and never failing; he is merciful and loves humankind, who is the centerpiece of his creation. And yet this same God is going to torture the MAJORITY of humankind for eternity because of their moral shortcomings and because they don’t believe the right things about him. If Christians (and Muslims) were intellectually honest, they would admit two things about this: 1) This is contradictory. Period. There is no hair-splitting it away. If God is morally perfect, loving, and perfectly just and merciful, then there is simply no way he could EVER consign anyone to eternal torture for their flaws, certainly not the MAJORITY of the billions of people who have lived. If he is just, the punishment would HAVE to match the “crime.” If he is loving and merciful, he would lessen that deserved punishment or waive it altogether. And because this is contradictory, then such a God cannot – CANNOT, with mathematical certainty – exist and the Bible (and the Koran) cannot be the word of God since it contradicts itself in this way. And 2) If there is a God who is going to send the majority of humankind to hell for their moral shortcomings and errant beliefs about him, there is no way that normal, sentient human beings could ever worship, praise, or love him. He would be a moral monster that you would hate more, WAY MORE, than any Hitler, Stalin, or terrorist. Hitler, Stalin, and terrorists at least eventually killed their opponents; but according to traditional Christian doctrine (Protestant and Catholic) and, as far as I know, Islam, God is going to keep people who reject him alive just to torture them for not going along with his program. If you just stop and think honestly and vividly about that for one second without your dogmatic blinders and knee-jerk theological defenses, you would see that any being that would do this is beyond psychopathic, and you could never – NEVER – love, follow, or worship such a being.

And if you finally see that the Bible is not the word of God, then what possible basis could there be for believing in a God with the attributes ascribed to him in the Bible? Once you see that the Bible cannot be the word of God, for the above reasons and many others, then all we have to go on when we try to figure out the possible existence and nature of god(s) is what we can surmise from the natural world, reason, and our own moral sentiments. How far does that get you? Once you get rid of written revelation, there is no good reason left to believe in the traditional concept of God. There is no basis for thinking that whatever god(s) there might be out there is ALL-knowing, ALL-powerful, omni-present (what a ludicrous concept that is), can listen to and perfectly respond to the billions of prayers offered up to him around the world each day, knows the number of hairs on your head, has a special plan for each of us, etc., etc. etc. And there’s no basis for believing in the narratives of the Bible: Adam and Eve, the fall, the incarnation, salvation, etc.

What is most telling about why theists believe is their conception of atheists. They actually think that we "believe" in reason and we "believe" in science the way that they believe in God.

Science and reason are not things they are methods of discovery.
They don't have answers, they are ways of finding answers.

Belief in God is belief that we know the answer to the meaning of it all.
Belief in science and reason is belief that we have no such answer and that we are in a perpetual state of learning. It is, intellectual honesty.

One is lying to ourselves for the sake of comfort.
One is being honest with ourselves.

Let me distill that down a little further even.

One is lying.
One is honest.

Anonymous:

"I really feel that the resurrection is the key point in the gospel that no atheist or skeptic can find any proof or reason for it. It is historically documented and when people are willing to be persecuted and killed for that message, I can't find any other reason than it being true."

I'm sorry. I must have missed the announcement of that new evidence proving that people were killed for delivering this message. I didn't think there was any.... Oh wait. I'm right. There isn't.

Anonymous said:

"Why would anyone die for a lie?"

Wow, you have not spent one single second thinking about this, before you "scream yes I have" know that that would only reflect even more poorly on you. People die for lies every single day (unless, for example, you believe that the 9/11 hijackers enjoying their 72 virgins right now), not because they believe that they are lies but because they believe that it is the truth, that's the rub........ A far better question for a theist to ask would be "Why would anyone kill for a truth?"

In a recent Time Magazine lead article, Mother Theresa, throughout her career in the Church, repeatedly wrote of her doubt about Jesus. Her letters are being considered in her path towards Sainthood. She has already been Beatified. Contrast this with Adolph Hitler whom the Church never excommunicated. If this isn't further evidence of religious irrationality, what is?

I feel I am the only sane person in this place (Kuwait) ... it just amazes me how everyone is like drugged or transformed by these religions. I. Just totaly shocking how all these beleivers are like programmed machines. What happened to reason, questioning? rational thinking? Did faith ever build a plane or science did? do they go to church when people are sick to get better or do they go to where people have studied years or science like in a hospital !!!! I am just amazed at this world. The problem is that they think that non beleivers are bad .... they don't know it is the opposite. I would never kill myself in a plane for "God" .... that is just the ultimate craziness. I can not beleive that we are around 10% of the people in the US who think like that. We need to unite and start spreading the word ... but then ... we probably become like them !

I feel I am the only sane person in this place (Kuwait) ... it just amazes me how everyone is like drugged or transformed by these religions. I. Just totaly shocking how all these beleivers are like programmed machines. What happened to reason, questioning? rational thinking? Did faith ever build a plane or science did? do they go to church when people are sick to get better or do they go to where people have studied years or science like in a hospital !!!! I am just amazed at this world. The problem is that they think that non beleivers are bad .... they don't know it is the opposite. I would never kill myself in a plane for "God" .... that is just the ultimate craziness. I can not beleive that we are around 10% of the people in the US who think like that. We need to unite and start spreading the word ... but then ... we probably become like them !

"Surely, if you died and were buried in a tomb and the tomb was subsequently opened and your body was gone, no one -- in their right mind -- would construe this as evidence that you had risen from the dead. Everyone would simply believe that your body was removed. Why should it be any different for Jesus."

Actually they did think someone misplaced it until of course Jesus appeared to them. Check the passages out for yourself, but I just wanted to clarify that. I hope you are aware that Mary did ask where they put her Lord. She didn't assume resurrection. She assumed with reason that someone took Jesus' body.

One thing too, to mention is that the historical accounts of the apostles show that they were tortured, imprisoned, and of course eventual murdered for preaching the resurrection. Why would anyone die for a lie?

I really feel that the resurrection is the key point in the gospel that no atheist or skeptic can find any proof or reason for it. It is historically documented and when people are willing to be persecuted and killed for that message, I can't find any other reason than it being true.

Donna Williams:

Let me very tentatively comment on your long and interesting post. You need to know that I myself was born into a Christian family and was brought up an an Anglican (Episcopalian). And, when younger, I used to simply assume that being a worthy person and being a worthy Anglican were synonymous. That was until I realized that I was being dishonest since I did not really believe what the church taught. (Think of all that mumbo jumbo -- in the creed -- of Jesus descending into hell and being born of a virgin. Or think of bread an wine being turned into the body and blood of Jesus by saying some words over it).
At any rate, I felt compelled to find a new home where I could at least be honest with myself so I opted for Quakerism -- which has no creed and no formal sacraments. That allowed me to be more honest with myself and it lasted for many years. But even that much less restrictive environment became uncomfortable in the end and now I am an atheist/agnostic.
And, for the first time in my life, I can honsetly say that I know what Jesus meant when he talked about the truth setting us free -- which you very properly quote as an important statement by Jesus.

I am free from having to believe anything which is contrary to reason. That does not mean that reason is all that there is to life. Art, music, love , the wonders of nature, the joys of gardening etc etc are all equally real parts of life as a whole.

You have yourself already come a long way in rejecting passages in the Old Testament which are very far from speaking of a wholesome and admirable God. But, once you start this process, where do you stop? You don't have to be very astute to know that the Adam and Eve story is riddled with internal contradictions. Adam and Eve were supposed to be innocently unaware of the difference betweeen good and evil yet God supposedly punished them for eating the fruit from a tree which gave them knowledge of good and evil. That strikes me as plain nonsense -- and I felt that way even when I was an Anglican.

It is hard to know which aspects of Christinaity you do and don't accept but perhaps you need to ask yourself what would you do and how would you change if some highly convincing evidence was uncovered to the effect that Jesus body was stolen/removed from the grave.

Would that change your ethical outlook and moral behaviour in any way? My own ethical outlook and moral behaviour has not changed one iota since I ceased to be a Christian. I am simply more at peace with myself than I was when I was entangled with highly dubious mythological beliefs.

Surely, if you died and were buried in a tomb and the tomb was subsequently opened and your body was gone, no one -- in their right mind -- would construe this as evidence that you had risen from the dead. Everyone would simply believe that your body was removed. Why should it be any different for Jesus.

I don't know if any of this has been of any use to you but I would like to assure you that life on the other side of the faith/no faith divide is just as rich, just as challenging, just as rewarding as a life of faith.

Let me close by wishing you well in your quest for truth. If you are persevering and thorough going about this quest you will indeed -- in your own time and in you your own way -- be rewarded.

Rob Adams,

"We have put God in a box and if God exists, which I believe he does, he is certainly grander than we have given him credit for up to now. "

As an atheist I don't believe that god(s) exist, but if they do I certainly hope they are grander then we give them credit for, because they all seem pretty petty to me.

"I don’t know that I would grade theism as proven false, but certainly incomplete."

If I didn't believe that it was proven false I wouldn't be an atheist, I'd be a theist or a damned fence sitting agnostic......

DuckPhup,

"Once gullibility, irrationality, willful ignorance, self-delusion, intellectual dishonesty, hypocrisy and drooling stupidity are eradicated, religion would cease to exist. Coincidence? Probably not."

That is exactly the type of rhetoric I'm talking about. For some reason you believe that persons with faith are not educated, intellectual or even able to think for themselves. Of course you follow with words like "stupidity" and "ignorance". What's amazing is that I could use the same description for atheists. Of course I could find a perfectly logical philisophical argument to support that. But I won't. I have respect for individuals and what they believe and do not believe.

It is atheists like you, Duck, that cause such a divide in humanity. Of course you can call me ignorant all you want, but I think you have proven who really is the ignorant person in your statements.

So maybe when ignorance, pride, and hate are eradicated, atheism will cease to exist. "Coincidence?. Probably not."

David wrote (September 29, 2007 6:24 PM): "So, one question. Is that a good thing for mankind? To want to eradicate a specific mindset and a specific human being based on their personal beliefs? Is there really any way to justify this claim and still be a loving human being at the same time?"

Nobody is talking about eradicating 'people'. What needs to be eradicated are gullibility, irrationality, willful ignorance, self-delusion, intellectual dishonesty, hypocrisy and drooling stupidity. The way to do that is through education... particularly, the teaching of 'critical thinking' skills. Once gullibility, irrationality, willful ignorance, self-delusion, intellectual dishonesty, hypocrisy and drooling stupidity are eradicated, religion would cease to exist. Coincidence? Probably not.

David wrote (September 29, 2007 6:24 PM): "So, one question. Is that a good thing for mankind? To want to eradicate a specific mindset and a specific human being based on their personal beliefs? Is there really any way to justify this claim and still be a loving human being at the same time?"

Nobody is talking about eradicating 'people'. What needs to be eradicated are gullibility, irrationality, willful ignorance, self-delusion, intellectual dishonesty, hypocrisy and drooling stupidity. The way to do that is through education... particularly, the teaching of 'critical thinking' skills. Once gullibility, irrationality, willful ignorance, self-delusion, intellectual dishonesty, hypocrisy and drooling stupidity are eradicated, religion cease to longer exist. Coincidence? Probably not.

Message for David:

You claim to be a Christian and a man of faith and, if I understand correctly, the thrust of your contribution is that a live and let live attitude -- between those of faith and those without faith -- is best for the future of mankind. You also contend that envisioning a world in which religion no longer looms large is a pipe dream. By why should it be a pipe dream?

If the Abrahamic God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam or the multiplicity of gods of Hinduism is not based on reality then -- over the long haul -- it cannot endure for ever. So why not at least hope for its early demise. There was undoubtedly a time when most of mankind believed the earth waa flat and the conception of the earth being in existence for billions of years was totally out of reach.
We are now in a time when almost everyone knows the earth is spherical and it is only the lunatic fringe in Christianity which believes the earth is only 6.000 years old. And it is only that lunatic fringe which rejects the occurrence of evolution. So why should we not hold out for a wider dissemination of sanity? Why should we continue to believe in some bizarre kind of God that asked Abraham to kill his own son. Or why should we believe in eternal punishment in hell for those who happen to hold the wrong beliefs?

And why should we not long for the day when a larger percentage of mankind frees itself by accepting the truth that all existing formal religions are phony. And why should we not hope and encourage this to happen sooner rather than later?

People are irrational because they are not taught to think. Sam Dan and Richard are philosophers. Put philosophy and reason on every school curriculum.
Way to go Sam!
Parmenides 4 all.

Donna Williams,

You wanted a response and I would gladly respond by saying that you presented a very respectful and knowledge based post. I too am a Christian and see some serious philisophical flaws in Sam Harris' train of thought. Of course declaring an eradication of religion is not living in reality. It's wishful thinking. These types of worldviews might work in a society such as ours in the West, but definately will be crushed by an Eastern way of thinking. Simply put, Harris' philosophy is not reality and some kind of world wide eradication of religion or declaration of that philosophy will never occur. So what should he do? Maybe compromise?

I've read several atheistic worldviews and seem to come to a conclusion. First, that declaring a need to eradicate religion, claiming religion is poisioning society would never make for a great dialogue and acceptance of one another. I'm sure we can all agree that morally we should take the high road and maybe disagree on many issues but remain respectful and show love for one another. If I declare that atheism should be eradicated, what kind of response will I get? But of course it's ok for the opposite, right?

My declaration to atheism is this. Fine, I have faith in God, you don't. Good for you, and good for me. I hope your right for your sake, not mine. We both can have equally fulfilling lives with the only difference in being the unknown past death which is where my hope is at and your denial is at. But let's have a peaceful dialogue consisting of respectful worldviews that remain in that respect. As soon as Harris and Hitchens come along, all of sudden there's a bunch of religion hating atheists that come out want to be all militant about it. Atheism isn't going anywhere and neither is religion. Let's live in reality people! Because of that reality, why agree with Harris and Hitchens and all the other "extreme" atheists in religion being poisonous. It's downright disrespectful and hateful.

I could turn right around and claim atheism is poisonous as well and create a convincing philosophy to back that claim. But what good will that do? Seperate us as human beings? Naw, I'd rather bring us together in respect to our differences. Harris and Hitchens with their hateful rantings do not help in any way to progress mankind to a more loving and peaceful society. In fact, they promote a more tribalistic worldview to seperate believers from non and giving philisophical ideaologies to try to prove that somehow it's a good thing.

So, one question. Is that a good thing for mankind? To want to eradicate a specific mindset and a specific human being based on their personal beliefs? Is there really any way to justify this claim and still be a loving human being at the same time?

David

Ditto, Nate.

Another clear, brutal, and humorous article from Sam Harris demonstrating the perpetual shortcomings of religious thought. Way to go Sam.

I like Sam Harris' humorous synopsis of his position on rationality vs. faith in his recent article, "Religion As A Black Market for Irrationality". Although he saw it as superfluous based on having covered his beliefs previously, a shortened version of his position can be very useful as compared to full length books. It has been over a year since I read his first book, and some areas stood out to me more than others based on who I am as a person. I am confident that this is true for most people.

I do wish that atleast the majority of my fellow Christians could also see the humor in the presentation of Mr. Harris' view on all religious faith systems, rather than as a "slap in the face" or a threat. I am grateful to live in a political system of democracy with emphasis on freedom of speech, which is what allows any of us to share our "message". I would not want to return to the days of burning books, control of knowledge and information, or a lack of public education being available for all as a means for their empowerment. I don't think the majority of Christians, or for that matter most relgious people, is so extreme that they would desire that. Also, in religious history are examples of "church reformation" (Protestant vs. Catholic, e.g.) that I believe produced an actual evolution of religious faith. So, if my recall is correct, I would disagree with Mr. Harris' tenant that religious faith hasn't evolved. His studies have included religious faith from centuries ago and I understand that many current day "holy books" include similar concepts or statements that can be quoted and in my mind (and most people's minds) present as barbaric. Old Testament stories relate God as ordering the Isrealites to commit genocide, including all women and children. It is true that I don't believe in a God like that, therefore I have chosen to see those stories (as have other Christians I know) as historical, and documented from the authors of the Old Testament from their cultural/religious faith perspectives. I do not believe that God ordered or condoned those actions.

Therefore, I agree with Mr. Harris that we live and act based on our "true" belief systems. But being able to disregard some parts of the "holy book" as not applicable to my faith system doesn't mean I am not a Christian, or value the Bible as a gift of God less than an extreme literalist, or that I am a "fake". Only if Mr. Harris believes that we all have to be zealots with religious faith could that be a true statement for him, even.

I also don't believe that all "lapses in rationality" are done in the dark, and out of consciousness. It is most definitely possible to learn to distinguish instinctual components of thought/behavior as not being rational in yourself. Our brains are not purely modern day computers. They still have fundamental neurological parts that impact emotion, for instance, that influences not only unconscious responses, but actual thought processes that we are aware of at the time. I believe this is the basis of "self control". I can feel angry about how I have been treated by someone, respond with thoughts of things I would like to say and really believe are true (and would stand by this), yet have an internal dialogue that tells me that my thoughts are not a rational reaction to the actual situation, until I have calmed myself enough to choose the latter perspective as a basis for action. It is possible to evaluate your own thoughts and temporary beliefs consciously, cerebrally, and adjust them prior to action. Some people, and especially children, don't have this skill, but I believe that most of us develop it at some level in order to function reasonably in society and maintain relationships. I have possibly worked harder than a lot of people to achieve this because I learned not to trust my emotions since Bipolar Disorder causes excessive swings in emotion. The depression phase of it also has a great deal of emotion based irrational thought relative to the true situation, and over time can be self-identified as not rational while it is occurring, knowing that it will pass and decisions must be made later. Having a "mood disorder", or excessive stress that brings out instinctual behaviors (fear), or getting poor results from having a basic temperament of strong emotional reactions can all lead a person like me to develop that skill, while others might not need it as much. (Anger management is often directed at this skill). So, lapses in rationality per situation don't have to be always out of consciousness. "A belief" does not necessarily "entail the concurrent conviction that we are not just fooling ourselves." I have been fully aware that my brains response of thoughts was fooling me and could not be trusted at the time for decision making purposes. That may be a rare example of when beliefs do not match actions, but I maintain that it is likely more people develop this skill at some level.

I also believe based on my current knowledge of the human brain (which allows us to be rational) that Mr. Harris is experiencing irrational, wishful thinking that all religious faith should be eliminated (as compared to evolving based on new understanding of our world and ourselves). It is important to be aware that our knowledge is not complete. There are current scientists that choose to believe in God because we don't have the "technology" or adequately advanced brains (sensory perceptual skills) to confirm God's existence or disconfirm it. If Mr. Harris and other atheists believe that the brain and our sensory functions are not reliable for confirming that God exists, then it makes no rational sense to trust the brain to perceive anything in our world, however much science advances, as being true reality. Individuals born with sensory perceptual deficits, get them through neurological damage, or have psychiatric illnesses rely on others to give them a reality check. Religious groups also rely on trusting others for "rational" reasons to believe, and atheists rely on others perspectives of reality based on their current knowledge for "rational"
reasons not to believe. Many of the people that might choose to believe Mr. Harris' and his fellow colleagues reasons not to believe in God are not personally double checking by studying on their own all that him and his colleagues have studied. Therefore, they become "followers" of his message based on their trust/faith in him and his colleagues. Belief does indeed stem (for all of us) on trusting another's experience/knowledge, and loss of "reality" has more to do with being isolated than "irrational". To Mr. Harris (and other atheists), religious faith followers aren't being rational because they are relying on different sources of knowledge/experience/personal "testimony" than atheists rely on.

So, I maintain that the desire for an Era of purely reason is as much wishful thinking for Mr. Harris as believing in God is for religious people. The problem is not religious faith, it is if that faith produces social destruction of others (violation of another's human rights). In my recent experience, any socially based authority (psychiatry/psychology) has the potential to violate human rights based on a belief system. Martial law (the military taking over) or the concept of a "police state" has the same potential. Religious belief has also led to this violation when abused by those in power. A Democratic government attempts to prevent this for it's people, and in my opinion should.

My recent experience of violation of my human rights with a neuropsychologist, however, may prove to be useful because much can be learned from situations, whether by accident or on purpose. And regardless of misinterpretations, mistakes, and actual outcomes, if truth arises in the process, we have all benefitted. Ahtheists and most religious people do share something in common--a desire for the truth. Any truth that comes forth is desirable, regardless of if you believe it is a gift of God ("You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free" stated under the authority of Jesus of Nazareth in the Bible), or if you believe it is due to advances in science and the evolution of our species based on a scientist's authority. My message is that "Tolerance" by ALL toward each other without violation of human rights (Jihad does not follow this concept) is essential to solutions for our worlds problems. I believe that Jesus taught it and lived it (walk the walk) and knew that if we followed his example we could have peace. If indeed it is a fundamental truth, I see it as a gift of God, as was Jesus being sent by God. I believe that science is a means to come to truths like this, and is not at odds with religious faith. That is why I choose to be a Christian religiously, and why I choose to be a scientist (through study and practical application) occupationally.

I do not see my desires/message as being any different than Sam Harris', just that the approach to achieving those results is different. Do I defy my cultures choice to have modern psychiatry/psychology as an authority over me? Only if I have good "reason" to believe that their actions will harm, rather than help me and those whom I care about (Survival). Is it right to violate a human beings fundamental human rights to prevent suicide (vs homicide)? I'm not sure at this point, seeing as it is possible to do that person real harm while trying to help them.

I would love to get responses to this from anyone out there who has an opinion.

Gad.

You make an excellent point about defining the nature of God and what God wants/needs. Rationally an omnipotent being would need nothing. Actually some of the latest conversations that have supposedly occurred with God say just that.

We have put God in a box and if God exists, which I believe he does, he is certainly grander than we have given him credit for up to now. I don’t know that I would grade theism as proven false, but certainly incomplete.

As I said in my earlier post even if God is just a man made concept it could still be a very effective tool. We just need to be more responsible with it.

1. You want to believe in God
2. You believe that killing in God's name is especially noble.
3. Then, realize that the human ability to kill in God's name in the absence of other justification might itself constitute evidence for the existence of God.
4. Now consider any need for further evidence (both in yourself and in others) to be a form of temptation, spiritually unhealthy, or a corruption of the intellect, then act upon your faith
5. Refer to steps 2-4 as acts of “faith.”
6. Return to 2.

---

The nice thing about believing in human contrivances and fictions is you can use them to justify anything.

Kim.

I wouldn’t agree we know nothing of God. It depends on how well some has ‘researched’ God. I do agree that religion in its current form has for the most part has served it’s purpose and now it is time to move on.

However I think that means we need to continue our exploration of God or at least of human consciousness which may or may not be related to God depending on your point of view. If we continue to think that God is at least a possibility then it is time for a new definition. Focusing on absolute truths is limiting. Great discoveries do not come from hard core truth, but from exploration of possibilities.

I go back to the theory of time travel. It is not proven but some scientists believe it could be true. It is their belief that one day we may be able to achieve this hundreds or thousands of years in the future. Just because we can not prove it or observe it currently does not mean it is not true. From a scientific view I put God in the same realm as time travel, not proven yet, but definitely possible.

God is not about religion, God is about absolute truth and understanding the existence and perhaps the meaning of everything.

The ideas that you can not prove or disprove god and that there is no evidence for or against god, gets stated 1000's of times on these forums (even by me), but that is very misleading. It is only true in the context of there being "a" god, not in the context of any knowledge claims of the nature of god. Theism makes claims about the nature of god and what his wants are, these can be "proven" wrong and/or be shown to have no evidence that supports them. In this context theism can and has been proven false.

We know nothing of a god...why does there have to be a "god"..why cant it just be...for the sake of being. Intelligent design is not in the least intelligent...it's fanciful and unproven. Lets face it, religon has seen it's better days. It has served its purpose for our uneducated ancesters. Now is the time to move on with the knowlege we have gathered throughout our millions of years of evolution...because we are still evolving. We need to focus on real truths, not imaginary ones.

Kim.

If you feel powerless around the faithful, perhaps you have just not run into the proper ones. Gary Falcon is right there are some theists that do not abandon rational thought. I am hoping I am one of them!

I would beg to differ that I know nothing and please don’t lump all the theists in with those in organized religion that are close minded…actually don’t lump me in with any one who is close minded that is something I strive to avoid.

Neither side is absolutely provable at this time so there is an element of faith on both sides. Is it the idea of God that is so distasteful or the idea of God that has been presented to you that is distasteful? I totally understand that latter.

As for Thomas Baum I believe he may be one of those people I spoke of earlier in my posts. He may be someone who has transcended his religion and operates outside the box. He gets the ‘real’ message of his religion. Thomas correct me if I am wrong but I get the sense that to you the message is more important than the dogma.

Regardless of my interpretation if you have read Thomas on other threads he is not one who would hold an atheist down. He is not twisting words they are just different than what you hear from a lot of Christians. He is consistent in his delivery and his; love and inclusiveness. I don’t see the problem with his message.

Not all theists are a threat the atheist thinking.

Gerry said:

"Why not define nature as god or god as nature"

Why? I define the base of all questions to be "why is there something as opposed to nothing" and I define god as any answer to that question that implies willful reason and purpose i.e. intelligent design. Therefore, in my view, your statement only differs from the theists in the degree of what we claim to know of and about god. My view, opinion, belief, claim is that the answer to "why is there something as opposed to nothing" is "no (or ever knowable) reason". One could claim that this does not necessarily eliminate god as a possibility, but a "never knowable reason" is the same as "no reason". In these terms your statement is either just another variation of theism or arbitrary, so why bring god into unless you are a theist.

Gary,

Your post doesn’t make me feel better because it’s irrational. There. I feel better now.

I believe that you are making quite a basic mistake. You state that "one cannot knowingly believe a proposition on bad evidence". You give an example of a belief ("I'm destined to marry Angelina Jolie") that is based on bad evidence (hard to compete with Brad Pitt). So far, so good. Then, you compare this to belief in god. The problem with god is, though, that there is no evidence in favor or against his existance, so the comparison is wrong.

Sure, there are people who try to "prove" the existance of god, who claim that there is evidence. For these, your argument holds, they are believing irrationally.

But there are many people who realize that there is no such evidence and that belief is just that - belief. You can't prove it, you can't disprove it. Arguments for and against the existance of god both are of the same quality. But the belief makes some people feel better. So it is definitely not rational for them to believe in god, I dare even say that it would be irrational for them not to believe in god. Before you jump me for this sentence, read it again: I didn't say that it's irrational generally not to believe in god. I said that it's irrational not to believe in god if doing so would make you feel better, and if your form of belief is one that doesn't have hard evidence speaking against it.

Of course, the religious people who go shouting their "truth" around are of the irrational sort - they believe stuff that is arguably wrong, and your article fits them perfectly. Just please differentiate. Being religious does not imply being irrational, just as being an atheist does not imply being rational.

Nothing like twisting words Thomas.... you must be a preacher.

I would say that everyone is really going to be surprised at how nice God is, at least it seems that way to me after reading some of the postings here and elsewhere. To the people that call themselves christian and are condemning everyone else: Didn't Jesus say, "Judge not, lest ye be judged", "The measure you judge with will be the measure that you are judged with", "Father, forgive them" (no asterick). Do you have a clue what Jesus meant when He said, "Come follow me"? Is it about rules and regulations or about Love? How come so many people that call themselves "christian" come across as so arrogant, unforgiving and judgemental? Is it because they are "christian" in name only? I know God is real and that He is a Trinity and that He is Pure Love. Of course, I have also noticed that some of the people that don't believe in God can be just as arrogant, puffed up in their pride of "intellectual superiority". Is it my thinking or does it seem like human nature, that so many people seem to make themselves feel better by belittling others? I have met God and I know that I don't know everything, and I also know that some things just aren't that important. Just because someone believes in something does not mean that it is true and also just because someone does not believe in something does not mean that it isn't true. There are people that do not believe in God at all that are much closer to God in their hearts and actions than some people that actually know God's Name. It is important what you do and why you do it and what you know. Whether you believe in God or not, He is a searcher of hearts and minds, not of religious affiliations or lack thereof. We have free will and we have a conscience, whether we use it or listen to it or not. Quite a few people on these postings, that don't believe that God is real, have alluded to a conscience whether they have used that word or not. For those that believe in God, He said that He would write it on our hearts, for those that don't believe in God, they call it hard-wired or words to that effect. Take care, see you in the Kingdom. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

I wish I could think like you Sam....lots of times I feel powersless around the faithful...but I know in my heart, they know nothing. It all comes down to fear of death...an awful reality that is not popular. The religous tend to make themselves popular with their extra ordinary beliefs. I work at a public school, and there is a poster that seems to crop up. I think it holds true for religon. Whats popular is not always right....whats right is not always popular. I thank the sun and the stars for giving me the common sense to see life in its true reality. And I'd like to thank you Sam for putting an intelligent voice to that understanding.

I wish I could think like you Sam....lots of times I feel powersless around the faithful...but I know in my heart, they know nothing. It all comes down to fear of death...an awful reality that is not popular. The religous tend to make themselves popular with their extra ordinary beliefs. I work at a public school, and there is a poster that seems to crop up. I think it holds true for religon. Whats popular is not always right....whats right is not always popular. I thank the sun and the stars for giving me the common sense to see life in its true reality. And I'd like to thank you Sam for putting an intelligent voice to that understanding.

The concept that "Free Love" will be OK without religion is greatly faulted. We must remember that an atheist is not an anarchist and that one must follow civil law in the absence of religious laws and taboos....or even where they are in conflict...such as in the case of polygamy. Marriage laws are important in any case because they enforce responsibilities to one's spouse and to one's children. They are an economic necessity and a normal marital relationship may be deemed a healthy life style. Married people tend to live longer than single people.

In the early posts here someone said that science is a religion. This may have been a person with poor scientific education. If we study biology, chemistry and physics we learn about scientific proofs of experiments which can always be repeated with exactly the same result. As an engineer I can tell you that the understanding that these results will be repeated is behind all engineering designs and if those designs did not work there would be no engineering. For example Ohm's Law is a law of physics that says that if you connect one volt of electricity across a one ohm resistor, one ampere of electrical current will flow through the resistor. This will work anywhere, even on the moon. If it did not... no radios or computers could be manufactured.

Religion unlike science contains bibles full of miracles that can not be repeated anywhere...unless perhaps if performed by angels or devils in heaven or hell...all of which are purely fictitious. Now if you want to believe in these myths then you have to have what is called "faith". Faith based stuff that leads to psychological certitude is not scientific. It is by definition acceptance of things that have no scientific proof or in miracles that can not be repeated. The average "believer" can not separate coincidences from repeatable science even when there are observed phenomena that can not easily be explained by existing science. On top of this people want to believe in such nonsense as life after death...so it is easy for the religious preachers to gain their confidence.

The scientific community is not yet all of the belief that global warming is caused by Man's use of fuel. More data must be available before present ice cap melting can be blamed on Man's activity rather than natual cycles...but like religious predictions of god's punishments, it is easy to get people with guilt complexes to accept anything that they do not fully understand as the work of God....who is punishing them for their consumption of fuel or high standard of living.

It was the late comedian, Fred Allen...who said, "God only knows what Pinkus puts into his patented pickles". No scientific innovation or progress could have ever been made if man did not want to learn stuff...and Pincus must know what he puts into his pickles...If we believe that only God also knows what Pincus pus into the pickles it is redundant...because chemists could perform an analysis that would take the pickles out of the realm of being miraculous and god need not be blamed if anyone thinks that the pickles taste too sweet or too sour to the different tastes of different individuals.

Anonymous wrote: "Last time I checked, evolution was still a theory, an equivolent theory to the "just happened" bid that scientists are stuck with."

Then it is clear that you do not understand what a scientific 'theory' is, and you have no idea what 'evolution' is, either. The words that you use lead me to suspect that your mind has been contaminated by the 'comic book' version of evolution, and the distorted description of 'science' that has been dreamed up and promulgated by the corps of professional liars that are employed by 'religion' in order to mislead their scientifically-ignorant constituency, and keep them in a perpetual state of bamboozlement. So... which of the LFJ (Liars For Jesus) web sites is your primary source of 'scientific' knowledge?... www.answersingenesis.com?

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back." ~ Carl Sagan (on religion)

The 'Theory of Evolution' has absolutely NOTHING to do with (or to say about) the origins of life, or where the world came from. For current scientific thought on the origins of life, look up 'abiogenesis'. Then look up 'planet formation'.

Science does not 'prove' things. 'Proof' is for mathematicians, logicians, coin collectors and distillers of alcoholic beverages. Proof in science is applicable only in the 'negative' sense... i.e., hypotheses and theories must be 'falsifiable'. When scientists do experiments (to validate 'predicted' results), they are NOT trying to 'prove' they are RIGHT... they are trying to FIND OUT if they're WRONG. NOT being wrong simply builds confidence that one is on the right track... it 'proves' nothing. Being WRONG provides them with valuable information, too... it tells them that they either have to tweak their hypothesis... or abandon it.

Evolution is a 'scientific theory'... not just an 'idea'. In science, theories occupy a higher tier of importance than mere 'facts'. Theories do not INVENT facts... theories EXPLAIN facts. The 'theory of evolution' explains the OBSERVED BIOLOGICAL FACT that the genetic makeup of POPULATIONS of organisms CHANGES, over time... and that's what 'evolution' means... changes, over time. This observed fact IS NOT in dispute, and it is readily evident in the fossil record, biology, genetics, paleontology... in ALL related branches of science.... and more-so now than in Darwin's day.

The theory identifies two primary mechanisms which ACCOUNT FOR the OBSERVED FACT:

* genetic drift... statistical variations in allele frequency, over time.

* natural (non-random) selection of beneficial mutations (random)... i.e., the non-random replication of randomly varying replicators (Dawkins' excellent phrase).

While the FACTS ARE NOT in dispute, and the mechanisms identified above are not in dispute, there is ongoing conversation and research relating to the DETAILS of the above, and about OTHER possible mechanisms which may ALSO account, in part, for the OBSERVED FACT that the genetic makeup of populations of organisms changes, over time.

Here are a few important things that might help you to understand biological 'evolution'...

* DNA does NOT evolve... it experiences (random) mutations.

* Organisms DO NOT evolve. Organisms are essentially the 'proxies' for altered DNA, playing out the 'game' of survival/procreation in 'meat space'. DNA whose proxy organisms manage to procreate get to move on to the next round... kind of like Jeopardy. This is where 'natural selection' plays out. 'Survival of the fittest' (a term invented by a British newspaperman, NOT a scientist... a newspaperman who DID NOT UNDERSTAND what 'natural selection' is all about) is a complete misrepresentation of the concept of 'natural election'. It implies (and is usually interpreted to mean) faster... stronger... smarter... able to take, rather than share... driven to kill rather than to co-exist... etc. But what 'natural selection REALLY means is something like better camouflage... slightly better tolerance for arid conditions... a new protein that permits the use of something as a food source that was previously toxic to the organism... the ability of an animal to run slightly faster than its neighbor, so that it's the neighbor that gets caught and eaten by the predator... not him... etc. THAT is 'natural selection'... ANYTHING that increases the STATISTICAL PROBABILITY that an organism will survive long enough to procreate... and that is ALL that it means.

* It is the genetic makeup of POPULATIONS of organisms (the 'gene pool') that 'evolves' (changes, over time)... NOT the organisms themselves. The foolish cartoon-version of evolution that christian/creationist puppet-masters describe to their flocks is pretty much one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.... lies such as "Evolutionists claim that an ape gave birth to the first human."

There may be OTHER mechanisms in play which have not yet been identified and accounted for, and various scientists continue to quibble about that... but NONE of what I have described above is in dispute within the scientific community. Claims to the contrary by creationists are nothing more than a red herring, designed to bamboozle their scientifically-ignorant constituency... which is VERY easy to do. That's what happens when your 'trusted' sources are professional liars whose livlihood depends on keeping their 'flock' (sheeple) steeped in gullibility, self-delusion, ignorance and irrationality... and it can be counted on with the utmost certainty that the 'flock' does not know HOW to think... so they depend on being told WHAT to think.

OK... prolonged exposure to gullibility, irrationality, willful ignorance, self-delusion, intellectual dishonesty, hypocrisy and drooling stupidity make me sick. I'm gonna go throw up now.

Timmy.

While I am a theist, I am not religious so perhaps that is why I agree with you that faith is not a virtue. Faith in and of itself does not guarantee virtue which is why we should judge people on their actions not their religious affiliation or lack there of.

I see the argument that an atheist could (more easily??) go the route of survival of the fittest and it’s just about me. I see that as a dangerous train of thought. On the flip side we can have a religious zealot who throws reason out the window and kills in the name of their God. Therefore neither the theist stance or atheist stance is automatically a safe haven.

Bill.

I guess it comes down to how one decides to fill in the gaps that either God or science can not explain and there are many on both sides. At one point we thought that rocks didn’t move. At some point in time we discovered molecules and saw that rocks did indeed move, just differently than what we interpreted what moving was. Just because we can not currently prove something does not mean it is not true. We also need to take the other stance just because something could be true, doesn’t mean it is. The answer of course is to keep exploring and learning.

I believe there are at least hints of the afterlife and God and currently most (all?) of it is improvable. I think the nearest ‘proof’ is the research of the Monroe Institute which explores the limits of human consciousness. The participant of these repeatable experiences talk of encounters with entities outside the physical realm and the conversations are intriguing. I recommend Monroe’s book Far Journeys. I think you may at least find it a good sci-fi read 

I agree with what Gerry said, why is there this fear of learning and evolving our understanding of religion and God? Perhaps God is just a man made theory, but it can be a line of thinking that moves us forward if we unshackle it from the confines of organized religion. If God is real unshackling it from the confines of organized religion may lead us to a more complete understanding of God.

Our belief’s, whether they are in science or God, do shape our actions so belief is something we all need to understand. Regardless of our stance isn’t the idea to be moving forward and evovlving?

Why not define nature as god or god as nature, and you have debunked the main part of these discussions as a passionate semantic word play. So everybody can freely admit that he believes in god/nature (what else would there be to believe in for anybody, btw?), which then amounts to the same, and it certainly, if done with only a little bit of wonder, of awe, respect and empathy, creates feelings one can call "religious" in quotation marks if one wants to.

God/Nature obviously does have SOME method of action, no matter if you want to call it creation or evolution (eventually even both: There has to be SOMETHING in order to evolve), and nothing is known of what was before the Big Bang (for the scientists) or who created god (for the religious population). Both unanswerable questions would merge into one. No doubt we exist and were born through a huge chain of events of which we have an ever evolving amount of knowledge but certainly no "eternal" truth which would stop all acquisition of new knowledge. The loathing of learning is what enrages me so much with the religious crowd: If you know, you don't have to learn.

Nature is in itself inscrutable, and to me the attempt to learn more from this inexhaustible source of possible knowledge is one of the assets of human dignity.

Instead, religionists are dissatisfied: They arrogantly demand a "Super"- Nature. That would logically lead to the idiocy to demand infinitely further Super-Super-Super*n - Natures.

It describes the situation that people demand these impossibilities before even trying to understand some of the most basic principles of nature and of ourselves.

Excellent writing Sam!I am a Buddhist but I agree with 100% of what Sam writes. The basic problem of today's society is religion rather than poverty. We need more and more people to realize the stupidity of believing in God to save the humanrace.Your attempt to reach that goal is not far away.

Ted Swart said:

"All in all I find myself unattracted to Rudolph Steiner -- if your description of him is accurate. "

I agree. I find his philosophy as described distinctly underwhelming. The fact that we can only conceive of something in a thought in no way suggests that there was not an independent existence before thought, or that thought has primacy over matter. This is sophistry, and there is no mystery as to why Steiner is so obscure.

Hey, when I was younger, I temporarily believed that my inability to conceive of my own non-existence was proof of an afterlife, or at least re-incarnation. That was before I was ever put under general anesthesia - when I experienced non-existence- temporarily.

Anonymous, you weren't listening. I said

"what is the reason to believe that just because some phenomenon is beyond our present understanding, that God is the answer? Why not just some natural process that we do not yet understand?"

In light of past history, why should such things be considered "proof" of God? Do you have an answer? Is the "God of the Gaps" your god?

Don Cruse:

Your long contribution on Rudolph Steiner -- which seems to have appeared three time! -- sparked my interest but left me larfely in the dark by the time I go to the end.

Towards the end you say:
"There will be a revival of Christianity when it becomes impossible to write a manual of science without referring to the incarnation of the Word".

What on earth is that supposed to mean?

Your mutually exclusive forms of monism strike me as a little far-fetched -- except in a very loose sense. I think the silly notion that religion and science operate in different realms is indeed phony but that does not mean that we have to choose between matter and mind. Surely it implies exactly the reverse. The substance which makes up the universe including ourselves is what it is and we relate to it both in a physical (material) sense and in a spiritual (thought based) sense.

When you speak of Christianity being "revived" you must have some conception of what Christianity is and some notion that Christianity is superior to all other religions. The notion of the "Word" becoming incarnate comes from John's gospel and clearly refers to Jesus as having some profound significance and unique nature which is not true of the rest of us.

All in all I find myself unattracted to Rudolph Steiner -- if your description of him is accurate. I think I'll stick to agnostic pantheism,

I dont know how to show my aganger against theists.
all i can say is they are ignorants about the worls view.
Thanks
Nagesh

my email id
jagabattuni@yahoo.com

I'm still looking for an answer to my question.

WHY IS FAITH A VIRTUE?

Dyed,

Took the words right out of my mouth. I realized before anonymous ever posted that considering dark matter and dark energy I was oversimplifying things a bit - but didn't want to get into it as I didn't think that it materially affected my point - as you've demonstrated. Thanks!

Thanks Timmy – and likewise.

Tough gig eh?

Nice one Dyed in the Wool.
You rock!

Anonymous wrote: I read an article today that said that 75% of the universe is dark matter. No scientist on earth knows what the heck dark matter is, where it came from and why it's there. They just know it is there. 75% people!! That's a lot of unknown matter! And for some reason I am supposed to believe that scientists are even closer to determining how all this came to be?
__________________________________________________

Actually dark energy and dark matter comprise 96% of the universe. Things made of atoms (you, me, stars, planets, etc..) make up a scant 4%. The good news is that science has taken a giant leap forward in defining what is arguably THE fundamental question in astrophysics. The bad news is our handle on the universe, which was previously thought to be fairly robust, is actually quite elementary. A daunting challenge indeed but one that will be met step by slow step. We are centuries away (perhaps much longer) from truly understanding the universe but the next four or five decades will be very exciting as advances in technology and instrumentation continue to increase.

However, I infer from your post that pretending you know things that you do not know is somehow comforting and that answers to fundamental questions are best presented neatly wrapped up with a bow on top. Fine. Those of us with a more insatiable curiosity and a higher dose of intellectual honesty will continue the search and in doing so, drag your sorry asses into the modern world. Just as we’ve been doing for the past several centuries. You can’t burn us at the stake for doing so anymore so I guess we’ve made some, albeit small, measure of progress.

to Jay, I suspect that there is unlikely to be any reward in the hearafter for daily cleaning up a retarded person's fecal and urine waste, even when a beloved child or relation is the burden. Persons throughout history who have toiled in servitude and slavery are not to experience a role reversal or special privilege in the afterlife, or fortunate reincarnation as a comeupance. But as an atheist, I do wonder sometimes about the inequity of life experience, or the "Why am I me" conundrum. Nevertheless, if we all eventually share the same existences, as the gnostics believed, I have no doubt, that the supernatural does not play a role and that quantified principles determine all conscious awareness.

"As time progresses, we are able to determine more and more regarding "where did all this come from?"

I read an article today that said that 75% of the universe is dark matter. No scientist on earth knows what the heck dark matter is, where it came from and why it's there. They just know it is there. 75% people!! That's a lot of unknown matter! And for some reason I am supposed to believe that scientists are even closer to determining how all this came to be?

Last time I checked Stanley Miller couldn't create a living organism from non-living matter. Not even close. Last time I checked, evolution was still a theory, an equivolent theory to the "just happened" bid that scientists are stuck with. If atheists want to keep faith in science, I'm afraid to say that science will not keep faith in you. It changes every other year. New theories break old ones. Living without absolutes sounds kind of depressing. Good luck in your faith. I'll just keep mine because it not only answers all my scientific needs, but also every philisophical question possible.

Thank you,Sam, for bringing clarity to the murky business of Belief. I would suggest that part of this self delusion process you describe is also the promise of relief from the three conundrums that plague people: Ambiguity, Awe and Mortality. As a former ad man, I can tell you that your six steps plus this triple benefit make an unbeatable Unique Selling Proposition (although it probably won't clear the Federal Trade Commission).

I wrote the response to Rob Adams above, but accidentally left the name box blank. In just a brief answer to the idea that near death experiences provide evidence of an afterlife and of God:

I have not read extensively in this area. What I have read however suggests to me what anyone who has read my comments would expect me to say: these experiences are likely due to psycho-physiological processes common to many people in extremis.

Looking at one commonly mentioned occurrence: scientists have been able to induce out of body experiences.

From http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/science/23cnd-body.html?em&ex=11881 :

'The research reveals that “the sense of having a body, of being in a bodily self,” is actually constructed from multiple sensory streams, said Matthew Botvinick, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Princeton University, an expert on body and mind who was not involved in the experiments.

Usually these sensory streams, which include vision, touch, balance and the sense of where one’s body is positioned in space, work together seamlessly, Prof. Botvinick said. But when the information coming from the sensory sources does not match up, when they are thrown out of synchrony, the sense of being embodied as a whole comes apart.'

This is certainly something that may be expected in one near death. If instead God was actively involved, why would He give someone who He knew was not going to die a part way trip to the afterlife?

Rob Adams says

"From my perspective I think the science is too perfect. From DNA to the expanse of the cosmos to the quantum physics I find the design truly fascinating and hard to imagine no intelligent design. I see God to be as good an explanation for ‘where did all this come from?’ versus it just is. I believe God created science, evolution and everything else."

I personally disagree with this view for several reasons. First, it is in actuality the present version of the argument from ignorance. As time progresses, we are able to determine more and more regarding "where did all this come from?" There is no reason to believe that this progress will not continue, and God will not be pushed into a smaller and smaller corner containing things we do not yet have the answer for. Will be ever have the answer to everything? Maybe not, but what is the reason to believe that just because some phenomenon is beyond our present understanding, that God is the answer? Why not just some natural process that we do not yet understand?

And that brings me to my second objection. Saying that "God created science... and everything else" explains nothing, because we have no understanding how God "did it". How does he interact with matter, what energy source does he draw on, and what exactly is He? The way you describe it, God is just a stopping point - we can go no further. To me, saying "God did it" is EXACTLY the same as saying "I give up -we cannot explain this - it is too complicated". We could have done this millennia ago, and we would still be living in caves, afraid of the dark. To me, human curiosity is a stronger impulse than the human drive towards religion, it defines us as a species and helps explain our success. Furthermore, an important part of my previous comment was that there is no evidence of any intelligent interaction with the universe. This is important, because this is what would separate an unequivocal action of God from a natural event. This absence is why the universe shows no evidence of God.

A related claim to yours is the observation that the universe is uniquely configured to allow life to flourish, and surely this extremely unlikely outcome must be attributable to an all-powerful intelligence. Victor Stenger in his book "God - The Failed Hypothesis" does an excellent job pointing out the fallacies of this argument. First of all, the constants that seem so fine-tuned on closer observation turn out to be not so carefully adjusted after all - I won't go into details. Second, the universe is actually very INhospitable to intelligent life. A god could have done a much better job if he had wanted to.

A final comment on this particular subject - what is utterly fascinating to me is the realization that the universe, life, and we ourselves have evolved through the interaction of a multitude of unintelligent, natural processes. Hard to believe, yet, that is what the evidence overwhelmingly shows. It didn't have to be that way - despite what you hear about the supposed myopia of science. If this wasn't the case, the huge amount of interlocking evidence extending across a multitude of disciplines concerning development of the universe and the evolution of species would not exist.

It actually turns out to be an extremely fortunate if amazing thing that the world and everything in it appear to be explainable in natural terms. Otherwise, we could never understand much of anything!

Impossible with Men?

Things which are impossible with men are possible with God. – Luke 18:27.
So, how come it was never impossible with men to have created God in their own image and likeness? Poch Suzara

People do not lie to them self at first. They follow logical steps to believe. talk of complexity and organization of a degree that cant be accidental. Too many coincidences look like devine intervention and so forth. Its once the beleif has taken hold that the lying begins. The investment must be protected.
Morality- Honesty,empathy and self preservation.
These are the tools that religions claim to have although this is obviously a redicules claim. Every thing we experianced should be veiwed through this three fold lens.
Information, morality and courage are needed to understand that reason must be used to control emotions rather than a culturally imposed inocculation of religion which can only be destructive as it destroys the very foundation of conceince with its duplicitious nature.

once again sam ,
you are doing away with the irrationality of fear, of faith.
Me well i have found so much comfort and revelation in the writings of Mr. dawkins, yourself, and im just started Mr. hitchens "god is not great".
its not that i lack direction or clarity, its just somtimes we all need defination and who better than you to dispel the myths bravo sam.
your twisting my melon man!!!!!!!!

To Mr. Harris

Once again you write another eloquent, rational, piece. Thank goodness for your presence in the world, or otherwise I would feel choked off and surrounded by utter delusionaries! I mean know disrespect to believers, but to me it is the equivalent of living in a world with adults who still believe in Santa...

If only by some weird twist of fate Sam Harris has to make a living a a writer for television sitcoms or some other venue where the writing was strictly "dumbed down" so that no one could ever feel that the writing was "over their head". With that experience, Sam might be able to ratchet-down for an instant his vast ability to write in an eriudite fashion (an ability the rest of us would give anything to have)and in that instant Sam could explain the fallacy of religion using language that would not intimidate those most in need of such explanation.

The point is in fact that these people DO IN FACT appear to "knowingly believe" that which is supported only meagerly by astonishingly poor evidence. It seems these people i.e. religious folks have accomplished the undoable and are indeed capable, unlike the rational rest, to startle themselves. As a recovered Catholic and proud athiest it's my hunch that most "believers" suffer from acute herd mentality and if given the very briefest summary of the source and evolution of religion many (I dare say most) would toss of their faiths like a coat on fire.

The point is in fact that these people DO IN FACT appear to "knowingly believe" that which is supported only meagerly by astonishingly poor evidence. It seems these people i.e. religious folks have accomplished the undoable and are indeed capable, unlike the rational rest, to startle themselves. As a recovered Catholic and proud athiest it's my hunch that most "believers" suffer from acute herd mentality and if given the very briefest summary of the source and evolution of religion many (I dare say most) would toss of their faiths like a coat on fire.

The point is in fact that these people DO IN FACT appear to "knowingly believe" that which is supported only meagerly by astonishingly poor evidence. It seems these people i.e. religious folks have accomplished the undoable and are indeed capable, unlike the rational rest, to startle themselves. As a recovered Catholic and proud athiest it's my hunch that most "believers" suffer from acute herd mentality and if given the very briefest summary of the source and evolution of religion many (I dare say most) would toss of their faiths like a coat on fire.

The point is in fact that these people DO IN FACT appear to "knowingly believe" that which is supported only meagerly by astonishingly poor evidence. It seems these people i.e. religious folks have accomplished the undoable and are indeed capable, unlike the rational rest, to startle themselves. As a recovered Catholic and proud athiest it's my hunch that most "believers" suffer from acute herd mentality and if given the very briefest summary of the source and evolution of religion many (I dare say most) would toss of their faiths like a coat on fire.

As usual, Sam Harris cuts through all the nonsense and obfuscation of the apoligists for the irrational, that is those who hold unjustified belief in God. I've taken the time to read Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and many other authors on what we're calling "the new atheism."

New atheism is nothing more than the proposition that while we respect your right to religious beliefs, we adamantly hold that your irrational beliefs themselves are entitled to no deference or respect whatsoever. Religious beief must be held to the same rational standards as any other claims.

Harris stands as the single best proponent of new atheism because he writes with the most clarity on the general field. I admire the works of the others but, for me, Harris is the best.

I am an Atheist and I am now reading Dennett's book "Breaking the Spell". I agree with Dennett's argument of examining religion.
I would like to ask Sam Harris what would he say to a mother or father raising a child with disabilities. Parents with mentally challenged children often think they will be rewarded in the afterlife for their hard work of taking care of the disabled child. If I had to tell these parents ther was no god and heaven I might shy away from telling them the truth.
This is the one area where i am stumped to find an answer.

Haha. Not quite as eloquent as your books and lectures but then again...it makes sense that you may have just become so fed up with societies blatant delusion and ignorance.

You need to send this to Nancy Pelosi so that she will stop wasting her time praying for the Shrub (Bush). She needs to know that the mythical god of both of them does not exist even though the Shrub thinks that the myth talks to and direct him.

God-frey Baumgartner
A life long old fashion Republican

Science and Religion: is there meaningful middle ground?

Sam Harris in his latest Newsweek article, cites Christopher Hitchens uncompromising ten-point indictment of religion which states: "[r]eligion is violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children."

These are indeed fighting words, and when taken with Richard Dawkins God Delusion and the like, they prompt one to wonder whether there is any justifiable middle ground at all between the contending extremes of science and religion?

A recently published book might help to answer this question. I refer to the new paperback biography of the Austrian philosopher/scientist Rudolf Steiner, well written by Gary Lachmann (once a noted rock musician), and published by Tarcher/Penguin in August 2007.

Who was Rudolf Steiner, and what did he have to say that has any bearing on this highly contentious issue? And why would Lachmann want to write a book about him? Perhaps a noted American journalist of the fifties can help us answer these questions, I refer to Russell Davenport, once the editor of ‘Fortune Magazine, who in his book The Dignity of Man, had this to say about Steiner:

That the academic world has managed to dismiss Rudolf Steiner’s works as inconsequential and irrelevant is one of the intellectual wonders of the twentieth century. Anyone who is willing to study these vast works with an open mind (let us say a hundred of his titles) will find themselves confronted with one of the greatest thinkers of all time, whose grasp of modern science is equalled only by his profound learning in the ancient ones. Steiner was no more of a mystic than Albert Einstein; he was a scientist, rather – but a scientist who dared enter into the mysteries of life.

High praise indeed, and from a thoughtful man who was not given to excess, and yet concerning a man who was and still is virtually ignored in academia, and especially so I might add in departments of philosophy, which only deepens the mystery, because Steiner held a doctorate in philosophy. Perhaps then, a brief foray is in order into the challenge that Steiner’s thought still offers the philosophical/scientific establishment, and how it may throw light on our present dilemma.

Theories of Knowledge

In knowledge theory (epistemology) a non-contradictory monism has long been the goal that is striven for (i.e. everything in nature has one source), and there are two possibilities to choose from. First a ‘monism of Mind’ in which all primary causes in nature are spiritual (mental) in origin, and then there is its exact opposite, a ‘monism of matter’ in which all primary causes in nature are physical (mechanical) in origin. This latter is the view that for the most part still holds sway in academia (in Darwinism for example). The underlying problem here, of course, is that these two worldviews are totally incompatible (antithetical), so that only one of them can be true.

Because of this conflict many, especially those seeking a place for religion or spirituality, have sought and argued for the existence of a ‘third’ or ‘neutral’ monism, but there really is no such entity since the ‘law of the excluded middle here applies’. So that between these two monist extremes only a Cartesian form of dualism is possible, and that highly improbable, because it requires that natural law (science) is in some unknown manner seen to combine itself with miraculous causation (religion) — but science is understandably extremely wary of miracles — indeed it rejects them outright as being ‘irrational’.

Origins

A ‘science of origins,’ therefore, whether cosmological or biological, must be based either upon a ‘monism of Mind’ or a ‘monism of matter — because science cannot be based upon a contradictory (irrational) dualism. Which brings us back to the question — which of the two possible monism is the true one?

This is an epistemological riddle that ideally should only be decided upon a basis of direct experience, and not upon prior assumptions or metaphysical speculation of any kind, but Is this even possible? Philosophically speaking it has not proven possible for a ‘monism of matter,’ to so justify itself, as Noam Chomsky and numerous others have clearly stated, but what about the only real alternative, a ‘monism of Mind’?

Steiner and the Direct Experience.of Thought

Writing from a monist perspective, two indisputable points of logic were made by Rudolf Steiner in his major work The Philosophy of Freedom (first published in 1894), points that help to firmly establish an epistemological argument to which he gives the title “a monism of thought.” In it thought is directly experienced as a ‘spiritual activity’ that exists both within the human mind and on the ‘inside’ of nature herself, which means that: “Thought is to the mind what light is to the eye” (Goethe). A related philosophical worldview is sometimes termed ‘pan-psychism’ and has a certain academic standing in that it is often associated with well known early thinkers, like Bishop Berkeley — whom Samuel Johnson claimed to have refuted by merely kicking a stone.

Steiner’s contribution to this important debate, however, if we stay within the realm of philosophy, is not so easy to refute, but it has nonetheless been all but universally ignored within academia. Perhaps, might I tentatively suggest, because it is so very difficult if not impossible to disprove. Experience it here for yourself!

The two above mentioned experiential points that Steiner;s argument critically establishes, concern what may be termed the ‘self-sufficiency of thought’ and they can be simply paraphrased as follows:

(1) “Thinking can be explained by nothing other than itself, because it is always thinking that does the explaining” (Bo Dahlin).

(2) Thinking creates the concepts ‘subject’ and ‘object’ just as it does all other concepts (i.e. thinking must exist prior to forming these concepts).

Both points are logically undeniable, the first tells us that we cannot, without falling immediately into logical error, claim that thinking is a mere epiphenomenon of matter; and the second logically invalidates the claim, so often repeated in academia, that thinking is merely a ‘subjective’ activity.

What results from Steiner’s argument, viewed in its entirety, is an experience-based monist epistemology without prior assumptions. It is, however, the exact opposite to the ‘monism of matter’ that has while still unproven dominated philosophic thought for the past century or more.

The Two Monisms

Steiner was an immensely sympathetic individual who often went out of his way to accommodate the thinking of others. A good example of this is to be found in his friendship with the material monist and Europe’s chief Darwinist Ernst Haeckel. In that relationship, as it is expressed in Steiner’s 1901 article ’Haeckel and his Opponents’ we find the two opposing monisms contrasted, but with the emphasis placed not upon what separates them, but upon what they have in common.

They have in common, for example, an outright rejection of philosophic dualism as a plausible worldview, and with it any reliance at all upon the ‘miraculous,’ and upon the concept of an unknown and unknowable God. He tells us that a monist worldview must: “…reject in the moral life, and also in science, every influence from a Beyond (metaphysical) which is merely inferred and cannot be experienced.”

It also seems to have been Steiner’s destiny to meet materialism on every front, as when he was invited to give a series of lectures on history at the Berlin Working Men’s College, an organization whose faculty, as Gary Lachmann describes it, “taught according to the Marxist principles of dialectical materialism, a philosophy, like Haeckel’s, diametrically opposed to Steiner’s.” (from the newly published Tarcher/Penguin biography p. 115)

Clearly both monisms place cognitive reliance only upon ‘experience’ and so both must exclude ‘faith’, but a monism of matter (Haeckel — and modern science in general), places that reliance only upon sensory experience, and denies the very existence of ‘spirit.’ Whereas Steiner’s ‘monism of thought’ places it upon the direct experience of ‘thinking’ and defines the later, in the course of careful argument, as a ‘spiritual activity’ upon which can be built a science that includes spirituality — but without any recourse in miracles. Perhaps now we can begin to see why a wise and clear-minded thinker like Russell Davenport so admired him.

The Great War

Davenport was not Steiner’s only admirer, there are countless others, including the great humanitarian Albert Schweizer who was a personal friend of Steiner’s, and who writing from Lamberene on the one-hundredth anniversary of his birth, said of him:

Since my meeting with Rudolf Steiner I have remained aware of his significance, and I have rejoiced at the achievements, which his great personality and his profound humanity have brought about in the world.

The brilliant modern writer Richard Tarnas, also praises him in his two recent works The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped our World View, and Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View (his mentor Joseph Campbell has long been a staunch supporter of Steiner’s Waldorf education).

Perhaps the most celebrated debate involving Steiner‘s work, was that between C.S. Lewis and his lifelong friend Owen Barfield, which they humorously called their ‘great war’. Barfield, when asked why Steiner was so important to him, said, “When one wanders in a parched desert [modern philosophy?] does one complain that water only gushes from one spring?” He is referring of course to Steiner’s epistemology, so long ignored in academia, and that he had himself described in his cogent essay ‘Rudolf Steiner’s Concept of Mind.’ Barfield’s many other works, and especially his essay ‘The Rediscovery of Meaning’, address the profoundly serious problem of ‘meaninglessness’ that materialistic science, with its unproven epistemology, has everywhere engendered, and that a religion that is based only upon ‘faith’ no longer has the power to heal. He states the problem succinctly in these few words: “There will be a revival of Christianity when it becomes impossible to write a popular manual of science without referring to the incarnation of the Word.” This in contrast to religion today, which in America especially while still perhaps ‘a mile wide’ is by comparison only ‘an inch deep.’
If Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins et al, along with their many religious opponents, instead of fighting each other were to pay some attention to Steiner’s epistemology — to those vital questions which must lie at the root of all knowledge claims — then the debate between atheism and religion might begin to take on a far more creative and friendly tone, although I suspect that there will be no convincing the diehards in either camp — but nevertheless, because with Steiner’s help the critical answers that we so desperately need are readily available, to all those who truly seek, there may yet be real hope for mankind’s future generations to move beyond this futile impasse.

Don Cruse,

Ponoka, AB, Canada

Science and Religion: is there meaningful middle ground?

Sam Harris in his latest Newsweek article, cites Christopher Hitchens uncompromising ten-point indictment of religion which states: "[r]eligion is violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children."

These are indeed fighting words, and when taken with Richard Dawkins God Delusion and the like, they prompt one to wonder whether there is any justifiable middle ground at all between the contending extremes of science and religion?

A recently published book might help to answer this question. I refer to the new paperback biography of the Austrian philosopher/scientist Rudolf Steiner, well written by Gary Lachmann (once a noted rock musician), and published by Tarcher/Penguin in August 2007.

Who was Rudolf Steiner, and what did he have to say that has any bearing on this highly contentious issue? And why would Lachmann want to write a book about him? Perhaps a noted American journalist of the fifties can help us answer these questions, I refer to Russell Davenport, once the editor of ‘Fortune Magazine, who in his book The Dignity of Man, had this to say about Steiner:

That the academic world has managed to dismiss Rudolf Steiner’s works as inconsequential and irrelevant is one of the intellectual wonders of the twentieth century. Anyone who is willing to study these vast works with an open mind (let us say a hundred of his titles) will find themselves confronted with one of the greatest thinkers of all time, whose grasp of modern science is equalled only by his profound learning in the ancient ones. Steiner was no more of a mystic than Albert Einstein; he was a scientist, rather – but a scientist who dared enter into the mysteries of life.

High praise indeed, and from a thoughtful man who was not given to excess, and yet concerning a man who was and still is virtually ignored in academia, and especially so I might add in departments of philosophy, which only deepens the mystery, because Steiner held a doctorate in philosophy. Perhaps then, a brief foray is in order into the challenge that Steiner’s thought still offers the philosophical/scientific establishment, and how it may throw light on our present dilemma.

Theories of Knowledge

In knowledge theory (epistemology) a non-contradictory monism has long been the goal that is striven for (i.e. everything in nature has one source), and there are two possibilities to choose from. First a ‘monism of Mind’ in which all primary causes in nature are spiritual (mental) in origin, and then there is its exact opposite, a ‘monism of matter’ in which all primary causes in nature are physical (mechanical) in origin. This latter is the view that for the most part still holds sway in academia (in Darwinism for example). The underlying problem here, of course, is that these two worldviews are totally incompatible (antithetical), so that only one of them can be true.

Because of this conflict many, especially those seeking a place for religion or spirituality, have sought and argued for the existence of a ‘third’ or ‘neutral’ monism, but there really is no such entity since the ‘law of the excluded middle here applies’. So that between these two monist extremes only a Cartesian form of dualism is possible, and that highly improbable, because it requires that natural law (science) is in some unknown manner seen to combine itself with miraculous causation (religion) — but science is understandably extremely wary of miracles — indeed it rejects them outright as being ‘irrational’.

Origins

A ‘science of origins,’ therefore, whether cosmological or biological, must be based either upon a ‘monism of Mind’ or a ‘monism of matter — because science cannot be based upon a contradictory (irrational) dualism. Which brings us back to the question — which of the two possible monism is the true one?

This is an epistemological riddle that ideally should only be decided upon a basis of direct experience, and not upon prior assumptions or metaphysical speculation of any kind, but Is this even possible? Philosophically speaking it has not proven possible for a ‘monism of matter,’ to so justify itself, as Noam Chomsky and numerous others have clearly stated, but what about the only real alternative, a ‘monism of Mind’?

Steiner and the Direct Experience.of Thought

Writing from a monist perspective, two indisputable points of logic were made by Rudolf Steiner in his major work The Philosophy of Freedom (first published in 1894), points that help to firmly establish an epistemological argument to which he gives the title “a monism of thought.” In it thought is directly experienced as a ‘spiritual activity’ that exists both within the human mind and on the ‘inside’ of nature herself, which means that: “Thought is to the mind what light is to the eye” (Goethe). A related philosophical worldview is sometimes termed ‘pan-psychism’ and has a certain academic standing in that it is often associated with well known early thinkers, like Bishop Berkeley — whom Samuel Johnson claimed to have refuted by merely kicking a stone.

Steiner’s contribution to this important debate, however, if we stay within the realm of philosophy, is not so easy to refute, but it has nonetheless been all but universally ignored within academia. Perhaps, might I tentatively suggest, because it is so very difficult if not impossible to disprove. Experience it here for yourself!

The two above mentioned experiential points that Steiner;s argument critically establishes, concern what may be termed the ‘self-sufficiency of thought’ and they can be simply paraphrased as follows:

(1) “Thinking can be explained by nothing other than itself, because it is always thinking that does the explaining” (Bo Dahlin).

(2) Thinking creates the concepts ‘subject’ and ‘object’ just as it does all other concepts (i.e. thinking must exist prior to forming these concepts).

Both points are logically undeniable, the first tells us that we cannot, without falling immediately into logical error, claim that thinking is a mere epiphenomenon of matter; and the second logically invalidates the claim, so often repeated in academia, that thinking is merely a ‘subjective’ activity.

What results from Steiner’s argument, viewed in its entirety, is an experience-based monist epistemology without prior assumptions. It is, however, the exact opposite to the ‘monism of matter’ that has while still unproven dominated philosophic thought for the past century or more.

The Two Monisms

Steiner was an immensely sympathetic individual who often went out of his way to accommodate the thinking of others. A good example of this is to be found in his friendship with the material monist and Europe’s chief Darwinist Ernst Haeckel. In that relationship, as it is expressed in Steiner’s 1901 article ’Haeckel and his Opponents’ we find the two opposing monisms contrasted, but with the emphasis placed not upon what separates them, but upon what they have in common.

They have in common, for example, an outright rejection of philosophic dualism as a plausible worldview, and with it any reliance at all upon the ‘miraculous,’ and upon the concept of an unknown and unknowable God. He tells us that a monist worldview must: “…reject in the moral life, and also in science, every influence from a Beyond (metaphysical) which is merely inferred and cannot be experienced.”

It also seems to have been Steiner’s destiny to meet materialism on every front, as when he was invited to give a series of lectures on history at the Berlin Working Men’s College, an organization whose faculty, as Gary Lachmann describes it, “taught according to the Marxist principles of dialectical materialism, a philosophy, like Haeckel’s, diametrically opposed to Steiner’s.” (from the newly published Tarcher/Penguin biography p. 115)

Clearly both monisms place cognitive reliance only upon ‘experience’ and so both must exclude ‘faith’, but a monism of matter (Haeckel — and modern science in general), places that reliance only upon sensory experience, and denies the very existence of ‘spirit.’ Whereas Steiner’s ‘monism of thought’ places it upon the direct experience of ‘thinking’ and defines the later, in the course of careful argument, as a ‘spiritual activity’ upon which can be built a science that includes spirituality — but without any recourse in miracles. Perhaps now we can begin to see why a wise and clear-minded thinker like Russell Davenport so admired him.

The Great War

Davenport was not Steiner’s only admirer, there are countless others, including the great humanitarian Albert Schweizer who was a personal friend of Steiner’s, and who writing from Lamberene on the one-hundredth anniversary of his birth, said of him:

Since my meeting with Rudolf Steiner I have remained aware of his significance, and I have rejoiced at the achievements, which his great personality and his profound humanity have brought about in the world.

The brilliant modern writer Richard Tarnas, also praises him in his two recent works The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped our World View, and Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View (his mentor Joseph Campbell has long been a staunch supporter of Steiner’s Waldorf education).

Perhaps the most celebrated debate involving Steiner‘s work, was that between C.S. Lewis and his lifelong friend Owen Barfield, which they humorously called their ‘great war’. Barfield, when asked why Steiner was so important to him, said, “When one wanders in a parched desert [modern philosophy?] does one complain that water only gushes from one spring?” He is referring of course to Steiner’s epistemology, so long ignored in academia, and that he had himself described in his cogent essay ‘Rudolf Steiner’s Concept of Mind.’ Barfield’s many other works, and especially his essay ‘The Rediscovery of Meaning’, address the profoundly serious problem of ‘meaninglessness’ that materialistic science, with its unproven epistemology, has everywhere engendered, and that a religion that is based only upon ‘faith’ no longer has the power to heal. He states the problem succinctly in these few words: “There will be a revival of Christianity when it becomes impossible to write a popular manual of science without referring to the incarnation of the Word.” This in contrast to religion today, which in America especially while still perhaps ‘a mile wide’ is by comparison only ‘an inch deep.’
If Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins et al, along with their many religious opponents, instead of fighting each other were to pay some attention to Steiner’s epistemology — to those vital questions which must lie at the root of all knowledge claims — then the debate between atheism and religion might begin to take on a far more creative and friendly tone, although I suspect that there will be no convincing the diehards in either camp — but nevertheless, because with Steiner’s help the critical answers that we so desperately need are readily available, to all those who truly seek, there may yet be real hope for mankind’s future generations to move beyond this futile impasse.

Don Cruse,

Ponoka, AB, Canada

Science and Religion: is there meaningful middle ground?

Sam Harris in his latest Newsweek article, cites Christopher Hitchens uncompromising ten-point indictment of religion which states: "[r]eligion is violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children."

These are indeed fighting words, and when taken with Richard Dawkins God Delusion and the like, they prompt one to wonder whether there is any justifiable middle ground at all between the contending extremes of science and religion?

A recently published book might help to answer this question. I refer to the new paperback biography of the Austrian philosopher/scientist Rudolf Steiner, well written by Gary Lachmann (once a noted rock musician), and published by Tarcher/Penguin in August 2007.

Who was Rudolf Steiner, and what did he have to say that has any bearing on this highly contentious issue? And why would Lachmann want to write a book about him? Perhaps a noted American journalist of the fifties can help us answer these questions, I refer to Russell Davenport, once the editor of ‘Fortune Magazine, who in his book The Dignity of Man, had this to say about Steiner:

That the academic world has managed to dismiss Rudolf Steiner’s works as inconsequential and irrelevant is one of the intellectual wonders of the twentieth century. Anyone who is willing to study these vast works with an open mind (let us say a hundred of his titles) will find themselves confronted with one of the greatest thinkers of all time, whose grasp of modern science is equalled only by his profound learning in the ancient ones. Steiner was no more of a mystic than Albert Einstein; he was a scientist, rather – but a scientist who dared enter into the mysteries of life.

High praise indeed, and from a thoughtful man who was not given to excess, and yet concerning a man who was and still is virtually ignored in academia, and especially so I might add in departments of philosophy, which only deepens the mystery, because Steiner held a doctorate in philosophy. Perhaps then, a brief foray is in order into the challenge that Steiner’s thought still offers the philosophical/scientific establishment, and how it may throw light on our present dilemma.

Theories of Knowledge

In knowledge theory (epistemology) a non-contradictory monism has long been the goal that is striven for (i.e. everything in nature has one source), and there are two possibilities to choose from. First a ‘monism of Mind’ in which all primary causes in nature are spiritual (mental) in origin, and then there is its exact opposite, a ‘monism of matter’ in which all primary causes in nature are physical (mechanical) in origin. This latter is the view that for the most part still holds sway in academia (in Darwinism for example). The underlying problem here, of course, is that these two worldviews are totally incompatible (antithetical), so that only one of them can be true.

Because of this conflict many, especially those seeking a place for religion or spirituality, have sought and argued for the existence of a ‘third’ or ‘neutral’ monism, but there really is no such entity since the ‘law of the excluded middle here applies’. So that between these two monist extremes only a Cartesian form of dualism is possible, and that highly improbable, because it requires that natural law (science) is in some unknown manner seen to combine itself with miraculous causation (religion) — but science is understandably extremely wary of miracles — indeed it rejects them outright as being ‘irrational’.

Origins

A ‘science of origins,’ therefore, whether cosmological or biological, must be based either upon a ‘monism of Mind’ or a ‘monism of matter — because science cannot be based upon a contradictory (irrational) dualism. Which brings us back to the question — which of the two possible monism is the true one?

This is an epistemological riddle that ideally should only be decided upon a basis of direct experience, and not upon prior assumptions or metaphysical speculation of any kind, but Is this even possible? Philosophically speaking it has not proven possible for a ‘monism of matter,’ to so justify itself, as Noam Chomsky and numerous others have clearly stated, but what about the only real alternative, a ‘monism of Mind’?

Steiner and the Direct Experience.of Thought

Writing from a monist perspective, two indisputable points of logic were made by Rudolf Steiner in his major work The Philosophy of Freedom (first published in 1894), points that help to firmly establish an epistemological argument to which he gives the title “a monism of thought.” In it thought is directly experienced as a ‘spiritual activity’ that exists both within the human mind and on the ‘inside’ of nature herself, which means that: “Thought is to the mind what light is to the eye” (Goethe). A related philosophical worldview is sometimes termed ‘pan-psychism’ and has a certain academic standing in that it is often associated with well known early thinkers, like Bishop Berkeley — whom Samuel Johnson claimed to have refuted by merely kicking a stone.

Steiner’s contribution to this important debate, however, if we stay within the realm of philosophy, is not so easy to refute, but it has nonetheless been all but universally ignored within academia. Perhaps, might I tentatively suggest, because it is so very difficult if not impossible to disprove. Experience it here for yourself!

The two above mentioned experiential points that Steiner;s argument critically establishes, concern what may be termed the ‘self-sufficiency of thought’ and they can be simply paraphrased as follows:

(1) “Thinking can be explained by nothing other than itself, because it is always thinking that does the explaining” (Bo Dahlin).

(2) Thinking creates the concepts ‘subject’ and ‘object’ just as it does all other concepts (i.e. thinking must exist prior to forming these concepts).

Both points are logically undeniable, the first tells us that we cannot, without falling immediately into logical error, claim that thinking is a mere epiphenomenon of matter; and the second logically invalidates the claim, so often repeated in academia, that thinking is merely a ‘subjective’ activity.

What results from Steiner’s argument, viewed in its entirety, is an experience-based monist epistemology without prior assumptions. It is, however, the exact opposite to the ‘monism of matter’ that has while still unproven dominated philosophic thought for the past century or more.

The Two Monisms

Steiner was an immensely sympathetic individual who often went out of his way to accommodate the thinking of others. A good example of this is to be found in his friendship with the material monist and Europe’s chief Darwinist Ernst Haeckel. In that relationship, as it is expressed in Steiner’s 1901 article ’Haeckel and his Opponents’ we find the two opposing monisms contrasted, but with the emphasis placed not upon what separates them, but upon what they have in common.

They have in common, for example, an outright rejection of philosophic dualism as a plausible worldview, and with it any reliance at all upon the ‘miraculous,’ and upon the concept of an unknown and unknowable God. He tells us that a monist worldview must: “…reject in the moral life, and also in science, every influence from a Beyond (metaphysical) which is merely inferred and cannot be experienced.”

It also seems to have been Steiner’s destiny to meet materialism on every front, as when he was invited to give a series of lectures on history at the Berlin Working Men’s College, an organization whose faculty, as Gary Lachmann describes it, “taught according to the Marxist principles of dialectical materialism, a philosophy, like Haeckel’s, diametrically opposed to Steiner’s.” (from the newly published Tarcher/Penguin biography p. 115)

Clearly both monisms place cognitive reliance only upon ‘experience’ and so both must exclude ‘faith’, but a monism of matter (Haeckel — and modern science in general), places that reliance only upon sensory experience, and denies the very existence of ‘spirit.’ Whereas Steiner’s ‘monism of thought’ places it upon the direct experience of ‘thinking’ and defines the later, in the course of careful argument, as a ‘spiritual activity’ upon which can be built a science that includes spirituality — but without any recourse in miracles. Perhaps now we can begin to see why a wise and clear-minded thinker like Russell Davenport so admired him.

The Great War

Davenport was not Steiner’s only admirer, there are countless others, including the great humanitarian Albert Schweizer who was a personal friend of Steiner’s, and who writing from Lamberene on the one-hundredth anniversary of his birth, said of him:

Since my meeting with Rudolf Steiner I have remained aware of his significance, and I have rejoiced at the achievements, which his great personality and his profound humanity have brought about in the world.

The brilliant modern writer Richard Tarnas, also praises him in his two recent works The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped our World View, and Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View (his mentor Joseph Campbell has long been a staunch supporter of Steiner’s Waldorf education).

Perhaps the most celebrated debate involving Steiner‘s work, was that between C.S. Lewis and his lifelong friend Owen Barfield, which they humorously called their ‘great war’. Barfield, when asked why Steiner was so important to him, said, “When one wanders in a parched desert [modern philosophy?] does one complain that water only gushes from one spring?” He is referring of course to Steiner’s epistemology, so long ignored in academia, and that he had himself described in his cogent essay ‘Rudolf Steiner’s Concept of Mind.’ Barfield’s many other works, and especially his essay ‘The Rediscovery of Meaning’, address the profoundly serious problem of ‘meaninglessness’ that materialistic science, with its unproven epistemology, has everywhere engendered, and that a religion that is based only upon ‘faith’ no longer has the power to heal. He states the problem succinctly in these few words: “There will be a revival of Christianity when it becomes impossible to write a popular manual of science without referring to the incarnation of the Word.” This in contrast to religion today, which in America especially while still perhaps ‘a mile wide’ is by comparison only ‘an inch deep.’
If Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins et al, along with their many religious opponents, instead of fighting each other were to pay some attention to Steiner’s epistemology — to those vital questions which must lie at the root of all knowledge claims — then the debate between atheism and religion might begin to take on a far more creative and friendly tone, although I suspect that there will be no convincing the diehards in either camp — but nevertheless, because with Steiner’s help the critical answers that we so desperately need are readily available, to all those who truly seek, there may yet be real hope for mankind’s future generations to move beyond this futile impasse.

Don Cruse,

Ponoka, AB, Canada

It is interesting how both sides of the fence are so certain they are correct and that the final solution has been provided.

The theists can benefit from the reasoning the atheist brings to the table and the atheists can benefit and in some cases agree with some of the spiritual messages brought forward by the theists; love, kindness, sacrifice, compassion, greater good, oneness.

I think many atheists posses a lot of these attributes so I don’t agree with the where does an atheist get their morality? Anyone regardless of which side of the fence they are on is mistaken if they think it is us versus them and survival of the fittest.

“United we stand, divided we fall” I think this could easily be applied to the human race.

At the last check united is trailing heading into the 4th quarter.

Oh, but it feels so good! I was raised in the Lutheran faith, and when the age of reason arrived, I discovered that my father, whose formal education ended at the eighth grade, had reason as his guide in everyday life.

One Sunday morning, after church and sunday school, we went for a drive on a winding country road, me at the wheel. We came to the crest of a hill, and he observed that I had faith that the road would continue when we'd crested the hill. Faith in action!

How not to believe in God in Six Easy Steps
1. First, you must not want to believe in God.
2. Next, understanding that not believing in God in the presence of evidence is especially foolish.
3. Then, realize that the human ability to not believe in God in the presence of evidence does itself constitute no evidence for the none existence of God.
4. Now consider any need for lack of further evidence (both in yourself and in others) to be a form of anti-intellectualism, irrationality, evolutionary healthiness, or a reinforcement of the supposed autonomous self.
5. Refer to steps 2-4 as acts of “belief", just not in God.
6. Return to 2.

John I agree with you and your assertion about Islam.

I would like to point out that Islam is a threat because it is so widely supported. That support includes oil wealth and governments which will ultimately allow Islam access to nuclear and biological weapons and with those tools along with unrestrained will to use them, civilization is indeed threatened.

I would add, that had the Church of Rome had access to such weapons when it had similar control over the masses and governments, it would have used those weapons to annihilate its “enemies” in a heart beat.

Islam is now the greater threat due to its opportunity to obtain MDAs. But don’t for a minute think the spirit of the Inquisition does not still live in the heart of the Vatican or any other such religion.

All beliefs, inclding religion, seperate one from another and blind faith is the most devisive. Sooner or later the effect of these differing beliefs will destroy our so called civilization, if not all living things on earth. No need to believe this, it is an easily observable fact.

Thus forms the self-brainwashing that promotes faith, the I just say so of credulity!
Francisco Jose Ayala alleges that theists need God to overcome dread and have a meaning for life.Counseling would help overcome any dread.
We make our own meanings.They are ultimate for us.
It is a "mustabatory" want as the late Albert Ellis would have noted, not a need, for God, divine purpose and love and a future state; our own purposes, human love and this one life suffice!
This longing that preachers exloit and instill in people is the universal neurosis.[ No putdown as I am neurotic.]
For a thorough look at atheistic argumentation, read Graham Oppy's "Arguing about Gods." And for how we can make better our purposes read Robert Price's 'The Reason Driven Life."
Fr. Griggs rests in his Socratic ignorance and humble naturalism.He might be wrong! His cortical defects might harm his posting.Logica is the bane of theists.

All beliefs, inclding religion, seperate one from another and blind faith is the most devisive. Sooner or later the effect of these differing beliefs will destroy our so called civilization, if not all living things on earth. No need to believe this, it is an easily observable fact.

I agree with everything that Sam Harris says. However, after reading some of the comments I was struck by the number of attacks on Christianity. I am an atheist and to my mind all religions are idiotic but most of our attacks should be directed towards Islam which is the most dangerous form of religion today. I do want to use this as a platform but Islam posses such a threat to Western civilization that all of us whether Atheist, Christian, Jewish, Feminist, Gay or whatever should put our differences aside and form an anti Islamic alliance to fight this evil scourge before it kills us all.

Todays religious beliefs are the product of brainwashing as children. I brainwashed my children and my parents brainwashed me.

Thankfully, I have a brain; with reason and the ability to analyze came truth.

Thank you, Paula

Todays religious beliefs are the product of brainwashing as children. I brainwashed my children and my parents brainwashed me.

Thankfully, I have a brain; with reason and the ability to analyze came truth.

Thank you, Paula

Todays religious beliefs are the product of brainwashing as children. I brainwashed my children and my parents brainwashed me.

Thankfully, I have a brain; with reason and the ability to analyze came truth.

Thank you, Paula

Todays religious beliefs are the product of brainwashing as children. I brainwashed my children and my parents brainwashed me.

Thankfully, I have a brain; with reason and the ability to analyze came truth.

Thank you, Paula

Todays religious beliefs are the product of brainwashing as children. I brainwashed my children and my parents brainwashed me.

Thankfully, I have a brain; with reason and the ability to analyze came truth.

Thank you, Paula

Dear Steve Bevins:

You say:

"Like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, you credibly argue that moral instincts are innate. Yet, often those instincts remain latent if not elicited by individuals or institutions with an interest in moral advancement."

""Can secular institutions do so? Perhaps. But until they demonstrate success, we must remain doubtful. Our public schools have failed to nurture moral instincts. And I see no secular institutions dedicated to moral progress beyond the confines of single-issue ideology."

"A world ruled by reason might be worth our longing. But where is the proliferation of Aristotelian minds among the faithless? As long as the avatar of atheism remains the drug-addicted, thrice-divorced Hollywood nihilist, there is little incentive to disavow irrationality."

What you say seems to me to be belied by my own personal experience. Although I am now an aheist/agnostic I am not a nihilist and have been married (once only) for 49 years and have never taken drugs. And I don't think schools have all failed to instill moral fibre. Certainly the high school I went to did this in a very secular manner.

You seem to lose sight of the fact that the truth is the truth is the truth. And the truth does set us free to do right and be moral. And the truth is that religion is an encumbrance not a source of moral fibre.

Ted Swart

Sam; I'm currently reading GOD IS NOT GREAT and I can hear Hitchen's (wry?) laughter as he reads your examples of rationalizing for "bad reasons," since, of course, he smokes.

I have not read a better, SHORTER, indictment of 'religion' in years. Two songwriters come to mind when reading this; John Lennon, "Imagine", 'imagine no religion. I wonder if you can.." No religion, no wars according to John.
Harry Nilsson, "The Point", in which a whole village has deluded themselves and worked together to perpetuate their false belief and used that belief to discriminate against a lone little boy who dared challenge their belief. The LAW of the LAND was used to banish this boy to the wilds, the 'Pointless Forest' no less. The LAW of the LAND was based on their 'religion' and their horrific treatment of this little boy was justified by their 'religious belief'.
Sound familiar?

"This constraint upon our thinking has always been a problem for religion. Being stocked stem to stern with incredible ideas, the world’s religions have had to find some way to circumvent reason, without repudiating it. The recommended maneuver is generally called “faith,” and it actually appears to work."

Mr. Harris,

I haven't taken the time to read all of the responses, so I admit that someone may have already addressed what you wrote above.

As a Christian Disciple and Bible student, I recognize the enlightenment and use reason frequently as a detective and investigator in my profession. So for me to say that a virgin birth and the resurrection of a mortally dead Jesus di occur, I acknowledge that the two events do not comport with logic/reasoning/science/biology.

Christians surrender credibility when they fail to readily assent that virgin birth/resurrection from the dead are events that do not conform to biology. Because biology defines the functions that must occur in order for there to be life and in order for death to be pronounced. Christians believe that Jesus was born, breathed air, pumped blood, etc. on the check-list of "Life" standards from biology and that, after being removed from the cross He was case-book dead. No ekg, no eeg, dead-all-over, just-like-rover.

So we believe that his life and death were natural, in the natural biological order of things - please note that I did not say conception/resurrection. They were super-natural.

But, just as scientists cannot explain the intelligent design found in organisms under the scanning electron microscope - organisms found in nature - we refer to the designer as super-natural because things created do not create themselves. There must be something over them, hence the term: super.

Please note that the word faith was not used.

ZACH E,

What you are writing is comedy as it's finest.

Ideas from the 1800's are obsolete and we are "well beyond them" - and yet you are sticking with the idea that supernatural powers are to be creditted for things we have yet to understand? You do understand that humanity has been giving credit to various supernatural human like beings - which are often called God or gods - well before the 1800's?

Reason has failed us? We haven't even tried to be reasonable - how can it have failed us? We live in a religious world, humanity always has. There has never been a period in human history where "reason" was the dominate force in the world. Greed and religion have long been the dominate forces in human culture and society. If you want to look at why our society is what it is, you need look no further than greed and religion.

It takes faith to not believe in God or gods? LOL. Does it take faith to not believe in my invisible and untouchable friend (Cheddar - you know, they guy standing behind you)? There is actually no difference between not believing in God and not believe in my Invisible friend Cheddar. Does it require faith on your part not to believe in Cheddar? It certainly requires no faith on my part to not believe in your invisible and untouchable friend.

If you are going to believe in gods, at least pick a cool one to believe in. I say we bring back Thor! He was much more interesting than this generic God figure that so many Americans have adopted.

Rob Adams,

I don't think I can respond in the brief time before I have to head off for work, but appreciate your moderate approach. I'll try to pick this up again tonight.

I was born in Southern Indiana in 1937. I recieved the "best Catholic education" that was available at the time. I was a devout alterboy and practioneer of my faith - as a child, when I would pray before the stature of the blessed virgin, I swore I could see her shed a tear. As I grew older (about 10), I was distraught when the nuns informed me that my parents couldn't go the heaven because they were not Catholic. Non the less, I was committed to my faith and would pray for the souls of my parents.
As I grew, traveled the world,sought higher education I met people of various races, cultures and ethnicities who were just committed to their religious beliefs as I was in mine. Although we became friends and supportive of each other in our educational and cultural endeavours, we could be just as intolerant when our religious beliefs clashed.
Then as I matured, studied and learned more (space travel was becoming prevelant) and began to try to understand not just our immediate, fut the total ever expanding universe, after much thought I formed the question; who came up with this idea of some benevolent, jealous "man" who was responsible for all of this "creation"and that this "man" required worship and sacrafice? The answers for me did not conform to my religious beliefs and indoctrination. Once I got out of this yoke of religious beliefs, I became more comfortable with myself. I'd like to think that I'm still learning and growing.

I can relate completely to the quote from Christopher Hitchens about religion being "contemptuous of women and coercive toward children."

I was raised in a strict protestant sect known as the Plymouth Brethren...women were to "keep silent in the church, and subject to their husbands...", children were to obey, and were "shaken over the pit of hell to see the flames and smell the smoke."

As I grew up, I began to realize I was gay...need I say more? The tragedy for me this week is that another young man in our community, who has struggled with his homosexuality for years (at the same time unable to shake his fundamentalist background) committed suicide.

So, for me it is a journey from fundamentalism to agnosticism and who knows where from here.

thank you!

Anonymous wrote (September 27, 2007 11:43 PM): "In some scenarios of the economic theory of games, cheating is individually rational, but causes collective disaster. Before you dismiss "faith" so casually in all its forms, make sure you don't throw out "faith" in our fellow human beings (or at least their potential) as well as "faith" in a supernatural power. Our very existence depends more and more upon faith every day. Faith that other nuclear powers won't use their weapons first, faith that other nations will simultaneously agree to reduce greenhouse gases, and faith that the worlds' people will choose leaders who will bring peace rather than a downward spiral of war, terrorism, and hatred. The world of pure rationality would truly be nasty, brutish, and short."

This post provides an illustration of my contention that 'believers' do not employ 'critical thinking'... notice the writer's use of the word 'faith'.

* faith in a supernatural power
* faith in our fellow human beings
* Faith that other nuclear powers won't use their weapons first
* faith that other nations will simultaneously agree to reduce greenhouse gases
* faith that the worlds' people will choose leaders who will bring peace rather than a downward spiral of war, terrorism, and hatred.

In every invocation of the word 'faith' (above), there are subtle context-related differences in the meaning of the word... differences in quality, substance and implications. And we can note that, "faith in a supernatural power" stands apart from all the rest... and the differences are not subtle, at all.

Yet, in the mind of the 'believer', ALL of those invocations of 'faith' mean EXACTLY the same thing. I have heard preachers say things like: "Do you have faith that the chair that you are sitting in is not going to collapse under you? Did you have faith that the airplane that brought you here was not going to crash? Well, then... have faith in the Lord." And everybody says "Amen."

They simply cannot grasp the idea that there is a DIFFERENCE between the mental processes, and the mental 'state', involved in accepting the proposition that an invisible, magical, all-powerful sky-fairy (god) 'exists', and being pretty sure that your mate isn't screwing around on you.

THAT (in part) is what we are up against.

"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into." ~ Jonathan Swift

Of course, 'christianity' has known this all along... which is why their efforts since the beginning have been focused on those who are 'foolish in the wisdom of the world'... and they are warned against trying to share their beliefs with 'the wise'. Which is why the mind-manipulation techniques that they have been perfecting for the past 1,700 years WORK. Which is why 85% of the population of the USA is... to varying degrees... delusional.

"There is on earth among all dangers no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason... Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and ... know nothing but the word of God."~ Martin Luther (Works Vol. 12)

The writer ends by saying that "The world of pure rationality would truly be nasty, brutish, and short." That pretty much describes life in the Dark Ages... the period brought on by the Christian takeover and subsequent destructon of all 'heretical' (non-biblical) knowledge. Over 1,000 years of accumulated medical knowledge... engineering... philosophy (they kept some Plato and Aristotle)... literature... astronomy (the Greeks knew that the earth orbited the sun around 500 BC... the Christians didn't know it until the 1600's)... engineering... mathematics... chemistry... physics. We marvel at the ruins of the ancient Greek temples... not realizing that a good bit of that destruction was wrought by mobs of fanatical christians. The level of medical technology of the late Roman Empire was not achieved again until around the time of World War I. Indoor plumbing... sanitation... central heating... water supply (aqueducts)... bridges... concrete... poof... gone.

Had it not been for the 'contributions' of Christianity, Christopher Columbus would pprobably have been going on a mission to set up a mining colony in the Asteroid Belt or something like that, rather than looking for a shortcut to the Orient.

THAT is the legacy of 'belief'.

Bill.

From my perspective I think the science is too perfect. From DNA to the expanse of the cosmos to the quantum physics I find the design truly fascinating and hard to imagine no intelligent design. I see God to be as good an explanation for ‘where did all this come from?’ versus it just is. I believe God created science, evolution and everything else.

The other reason I choose to believe is the evidence, if we can call it that, of out of body experiences; (Robert Monroe and the institute he created that explores consciousness), NDE’s , especially young children as well as some of my own meditative experiences. To me all these things say there is more than the body and there is more than this life. While that doesn’t prove God, it certainly leaves the door open for me.

The more credible people who have supposedly spoken with God; yes credible can be very subjective  . The other thing I find interesting about all spiritual writing is the amount of overlap on many of the concepts particularly when you abstract away from the, as I see it, man made rules. I just think there is some truth in there and where there is smoke there is likely fire. I particularly find Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations With God series fascinating. For me it seems to fit experience and logic better than most writings and certainly precludes that the atheist mind set can still work even if God exists.

Based on my readings and my experience I have determined the belief I have.

I find I sometimes have more in common with atheists that the ‘standard’ organized religions.

Let’s relate this to science. Theoretically time travel is a possibility. The facts suggest it could be possible. One can choose to believe that it is possible or not. I think that it is possible that God exists and I choose to believe he does.

It is simply a matter of choice which is why in the end I like the secular humanist approach to government versus heavy religious involvement. Free thinking is what will move us forward. One day it will lead us to God or away from God… depending on whether or not he really exists.

Dave Gress,

I don't know if you're aware of it, but somebody has already beat you to it. For many years now, James "The Amazing" Randi has had a $1 million dollar challenge, " to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event". I'm sure concrete evidence of God would qualify. No winners yet!

http://www.randi.org/research/index.html

Bill,

I think you may have hit upon something!

ZACH E,

That's funny. I hope you intended it to be so!

So it's obsolete to not believe in things which have no evidence of existance? Charming.

If you actually believe that, my invisible and untouchable friend (his name is Cheddar - and he is standing right behind you) would like a word with you (he can not speak to people other than me - so he's out of luck). Of course, there is no evidence that Cheddar exists (other than the fact that I say he does) - but to think he doesn't is obsolete.

I want to offer $1000 to the person that can give concrete evidence of the existence of a God or Gods.

Any takers?

Send responses to dave.gress@hotmail.com

Please use reason in your argument. I'm betting that I get no takers.

Ha. I like my coffee with a bit of wit in the morning. Thanks, Sam.

I wonder though if those of us who share such thoughts spend too much time deriding religion and not enough time waxing poetic about the wonder and scientific beauty in the universe which doesn't need a supernatural bedtime story to accompany it.

We need another Carl Sagan.

palefire, i wonder if your post isn't a bit mean-spirited and unhappy...

if religion is untrue, then that is my own cross to bear. i'll one day realize you were right all along (or won't, and i'll die and that will be that).

this easy distillation of religion as wish-fulfillment and an "opiate for the masses," do you guys realize that this was being pushed in the late 1800's? do you realize we're well beyond this? taking up the, admittedly, brilliant insights of marx and freud and calling them your own is laughable, especially since the scholarly community has moved well beyond these men.

we live in a world of alterity. reason no longer has a seat of prominence because it has failed us too much and in too many disastrous, dehumanizing ways. do you think the world would REALLY be better off without religion? REALLY? wouldn't there still be bad people? wouldn't there still be injustice? incidentally, what is the measure of justice to you? i know you must have one, considering you blast "morally repulsive" christians. maybe you don't and it's merely the hypocrisy that you hate. i don't know. either way, do you follow a do-no-harm ethic out of a pure and unadulterated love for humanity? or are you pious in your own way, generally amoral but eager to point out the hypocrisy in the religious establishment. you have creeds of your own, you know. hitchens outlined an atheistic creed in the article. think it doesn't take faith to be an atheist? you think you're just going where the evidence takes you. since you're so in to passe, modern thinkers, i'll give you kant. he said there are three things about which we can know absolutely nothing. the self, the thing-in-itself, and GOD.

i'm sure you're an ethical person and this is not an attack on you.

this type of reductionism of the human animal is so passe, i wonder if hitchens is more motivated by insecurities over being an obsolete thinker than by an honest urge to gainsay religion.

i encourage anyone subscribing to this all-too-easy antiproof of god to re-evaluate what he/she is doing. this is a thoroughgoing modernist project, and it has no place in today's intellectual climate. no one wants to be reduced to an object, the auspices of which are studied and said to be the sum-total of the person.

by the mere fact that we are able to contemplate ourselves, to "stand outside ourselves" in a transcendental moment, we are aware that we're more than the sum-total of our physical phenomena. that is the essence of karl rahner's transcendental theology. we reach the brink of our thinking and long for more. why long for more if there weren't more? this is NOT a proof for God, and i don't want it to be. i believe everyone is endowed with a "vorgriff" of the divine (a pre-gripping for our non-german friends). the movement from vorgriff to belief is faith, and heavy-handed insults at it are as callow as they are empty.

this type of reductionism of the human animal is so passe, i wonder if hitchens is more motivated by insecurities over being an obsolete thinker than by an honest urge to gainsay religion.

i encourage anyone subscribing to this all-too-easy antiproof of god to re-evaluate what he/she is doing. this is a thoroughgoing modernist project, and it has no place in today's intellectual climate. no one wants to be reduced to an object, the auspices of which are studied and said to be the sum-total of the person.

by the mere fact that we are able to contemplate ourselves, to "stand outside ourselves" in a transcendental moment, we are aware that we're more than the sum-total of our physical phenomena. that is the essence of karl rahner's transcendental theology. we reach the brink of our thinking and long for more. why long for more if there weren't more? this is NOT a proof for God, and i don't want it to be. i believe everyone is endowed with a "vorgriff" of the divine (a pre-gripping for our non-german friends). the movement from vorgriff to belief is faith, and heavy-handed insults at it are as callow as they are empty.

Good piece Sam, both intellectual and funny ,which makes it worth emailing around :)!

I always figured that if some people are not able to see through the falsehoods of religion, that maybe they really do need the crutch that such transparently ridiculous beliefs provide them in order to make it from dawn to dusk each day without damaging themselves. But it's a shame that many crutch users choose to damage the people around them with their religion.

I have met so many mean spirited, unhappy, morally repulsive Christians in my time that I have come to understand that ignorance is, in fact, not bliss.

this type of reductionism of the human animal is so passe, i wonder if hitchens is more motivated by insecurities over being an obsolete thinker than by an honest urge to gainsay religion.

i encourage anyone subscribing to this all-too-easy antiproof of god to re-evaluate what he/she is doing. this is a thoroughgoing modernist project, and it has no place in today's intellectual climate. no one wants to be reduced to an object, the auspices of which are studied and said to be the sum-total of the person.

by the mere fact that we are able to contemplate ourselves, to "stand outside ourselves" in a transcendental moment, we are aware that we're more than the sum-total of our physical phenomena. that is the essence of karl rahner's transcendental theology. we reach the brink of our thinking and long for more. why long for more if there weren't more? this is NOT a proof for God, and i don't want it to be. i believe everyone is endowed with a "vorgriff" of the divine (a pre-gripping for our non-german friends). the movement from vorgriff to belief is faith, and heavy-handed insults at it are as callow as they are empty.

this type of reductionism of the human animal is so passe, i wonder if hitchens is more motivated by insecurities over being an obsolete thinker than by an honest urge to gainsay religion.

i encourage anyone subscribing to this all-too-easy antiproof of god to re-evaluate what he/she is doing. this is a thoroughgoing modernist project, and it has no place in today's intellectual climate. no one wants to be reduced to an object, the auspices of which are studied and said to be the sum-total of the person.

by the mere fact that we are able to contemplate ourselves, to "stand outside ourselves" in a transcendental moment, we are aware that we're more than the sum-total of our physical phenomena. that is the essence of karl rahner's transcendental theology. we reach the brink of our thinking and long for more. why long for more if there weren't more? this is NOT a proof for God, and i don't want it to be. i believe everyone is endowed with a "vorgriff" of the divine (a pre-gripping for our non-german friends). the movement from vorgriff to belief is faith, and heavy-handed insults at it are as callow as they are empty.

I've observed that the quality of the posts here as a rule are inversely proportional to the number of times that the poster felt the need to push the "post" button. Any comments?

There is a widely held belief that because morality supposedly cannot exist without a cosmic enforcer, an "absolute reference" (although by necessity always interpreted through quite human intermediaries), that atheists are immoral. They are thus unfit to serve in high office such as the US Presidency.

There is one belief intrinsic to the great monotheistic religions however that in my opinion is highly immoral, and moral teachings such as Christ's roundly ignored admonishments to help the poor and unfortunate do not compensate for it.

This is the belief in an afterlife.

Real Reason says above:

"God is not responsible for making us live a happy-go-lucky life on earth but to prepare us for the eternity beyond. Regardless what happens in the nanosecond of our lives on earth is done in preparation to eternity afterwards where, in the presence of God, all pain is ablated, or in the absence of God we will choose to wallow in that pain... The souls of the innocents regardless of their sufferings in this world will find peace, a greater and eternal peace than anything this world has to offer."

What is wrong with this belief? Does it not ease much suffering in the world? One easy answer is that believers are by necessity less likely to support sound environmental policy, since we are only here for a "nanosecond".

There are much more serious implications, though. For instance, anybody with a little imagination and knowledge can guess Osama bin Laden's ultimate goal - the insane dream that helps him pass the days stuck in some villa in Karachi. Not some "little" thing like 9/11...
If he had the capability, he would like to detonate nuclear devices in Washington and Moscow, hoping to trigger an "accidental" nuclear war between the US and Russia. His main goal would be to push the reset button on Western civilization, and open the path for a reassertion of Muslim dominance and re-establishment of the Caliphate. Abetting him in this nightmare of destruction, he relies on a contingent who actively court death in "holy war", leading instantly to eternal life in paradise. For all we know, bin Laden may believe this himself - it may be his "backup plan" if the main one goes awry.

But, you may say, it was an atheist empire, the U.S.S.R., that was responsible for nearly ending the world during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I would claim that one of the reasons that Khrushchev backed down at the time is that he actually had a firm grip on reality when it came either to God being on his side or on the afterlife. Kennedy was under intense pressure from some of his generals to strike pre-emptively. If "bring-em-on" Bush and his coterie of apocalyptics had been in charge, history could well have been different, but perhaps with no-one to write it or to read it. The only intelligent life for thousands of light years may well have been wiped out, with religion playing a major role in comforting those who would choose Armageddon.

Cormac McCarthy in his recent book "The Road" paints an indelible portrait of one way that religion actually could come to an end - starting with "low concussions" and ending in a nuclear winter in which the accursed survivors can only scoff at prayer.

Apply your lofty realism to history, then, to discover the blind alley you're leading readers into.

The fact is that the Rule of Reason has been tried time and time again, only to prove even less effective than organizations based on faith. Communist countries banished faith and sought a nation based solely on reason. Did they prove more tolerant? Did they have a positive moral impact on the world, on the environment?

There is an asylum cell in France where all of Nietsche's reason brought him. There are gas chambers at Auschwitz which reasonably exterminated people of faith. This is a blind alley.

The fact is that extremes should be avoided. Where faith engenders intolerance or abuse, it should be amended (not all forms of Christianity, Islam or Judaism fit into this simplification). Enlightenment can also lead to abuse.

I am in total agreement with Mr. Harris. The idea of a personal god seems so far off today that I am shocked it still prospers. Understanding how beleivers and non-beleivers look at the same evidence and come too such different conclusions must be understood.

Padmini,

Intelectuals should be exercised from these discussions on faith. They reveal the false truth.

My bumber sticker says the correct truth:

"God Bless America".

Clearly this God is the Christian God, so I must be on gard against other false Gods.

Clearly the country he blesses is America, so I must gard against other countries.

Clearly the God is a "he", so men are superior to women and children.

What can be said? Another near perfect distillation of what is manifestly true. Cheers for the "reality-based community"!

May I humbly suggest that what you say is true of Abrahamanic religions but not of others. A study of Advait Vedanta will perhaps change your mind about religion? Books by Swami Ranganathanand is recommended as also the ones by Paramhans Yoganand.

As a nurse practitioner, and an abstinence educator for the last 10 years, I have gathered research on the devastation of so many individuals and to society since we accepted the godless secular vision that one does NOT have to commit to another person in a mutual monogomous MARRIAGE -which is the STANDARD for most major faiths. THe secular godless standard states that one can CHOOSE to engage in hetero/homosexual uncommitted hedonistic sex with 1 or more partners (male or female) and we will call it "making LOVE" and it is "FREE love"--according to my research --it has NOT been free--but has HARMED/KILLED millions, and is NOT love--but engaging in selfish LUST!
I particularly want to highlight the plight of the African American as an example--I am sending you a copy of a letter I sent to Senator Obama--applauding the commitment he and his wife have made first to each other--then to raising/nurturing their children--then I give them evidence that IF black youth in this country could be directed to the same commitment, exercising self-control and ABSTAINING from hetero/homosexual activity until MARRIAGE--how MUCH of the social ills like POVERTY, STD's , ABORTION CHOICES, AND FATHERLESS YOUTH WHO HAVE HIGHER RATES OF CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR, SCHOOL DROP OUT RATES, AND DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE, could be GREATLY reduced!
Here is the letter:

Dear Senator Obama,

I have been blessed for the last 10 years to direct youth to the healthy, responsible MORAL directive of abstinence education-which has only been funded under Title V since 1996-- which is now being attacked by SIECUS and others who want to continue the FAILED low expectation of comprehensive sex-ed which is LARGLEY how to continue the HARMFUL behavior of sexual behavior outside of the committed union of MARRIAGE, -as long as they use condoms/birth control.
I have done much research as a nurse practitioner and an abstinence educator for the last 10 years, and was honored to write a chapter in a social ethics text which details the HIGH disparities in social ills like rates of poverty, rates of STD‘s, abortion rates, as well as the devastation to youth in fatherless homes-with increased rates of criminal behavior, drug and alcohol abuse, school drop out rates, and other devastation like emotional rates of depression and suicide rates, I hope you agree that directing ALL American youth to the HIGH expectation of abstinence education is the conservative IDEAL that would greatly reduce all of these ills --teaching ALL youth to abstain from not only drugs, alcohol and smoking, but especially sexual activity-- as there are MANY more negative consequences related to that ONE behavioral choice!
I believe it is time for ALL citizens who believe these statistics are UNACCEPTABLE, and begin to intervene to see how we can GREATLY reduce the rates of these sad statistics particularly for blacks and minorities which suffer with higher rates as a percentage of the population:

Sadly, blacks have higher rates as a percentage of the population-13%--of ALL of these social ills, BUT other statistics from the CDC state that they engage in these behaviors in higher rates--THUS more devastation. But, we have seen GREAT reductions-25% in teen pregnancy, and related 30% drop in child poverty, since we began funding Title V abstinence education in 1997,-BUT have not seen that GREAT news in the media-! Also, if we KNOW that so many social ills are linked to ONE behavior-- why wouldn't we invest MANY more dollars to be spent for that healthy, responsible directives?


Blacks account for 12-13% of the U.S. population--yet they have higher numbers as a percentage of their race in ALL of the following social ills:

POVERTY-The #1 group trapped in poverty are single female -headed
households--NO marriage--blacks have a 70% out--of-wedlock birth rate--THUS MORE POVERTY--CHOOSING to engage in sex before marriage is the causal factor!

STD's --Blacks have higher numbers of ALL STD's -not just HIV/AIDS--which in
some areas they account for 50% of the new cases--but also for Herpes,
Chlamydia, Gonorrhea..and others,.-we KNOW that STD's are LARGELY spread by CHOICES to engage in sex outside of MARRIAGE!

CRIME--WE KNOW that blacks have higher rates of criminal behavior AND on
more black victims--we also know that 70% of the men in prison came from
homes with NO fathers--NO marriage--thus NO positive role model--people
CHOOSING to engage in sex outside of MARRIAGE-and then abandon their
responsibility!

ABORTION--We know that since 1973-Roe v. Wade that 45 million unborn babies
have been KILLED in legal abortion--BUT 1/3rd of those-15 million-- were
black and Planned Parenthood-et.al. sets up more inner city abortion clinics
targeting blacks--that is GENOCIDE ! that citizens SADLY ignore!

My research from the CDC states that black youth engage in sex at younger ages and with more partners than their peers--THUS-more of ALL of these devastating numbers!




NOW for the solution--conservatives have funded and want to expand abstinence until MARRIAGE funding so that ALL youth will understand the consequences of that behavior -teach them how NOT to get STD's -or end up in poverty as a single mom or have to CHOOSE to KILL her baby in abortion. Also we would like to teach young men-why they need to exercise self-control and wait, and commit to the mom in MARRIAGE-that it is healthy for the child to grow up with a father and a mother and have a better chance of NOT engaging in criminal behavior and other negative behaviors!

I have a tape of some politicians from C-Span who say it is "unrealistic" to teach some youth abstinence--isn't that soft bigotry of LOW expectation--that blacks CANNOT
be taught self-control like their white peers-- I believe that IT IS RACIST to not teach
them the HIGH standard of abstinence AND we have studies which state black
youth do abstain after this healthy, responsible, MORAL directive of abstinence
education!

I also would like to remind you that IF you follow Christian Biblical standards in your personal life, and agree that you and your wife have the authority to pass those IDEALS on to your children--that CHOOSING to engage in sex outside of the "protective" boundary of MARRIAGE is a CHOICE to engage in sexual SINS_-those of fornication, sodomy, mutual masturbation, and those who stray from their marital vows--adultery--GOD's directives are TRULY about love and protection!

SO--I hope we will begin to challenge those who say they want less poverty, less crime, less STD's, less abortion -to join with conservatives and DEMAND abstinence education for ALL youth--so that we can GREATLY reduce these sad statistics-especially for blacks!

I also want to include the devastation from emotional effects of pre-marital sex like
increased rates of depression and suicide, loss of self-esteem and MANY
other emotional crisis that we spend MILLIONS on counseling!

***I am personally volunteering to come anywhere in the U.S. to show you a summary of the 2 hour presentation that we give to our students, and I KNOW that you will agree that ALL American youth are entitled to this HEALTHY, RESPONSBLE, MORAL directive, instead of the irresponsible, unhealthy, 30 year-old failed directive of “Just use your condom education“ which has as described in Chapter 3 of our Catholic Social Ethics text has HARMED so many!

Lastly, I am sending you correspondence with the Dep. Sec of O.P.A. and many other state and federal authorities concerning Title X federally-funded family planning clinics which are NOT reporting under-aged statutory rape victims, and are instead handing them condoms/birth control with OUR tax dollars allowing these ILLEGAL relationships to be subsidized--this is a CRIME and these are victims of crime and should be reported so that their rapist partners can be jailed--PLEASE read the letters and imagine if this was your child that did not get reported--PLEASE assemble a Senate panel to examine this policy and put an end to under-aged minors not being protected.



I PRAY that you will prayerfully consider looking at the UNBELIEVABLE individual and societal costs to enabling our youth to continue to engage in the one behavioral CHOICE that causes all of these social ills--AND challenge them with the FACTS and with the solution--which is to direct ALL American youth to the healthy, responsible, directive of abstinence until MARRIAGE! I hope that after reading the correspondence on the issue of Title X clinics handing condoms/birth control to under-aged minors, that you agree that under-aged minors who visit clinics should be reported and their ILLEGAL relationships ended - and the rapist partner should be put in jail and you will cut off funding for Title X if these violations continue.
I know you are busy, but IF you read this material, I think as you head into this presidential race, you can use this information to inform ALL Americans that you see the GREAT benefit to joining the the PRO-LIFE, PRO-ABSTINENCE and PRO-TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE agenda--and that these conservative ideals are the solution to greatly reduce poverty, rates of STD’s and many other social ills, that intact families with concerned mothers and fathers make healthy societies. I will PRAY for you and your family daily!

GOD BLESS-US-EVERYONE! Ret. Major Laura Merriott C.R. N. P.
and PROUD abstinence educator
814 835-0249
5235 Wolf Rd. Erie, Pa. 16505

I would be honored for you to call me
@ 814 835-0249 so that I may mail you the data!

As a nurse practitioner, and an abstinence educator for the last 10 years, I have gathered research on the devastation of so many individuals and to society since we accepted the godless secular vision that one does NOT have to commit to another person in a mutual monogomous MARRIAGE -which is the STANDARD for most major faiths. THe secular godless standard states that one can CHOOSE to engage in hetero/homosexual uncommitted hedonistic sex with 1 or more partners (male or female) and we will call it "making LOVE" and it is "FREE love"--according to my research --it has NOT been free--but has HARMED/KILLED millions, and is NOT love--but engaging in selfish LUST!
I particularly want to highlight the plight of the African American as an example--I am sending you a copy of a letter I sent to Senator Obama--applauding the commitment he and his wife have made first to each other--then to raising/nurturing their children--then I give them evidence that IF black youth in this country could be directed to the same commitment, exercising self-control and ABSTAINING from hetero/homosexual activity until MARRIAGE--how MUCH of the social ills like POVERTY, STD's , ABORTION CHOICES, AND FATHERLESS YOUTH WHO HAVE HIGHER RATES OF CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR, SCHOOL DROP OUT RATES, AND DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE, could be GREATLY reduced!
Here is the letter:

Dear Senator Obama,

I have been blessed for the last 10 years to direct youth to the healthy, responsible MORAL directive of abstinence education-which has only been funded under Title V since 1996-- which is now being attacked by SIECUS and others who want to continue the FAILED low expectation of comprehensive sex-ed which is LARGLEY how to continue the HARMFUL behavior of sexual behavior outside of the committed union of MARRIAGE, -as long as they use condoms/birth control.
I have done much research as a nurse practitioner and an abstinence educator for the last 10 years, and was honored to write a chapter in a social ethics text which details the HIGH disparities in social ills like rates of poverty, rates of STD‘s, abortion rates, as well as the devastation to youth in fatherless homes-with increased rates of criminal behavior, drug and alcohol abuse, school drop out rates, and other devastation like emotional rates of depression and suicide rates, I hope you agree that directing ALL American youth to the HIGH expectation of abstinence education is the conservative IDEAL that would greatly reduce all of these ills --teaching ALL youth to abstain from not only drugs, alcohol and smoking, but especially sexual activity-- as there are MANY more negative consequences related to that ONE behavioral choice!
I believe it is time for ALL citizens who believe these statistics are UNACCEPTABLE, and begin to intervene to see how we can GREATLY reduce the rates of these sad statistics particularly for blacks and minorities which suffer with higher rates as a percentage of the population:

Sadly, blacks have higher rates as a percentage of the population-13%--of ALL of these social ills, BUT other statistics from the CDC state that they engage in these behaviors in higher rates--THUS more devastation. But, we have seen GREAT reductions-25% in teen pregnancy, and related 30% drop in child poverty, since we began funding Title V abstinence education in 1997,-BUT have not seen that GREAT news in the media-! Also, if we KNOW that so many social ills are linked to ONE behavior-- why wouldn't we invest MANY more dollars to be spent for that healthy, responsible directives?


Blacks account for 12-13% of the U.S. population--yet they have higher numbers as a percentage of their race in ALL of the following social ills:

POVERTY-The #1 group trapped in poverty are single female -headed
households--NO marriage--blacks have a 70% out--of-wedlock birth rate--THUS MORE POVERTY--CHOOSING to engage in sex before marriage is the causal factor!

STD's --Blacks have higher numbers of ALL STD's -not just HIV/AIDS--which in
some areas they account for 50% of the new cases--but also for Herpes,
Chlamydia, Gonorrhea..and others,.-we KNOW that STD's are LARGELY spread by CHOICES to engage in sex outside of MARRIAGE!

CRIME--WE KNOW that blacks have higher rates of criminal behavior AND on
more black victims--we also know that 70% of the men in prison came from
homes with NO fathers--NO marriage--thus NO positive role model--people
CHOOSING to engage in sex outside of MARRIAGE-and then abandon their
responsibility!

ABORTION--We know that since 1973-Roe v. Wade that 45 million unborn babies
have been KILLED in legal abortion--BUT 1/3rd of those-15 million-- were
black and Planned Parenthood-et.al. sets up more inner city abortion clinics
targeting blacks--that is GENOCIDE ! that citizens SADLY ignore!

My research from the CDC states that black youth engage in sex at younger ages and with more partners than their peers--THUS-more of ALL of these devastating numbers!




NOW for the solution--conservatives have funded and want to expand abstinence until MARRIAGE funding so that ALL youth will understand the consequences of that behavior -teach them how NOT to get STD's -or end up in poverty as a single mom or have to CHOOSE to KILL her baby in abortion. Also we would like to teach young men-why they need to exercise self-control and wait, and commit to the mom in MARRIAGE-that it is healthy for the child to grow up with a father and a mother and have a better chance of NOT engaging in criminal behavior and other negative behaviors!

I have a tape of some politicians from C-Span who say it is "unrealistic" to teach some youth abstinence--isn't that soft bigotry of LOW expectation--that blacks CANNOT
be taught self-control like their white peers-- I believe that IT IS RACIST to not teach
them the HIGH standard of abstinence AND we have studies which state black
youth do abstain after this healthy, responsible, MORAL directive of abstinence
education!

I also would like to remind you that IF you follow Christian Biblical standards in your personal life, and agree that you and your wife have the authority to pass those IDEALS on to your children--that CHOOSING to engage in sex outside of the "protective" boundary of MARRIAGE is a CHOICE to engage in sexual SINS_-those of fornication, sodomy, mutual masturbation, and those who stray from their marital vows--adultery--GOD's directives are TRULY about love and protection!

SO--I hope we will begin to challenge those who say they want less poverty, less crime, less STD's, less abortion -to join with conservatives and DEMAND abstinence education for ALL youth--so that we can GREATLY reduce these sad statistics-especially for blacks!

I also want to include the devastation from emotional effects of pre-marital sex like
increased rates of depression and suicide, loss of self-esteem and MANY
other emotional crisis that we spend MILLIONS on counseling!

***I am personally volunteering to come anywhere in the U.S. to show you a summary of the 2 hour presentation that we give to our students, and I KNOW that you will agree that ALL American youth are entitled to this HEALTHY, RESPONSBLE, MORAL directive, instead of the irresponsible, unhealthy, 30 year-old failed directive of “Just use your condom education“ which has as described in Chapter 3 of our Catholic Social Ethics text has HARMED so many!

Lastly, I am sending you correspondence with the Dep. Sec of O.P.A. and many other state and federal authorities concerning Title X federally-funded family planning clinics which are NOT reporting under-aged statutory rape victims, and are instead handing them condoms/birth control with OUR tax dollars allowing these ILLEGAL relationships to be subsidized--this is a CRIME and these are victims of crime and should be reported so that their rapist partners can be jailed--PLEASE read the letters and imagine if this was your child that did not get reported--PLEASE assemble a Senate panel to examine this policy and put an end to under-aged minors not being protected.



I PRAY that you will prayerfully consider looking at the UNBELIEVABLE individual and societal costs to enabling our youth to continue to engage in the one behavioral CHOICE that causes all of these social ills--AND challenge them with the FACTS and with the solution--which is to direct ALL American youth to the healthy, responsible, directive of abstinence until MARRIAGE! I hope that after reading the correspondence on the issue of Title X clinics handing condoms/birth control to under-aged minors, that you agree that under-aged minors who visit clinics should be reported and their ILLEGAL relationships ended - and the rapist partner should be put in jail and you will cut off funding for Title X if these violations continue.
I know you are busy, but IF you read this material, I think as you head into this presidential race, you can use this information to inform ALL Americans that you see the GREAT benefit to joining the the PRO-LIFE, PRO-ABSTINENCE and PRO-TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE agenda--and that these conservative ideals are the solution to greatly reduce poverty, rates of STD’s and many other social ills, that intact families with concerned mothers and fathers make healthy societies. I will PRAY for you and your family daily!

GOD BLESS-US-EVERYONE! Ret. Major Laura Merriott C.R. N. P.
and PROUD abstinence educator
814 835-0249
5235 Wolf Rd. Erie, Pa. 16505

I would be honored for you to call me
@ 814 835-0249 so that I may mail you the data!

As a nurse practitioner, and an abstinence educator for the last 10 years, I have gathered research on the devastation of so many individuals and to society since we accepted the godless secular vision that one does NOT have to commit to another person in a mutual monogomous MARRIAGE -which is the STANDARD for most major faiths. THe secular godless standard states that one can CHOOSE to engage in hetero/homosexual uncommitted hedonistic sex with 1 or more partners (male or female) and we will call it "making LOVE" and it is "FREE love"--according to my research --it has NOT been free--but has HARMED/KILLED millions, and is NOT love--but engaging in selfish LUST!
I particularly want to highlight the plight of the African American as an example--I am sending you a copy of a letter I sent to Senator Obama--applauding the commitment he and his wife have made first to each other--then to raising/nurturing their children--then I give them evidence that IF black youth in this country could be directed to the same commitment, exercising self-control and ABSTAINING from hetero/homosexual activity until MARRIAGE--how MUCH of the social ills like POVERTY, STD's , ABORTION CHOICES, AND FATHERLESS YOUTH WHO HAVE HIGHER RATES OF CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR, SCHOOL DROP OUT RATES, AND DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE, could be GREATLY reduced!
Here is the letter:

Dear Senator Obama,

I have been blessed for the last 10 years to direct youth to the healthy, responsible MORAL directive of abstinence education-which has only been funded under Title V since 1996-- which is now being attacked by SIECUS and others who want to continue the FAILED low expectation of comprehensive sex-ed which is LARGLEY how to continue the HARMFUL behavior of sexual behavior outside of the committed union of MARRIAGE, -as long as they use condoms/birth control.
I have done much research as a nurse practitioner and an abstinence educator for the last 10 years, and was honored to write a chapter in a social ethics text which details the HIGH disparities in social ills like rates of poverty, rates of STD‘s, abortion rates, as well as the devastation to youth in fatherless homes-with increased rates of criminal behavior, drug and alcohol abuse, school drop out rates, and other devastation like emotional rates of depression and suicide rates, I hope you agree that directing ALL American youth to the HIGH expectation of abstinence education is the conservative IDEAL that would greatly reduce all of these ills --teaching ALL youth to abstain from not only drugs, alcohol and smoking, but especially sexual activity-- as there are MANY more negative consequences related to that ONE behavioral choice!
I believe it is time for ALL citizens who believe these statistics are UNACCEPTABLE, and begin to intervene to see how we can GREATLY reduce the rates of these sad statistics particularly for blacks and minorities which suffer with higher rates as a percentage of the population:

Sadly, blacks have higher rates as a percentage of the population-13%--of ALL of these social ills, BUT other statistics from the CDC state that they engage in these behaviors in higher rates--THUS more devastation. But, we have seen GREAT reductions-25% in teen pregnancy, and related 30% drop in child poverty, since we began funding Title V abstinence education in 1997,-BUT have not seen that GREAT news in the media-! Also, if we KNOW that so many social ills are linked to ONE behavior-- why wouldn't we invest MANY more dollars to be spent for that healthy, responsible directives?


Blacks account for 12-13% of the U.S. population--yet they have higher numbers as a percentage of their race in ALL of the following social ills:

POVERTY-The #1 group trapped in poverty are single female -headed
households--NO marriage--blacks have a 70% out--of-wedlock birth rate--THUS MORE POVERTY--CHOOSING to engage in sex before marriage is the causal factor!

STD's --Blacks have higher numbers of ALL STD's -not just HIV/AIDS--which in
some areas they account for 50% of the new cases--but also for Herpes,
Chlamydia, Gonorrhea..and others,.-we KNOW that STD's are LARGELY spread by CHOICES to engage in sex outside of MARRIAGE!

CRIME--WE KNOW that blacks have higher rates of criminal behavior AND on
more black victims--we also know that 70% of the men in prison came from
homes with NO fathers--NO marriage--thus NO positive role model--people
CHOOSING to engage in sex outside of MARRIAGE-and then abandon their
responsibility!

ABORTION--We know that since 1973-Roe v. Wade that 45 million unborn babies
have been KILLED in legal abortion--BUT 1/3rd of those-15 million-- were
black and Planned Parenthood-et.al. sets up more inner city abortion clinics
targeting blacks--that is GENOCIDE ! that citizens SADLY ignore!

My research from the CDC states that black youth engage in sex at younger ages and with more partners than their peers--THUS-more of ALL of these devastating numbers!




NOW for the solution--conservatives have funded and want to expand abstinence until MARRIAGE funding so that ALL youth will understand the consequences of that behavior -teach them how NOT to get STD's -or end up in poverty as a single mom or have to CHOOSE to KILL her baby in abortion. Also we would like to teach young men-why they need to exercise self-control and wait, and commit to the mom in MARRIAGE-that it is healthy for the child to grow up with a father and a mother and have a better chance of NOT engaging in criminal behavior and other negative behaviors!

I have a tape of some politicians from C-Span who say it is "unrealistic" to teach some youth abstinence--isn't that soft bigotry of LOW expectation--that blacks CANNOT
be taught self-control like their white peers-- I believe that IT IS RACIST to not teach
them the HIGH standard of abstinence AND we have studies which state black
youth do abstain after this healthy, responsible, MORAL directive of abstinence
education!

I also would like to remind you that IF you follow Christian Biblical standards in your personal life, and agree that you and your wife have the authority to pass those IDEALS on to your children--that CHOOSING to engage in sex outside of the "protective" boundary of MARRIAGE is a CHOICE to engage in sexual SINS_-those of fornication, sodomy, mutual masturbation, and those who stray from their marital vows--adultery--GOD's directives are TRULY about love and protection!

SO--I hope we will begin to challenge those who say they want less poverty, less crime, less STD's, less abortion -to join with conservatives and DEMAND abstinence education for ALL youth--so that we can GREATLY reduce these sad statistics-especially for blacks!

I also want to include the devastation from emotional effects of pre-marital sex like
increased rates of depression and suicide, loss of self-esteem and MANY
other emotional crisis that we spend MILLIONS on counseling!

***I am personally volunteering to come anywhere in the U.S. to show you a summary of the 2 hour presentation that we give to our students, and I KNOW that you will agree that ALL American youth are entitled to this HEALTHY, RESPONSBLE, MORAL directive, instead of the irresponsible, unhealthy, 30 year-old failed directive of “Just use your condom education“ which has as described in Chapter 3 of our Catholic Social Ethics text has HARMED so many!

Lastly, I am sending you correspondence with the Dep. Sec of O.P.A. and many other state and federal authorities concerning Title X federally-funded family planning clinics which are NOT reporting under-aged statutory rape victims, and are instead handing them condoms/birth control with OUR tax dollars allowing these ILLEGAL relationships to be subsidized--this is a CRIME and these are victims of crime and should be reported so that their rapist partners can be jailed--PLEASE read the letters and imagine if this was your child that did not get reported--PLEASE assemble a Senate panel to examine this policy and put an end to under-aged minors not being protected.



I PRAY that you will prayerfully consider looking at the UNBELIEVABLE individual and societal costs to enabling our youth to continue to engage in the one behavioral CHOICE that causes all of these social ills--AND challenge them with the FACTS and with the solution--which is to direct ALL American youth to the healthy, responsible, directive of abstinence until MARRIAGE! I hope that after reading the correspondence on the issue of Title X clinics handing condoms/birth control to under-aged minors, that you agree that under-aged minors who visit clinics should be reported and their ILLEGAL relationships ended - and the rapist partner should be put in jail and you will cut off funding for Title X if these violations continue.
I know you are busy, but IF you read this material, I think as you head into this presidential race, you can use this information to inform ALL Americans that you see the GREAT benefit to joining the the PRO-LIFE, PRO-ABSTINENCE and PRO-TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE agenda--and that these conservative ideals are the solution to greatly reduce poverty, rates of STD’s and many other social ills, that intact families with concerned mothers and fathers make healthy societies. I will PRAY for you and your family daily!

GOD BLESS-US-EVERYONE! Ret. Major Laura Merriott C.R. N. P.
and PROUD abstinence educator
814 835-0249
5235 Wolf Rd. Erie, Pa. 16505

I would be honored for you to call me
@ 814 835-0249 so that I may mail you the data!

As a nurse practitioner, and an abstinence educator for the last 10 years, I have gathered research on the devastation of so many individuals and to society since we accepted the godless secular vision that one does NOT have to commit to another person in a mutual monogomous MARRIAGE -which is the STANDARD for most major faiths. THe secular godless standard states that one can CHOOSE to engage in hetero/homosexual uncommitted hedonistic sex with 1 or more partners (male or female) and we will call it "making LOVE" and it is "FREE love"--according to my research --it has NOT been free--but has HARMED/KILLED millions, and is NOT love--but engaging in selfish LUST!
I particularly want to highlight the plight of the African American as an example--I am sending you a copy of a letter I sent to Senator Obama--applauding the commitment he and his wife have made first to each other--then to raising/nurturing their children--then I give them evidence that IF black youth in this country could be directed to the same commitment, exercising self-control and ABSTAINING from hetero/homosexual activity until MARRIAGE--how MUCH of the social ills like POVERTY, STD's , ABORTION CHOICES, AND FATHERLESS YOUTH WHO HAVE HIGHER RATES OF CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR, SCHOOL DROP OUT RATES, AND DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE, could be GREATLY reduced!
Here is the letter:

Dear Senator Obama,

I have been blessed for the last 10 years to direct youth to the healthy, responsible MORAL directive of abstinence education-which has only been funded under Title V since 1996-- which is now being attacked by SIECUS and others who want to continue the FAILED low expectation of comprehensive sex-ed which is LARGLEY how to continue the HARMFUL behavior of sexual behavior outside of the committed union of MARRIAGE, -as long as they use condoms/birth control.
I have done much research as a nurse practitioner and an abstinence educator for the last 10 years, and was honored to write a chapter in a social ethics text which details the HIGH disparities in social ills like rates of poverty, rates of STD‘s, abortion rates, as well as the devastation to youth in fatherless homes-with increased rates of criminal behavior, drug and alcohol abuse, school drop out rates, and other devastation like emotional rates of depression and suicide rates, I hope you agree that directing ALL American youth to the HIGH expectation of abstinence education is the conservative IDEAL that would greatly reduce all of these ills --teaching ALL youth to abstain from not only drugs, alcohol and smoking, but especially sexual activity-- as there are MANY more negative consequences related to that ONE behavioral choice!
I believe it is time for ALL citizens who believe these statistics are UNACCEPTABLE, and begin to intervene to see how we can GREATLY reduce the rates of these sad statistics particularly for blacks and minorities which suffer with higher rates as a percentage of the population:

Sadly, blacks have higher rates as a percentage of the population-13%--of ALL of these social ills, BUT other statistics from the CDC state that they engage in these behaviors in higher rates--THUS more devastation. But, we have seen GREAT reductions-25% in teen pregnancy, and related 30% drop in child poverty, since we began funding Title V abstinence education in 1997,-BUT have not seen that GREAT news in the media-! Also, if we KNOW that so many social ills are linked to ONE behavior-- why wouldn't we invest MANY more dollars to be spent for that healthy, responsible directives?


Blacks account for 12-13% of the U.S. population--yet they have higher numbers as a percentage of their race in ALL of the following social ills:

POVERTY-The #1 group trapped in poverty are single female -headed
households--NO marriage--blacks have a 70% out--of-wedlock birth rate--THUS MORE POVERTY--CHOOSING to engage in sex before marriage is the causal factor!

STD's --Blacks have higher numbers of ALL STD's -not just HIV/AIDS--which in
some areas they account for 50% of the new cases--but also for Herpes,
Chlamydia, Gonorrhea..and others,.-we KNOW that STD's are LARGELY spread by CHOICES to engage in sex outside of MARRIAGE!

CRIME--WE KNOW that blacks have higher rates of criminal behavior AND on
more black victims--we also know that 70% of the men in prison came from
homes with NO fathers--NO marriage--thus NO positive role model--people
CHOOSING to engage in sex outside of MARRIAGE-and then abandon their
responsibility!

ABORTION--We know that since 1973-Roe v. Wade that 45 million unborn babies
have been KILLED in legal abortion--BUT 1/3rd of those-15 million-- were
black and Planned Parenthood-et.al. sets up more inner city abortion clinics
targeting blacks--that is GENOCIDE ! that citizens SADLY ignore!

My research from the CDC states that black youth engage in sex at younger ages and with more partners than their peers--THUS-more of ALL of these devastating numbers!




NOW for the solution--conservatives have funded and want to expand abstinence until MARRIAGE funding so that ALL youth will understand the consequences of that behavior -teach them how NOT to get STD's -or end up in poverty as a single mom or have to CHOOSE to KILL her baby in abortion. Also we would like to teach young men-why they need to exercise self-control and wait, and commit to the mom in MARRIAGE-that it is healthy for the child to grow up with a father and a mother and have a better chance of NOT engaging in criminal behavior and other negative behaviors!

I have a tape of some politicians from C-Span who say it is "unrealistic" to teach some youth abstinence--isn't that soft bigotry of LOW expectation--that blacks CANNOT
be taught self-control like their white peers-- I believe that IT IS RACIST to not teach
them the HIGH standard of abstinence AND we have studies which state black
youth do abstain after this healthy, responsible, MORAL directive of abstinence
education!

I also would like to remind you that IF you follow Christian Biblical standards in your personal life, and agree that you and your wife have the authority to pass those IDEALS on to your children--that CHOOSING to engage in sex outside of the "protective" boundary of MARRIAGE is a CHOICE to engage in sexual SINS_-those of fornication, sodomy, mutual masturbation, and those who stray from their marital vows--adultery--GOD's directives are TRULY about love and protection!

SO--I hope we will begin to challenge those who say they want less poverty, less crime, less STD's, less abortion -to join with conservatives and DEMAND abstinence education for ALL youth--so that we can GREATLY reduce these sad statistics-especially for blacks!

I also want to include the devastation from emotional effects of pre-marital sex like
increased rates of depression and suicide, loss of self-esteem and MANY
other emotional crisis that we spend MILLIONS on counseling!

***I am personally volunteering to come anywhere in the U.S. to show you a summary of the 2 hour presentation that we give to our students, and I KNOW that you will agree that ALL American youth are entitled to this HEALTHY, RESPONSBLE, MORAL directive, instead of the irresponsible, unhealthy, 30 year-old failed directive of “Just use your condom education“ which has as described in Chapter 3 of our Catholic Social Ethics text has HARMED so many!

Lastly, I am sending you correspondence with the Dep. Sec of O.P.A. and many other state and federal authorities concerning Title X federally-funded family planning clinics which are NOT reporting under-aged statutory rape victims, and are instead handing them condoms/birth control with OUR tax dollars allowing these ILLEGAL relationships to be subsidized--this is a CRIME and these are victims of crime and should be reported so that their rapist partners can be jailed--PLEASE read the letters and imagine if this was your child that did not get reported--PLEASE assemble a Senate panel to examine this policy and put an end to under-aged minors not being protected.



I PRAY that you will prayerfully consider looking at the UNBELIEVABLE individual and societal costs to enabling our youth to continue to engage in the one behavioral CHOICE that causes all of these social ills--AND challenge them with the FACTS and with the solution--which is to direct ALL American youth to the healthy, responsible, directive of abstinence until MARRIAGE! I hope that after reading the correspondence on the issue of Title X clinics handing condoms/birth control to under-aged minors, that you agree that under-aged minors who visit clinics should be reported and their ILLEGAL relationships ended - and the rapist partner should be put in jail and you will cut off funding for Title X if these violations continue.
I know you are busy, but IF you read this material, I think as you head into this presidential race, you can use this information to inform ALL Americans that you see the GREAT benefit to joining the the PRO-LIFE, PRO-ABSTINENCE and PRO-TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE agenda--and that these conservative ideals are the solution to greatly reduce poverty, rates of STD’s and many other social ills, that intact families with concerned mothers and fathers make healthy societies. I will PRAY for you and your family daily!

GOD BLESS-US-EVERYONE! Ret. Major Laura Merriott C.R. N. P.
and PROUD abstinence educator
814 835-0249
5235 Wolf Rd. Erie, Pa. 16505

I would be honored for you to call me
@ 814 835-0249 so that I may mail you the data!

As a nurse practitioner, and an abstinence educator for the last 10 years, I have gathered research on the devastation of so many individuals and to society since we accepted the godless secular vision that one does NOT have to commit to another person in a mutual monogomous MARRIAGE -which is the STANDARD for most major faiths. THe secular godless standard states that one can CHOOSE to engage in hetero/homosexual uncommitted hedonistic sex with 1 or more partners (male or female) and we will call it "making LOVE" and it is "FREE love"--according to my research --it has NOT been free--but has HARMED/KILLED millions, and is NOT love--but engaging in selfish LUST!
I particularly want to highlight the plight of the African American as an example--I am sending you a copy of a letter I sent to Senator Obama--applauding the commitment he and his wife have made first to each other--then to raising/nurturing their children--then I give them evidence that IF black youth in this country could be directed to the same commitment, exercising self-control and ABSTAINING from hetero/homosexual activity until MARRIAGE--how MUCH of the social ills like POVERTY, STD's , ABORTION CHOICES, AND FATHERLESS YOUTH WHO HAVE HIGHER RATES OF CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR, SCHOOL DROP OUT RATES, AND DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE, could be GREATLY reduced!
Here is the letter:

Dear Senator Obama,

I have been blessed for the last 10 years to direct youth to the healthy, responsible MORAL directive of abstinence education-which has only been funded under Title V since 1996-- which is now being attacked by SIECUS and others who want to continue the FAILED low expectation of comprehensive sex-ed which is LARGLEY how to continue the HARMFUL behavior of sexual behavior outside of the committed union of MARRIAGE, -as long as they use condoms/birth control.
I have done much research as a nurse practitioner and an abstinence educator for the last 10 years, and was honored to write a chapter in a social ethics text which details the HIGH disparities in social ills like rates of poverty, rates of STD‘s, abortion rates, as well as the devastation to youth in fatherless homes-with increased rates of criminal behavior, drug and alcohol abuse, school drop out rates, and other devastation like emotional rates of depression and suicide rates, I hope you agree that directing ALL American youth to the HIGH expectation of abstinence education is the conservative IDEAL that would greatly reduce all of these ills --teaching ALL youth to abstain from not only drugs, alcohol and smoking, but especially sexual activity-- as there are MANY more negative consequences related to that ONE behavioral choice!
I believe it is time for ALL citizens who believe these statistics are UNACCEPTABLE, and begin to intervene to see how we can GREATLY reduce the rates of these sad statistics particularly for blacks and minorities which suffer with higher rates as a percentage of the population:

Sadly, blacks have higher rates as a percentage of the population-13%--of ALL of these social ills, BUT other statistics from the CDC state that they engage in these behaviors in higher rates--THUS more devastation. But, we have seen GREAT reductions-25% in teen pregnancy, and related 30% drop in child poverty, since we began funding Title V abstinence education in 1997,-BUT have not seen that GREAT news in the media-! Also, if we KNOW that so many social ills are linked to ONE behavior-- why wouldn't we invest MANY more dollars to be spent for that healthy, responsible directives?


Blacks account for 12-13% of the U.S. population--yet they have higher numbers as a percentage of their race in ALL of the following social ills:

POVERTY-The #1 group trapped in poverty are single female -headed
households--NO marriage--blacks have a 70% out--of-wedlock birth rate--THUS MORE POVERTY--CHOOSING to engage in sex before marriage is the causal factor!

STD's --Blacks have higher numbers of ALL STD's -not just HIV/AIDS--which in
some areas they account for 50% of the new cases--but also for Herpes,
Chlamydia, Gonorrhea..and others,.-we KNOW that STD's are LARGELY spread by CHOICES to engage in sex outside of MARRIAGE!

CRIME--WE KNOW that blacks have higher rates of criminal behavior AND on
more black victims--we also know that 70% of the men in prison came from
homes with NO fathers--NO marriage--thus NO positive role model--people
CHOOSING to engage in sex outside of MARRIAGE-and then abandon their
responsibility!

ABORTION--We know that since 1973-Roe v. Wade that 45 million unborn babies
have been KILLED in legal abortion--BUT 1/3rd of those-15 million-- were
black and Planned Parenthood-et.al. sets up more inner city abortion clinics
targeting blacks--that is GENOCIDE ! that citizens SADLY ignore!

My research from the CDC states that black youth engage in sex at younger ages and with more partners than their peers--THUS-more of ALL of these devastating numbers!




NOW for the solution--conservatives have funded and want to expand abstinence until MARRIAGE funding so that ALL youth will understand the consequences of that behavior -teach them how NOT to get STD's -or end up in poverty as a single mom or have to CHOOSE to KILL her baby in abortion. Also we would like to teach young men-why they need to exercise self-control and wait, and commit to the mom in MARRIAGE-that it is healthy for the child to grow up with a father and a mother and have a better chance of NOT engaging in criminal behavior and other negative behaviors!

I have a tape of some politicians from C-Span who say it is "unrealistic" to teach some youth abstinence--isn't that soft bigotry of LOW expectation--that blacks CANNOT
be taught self-control like their white peers-- I believe that IT IS RACIST to not teach
them the HIGH standard of abstinence AND we have studies which state black
youth do abstain after this healthy, responsible, MORAL directive of abstinence
education!

I also would like to remind you that IF you follow Christian Biblical standards in your personal life, and agree that you and your wife have the authority to pass those IDEALS on to your children--that CHOOSING to engage in sex outside of the "protective" boundary of MARRIAGE is a CHOICE to engage in sexual SINS_-those of fornication, sodomy, mutual masturbation, and those who stray from their marital vows--adultery--GOD's directives are TRULY about love and protection!

SO--I hope we will begin to challenge those who say they want less poverty, less crime, less STD's, less abortion -to join with conservatives and DEMAND abstinence education for ALL youth--so that we can GREATLY reduce these sad statistics-especially for blacks!

I also want to include the devastation from emotional effects of pre-marital sex like
increased rates of depression and suicide, loss of self-esteem and MANY
other emotional crisis that we spend MILLIONS on counseling!

***I am personally volunteering to come anywhere in the U.S. to show you a summary of the 2 hour presentation that we give to our students, and I KNOW that you will agree that ALL American youth are entitled to this HEALTHY, RESPONSBLE, MORAL directive, instead of the irresponsible, unhealthy, 30 year-old failed directive of “Just use your condom education“ which has as described in Chapter 3 of our Catholic Social Ethics text has HARMED so many!

Lastly, I am sending you correspondence with the Dep. Sec of O.P.A. and many other state and federal authorities concerning Title X federally-funded family planning clinics which are NOT reporting under-aged statutory rape victims, and are instead handing them condoms/birth control with OUR tax dollars allowing these ILLEGAL relationships to be subsidized--this is a CRIME and these are victims of crime and should be reported so that their rapist partners can be jailed--PLEASE read the letters and imagine if this was your child that did not get reported--PLEASE assemble a Senate panel to examine this policy and put an end to under-aged minors not being protected.



I PRAY that you will prayerfully consider looking at the UNBELIEVABLE individual and societal costs to enabling our youth to continue to engage in the one behavioral CHOICE that causes all of these social ills--AND challenge them with the FACTS and with the solution--which is to direct ALL American youth to the healthy, responsible, directive of abstinence until MARRIAGE! I hope that after reading the correspondence on the issue of Title X clinics handing condoms/birth control to under-aged minors, that you agree that under-aged minors who visit clinics should be reported and their ILLEGAL relationships ended - and the rapist partner should be put in jail and you will cut off funding for Title X if these violations continue.
I know you are busy, but IF you read this material, I think as you head into this presidential race, you can use this information to inform ALL Americans that you see the GREAT benefit to joining the the PRO-LIFE, PRO-ABSTINENCE and PRO-TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE agenda--and that these conservative ideals are the solution to greatly reduce poverty, rates of STD’s and many other social ills, that intact families with concerned mothers and fathers make healthy societies. I will PRAY for you and your family daily!

GOD BLESS-US-EVERYONE! Ret. Major Laura Merriott C.R. N. P.
and PROUD abstinence educator
814 835-0249
5235 Wolf Rd. Erie, Pa. 16505

I would be honored for you to call me
@ 814 835-0249 so that I may mail you the data!

Thank God for Sam Harris. (Oops!-Maybe not the best cliche). It's always great to read words that express thoughts and outlooks that rattle around inside your head, but you lack the intelligence and eloquence to express. Sam Harris does that for many of us when he mobilizes the intelligence and eloquence to skewer the mental processes that our religious brothers and sisters accept as normal and leads them to be so firmly wedded to irrational ideas.

Watching Christians on these pages engage in endless rounds of tautology while believing they have delivered rational ripostes and marshaled objective evidence in support of their beliefs is truly something to behold. Put another way: How sad, if sometimes entertaining, to see people endlessly chasing their tails and believing they're making progress.

You intlectuals give me a lot of grief. Without my religion I will have no anchor to let me know whom I can safely hate.

What will be next? Patriortisim? Without my love for my country, I won't have justification to wage war with other countries won't I?

We would be much better off, without intelectuals.

I have read "The God Delusion","The End of Faith" and I'm currently reading "God is not Greeat" and ideas in all these books are absolutely convincing.I am 36 years of age now ,and I lost my faith on personal God 10 years back after reading books on Evolution& Cosmology and also by just observing the World without a religious masks.It was quite evident that religion is man made and its anthropomorphic nature was obvious. Even from my childhood I had nurtured questions like,who made God and Which of these God is for real etc.

Its time humanity wakes up, admit the obvious and face the truth honestly, as known through Science which is based on evidence, without lying to each other.As you have remarked in your work, it is possible to live ethically without pretending to know things about which we are patently ignorant.

I try to spread these ideas to my friends and relatives but its frustratingly difficult to convince a religious mind with some rare honourable exceptions.The question that pervades me now predominantly is: Why the vast majority of humanity fails to see the obvious and why should people like us remain as a minority forever.Is it because of our fear of death and our quest to be a permanent part of the Universe eternally or is it because of the notion that belief in God is a good thing?

God is alive and well
He presently resides in Argentina.

We need more courageous critics of religion and proud atheist-humanists like Sam Harris!!

For those who find comfort in religion for whatever reason, fine, but keep it real, and keep your nose for truth and freedom from orthodoxy. Know in the back of your mind that it's a form of magical thinking, a release, a narrative path to go down to escape. I can respect this. But you need to know how to come back, distinguishing lovely illusion from earthly laws, relationships, and realities.

Sam, again and again, thank you for the gift of reason well expressed. Please at some point in your work make mention of Pascual Boyer's (Religion Explained) to the benifit of your extended readership. He points out the significance of how the "furniture of the brain" is better situated to comprehend religious concepts than logic as a result of our evolutionary neuro-biology. Perhaps some empathy is called for in the conversation with those more biologically capable of identifing with myth over reason. The debate will certainly wage on with the odds tilted towards the prayers of the Armageddonists, many of whom thrive on the confrontation which only fuels the fire they hope we suffer for our sins of reason.

Yours
JK

Perhaps a shift in the course of the conversation?
Yours
Jk

congratulations, sam, and keep up the good work.

I live in europe, so for me, the attitudes of people in the states are (unfortunately) important since your country has the world's most powerful military, and is not afraid to use it in spite of any rational ideas or evidence (you all know what I'm talking about).
I can only hope that the states will see the same evolution as we have seen in europe, where the moral leadership of religions has all but disappeared over a span of less than fifty years. If we can do it in europe, you might also finally get it in the states, I think (dare I say 'I believe'?).

erik de koster
brussels, belgium

I am disappointed that the Washington Post, which has earned my respect and usually keeps it well, posts a link to this article prominently on its website. Sam's article is too simplistic in its view of religion.

Step 1: Want to believe in God.
This is not Step 1. It might be for some people, but certainly not for all. When you study religion, you see a history of atrocities, indiginities, oppression, hypocrisy, &c. &c. Yes. You will find that in the study of any human institution, including those founded on atheism (I'm tempted to adduce the Soviet Union). "Religious people" include both good people and awful people, as will pretty much any group of people one studies. If you look for them, you will find very reasonable people practicing religion, and doing good things with it. I don't expect you to read the works of apologetics like CS Lewis or GK Chesterton, but if you did, you would find that some people don't want to believe in God; they find themselves forced to because nothing else makes sense to them. Look at Chesterton: rejected religion, atheist at 17; looked for answers in all possible places and finally found he had to come back to Christianity for them. Bear in mind that "pure scientism" without any religion can't explain how the world began, as nothing can self-generate. Either something generated itself (outside the realm of scientific rationality) or some Being that doesn't have to respect the laws of physical creation did it. Either way, it's impossible according to all the laws we know. Choose your irrationality--but don't think that by rejecting religion, you can live in a totally explained, rational world.

The truth of this is hilarious on one level, yet disturbing on another.

May your voice carry clear and carry far Mr. Harris!

When Dr Sam Harris speaks of religion as a 'black market for Irrationality' he has in mind the Abrahamic faiths and associated religious pathologies based on a master-servant relationship between man and his supposed creator.
There is a different kind of religion that rejects this paradigm and speaks of 'right understanding' and 'right conduct' as the foundation for 'liberation' (moksha)from the pains and difficulties that are an inextricable part of our human condition. Buddhism arose in India as a rational reaction to the prevailing religions that sought salvation in performance of rites and abnegation before an unseen God. It was rational and atheistic. In speaking of religion it is best to separate 'Bhakthi religions' (based on adoration and servitude to All-Mighty God) from 'faiths' such as Buddhism that are analytical and atheistic.

R Chandrasoma Sri Lanka 28.9.07.

I'm not convinced that reason is a compulsion for everyone. It certainly is for me, but I know people who can look plainly at reason and comfortably deny it.

I have a close friend who is perfectly sane, but she talks to her house and claims it has a spirit. When I ask her about this, she acknowledges that she knows the house doesn't really have a spirit, but believing in the magic of the idea that the house has a spirit makes her feel good.

She has the ability to contradict herself with opposing claims and sit comfortably with this. Whereas I can not make opposing claims and feel comfort. I can't say "this is" and "this isn't" and not feel discomfort.

She likes the magic one can find in life. She's one who doesn't want to know that the magician's trick is anything less than magical, even though she does know it. She won't wonder or ask how that trick was done, it's enough that she enjoyed the magic show.

If you toss out your assumption that EVERYONE is compelled by reason, perhaps it's easier to understand religion. I read a book long ago that talked about the evolution of the mind. One of the early phases was belief in magic. It may be obvious to those compelled by reason to see the contradictions and the ridiculous lack of evidence for religious beliefs, but for others at a different place in the evolution of their minds, it's fulfilling to hold onto the magic, even if somewhere in their minds they know it's not real.

Believing in magic can be fun. It's hard to argue reality against feel good and fun.

cheers...

Aeschylus asked:
"Supposing there was a Deity that told us all to sod off, and leave Him/Her/It alone. Would we do it?"

Being an ancient Greek you are understandably unaware that your plethora of gods and goddesses were supplanted by a Deity who DID tell us all (via Adam 'n Eve) to do that very thing even if euphemistically but still very cruelly to go forth and multiply! And this after the carefree cavorting, sex strictly for fun, with no need to worry about unwanted children, in the Garden

I have often wondered if that perfect (what else!) contraceptive was in the figs or bananas?

Interesting, although of course does not rule out other possibilities for beliefs in God. However does make one wonder when asked 'Why?' how many would respond with 'Faith.' Certainly that sort of thinking is indeed a pitfall, yet still there does seem to be some innate belief system in nearly everyone, even if that belief is science.

I just looked at some of the other comments.

I hope no one thought I was saving my criticism just for Christendom. I meant everybody. I used to be a Unitarian, after having been brought up Roman Catholic. One day, while we stood and faced the North, the East, the West, etc., I realized paganism was not only no better than the Church o' Rome, it was worse. My knowledge of physics, climate and astronomy made it absurd to engage in this stuff. I mean, it wasn't even funny, you know?

I do appreciate some of the faith community's attempts at bettering ourselves, however, with programs such as "God, Not Guns," but apparently devout right-wing Christians want none of that.

And why do I invest my energy in beating up the Pharisees? Because I am trying to save my country from the forces of anti-reason.

So what about the Native Americans, who walked so close to God?

I mean, are we so great that we build nuclear bombs and cause global warming? This is where science and rationality has brought us: to the Iraq War. Do you think technology will save us? All that technology has done has made it easier to kill people.

Sure, it is easy to mock the Pope, but it is certainly more difficult to explain why we need people like Rev. Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Mother Theresa and the Dali Lama. Why is it that it is always religious people who come to the rescue, and not cold calculated reason? Why does the Masque step forward in the Middle East? To those of us who are really paying attention, you will see why the religious people are coming to the rescue, yet again, as always. Mr. Harris, you just help perpetuate the myth of the blood-thirsty irrational zealot in a clash with Western Civilization.

You don't do a very good job of explaining religion. You certainly overlook the significant role that the irrational plays in the human condition. You completely overlook the positive contributions that religion has made. Just look at any cathedral, certainly more than a pile of stones dedicated to superstitios nonsense.

These Indians were born into a world devoid of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, yet they lived in a world drenched in God. I certainly would suspect that, given the choice, they would have decided to walk unencumbered by faith, yet it was just the opposite in their world.

I appreciate the injection of reason into a generally rather silly debate about Christianity which passes for theology or philosophy in this country. But I am afraid that you are on a rather short plank over a very wide ocean. By removing God from your contemplation, you take away the very broadest of options.

Bravo!

Ms. Jolie, I am waiting!

BTW, has anyone ever noticed that there is no 12-step program to kick Jesus out of one's life?

Well written, keep up the good work. /EH

CHRIS:

Typical. You just make some vague charges and give no facts. Speaking of enjoying life. Religion is all about NOT enjoying life for this supposed afterlife!

Your creator simply does not exist. If he does, strike me down before I post this!

The brainwashed mind is like the pupil of an eye. The more light you shine into it. The smaller it gets!

If this sadistic (has his creations tortured for all eternity) egotistical (needs us tiny specs of cosmic dust to worship him) exists, why doesn't he just show himself or leave some kind of evidence he exists? I would not have a problem following a religion if I thought one was true. I am very aware of my mortality. However, every ounce of my being (and your god supposedly created my mind) tells me that this god is just a fairy tell. If my mind is defective, isn't that your gods mistake? Is he going to sadistically torture me for all eternity for his mistake????

"How do the atheist posting explain the fact that there are some highly functioning/intelligent/ educated people who whole-heartedly believe in God."

Oh that's a hard one there couldn't possibly be more the a few thousand natural explanations for that, so the answer must be supernatural......Or maybe, even smart talking hairless monkeys smell their fingers after scratching their asses to i.e. (to use a theist excuse) they are only human........

I can honestly say I am disgusted with all of you atheists. When was the last time any of you smiled or laughed or simply enjoyed life? If you spend so much energy criticizing Christians, you are wasting your life. A life by the way, that was given to you by the Lord God Almighty. I don't care if you like it or not. It says in the Bible that every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess. I hope some of you will do so before it is eternally too late. I will pray for you. Go ahead, blast this post, I don't care. You are not denying me you are denying your creator. It is your soul you are risking. If you are risking that, well you had better be right on this one.

It would seem that the continual yearning for companionship and approval from its peers has led humanity on a path of denial of reason. The invention of God is ideally suited to lead the faint-hearted and the desparate on a path toward eternal ignorance and denial of reason.

A guy asked me today if I "knew God on a personal level?" Actually it was, "You do know God, right?" I thought I was going to puke. "Why yes, he's infatuated with your sister!"

The article turns satirical at the end. Hope the beleivers will not take these points as the real reasons to beleive God!.

I had a guy ask me today if "I knew God on a personal level." I thought I was gonna puke. Why yes, he's infatuated with your sister.

I had a guy ask me today if "I knew God on a personal level." I thought I was gonna puke. Why yes, he's infatuated with your sister.

I had a guy ask me today if "I knew God on a personal level." I thought I was gonna puke. Why yes, he's infatuated with your sister.

In some scenarios of the economic theory of games, cheating is individually rational, but causes collective disaster. Before you dismiss "faith" so casually in all its forms, make sure you don't throw out "faith" in our fellow human beings (or at least their potential) as well as "faith" in a supernatural power. Our very existence depends more and more upon faith every day. Faith that other nuclear powers won't use their weapons first, faith that other nations will simultaneously agree to reduce greenhouse gases, and faith that the worlds' people will choose leaders who will bring peace rather than a downward spiral of war, terrorism, and hatred. The world of pure rationality would truly be nasty, brutish, and short.

Andrew,

I'm sorry but that is just so much irrelevant babble.
From all of that, you deduce that it is better to believe in the god of abraham than to be a free spiritual thinker?
I am an atheist. I don't "believe" in reason.
I use reason to decipher the mystery of my surroundings so that I might be a functional member of society.

Even believers use reason. That's how they decide to keep believing. Their reasoning tells them that faith is the most important virtue to god. My reasoning tells me that's wack.
Why does one have to rely solely on reason just because they reject someone else's superstition. We don't reject it because reason tells us that it is not true. We reject it because there is no reason to believe that it is true.

I think that most people born in the USA would find believing in God to be passive. We are so deluged with mention of God that disbelieving would be more active. In America, i think Obedience (obedience to what we've been told is God's Law-will) is more a part of American Christianity than faith- even though practicing Christians would deny such a statement. Perhaps the same is relevant in moslem states. I'm sure it was so in old Judea. Gary

Timmy;

Thanx. Life is a giggle.

I hate when famous people say whats on my mind ...

Oh well Ill get over it.

The trading post of religious ideals is open and doing a thriving business. The traders are those that would sell snake oil, steal from babies, sell ice cubes to eskimos, and those too weak of mind to know whats the truth or whats from the pit of self pity the ego dwells in.

There are a small group of Atheists on YT and stickam that debate or just converse with such people on a daily basis. People come into the rooms we set up like DefendYourGod at stickam and act like they're gods gift to us as to reveal itself to us through them. Talk about DELUSIONAL. Every once in a while we see a new twist on things, my latest find is that evangelicals are using the word CONFIDENCE to replace the word faith. Something to entrench the delusion with a word game, and ego boost from rhetoric.

I believe religion is driven by the untamed ego, stretching out to find a way to live on, to endure all things that would deny its superheroness. For this reason I use the term THEOTOXINs on a regular basis. Something I got from watching the Beyond Belief 2006 seminar, even though Ive been spanked by those of scientific minds for using something so untested and scientically unfounded (at this point). I am defiant, and will continue use the idea since it makes sooo much sense to me, and it seems to fit the bill all too well.

If you would Mr. Harris, send some word to those that could find a cure for these theotoxins, to do so with haste, for I fear that not enough of of mankind is actually breeding stock for irrational thought nor for skeptical thinking for all things including the gods of the mind.

Atheit@Large
aal@atheistatlarge.org
www.atheistatlarge.org

A non-essentialist & non-reductivist but nonetheless historically informative definition of 'religion' would have been helpful - - -

X is a religion if X has at least a majority of the following characteristics: . . . . . . . . .

Otherwise claims about the vices or virtues of religion-as-such or a particular religion are worthless and only invite self-serving defensiveness from the so-called "faithful" of all "faiths",

religious & non-religious, naturalist & non-naturalist, X & non-X!

As it was once well put, all of us live by "the substance of things unseen, the evidence of things hoped for", that is, that part of each person's web of beliefs in which we each,

respectively, put our ultimate trust, only to vindicated or not by living by those beliefs.

I think Mr. (surely not Mrs.) "Real Reason" has flown the coup. I wonder why? Maybe he (surely not "she") has run out of reason. Sorry, Mr. Real Reason that you weren't able to stick around, and regale us with more of your stories.

Now onto the logical blog...

I think Mr. (surely not Mrs.) "Real Reason" has flown the coup. I wonder why? Maybe he (surely not "she") has run out of reason. Sorry, Mr. Real Reason that you weren't able to stick around, and regale us with more of your stories.

Now onto the logical blog...

I think Mr. (surely not Mrs.) "Real Reason" has flown the coup. I wonder why? Maybe he (surely not "she") has run out of reason. Sorry, Mr. Real Reason that you weren't able to stick around, and regale us with more of your stories.

Now onto the logical blog...

I think Mr. (surely not Mrs.) "Real Reason" has flown the coup. I wonder why? Maybe he (surely not "she") has run out of reason. Sorry, Mr. Real Reason that you weren't able to stick around, and regale us with more of your stories.

Now onto the logical blog...

I think Mr. (surely not Mrs.) "Real Reason" has flown the coup. I wonder why? Maybe he (surely not "she") has run out of reason. Sorry, Mr. Real Reason that you weren't able to stick around, and regale us with more of your stories.

Now onto the logical blog...

dear jk
science is a way to find truths or as I like to call them, FACTS, by conducting carefully controlled experiments and gaining PROOF.
religon is a way to find inner peace or as I like to call it, A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY, by simply believing your parents delusions (ouch) and gaining FAITH.

Humans need a Deity to make them feel good about themselves. I see no reason to believe that humans are any more 'worthy' of anything than cats and dogs are. They at least know their place. We not only want to be top of the heap, but need a Deity devoted to us, not the other way around. Supposing there was a Deity that told us all to sod off, and leave Him/Her/It alone. Would we do it? Suppose It resigned the job, or selected parakeets as the most sublime of all creation. What would we do then? Probably hang It/Him/Her and find a new one who would worship Us !

Humans need a Deity to make them feel good about themselves. I see no reason to believe that humans are any more 'worthy' of anything than cats and dogs are. They at least know their place. We not only want to be top of the heap, but need a Deity devoted to us, not the other way around. Supposing there was a Deity that told us all to sod off, and leave Him/Her/It alone. Would we do it? Suppose It resigned the job, or selected parakeets as the most sublime of all creation. What would we do then? Probably hang It/Him/Her and find a new one who would worship Us !

I notice that the majority of people who are atheist writers have been of Jewish Ancestry.
Asimov, Sagan, Einstein, Sam Harris are among them and the philosophy of Atheism (or at least non reverence to man made Bibles) goes back to a Jew named Spinoza. It was Ira Gershwin, another Jew, who dared to write "It Ain't Necessarily So". I too am of Jewish heritage. When I saw a book that was written by Christopher Hitchens, surely it might be free of the debatable Jewish point of view. Here was a book by a British gentleman, named Christopher, who had become an American citizen. I was however surprised to learn that Hitchens' mother was a Jew. According to custom that makes Hitchins Jewish by default, without any need to seek religious conversion, unless he was to convert to another religion. This is because the test for Jewishness lies in the maternal chain.

So why is it that many Jews like you and I become atheists? My belief is that it is because we have been minorities in most nations and thus always feel socially out of the mainstream and "different"...even when there is no significant legal prejudice shown to us. We are thus unsatisfied with the differences that religions cause to our social life and take this to eventually evolve to a complete denial of all religions. Soon we recognize lots of reasons to distrust all religions and we find that history reinforces a logical anti-god philosophy for the obvious reasons that the books that books have been written on this subject. Anotherr Jewish author, Friedman wrote, a book called "Who Wrote the Bible?" This put a logical end to any belief that the Judeo-Christian "good books" were more than an anthology of inconsistant myths and not even god inspired. Frankly I find most of the stuff that is now penned to be quite repetitious.

Aside from religion...extreme nationalism is also a cause of wars and inhumane suffering. At its worst, extrreme nationalism can lead to attempts of world domination. Nationalism as well as fundamentalist religious "faith" for a fatherland, while a citizen and benefactor of a land that one lives in can prove to be extremely dangerous. It can lead to acts of traitorism at its worse. It can lead to the kind of condition that has made Israel a colony of the USA and in my opinion has led to the Muslim hatred of the USA that was a root cause of 9/11, and has become politically incorrect to even suggest as the prime cause.

Many atheists of Jewish heritage, can not separate themselves from the nation of Israel, even when they can rationally understand that all claims to it depend solely on ancient religious mythology. And then we have the "cultural" Jewish humanists...who claim to be atheists...but cling to Jewish religious rituals...and avoid the Christian observances that have sociologically become more nationalized than some of their Jewish rites. On further extreme we find "The Jews for Jesus" who want to observe both Jewish and Christian rituals and cherry pick from both testaments....sometimes rationalizing that all religions may be spiritual so all are worth following if they make one feel good. They can not bring themselves to understand that a religious Jew who believes in Jesus is not a Jew. He is a Christian by definition...but maybe he doesn't want to accept that decision...just as all American Jews who become atheists can't seem to give up on contributing to Israel...and to lobbying the US government to support Israel whether it is right or wrong in its treatment of Palestinians in occupied territory, etc.

Under logical analysis we are all hypocrires to some extent. It may not matter if we want to accept the most prevalent customs of the mainstream without griping...or if we want to sell repetitious books and lecture for profit. We can preach to the intellectuasls who probably have heard what we have to say before...but we can not change their culture...and its echoes of preprogrammed religious and nationalistic fervor...predjudices...and subconscious hatred.

Explanation?:

"How do the atheist posting explain the fact that there are some highly functioning/intelligent/educated people who whole-heartedly believe in God."

"Do you thin we are ALL crazy? If so, wouldn't you have to redefine that since you are probably in the minority? You cannot put us all in padded rooms."

In the 14th century 99% of people believed the earth was flat.They were all wrong.
Groupthink is like that.People reinforce each other,convince each other.Look at 9/11.Those terrorists,all of whom were intelligent young men,were victims (along with 3000 other victims)
of religious indoctrination,and groupthink,gambled with their lives,and lost.We know they're not in Paradise.
People want to believe in a herafter and a Big Daddy in the sky.It is the easiest of sells.
It doesn't have to be real;just a hope;a maybe.
You gotta have faith,because it sure don't make sense. If it made sense you wouldn't need to have faith,would you?

Anonymous, P I Guy, and Pixie

Beautiful!
Excellent posts!

Real Reason:

Mules and Seminoles?

Real Reason,

You said:
"Faith is NOT a virtue."

I'm with you so far. But then:

"Faith is belief in the truth. Seek the truth and the truth shall set you free."

"Believers see what non-believers do not."

"Period."

I don't believe you.
I think you are delusional.
I think that your kind of thinking is dangerous.
And I will continue to assail your religion as witchdoctery and there is not a damn thing that you can do about it.
Tribalism.
Primitive minded.
The dupiest duped dupes of all time.
Real nutjobs.
Zombies.
Lemmings.
Sheep.
Fools
Anchors to enlightenment.
Blockade to true spiritual freedom
Moral authoritarians
Cultists

Regarding the previous comment that the Vikings believed that man sprang from glacier, to expand I think they believed that the first man and woman were frozen in a glacier until a cow came along and licked them out. Silly Vikings. Everyone knows Adam and Eve were in a tropical garden....

@FRED F JONES:

DUDE - TURN OFF THE CAPS LOCK.

As a young lady I was raised to believe in Tinkerbell.
Though me friends laughed at me when
I wore my T.B.and star at school,the realization
that they thought I was a little crazy actually helped strengthen my faith.
It also helped that my religion had no church,because as mother said the whole world is our church,especially the bottom of our garden where pixies often gather at midnight.
I've tried many times to observe the midnight frolics in our garden,but the pixies were always ahead of me,and never appeared when I was spying on them.
But of course,common sense tells me that pixies
have good reason to remain unseen.People would
destroy them,just as they did in Ireland hundreds of years ago.
So,out of respect I stopped bothering them.
I don't need to see them,or Tinkerbell.
I mean I know they are there,and that's the main thing.And I know they hear my prayers

“Some stories are true that never happened.”
- Elie Wiesel

Sam Harris has not learned this yet.

@Explanation?:
"How do the atheist posting explain the fact that there are some highly functioning/intelligent/ educated people who whole-heartedly believe in God."

How does one explain the fact that many highly functioning, intelligent, educated people whole-heartedly believe that toilets swirl clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the Southern? Or that going outside with wet hair in the winter will cause you to catch a cold? Or that if you go swimming too soon after eating that you'll get a cramp?

Actually, it's quite simple to explain all of these, belief in god included: people are told these things when they are young, they are reinforced (in the case of god, fervently) by others in the community, and then these same people are instructed not to be skeptical about those things.

The ubiquity and intransigence of belief in religious dogma is hardly a mystery.
Parents unwittingly practice the “big lie” on gullible and credulous young, thereby programming their read-only memories (brain-washing them) with belief systems with which they, themselves, were earlier brain-washed. In this obvious way, children grow up with the unshakable conviction faith is the one area of humanity exempt from critical inquiry.

Thus, the beliefs of the parents are instilled in their progeny even unto the seventieth generation.

Catholic parents beget Catholics, Protestant parents beget Protestants. Jewish parents beget Jews. Mormon Parents beget Mormons. Muslim parents beget Muslims. Wiccan parents beget Wiccans. And genetic inheritance has nothing whatsoever to do with it. It’s not a matter of nature but of quasi-natural nurture.

Occasionally evangelism or delusional epiphany ostensibly convert an individual from one belief system to another, but in virtually every case, the core cultural imperatives associated with their “cradle faith” will remain largely intact. That is why, for example, many fallen away Christians continue, as if by knee-jerk reflex, to behave impulsively in supposedly “Christian” ways.

It all began with a comprehension of death which egotistical humans deplore and do not share with other animals. By providing the “sure and certain hope” of life after death, manipulators in all ages and places have invoked a “soul wrenching” tool to bend others to their temporal will. Never mind that a thoughtful person might find such promised eternal life to be quite tedious.

I consider myself a Born-Again Heathen. Like everyone else, I was born a Heathen without any sort of faith. By the chance of the draw, my parents were Christians and instilled their religious beliefs and related cultural value system in me - their faith by precept and their value system by their behavioral example. Monkey see, monkey do.

Eventually, I came to see my instilled faith as nonsense and was ultimately able to reconcile myself with the reality of my mortality - that when life is over, it’s all over. At that point, I realized I had become a Born-Again Heathen, returned to my original, natural, faithless state. Nevertheless, I continue to practice “turn the other cheek” as a part of my cultural legacy. This is perversely nonsensical because I know how that imperative was imprinted and fully understand intellectually that it is now known to be contraindicated. So much for free will.

It now seems clear to me that “free will” is an illusion and that everything, including everything I am and do, is deterministic - the inexorable result of cumulative antecedent genetics, experience, and possibly influences which, albeit not consciously perceived, have helped to shape my subconscious from which all my decisions actually emanate

George Talks...

1. I am driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did. Sharm el-Sheikh August 2003

2. I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job.
Statement made during campaign visit to Amish community, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Jul. 9, 2004

3. I'm also mindful that man should never try to put words in God's mouth. I mean, we should never ascribe natural disasters or anything else to God. We are in no way, shape, or form should a human being, play God. Washington, D.C., Jan. 14, 2005

4. God loves you, and I love you. And you can count on both of us as a powerful message that people who wonder about their future can hear. Los Angeles, California, Mar. 3, 2004

5. I tell people all the time, you're equally American if you're a Christian, Jew, or Muslim. You're equally American if you believe in an Almighty or don't believe in an Almighty. That's a sacred freedom.
Washington, D.C., Mar. 10, 2006

6. Well, first of all, you got to understand some of my view on freedom, it's not American's gift to the world. See, freedom is God -- is God given. Interview with TVR, Romania, Nov. 23, 2002

7. I'm sure there is some kind of heavy doctrinal difference, which I'm not sophisticated enough to explain to you. Explaining the issues involved in his switching from attending an Episcopal church to attending a Methodist one, (date is approximate:), Jul. 1, 1994

8. I don't think you order suiciders to kill innocent men, women, and children if you're a religious person. Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, Jul. 14, 2004

9. And there's nothing more powerful in helping change the country than the faith -- faith in Dios.
National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast, Washington, D.C., May 16, 2002

10. We believe in an Almighty, we believe in the freedom for people to worship that Almighty. They don't. Martinsburg, West Virginia, Jul. 4, 2007

11. The spirit of our people is the source of America's strength. And we go forward with trust in that spirit, confidence in our purpose, and faith in a loving God who made us to be free.
5th anniversary of the Sep. 11 attacks, White House, Sep. 11, 2006

12. Churches all across the country are reaching out -- synagogues, people from different faiths understand that it makes sense to help their parishioners realize the benefits of this plan.
Sun City Center, Florida, May 9, 2006

13.We can never replace lives, and we can't heal hearts, except through prayer.
Enterprise, Alabama, Mar. 3, 2007

14. God bless the people of this part of the world. Minneapolis, Minnesota, Aug. 4, 2007

15. I believe there's an Almighty, and I believe the Almighty's great gift to each man and woman in this world is the desire to be free. This isn't America's gift to the world, it is a universal gift to the world, and people want to be free. Manhattan, Kansas, Jan. 23, 2006

16. I couldn't imagine somebody like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah
White House, Dec. 10, 200117.

17. I see an opportunity at home when I hear the stories of Christian and Jewish women alike, helping women of cover, Arab American women go shop because they're afraid to leave their home.
Washington, D.C., Oct. 4, 2001

18. It's a sign from above. Comment made when television light caught fire above crowd, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Mar. 9, 2001

19. I did denounce it. I de- I denounced it. I denounced interracial dating. I denounced anti-Catholic bigacy... bigotry. Responding to attacks on his visit to ultra-conservative Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina, Feb. 25, 2000

20. We are grateful for the freedoms we enjoy, grateful for the loved ones who give meaning to our lives, and grateful for the many gifts of this prosperous land. On Thanksgiving we acknowledge that all of these things, and life itself, come not from the hand of man, but from Almighty God.
Washington, D.C., Nov. 30, 2002

21. We say in our country, everybody matters, everybody is precious in the sight of an Almighty.
Northern State University, Aberdeen, South Dakota, Oct. 31, 2002

22. We love the fact that people can worship an almighty God any way they see fit here in America.
Phoenix, Arizona, Sep. 28, 2002

23. And I just -- I cannot speak strongly enough about how we must collectively get after those who kill in the name of -- in the name of some kind of false religion.
Press appearance with King Abdullah of Jordan, Aug. 1, 2002

24. We are commanded by God and called by our conscience to love others as we want to be loved ourselves. Ohio State University, Jun. 14, 2002

25. By being active citizens in your church or your synagogue, or for those Muslims, in your mosque, and adhering to the admission to love a neighbor just like you'd like to be loved yourself, that's how we can stand up.
Remarks to the cattle industry annual convention and trade show, Denver, Colorado, Feb. 8, 2002

26. And we base it, our history, and our decision making, our future, on solid values. The first value is, we're all God's children. Washington, D.C., Jul. 16, 2003

27. One of the great things about this country is a lot of people pray. Washington, D.C., Apr. 13, 2003

28. And there's no doubt in my mind, when the United States acts abroad and home, we do so based upon values -- particularly the value that we hold dear to our hearts, and that is, everybody ought to be free. I want to repeat what I said during my State of the Union to you. Liberty is not America's gift to the world. What we believe strongly, and what we hold dear, is liberty is God's gift to mankind. And we hold that value precious. And we believe it is true. White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, Feb. 9, 2003

29. This great, powerful nation is motivated not by power for power's sake, but because of our values. If everybody matters, if every life counts, then we should hope everybody has the great God's gift of freedom. Grand Rapids, Michigan, Jan. 29, 2003

30. The short-term objective of this country is to find an enemy and bring them to justice before they strike us. The long-term objective is to make this world a more free and hopeful and peaceful place. I believe we'll succeed because freedom is the Almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world.
Portsmouth, Ohio, Sep. 10, 2004

31. And if you choose to -- if you believe in the Almighty, you can -- you're equally an American. If you're a Jew, Christian or Muslim or Hindi or whatever. It is one of the great traits and traditions of our country, where people can worship the way you see fit. Interview on Larry King Live (CNN),, Aug. 15, 2004

32. By the way, to whom much has been given, much is owed. Not only are we leading the world in terms of encouraging freedom and peace, we're feeding the hungry. We're taking care of, as best as we possibly can, the victims of HIV/AIDS. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Jul. 20, 2004

33. Faith-based is an important part of my life, individually, but I don't -- I don't ascribe a person's opposing my nominations to an issue of faith. Prime time press conference, White House, Apr. 28, 2005

34. I believe liberty is universal. I don't believe it is just for the United States of America alone. I believe there is an Almighty, and I believe the Almighty's gift to people worldwide is the desire to be free. Fort Irwin, California, Apr. 4, 2007

35. What a powerful statement to the world about the compassion of the American people that you're free to choose the religion you want in our country. Washington, D.C., Sep. 29, 2006

36. The United States of America must understand that freedom is universal, that there is an Almighty, and the great gift of that Almighty to each man and woman in this world is the desire to be free. Nashville, Tennessee, Aug. 30, 2006

37. Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research. ...Human life is a gift from our Creator -- and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale. 2006 State of the Union Address, Jan. 31, 2006

38. One of the most -- I think one of the most important and interesting domestic initiatives, which I agree has created an interesting philosophical debate, is to allow faith-based programs and community-based programs to access federal money in order to achieve the results we all want. I mean, for example, if you're trying to encourage people to quit drinking, doesn't it make sense to give people somebody an alternative -- he can maybe go to a government counselor? Or how about somebody who calls upon a higher being to help you quit drinking? All I care about is the results. Sterling, Virginia, Jan. 19, 2006

39. Every new citizen of the United States has an obligation to learn our customs and values, including liberty and civic responsibility, equality under God and tolerance for others, and the English language. Tucson, Arizona, Nov. 28, 2005

40. We have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom, and America will always be faithful to that cause. Washington, D.C., Jan. 19, 2005

41.Secondly, it's really important, Pete, that people not think government is a loving entity. Government is law and justice. Love comes from the hearts of people that are able to impart love. And therefore, what Craig is doing is -- he doesn't realize it -- he's a social entrepreneur. He is inspiring others to continue to reach out to say to somebody who is lonely, I love you. And I'm afraid this requires a higher power than the federal government to cause somebody to love somebody.

42. We don't believe that freedom is America's gift to the world. We believe freedom is the God Almighty's gift to each and every person in the world. California, Oct. 15, 2003

43. I believe that, as I told the Crown Prince, the Almighty God has endowed each individual on the face of the earth with -- that expects each person to be treated with dignity. This is a universal call. Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Jun. 3, 2003

44. All of you -- all in this generation of our military -- have taken up the highest calling of history. You're defending your country, and protecting the innocent from harm. And wherever you go, you carry a message of hope -- a message that is ancient and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, "To the captives, 'come out,' -- and to those in darkness, 'be free.' Aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, a couple of miles away from San Diego May 1, 2003

45. It's so inspirational to see your courage, as well as to see the great works of our Lord in your heart. Nashville, Tennessee, Feb. 10, 2003

46. As Dick mentioned, we mourn the loss of seven brave souls. We learned a lot about them over the last couple of days, and Laura and I learned a lot about their families in Houston, because we met with them. My impressions of the meeting was that there was -- that Almighty God was present in their hearts. Washington, D.C., Feb. 6, 2003

47. It's also important for people to know we never seek to impose our culture or our form of government. We just want to live under those universal values, God-given values. Washington, D.C., Oct. 11, 2002

48. Yet we do know that God has placed us together in this moment, to grieve together, to stand together, to serve each other and our country. Ellis Island, New York, Sep. 11, 2002

49. The reason I'm -- asked [these AmeriCorps workers] to join us here is because I want you to know, America can be saved one person at a time. Green Tree, Pennsylvania, Aug. 5, 2002

50. Government can hand out money, but it cannot put hope into people's hearts. It cannot put faith into people's lives. West Ashley High School, Charleston, South Carolina, Jul. 29, 2002

Source www.dubyaspeak.com

A thinking religious person has a more succinct definition of eternity than the nonbeliever has of objective reason. Eternity is what Kierkegaard and Socrates said it was-immeasurably still, as is the human heart.It is beyond measurable sensation but not beyond the heart. The nonthinking religious and not so religious somehow think they are existing within some kind of a time machine but Einstein disproved that. And thus the strict rationalists, which came about centuries ago and have never evolved their definition, still believe in their heroes who believed that objectively real reason could exist within a real universe (which had time as a constant). But time, as we feel it, may seem constant but it is not constant and thus objective reason as we have wanted to know it, is skewed.In fact the idea of saying time is relative makes no sense either for it makes measurable reality an impossibility. Seeing an object and feeling an object via sensory pathways may seem to be a reasonable but it is not reasonable unless time is a constant. Time is definitely not constant. It is either relative as Einstein said it was or it is still. (And Peter Lynds just proved via Zeno's paradox that time is frozen.) Thus Kierkegaard and Socrates were correct. Time is hidden and immeasurable as is human consciousness. They are immeasurable and not irrational.
Thus this whole idea that being religious is irrational is entirely wrong. In fact it is more irrational to believe in only objective reason when you have nothing constant to rely upon. They see the spinning of atoms and the movement of not just time but even the constancy of time. It simply is an illogical argument.
Subjective reason is what exists as real. I exist even if I can't really measure anything with great accuracy. A child knows when a mother loves the child but once an adult he is fooling himself if he thinks reason is really only in what we can measure. Our true reasoning requires a relationship between immeasurable souls not just between numbers and definitions that by the inconstancy of the world are always moving around in relative fashion.

Bertrand Russell.

Fear,the Foundation of Religion

Religion is based,I think,primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes.
Fear is the basis of the whole thing-fear of the mysterious,fear of defeat,fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty,
and therefore it is no wonder if religion and cruelty have gone hand in hand.It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things,and a little to master them by help of science,
which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion,against the churches,and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us,and I think our own hearts can teach us,no longer to look around for imaginary supports,no longer to invent allies in the sky,but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in,instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.

Bertrand Russell."Why I Am Not A Christian" pp22

If you are indoctrinated,
you buy it.
If you weren't indoctrinated,
you don't.
It is that
simple.

Mark of Houston,

You have considered the gospels and still consider them to be truth? Then if you are being honest, and do consider the "Holy Bible" to be absolute truth...I sure hope none of your children ever sass you back (because you will have to stone them to death). I hope you never patronize a restaurant, mini-mart, gas station, airline, hotel, toll booth, etc. because you will need to stone to death the employees for working on the sabbath. I could go on...but what's the point? You believe in the gospel as the truth. You believe the bible is the absolute word of god. Then, my friend, I think you and I might meet in your hell. You aren't holding up your end of the bargain...and I never agreed to the bargain in the first place. Sort od a dicotomy isn't it?

TWO
FOOLS
A STUDY IN THE
TRUTH OF

ENLIGHTENED IGNORANCE

BY FRED F. JONES
FRED F. JONES
13 PEDREGAL
PUEBLO, COLORADO 81005

DEDICATED TO MY LATE BROTHER MARVIN

HE KNEW AND UNDERSTOOD

THE QUESTION HAS BEEN ANSWERED FOR HIM

THE TRUTH THAT WE ALL KNOW BUT ARE AFRAID TO ADMIT…

THE ENLIGHTENMENT OF IGNORANCE AND THE POWER BEHIND ACCEPTING THAT TRUTH

A BOOK OF TRUTH

NOT BASED ON BELIEF,

BUT THE ESSENCE OF REALITY

AND THE KNOWING BY ALL

WHO ARE HONEST, BRAVE

AND YES ENLIGHTENED

ENOUGH TO ADMIT

WHAT WE KNOW

AND WHAT WE

SIMPLY BELIEVE

DEFINITION OF A FOOL

(A PERSON LACKING JUDGMENT OR PRUDENCE)

THE FOUNDATION

TWO FOOLS MEET IN A ROAD

ONE FOOL SAYS (I KNOW THERE IS A GOD!)

THE OTHER FOOL SAYS (I KNOW THERE IS NOT A GOD!)

BOTH ARE LIARS

IN THEIR HEARTS THEY KNOW THAT

NEITHER IS WISE ENOUGH TO KNOW.

BOTH WISH TO

IMPOSE THEIR BELIEF ON THE OTHER -

BOTH ARE AFRAID THAT THEIR BELIEF MAY BE WRONG -

THE ARGUMENT IS AS OLD AS MANKIND

AND YET THERE ARE NO INSTITUTIONS

THAT TEACH THE OBVIOUS

AND EXAMINE THE RATIONAL FOR THE OPPOSING BELIEFS

THAT IS WHAT THIS BOOK WILL TRY TO EXAMINE

IN HOPE OF FUELING SOME DEBATE

SO THAT WE MAY LEARN

TO BE TRUTHFULL AND BRAVE - AS WE EXPERIENCE

THE 21ST CENTURY

1ST THE - I KNOW THERE IS A GOD - FOOL

THIS FOOL IS THE EASIEST TO UNDERSTAND.

THESE CLAIMS AND BELIEFS HAVE BEEN WITH US ALWAYS

THE BELIEF IS BASED IN FEAR AND HOPE

A HOPE THAT THERE IS SOME MEANING

TO OUR EXISTENCE

WE ARE BORN INTO A WORLD THAT WE CANNOT FULLY UNDERSTAND

WE STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE FROM THE TIME OF OUR BIRTH

WE KNOW FROM THE TIME WE ARE VERY YOUNG

THAT WE ARE MORTAL

WE SEE OTHERS DIE AND SUFFER.

IS IT ANY WONDER THAT WE WOULD HOPE

FOR A REASON OF EXISTENCE

AS SHAKESPEARE SAID

“TO BE OR NOT TO BE, THAT IS THE QUESTION?”

IN A WORLD WHERE BABIES DIE NEEDLESSLY

WHERE THE UNIVERSE IS SEEN AS AN ENEMY OF OUR EXISTENCE

IS IT ANY WONDER THAT WE WOULD CRY OUT FOR HELP FROM A

GREATER POWER

WHERE WOULD WE LOOK FOR SUCH A POWER

IN THE SKY? WE HAVE

IN THE WATER? WE HAVE

IN THE EARTH? WE HAVE

DOES THAT MEAN THAT WE ARE SIMPLY

COWARDLY ANIMALS THAT

COWER IN THE FACE OF REALITY?

PERHAPS;

BUT THERE MIGHT JUST BE A GOD.

WHY ELSE WOULD WE BE HERE?

WHAT OTHER PURPOSE COULD THERE BE?

IS NOT THE COSMOS UNEXPLAINABLE?

IS NOT WHAT WE SEE BEFORE US TOO GREAT,

TOO GRAND, FOR ANY OTHER EXPLANATION?

WHAT OF LIFE ITSELF?

IS THE CREATION OF LIFE NOT PROOF OF GOD?

PERHAPS.

IS NOT THE FACT THAT WE CANNOT IMAGINE

NOT BEING PROOF THAT THERE

MUST BE LIFE AFTER DEATH?

WHY NOT BELIEVE?

IS IT NOT A FOUNDATION FOR MORALITY?

IF MORALITY IS NOT BASED ON GOD,

THEN WHAT IS IT BASED ON?

DOES MAN NOT HAVE A SOUL?

HAVE WE NOT BEEN TAUGHT THAT THESE

BOOKS, OR SCROLLS, OR BONES, OR MOUNTAINS,

OR TREES, OR RIVERS, OR ANIMALS,

ARE SACRED?

HAVE WE NOT BEEN TOLD OF THE MIRACLES?

WAS THE SICK NOT HEALED?

DID THE DEAD NOT RISE?

DID THE WATERS NOT PART?

WOULD WE RISK BEING THROWN INTO

THE DARKNESS

OR FIRE

OR WHATEVER

THE PLEASURE OF THE

GOD

OR GODDESS

WILL BE?

NO! NO!

A THOUSAND TIMES NO!

I WILL BELIEVE!

I KNOW THERE IS A GOD!!

AND NOW FOR THE 2ND FOOL

THE - I KNOW THERE IS NOT A GOD - FOOL.

THIS IS THE HARDEST FOOL TO CONVINCE.

ALL OF THE BELIEF HERE IS BASED IN SCIENCE

EVERYTHING IS LOGICAL, BUILT ON EMPIRICAL DATA

GATHERED OVER MANY YEARS BY GREAT SCIENTIFIC MINDS.

PLATO – SOCRATES – FREUD – SAGAN – EINSTEIN - UCLID - ETC.

THE REASONING SAYS

WHERE IS THIS GOD?

WHAT PROOF IS THERE THAT HE, OR SHE, OR IT

EXISTS?

THIS FOOL DOES NOT UNDERSTAND HIS LIMITATIONS;

WHILE WE FIND NO SCIENTIFIC PROOF OF GOD;

WE KNOW THIS BY DATA.

WE CANNOT IMAGINE INFINITY.

WE ARE ON A VERY SMALL THING,

IN A VERY LARGE PLACE

THE FORCES AND PHENOMENON THAT

WE ENCOUNTER RAISE

QUESTIONS THAT DWARF OUR MEAGER

EFFORTS OF UNDERSTANDING.

FOR EVERY ANSWER, WE REALIZE

WE UNCOVER GREATER QUESTIONS

THAT WE HAVE NO ANSWERS TOO.

IS IT NOT AS LOGICAL THAT THERE IS PURPOSE

IN LIFE AS NOT?

WHAT ELSE EXISTS WITHOUT PURPOSE?

THERE MAY NOT BE A GOD OR GODDESS

BUT DOES THAT MEAN THERE IS NOT?

THE ANSWER IS IN THE SEEKING

WE SEEK FOR THE TRUTH

TRUTH IS - WITHOUT US

AND IN SEEKING

IS OUR ADMISSION OF IGNORANCE

(NO!!!), SAYS THE FOOL.

WE WERE BEGUN BY THE BIG BANG;

EVERYTHING IS UNDERSTANDABLE.

THERE IS NO PROOF OF A HIGHER BEING, GOD OR GODDESS;

AND WITHOUT PROOF

IT CANNOT BE;

THEREFORE

I KNOW THERE IS NOT A GOD!

NOW LET US EXAMINE THE

ENLIGHTENMENT OF IGNORANCE

IF WE ADMIT THAT WE ARE IGNORANT OF THE REALITY

OF GOD, DOES THAT PRECLUDE US FROM BELIEVING?

IF WE ADMIT THAT WE ARE IGNORANT OF THE REALITY OF HIGHER

BEINGS,

DOES THAT FORCE US TO BELIEVE IN THEIR EXISTENCE?

THE ANSWER TO BOTH IS A RESOUNDING NO

IF WE ACCEPT THE IGNORANCE AS FACT,

WHAT DOES THAT DO TO OUR WORLD?

FIRST, IT ALLOWS ALL OF US TO BELIEVE AS WE WISH

WHILE ACCEPTING THE FACT THAT THERE IS

A GREAT MYSTERY CALLED EXISTENCE

AND THAT WE ARE TRYING TO UNDERSTAND IT.

MOST WARS ON THE PLANET

HAVE BEEN FOUGHT OVER RELIGION - OR THE LACK OF IT

IF WE AGREE THAT WE ARE IGNORANT - THAT WE DO NOT KNOW

WE CAN THEN COME TOGETHER AS

!!! ONE WORLD!!!

UNDERSTANDING THAT WE ARE

ALL SHARING A VERY LIMITED

AMOUNT OF TIME.

THAT WE SHOULD USE THAT TIME

TO SEEK - TO LOVE - TO ADMIRE - TO HELP -

AND TO EDUCATE WITH HONESTY.

WE CAN SET ASIDE ALL THE HATE;

BASED ON THE FEARS AND DISHONESTY OF THE TWO FOOLS

AND MOVE FORWARD;

LOOKING FORWARD TO THE FUTURE.

A FUTURE THAT WILL BRING

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING TO ALL OF US.

BUT TO ACHIEVE THIS WE MUST

UNDERSTAND THE NECESSITY OF THE ACCEPTANCE OF

ENLIGHTENED IGNORANCE

BE BRAVE!! BE HONEST!!

AND SMILE!!

!!! YOU ARE ENLIGHTENED!!!

Mark of Houston,

You have considered the gospels and still consider them to be truth? Then if you are being honest, and do consider the "Holy Bible" to be absolute truth...I sure hope none of your children ever sass you back (because you will have to stone them to death). I hope you never patronize a restaurant, mini-mart, gas station, airline, hotel, toll booth, etc. because you will need to stone to death the employees for working on the sabbath. I could go on...but what's the point? You believe in the gospel as the truth. You believe the bible is the absolute word of god. Then, my friend, I think you and I might meet in your hell. You aren't holding up your end of the bargain...and I never agreed to the bargain in the first place. Sort od a dicotomy isn't it?

Many commenters say that atheism is also a faith;
that atheists need to have faith in atheism.
Not true.
I am an atheist,but I don't necessarily feel I need
to have faith in atheism.It is not a belief system.
Its a refusal to believe an idea that seems unlikely;
the idea of a supernatural god and a
supernatural world to go to when we die.
I could,of course,be wrong.Maybe there is a god.
No atheist claims to know there is no god.
i think we generally say only that we DON'T believe
there is A god. Or that we DO believe there is NO god.
Either way,we don't buy into it.
But I'm sure that if something came up to suggest
otherwise,atheists would be interested,and some might
change their minds if it was justified by evidence of some kind.
Atheism is not something one clings to for dear life,like one might cling to religion.
It's just an honest inability (or refusal) to
believe something that seems so highly unlikely.

Ciap,

All people believe in God because they need to. Hey Tom Barnes previously said it above in so many words. I think you'd have to agree though that the need for something is not proof of its existence. The world is not the way we want it to be. It is the way it is.

I travel a lot and not meaning to violate your much deserved copyrights on this article intend to leave a note of your "Six Easy Steps" in every Gideon bible I am forced to confront in my hotel rooms.

Bill;

Excellent comment.I totally agree with you.

I have faith that science will continue to discover more about the world we live in because it has been so successful in the past. Every day there is some new understanding of biological functions, so I have every reason to expect that tommorrow will be no different than today. The altruism gene will be discovered, and, unfortunately, it will turn out that the gene is active in a very small fraction of the human race.

Religious faith is different because it is not based on experience or provable phenomena. To have faith in a religion is to believe in a set of unprovable declarations contained in ancient texts and reinforced by the proseletizing clergy.

If there is a god, certainly today’s thinkers are far more qualified to chance a description than those who lived thousands of years ago and had only a minute knowledge of the real world. Maybe then some atheists will find something to accept, and even chance running for office.

Mr. Harris:

Step 1 "You must want to believe in God" is not the only step toward belief. Many people have been confonted by an inward assurance of the divine. This has happened to me, and, thus, I am a beleiver. Do I expect you to beleive based on my experience? Nope. Pursuing proof of the existance of God -- or proof of the absense of God -- is a fruitless exercise. But if it makes you feel better to ascribe my faith to supersticion, go for it.

Rob Adams: It's definitely true that there are a lot of things we don't understand about the universe, and we certainly understand next to nothing about God if He in fact exists. However, if there is an all powerful intelligence out there, the fascinating thing is that He hasn't left the slightest shred of evidence of His existence. We would have expected from the incidents portrayed in the Bible to encounter something similar at some point, but have found not so much as a single atom out of place. All the evidence that we can gather points to natural explanations for all the objects in the universe including ourselves - no intelligent intervention anywhere to be seen. I certainly would not have expected this outcome - provided that God exists. Look around you. You are surrounded by creations of science, not religion. You may owe the fact that you are now alive to science (medicine), but are much less likely to owe your life to religion. Yet science, (and Mother Theresa for that matter) finds God to be utterly, profoundly, silent.

I live on a planet being hurled through space at 67000 mph.

This planet is in a universe so large to actually try to think of it as a whole at one time is staggering to my imagination.

The greatest minds on my planet have awesome theories as to how we came to be but no actual proof.

Ive been told of things that happened in the past and have dreams of miraculous things in the future.

I was born here,I have lived my life here and I will die here.

When I die this world will no longer exist for if im not here to experience it then it doesn't exist.

I somehow cannot accept the fact that I have been given this great gift of self awareness for such a short time in such a vast universe and that it all ends here.

I believe when I die something miraculous will happen and I will be able to travel the universe and experience things so wonderfull it will take my breathe away.

I will be shown the who, why and where of it all.

Call it religion if you wish but its a belief to me.

Faith is NOT a virtue.

Faith is belief in the truth. Seek the truth and the truth shall set you free.

Believers see what non-believers do not.

Period.

Mark of Huston,

Evidence for god?
News to me.
Do elaborate. Please.
Where is this evidence you speak of?

Real Reason

All of the people who believe in god "need" god as much as all of the people who smoke cigarettes need cigarettes.

I for one have considered the claims of the Holy Bible and find the Gospel to be Truth. Many of you worship yourself and you get exactly what you seek. Your "logic and reason" are purposely blinded to the evidence of God that hits you in the face everyday, every hour, every minute, every second of your existence.

Let's not forget the Seventh Deadly Step:
7. Use one's religion to advance personal and social political agendas, and then use your religious belief as a shield against criticism. After all, whoever attacks your agenda is also attacking and intolerant of your religion. As a victim of such, you can piously advance your agenda even further...

When will you write 'Letter to a Muslim Nation'?

Thus they are fools who place their faith in idols for they worship things made by themselves and give the name of guardian to those they guard.

Dear "Explanation?",

Yes. You are all crazy.

To worship a "deity" that has very little sympathy for human suffering is just plain crazy.

To believe in ghosts is just plain crazy.

To perpetuate myth, when there are rational, logical explanations available about the antiquity of the earth, the origins of man, and the nature of the universe is just plain crazy.

To defend a sadistic and violent "religion" (read your bible. I mean really read it. Not just the nice parts. Stone to death people that work on sunday? Gays? Sassy children? Read those parts too. After all...it's all apparently the word of your "god") is just plain crazy.

There may be some highly educated people that claim to believe in ghosts and such. They may be crazy too, but I have a suspition that they are merely cowards. They won't speak up and be brave enough to say what they really think about superstitious nonsense. Not when confronted with the danger it might expose them to from mediocre minds that all to often are in positions of real power in this increasingly theistic society.

So yes. You are all crazy...and dangerous.

I'm not sure that step 3 really belongs with the others. I'm sure there are people that say it, but it's not nearly as common.

timmy:

Good point. I have asked the same question myself. Faith is what many people had in leaders like Hitler and Stalin. Faith is what many people had in Bush when he told them we had to rush to war in Iraq.

Faith is blind following and unthinking. It is not a virtue but a vice. A horrible evil.

Logic and reason are virtues. NOT FAITH.

For all those who disagree with this article.

Can any of you tell me why faith is a virtue?
I have never heard a satisfactory answer to that except the circular reasoning of "because god says so."

Why is faith a virtue?
Why is it noble.
Why does it please god.

Does faith not sound like something a huxter would invent to solidify moral authority?

As usual, Sam is right.

How do the atheist posting explain the fact that there are some highly functioning/intelligent/educated people who whole-heartedly believe in God.

Do you thin we are ALL crazy? If so, wouldn't you have to redefine that since you are probably in the minority? You cannot put us all in padded rooms.

How do the atheist posting explain the fact that there are some highly functioning/intelligent/educated people who whole-heartedly believe in God.

Do you thin we are ALL crazy? If so, wouldn't you have to redefine that since you are probably in the minority? You cannot put us all in padded rooms.

Harris and Hitchens for President and vice president, and I don't care who gets what office

Tim

Brian S.

Thank you for the response. As I stated, the reasoning is why I have a soft spot for atheists. It is a very useful tool.

I don't know that I have a choice but to leave my interpretations open to exploration. We don’t understand the complete realm of the physical universe, why would we think we totally understand God who created (or supposedly created) the universe.

There is certainly room for healthy and even enjoyable debate between theists and atheist assuming we all stay rational :)

If religion is the cause of all wars, why would it not then follow that any such pursuit would be the cause of violence? The same logic that blames religion for wars, blames video games for violence, music for suicide, and the internet for addiction.

You can't have it both ways.

Adrasteia:

I almost entirely agree with Christopher Hitchens on religion. His position on Iraq just totally baffles me though. I guess everyone is wrong about some things be it a religious person or not.

I have "End of Faith" and I agree with Sam on what I've read of it so far. And I have lived it! I mean, I have lived the life of being brought up Catholic, then Methodist, even being forced to attend an all-white Baptist high school for 6 years, that was located in the middle of the black side of town. I am in my 40's now, and part of my reluctance to engage in church and religion is being the rebellious youngster in a family of five. But, after 20 years of "freedom", I've found the logic of "Christianity" flawed. And I reasoned it down to "group thought", after a sociology class in college I think. It's why companies today adhere to the "teamwork" model --it's tougher to take a stand that opposes the team or group, when you are in the minority. And so, at the cost of giving your reason away, like Sam says, you meet friends at Church and will never be lonely again. This is why I believe people go to Church --to be with others. And so Churches have "activities", and people go to Church for the activities. You never see Churches reaching out to a gay person or a transgendered person. And I think I got off topic here, so I will stop now and hear any responses. The next big question is why my Christian mother wishes to deal with global warming by refusing to acknowledge there is a problem. I digress.

Go Sam!!

Steph

Mr. Harris, I read "The End of Faith" and find myself in agreement with you...mostly. You say that almost all agressions or wars can be traced to religion and I find that true. But how do you explain Christopher Hitchens, who was one of the most staunch supporters of the war in Iraq?

Iraq was not a fundamentally Muslim state. It was more secular. But if the reasoning was that we must crush extremist Muslim states how does one justify violence to end a philosophy that causes violence?

Mr. Harris, I read "The End of Faith" and find myself in agreement with you...mostly. You say that almost all agressions or wars can be traced to religion and I find that true. But how do you explain Christopher Hitchens, who was one of the most staunch supporters of the war in Iraq?

Iraq was not a fundamentally Muslim state. It was more secular. But if the reasoning was that we must crush extremist Muslim states how does one justify violence to end a philosophy that causes violence?

If you are indoctrinated,
you buy it.
If you weren't indoctrinated,
you don't.
It is that
simple.

Real Reason:

First of all, since this god supposedly created the world and all in it, is he not at least partially responsible for what happens??!

Besides, one who dodges the question, I was not saying this invisible god had to always make us happy. I asked why he sits on his lazy arse and lets horrible things happen like a child being raped and murdered. How can any being be so sick, sadistic and cruel to let something like that happen that he could easily stop?

Furthermore, since the whole reason we are here is supposedly a test, then what about the child who is murdered? Does that child go straight to heaven or is he or she cruelly tortured for all eternity by your supposedly loving god? What if Hitler had died as a young child?

GAD...LOL! Harvard and Yale both still have Divinity "schools". Ivy league sure isn't what it should be. A refund would be a kindness...a lawsuit for malpractice is more in order I think.

GAD...LOL! Harvard and Yale both still have Divinity "schools". Ivy league sure isn't what it should be. A refund would be a kindness...a lawsuit for malpractice is more in order I think.

Real Reason;

I said,"who needs god?"

You said;
" How about the billions of people who believe in Him."
I say;
Exactly...god is in the minds of the believers.

That so many people are indoctrinated into believing
in the supernatural,is nothing to brag about.
It's a sad comment on the educational system in the US.
Religious thinking took down the WTC on 9/11.
As a religious person,you must believe that the terrorists
are in heaven with Allah and the virgins.
Or do you think that they were maybe deluded?
I'm sure they think you are.
i think you both are.

Hitch and Harris brooding rock stars. Rock on you mavens of secularism and dance with your tribe and clan. But on another sphere or universe, others choose to hear a different voice and clairon call and they simply have a different set of value systems and point of view on these matters. So exact, the truth, that malleable term as it's offered by the right secular side, and so exact the announcement that believers have empty evidence always. Hitch and Harris on the road to stardom and those that don't hitch their wagon or hear their sermon are going to be left out. How bout that, a selective gene pool that captures nothing but truth, at least the truths that Hitch and Harris care to seek and hear. It's a daunting task, casting the mantle of truth and a new 10 beatitudes. To many of us on another sphere - much of it is interesting but still quite irrelevant.

Real Reason said:

"Hey pal, if you don't see what I see why must it be that I'm the one who's delusional rather than entertaining the possibility that the problem is with you? "

So if I can't see the invisible god that you see I'm the one with the delusion......... Ivy league education isn't what it used to be. Dude, you should ask for a refund!

I'm 59 years old. Within the past two months I have had the fog of misunderstanding lifted from my mind's eye. When you have actually experienced learning the truth and experiencing the truth setting you free, you know without a doubt that what Sam Harris is saying is spot on. I had already come to know that the bible was a fiction, but reading all the books Sam and Cristopher Hitchens wrote, at least reinforced the fact that I was not nuts. I think over time it will help a lot of folks. Thanks

I'm 59 years old. Within the past two months I have had the fog of misunderstanding lifted from my mind's eye. When you have actually experienced learning the truth and experiencing the truth setting you free, you know without a doubt that what Sam Harris is saying is spot on. I had already come to know that the bible was a fiction, but reading all the books Sam and Cristopher Hitchens wrote, at least reinforced the fact that I was not nuts. I think over time it will help a lot of folks. Thanks

Very scant readings in psychology revealed there is a stable percentage of the population which is mildly suggestable, about 70% and highly suggestable, about 15%, and not suggestible, about 15%. This figure was first mooted by Hans Eysenck in the Us c. 1950s, most recently endorsed by Amanda Barnier in Australia late 1990s.

I think the theory of memes and the desire to belong to a tribe (evolutionary psychology) have been inadequately dealt with as has the idea of supra-natural phenomena. Like the wind and the circulation of blood before them, phenomena are only obvious by the taboo that is enforced about discussing them.

People who deny the potential of the human mind to generate these phenomena fall somewhere between Bart Simpson and David Irving - "I wasn't there. No one saw me. You can't prove a thing."

Maurie Beck:

I'm rather amazed at all the invective hurled to and fro from this little essay by Hitchens, which seems rather benign compared to his book and other essays he has written.

His conjectures and questions are reasonable, such as the view that we are born bad (of sin) and only through religion can humans be moral. Poppycock! There are moral people of no faith and of faith, just as there are actions by religious and nonbelievers that we might all agree are depraved.
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Unfortunately, fundamentalists who seem so concerned with morality, often appear to have wandered into the equivalent of a moral Bermuda Triangle, where their compass of right and wrong spins wildly.

Finally, on another point. People are just as likely to give up their religious beliefs as they are to give up the idea of true love. If one were to ask Hitchens or Harris or Dawkins or Dennett to stop believing in and practicing love because both love and religion are not real unto themselves, but rely on biology, they would probably look at you like you are crazy. I know Dawkins in madly in love with wife. He would no more give up his love for his wife (because his love is no more than biological chemistry) than many religious people would give up their love for god. I think it is foolish to think believers would overthrow such beliefs because logic might suggest it and people who espouse the overthrow on such grounds are deluding themselves.

Nonetheless, when people advocate ideas of idiocy and mad lunacy, they must be countered, whether those ideas are by religious people or NONBELIEVERS. We should respect the rights of people to believe or not to believe. However, their ideas are another matter. If ideas stand on their merits (without reference to some infallible text), then fine. If the idea is just crazy, that is a different matter.

1. First, you must desire to not have to follow concrete rules of morality that might mess up selfish desires.

Jack, sorry, I was making fun in this post by posing somewhat of a generality, not making a logical argument or attmepting to propose a tautology or fits-everyone sentence; just as I assume Sam was tongue-in-cheek when he wrote his. I hope. Of course many atheists have a moral center. But most I've met admit, upon discussion, that they don't want any God running their life. And many of the converts I know admit that is what they WERE like before. So it is true some of the time, no, I canno tplace a %. My postulation of 5 silly points is no sillier than Sam's mischaracterization, however.

Brian, againa I msut apologize for your perception of 'most Chhristians", and I will sometimes come across that way.

I have no fear of reprisal; classic Christianity, I figure you know, rests on God's grace, not our works. Too bad many 'professing' believers seem to think/act otherwise. And yes, to do good things out of fear/brownie points WOULD be despicable. All I can say is, I wish you knew the people I hang out with; you would see a great difference, a faith that is contagoious in our community. My life is a 'thank you', maybe like (searches for comparison...) someone who gives back to a community or a cause that has helped him/her.

Please don't think my lack of any more replies is ignoring anyone; heading out of town for the weekend..

It never ceases to amaze me that the 'economy of false knowledge and self-deception' is constantly on display when hear we'll pray for .... with no positive outcome. Soldiers are prayed for, one would expect, as much as anyone yet they still are seriously wounded and killed despite all the sincere prayers and wishes for safe passage through the hell of war! I would venture that in the 'crap-shoot' of praying that more prayers have failed then have coincided with good fortune. One would think that with so many failed prayers that it's odds of success would have become so evident and depressing that religion would have been abandoned ages ago. Still the sheeple are optimistic in the face of defeat? Self-deception glides on the lubricant of ignorance... and the band plays on!

What is the matter with a little irrationality now and then? Have you ever fallen in love?

What is the name of that religion that Mr. Spock and the Vulcans practiced? I think that is the religion for you.

George Polley
September 27, 2007 2:16 PM:

"Wouldn't it be more logical to state that no one really KNOWS the answer to either premis [sic] AT THIS POINT, because we lack any real evidence of either, though both sides can cite make inferences from experience as "evidence" in either direction.

Sorry, but I don't think that either side in this debate has a very strong case "on the evidence".

George, you should know that a person need not proof a negative--only a positive. Thus, unless someone can proof a god's existence first, it is futile to try to proof their nonexistence. For example, try proving that I do not have a million dollars stashed away somewhere. You couldn't. You could only proof that I DO have it. Get it?

Yoyo writes:

"That's because there isn't one.Or,at least,that's the sensible conclusion to come to,bearing in mind that this "god" never shows himself,never comes out of hiding,never involves himself in worldy affairs,and sleeps through holocausts,tsunamis,earthquakes,and all other disasters,and doesn't respond to prayer.
If there is a god,it's just as if there isn't one.
So who needs him?"

ACTUALLY....

To believers he shows himself and responds their prayers. So who needs Him? Oh about the billions of people who believe in Him.

Sorry Im not adding real value to the debate:

Your name sure got it right!

No, I do not believe in this personal god because of the actions of his believers (although that offers some evidence). I do not believe in him because there is zero evidence of his existence. You can go see the Statue of Liberty. Who has seen this god besides some ancient nomads and burning bushes?

"Why does this god who supposedly loves us sit back and let horrible things happen like a child be raped and murdered (by another one of his creations) while he sit on his lazy arse and does NOTHING?"

Because, O Obtuse One, God is not responsible for making us live a happy-go-lucky life on earth but to prepare us for the eternity beyond. Regardless what happens in the nanosecond of our lives on earth is done in preparation to eternity afterwards where, in the presence of God, all pain is ablated, or in the absence of God we will choose to wallow in that pain. The NOTHING you say He does is by your selfish, me-me standards. The souls of the innocents regardless of their sufferings in this world will find peace, a greater and eternal peace than anything this world has to offer.

Suffering sucks, but its not exactly proof of God not existing. A loving God is a God who takes care of us for ETERNITY not just in this temporary earthly world. Juxtapose that in your wordly thinking and maybe you will realize how limited and small your hypotheses are regarding what God should or shouldn't do.

If there was a God.I mean if there actually was a God,we would know about it.It wouldn't be debatable.
It wouldn't be the God "question". It would in some way be obvious;he would have made his presence felt,unambiguously.

As it is,people have been squabbling over who's god is which god,and which god is the one true god,and is there or isn't there a god,and so on,and so on,for ever.

That's because there isn't one.Or,at least,that's the sensible conclusion to come to,bearing in mind that this "god" never shows himself,never comes out of hiding,never involves himself in worldy affairs,and sleeps through holocausts,tsunamis,earthquakes,and all other disasters,and doesn't respond to prayer.
If there is a god,it's just as if there isn't one.
So who needs him?

"REAL REASON, personal attacks don't help the debate at all and only discredit your side further. Can you add anything of value to the debate?"

Honestly, you really believe this forum is a "debate"?

The debate:

Militant Atheists: Believers are crazy because they believe in X

Believers: We dont believe in X, we believe in Y

Militant Atheists: I dont understand Y, so you must believe in X. X is pure nonsense and the 9/11 hijackers believed in X, ergo, religion is nuts and Harris will destroy religion.

Believers: We dont believe in X, we believe in Y.

Militant Atheists: Aha, you believe in X and X is nonsense.

There, the real value of my post is to shed light on the futile nature of this "forum".

For an intelligent debate look at the debate between Francis Collins and Richard DAwkins.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1555132,00.html

THAT was a debate. To the 99% of ranting posters on this forum, I suggest you pick up some tips by clicking on the link above.

Peace.

PS, Hey Brian, if I write nonsense how does that discredit my "side" (whatever that is!). What if Im a lunatic but others on my side are intelligent. You would judge Christians based on my so-called "rant".

Thats the problem isnt it, atheists who criticise God's existence because of the behavior of those who believe in Him. How one is related to the other I dont know? If I believe that the Statue of Liberty exists and I sniff glue, does that negate the existence of the Statue of Liberty?

Think, its good for you.

Nicely done.
A platter of reason with a sprinkle of sarcasm.

You da man, Sam.

Nicely done.
A platter of reason with a sprinkle of sarcasm.

You da man, Sam.

Real Reason:

If you want peace, how about something other than personal attacks. Of course, books like the bible and koran can be picked apart to reveal their obviously human orgins. I personally do not believe in a god (certainly not a personal one anyway) mainly for other reasons. This is one of them that the religious can never address:
Why does this god who supposedly loves us sit back and let horrible things happen like a child be raped and murdered (by another one of his creations) while he sit on his lazy arse and does NOTHING?

All the religious have ever said to this is some babble about a test. What kind of sick test is that, and why let repeat killers do it again? Isn't there a better way to test people? What about the child. Does it skip the test? What if Hitler had been one of those children murdered?

REAL REASON, personal attacks don't help the debate at all and only discredit your side further. Can you add anything of value to the debate?

"ALERT... ALERT... DOES NOT COMPUTE... DOES NOT COMPUTE... ALERT"

Yeah..there's a real shocker, I guess thats the real problem with you militant atheists isn't it?

"I'd run to if I had what you have to back up my beliefs."

Walking away with a bemused smile is more like it.

Keep up the drivel...

Peace.

Arthur Clark (2001 film fame) said something similar "Faith is the ability to believe something when you know that it is not true".. Unfortunatly, many of us answer the casual question "what is your religion?) by lying to keep things simple. One of the problems is the name "atheist". I agree with your vision because I believe in reason and data, not because I reject religion, as implied by the name "atheist". We need to find a better name for our vision and sell it to what I view as a majority of people who simply mouth belief because it is easier than continually being ask to justify and defend your lack of faith.

Hi Sam, I sent this email today to a newspaper in Indpls. responding to an earlier email letter to the editor: Christianity is not 2000 years old, it is 1700 years old. The ugliness in scripture equals or exceeds the "nice" passages excerpted selectively by televangelists and sermons all across the land. Mr. Hess knows nothing about "John the Baptist" just as no one else does. Scripture is probably the least reliable historical documents anywhere. "Faith" is not a way to verify scriptural claims. In America's collective craze to "trust in god," I think it is proper to ask: For what? To save lives in Iraq? World War II? Protect motorists on highways dotted with white crosses? Divert deadly storms away from coasts? Ease the physical suffering of millions?
As for a "second coming," it is impossible without a first coming. Human virgins do not have babies with invented spirits, never have and never will. Those kinds of births throughout history are acknowledged to be myths, to be inventions.
That's it for now. Always good to share your rational thoughts.--Bob

Faith is definitely used to both cover and justify ignorance and irrationalism.

It should be the default position to openly declare "my god says so" is not an argument, and and argument *plus* "my god says so" is not a better argument.

Bravo Brian S.!

I'd love to see some, ANY evidence of this so called "intelligent design". Especially when there are countless examples of UN-intelligent design that are actually tangible! i.e. flightless birds, fish that are prone to drowning, superfluos nipples, etc.

It is time we stopped giving "religious" people a pass. Put up or shut up I say.

And to those that are offended by my not tip-toeing around your beliefs: If you don't want people to make fun of your beliefs, then you shouldn't have such silly beliefs.

I have been accused of being angry. Damn right I am angry. Keep your mumbo-jumbo away from my kids school if you please. Send your kids to a "religious" school if you want...and they can pray all day for divine guidence in algebra for all I care. Just cuts down on the competition my kid is going to face getting into Stanford (your kids will no doubt be attending Regent "University"). But don't pray in my kids public classroom, and he won't think in your church. Fair enough?

One more question for religious people. Why do you pray at football games? Do you really think your god is watching that high school football game? Doesn't he have anything better to do? I guess not. After all he totally missed the Holocaust...guess he was busy with a pee-wee hockey tournament.

It's time to stop the bs.

Real Reason wrote: "Dude, I got a PhD (with distinction) from an Ivy league in Microbiology."

then Real Reason wrote: "To summarize, for those of you unfamiliar with it, Pascal states that it is better to believe in "god" because if you're right, you go to heaven, and if you're wrong, it doesn't matter anyways. Well, DUH! Anyone with an iota of religiosty knows that. PAscal's wager was a philosophical reflection not a clear-cut instruction to believe in God for the sake of avoiding Hell."

LOL. Let's see... PhD in Microbiology... does not see the logical falacies in Pascal's Wager... PhD in Microbiology... does not see the logical falacies in Pascal's Wager... PhD in Microbiology... does not see the logical falacies in Pascal's Wager...

ALERT... ALERT... DOES NOT COMPUTE... DOES NOT COMPUTE... ALERT

Real Reason,

Nice hit and run. Posts like that are the very definition of cowardice. Just spew a few ad hominem attacks with no substance to back them up and then split. Three cheers for the hit nd run.

I'd run to if I had what you have to back up my beliefs.

Rob Adams, your post on the side of the theist has been the most rational and logical I've read on this discussion board today!

Your interpretation of god is definitely not that of the Judao-Christian tradition, and you leave your definition open to further refinement. That is at least something that I can respect.

Hitch and Harris are modern day secular rock stars and every time they enter the stage, fireworks galore release. And increasingly throngs gather and relentlessly lather up the secular beatitudes the two lyrically announce.

There is a void cross this country amongst those who've shucked off religion or slid from their ancestors cultural call. And Hitch and Harris with their secular vision and venom connect in a most relevant way with religious naysayers.

Reminds me a bit of my connection to the natural world - an experience that's difficult to transmit to someone outside of my tribe. And when strickly urban folk wonder why one would waste time in wild mountain or desert zones, among hosts of flora and fauna, it's best to accept that folk live and operate in differing zones and universes.

Religion to Hitch and Harris, is a spring board to their vaulted notoriety. They speak to the crowds and carry a confidence that can be labeled as only one thing - truth. Yes, truth and reason in their universe and amongst their tribe.

Religion "a good thing for good people, a bad thing for bad people."

Prayer, supplication, sorrrow and/or a humble side can open "some" to insight and acceptance
that another voice and light is out there. And the path is not one paved with proof of the type that scientist seek.

Best to both Hitch and Harris. May they sell many books, greet great audiences and follow the clarion call that most modern rock stars do. Their message rings true to some and to others it has little relevance or enlightenment. The proof of it all - well lets start proving the woderment of love - and see where intangible offerings announce. A ten step renouncement, ready...

I agree with the assertion of religion as a perpetual machine of wishful thinking. It is also true that it leads to a reduction of self-awareness. This is evident by the fact that most religious people are not aware that, if passage into heaven is based on a belief, then a fair god should make sure that every child is born into a family of parents that promote thst particular belief. That will assure each baby the same opportunity. A baby born in Saudi Arabia today has very little chance of going to heaven on a belief in Christ and so on.

Roberto

Anonymous: "If science had never happened,we'd still be living in mud huts rubbing sticks together to make fire."

Erm... yes? I'm a scientist. I studied Chemistry at Uni. I have no problem with Science. I'm not about to dispute technology or gravity.

None of that prevents mystical or spiritual experiences.

What it does prevent is belief in some of the literal claims of the Bible, but that's not my bag nayway.

There's so much nonsense in the vast majority of these posts, and people actually think its intellectual debate. Goats have better debates.

I need only to peruse the last few to find some real gems:

1."Great essay Sam.
Your argument is crystal clear;the logic powerful and inescapable.
Only the deluded will disagree,unfortunately."

Thats right buddy, people who disagree with a point of view are deluded (but thanks for the "unforunately" part, real compassionate). How rational and reasonable....

2. "Intelligent people who understand evolution will automatically know the Bible is Fiction. (A glorified Comic Book)"

Dude, I got a PhD (with distinction) from an Ivy league in Microbiology. How that somehow leads to debunking the Bible I dont get. Which part of the Bible? Which verse? The whole thing? Stop smkoing your hemp for a moment and re-frame the specifics of the question. "glorified comic book"? A collected tome of narratives, philosophy and revelation collected over the course of a couple of thousand years with the power to sway to this day, a comic book...Dude....

3."So for all of you Christians out there that want to use astrological arguments for the existence of your Christian "god," sorry, that's unacceptable. YOUR "god" is solely based on your holy book, the Bible. It's the core and basis for your beliefs.

No self-respecting Christian believes in God because the Bible tells him to. They believe because they see something you dont. Hey pal, if you dont see what I see why must it be that Im the one who's delusional rather than entertaining the possibility that the problem is with you?

3."You say you've read Dawkins. Have you read "The God Delusion?" If you have, then you should be aware of how decisively he debunked Pascal's Wager.

To summarize, for those of you unfamiliar with it, Pascal states that it is better to believe in "god" because if you're right, you go to heaven, and if you're wrong, it doesn't matter anyways."

Well, DUH! Anyone with an iota of religiosty knows that. PAscal's wager was a philosophical reflection not a clear-cut instruction to believe in God for the sake of avoiding Hell. Thank god Dawkins came along to tell us that what PAscal did not say was wrong...sarcasm...sarcasm...

IIm done now and I need some a more stimulating forum than the "atheists-who-pat-themselves-on-the-back-and-mock-dissenters "FORUM=meeting place for the discussion of questions of public interest."

There's a reason Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris's works on religion are published in popular books rather than n peer reviewed academic-quality journals: Because their work is nothing more than semi-sophisticated rants that cannot stand to be picked apart by the learned.

peace.

To TOMH:

To be perfectly honest, judging by your last post, you seem to not be good for the sake just just being good at all. You state you like to help others and that the majority of the great charities around the world were started by Christianity.

You may want to investigate your own morals a little more closely. To me it sounds like you either 1) do these acts out of fear of reprisal from your God (i.e. you don't want to go to hell), or 2) (and not an entirely seperate reason) that you do it to earn "gold stars," "brownie points," or "merit" with your god.

Either (or both) of these reasons are actually morally despicable. You're doing good deeds out of cowardice and fear, not because you truly feel it's the right thing to do.

This is very typical of Christians.

I would contend that an atheist has a much higher sense of moral standards because when they do good deeds they are not doing them out of fear of reprisal or to earn merit.

If science had never happened,we'd still be living in mud huts rubbing sticks together to make fire.

I confess I have not read any of the Harris, Hitchens, or Dawkins books. I only get their point of view from their essays on this website.

I would say I agree with much of their perspectives, however, sometimes they get a bit militant. To state that, "religion is violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children.", comes across a bit harsh and is not absolutely true.

I personally do not subscribe to any organized religion. My preacher tried when I was a child, but he failed miserably.

However, I have developed my own sense of spirituality as I got older and have concluded (by gut feeling) that some form of "cosmic intelligence" has to exist. There is a certain order of things in this universe that simply can not be random.

Of course that does not mean I subscribe to any "personal" god. To do so is totally illogical. A "persoanl" god would never let happen the atrocities, natural disasters, and diseases that are standard in this world. And if he did, he would certainly not the being of pure love ascribed to by Christianity.

I think fundamentalism on both, the atheist/agnostic and the religious sides, needs to be tempered with some form of mututal respect. The pot shouldn't call the kettle black, and people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. There are pros and cons to both sides.

Mr. Harris.

You do provide a fine point about religion asking or followers deciding to check their reason at the door. I find that religious people who do not check their reason at the door are more apt to transcend religion and become spiritual. These are the ones that can be comfortable with atheists as they know that the atheist is not a threat. Not all of the theists lack reason and actually the ones that excel at spirituality probably posses it.

While I agree that religion would be better served by constantly exploring what could be rather than only presuming what is.

I think this statement would also be a worthy thing for an atheist to contemplate.

As I theist find these six steps to believe in God to be a better fit.

1. Contemplate that there could be more than just this life
2. Understand that we are all one, be it in the metaphysical or social sense we all need each other.
3. realize that the human ability to contemplate many things has pushed us forward in our evolutionary thinking
4. Consider that the fact that why we don’t believe is we have the definition and understanding of God wrong. Logically I can not believe in the current definition of God, but that does not preclude that a better, more complete definition of God keeps the book open on the possible existence of God.
5. The facts do not need to prove a final resolution for me to continue to explore possibilities
6. Questions are creative, answers are not. Keep the questions coming.

It may not lead to God, then again it might and if it does lead us to God and that would be icing on the cake. If God exists I think he (or she) would be a good friend to have.

I will concede that people who want to believe in God should reclaim him for themselves and not solely rely on what others tell us.

If nothing else you end up exploring the relationships and psyche of the human experience and our relationship to the universe around us. It may only lead to understanding which may lead to wisdom on how we can ‘live better lives’. Even if it only leads us to a society that is loving, kind, tolerant and compassionate then I think the journey was worth while.

(Incidentally, I love that fact that this blog has so many people capable of critical thinking. I was beginning to think it was all Chuck Colson fans.)

TOMH, I'll pose the same comments and questions to you that your fellow believers bring up but then never answer.

First, on the comment of morality, see some of my earlier posts. Your sense of morality in no way comes from Christianity unless you believe that misogyny, genocide, slavery, murder of non-believers, and the stoning of children for bad behavior, among other things, are moral.

Do you believe these things to be moral? If not, your sense of morality does NOT come from Christianity. I believe our sense of morality comes from a combination of respecting individual's bodies (i.e. looking out for your own well being, and by association, creating general morals that protect yourself and in the process others) and some philosophical arguments made by some of the great philosophers through the centuries.

Second, you state, as have others, that there is evidence of intelligent design. Please share this with us (although, evidence of intelligent design, in no way, would prove the existence of your specific Christian god).

Edwin: It's hard to find people who agree with you MORE that Christianity is rubbish than most neopagans. They totally agree, and for all the same reasons.

Not all religions require belief in a sentient Creator, or specific historical events. Not all of them have dogma - some are orthopraxic not orthodoxic. Neopaganism (and modern wicca) has henotheists, duotheists, pantheists and much more: exactly what you feel is not dictated.

There is no central authority, no concept of "sin" telling you that you are unworthy/dirty and must be grateful to a vengeful God. No Church telling you which actions to take (in fact the opposite - it is your duty to be entirely responsible for your own actions and approach each situation carefully.) No claims to be the "one true way" or define the nature of the Gods.

The harmful behaviours in Christianity that make up much of what you rightly call "poison" are mostly (deliberately) gone from many types of neopaganism.

What isn't gone is a feeling of communing with sacredness. Now that's "illogical", but can be a very positive thing (as long as it's not used as a psychological crutch). There doesn't have to be 'belief' contrary to evidence - the evidence is Nature, and the celebration (not demanded worship) of such is a thing that brings joy.

I know that's still way too much for the atheists on here, but not all religions have the political manipulation and petty brainwashing that make some 'poison'. Some paths *demand* that you think for yourself at all times, and answer to yourself for your actions.

Great essay Sam.
Your argument is crystal clear;the logic powerful and inescapable.
Only the deluded will disagree,unfortunately.
I guess it's the indoctrination process itself,and the way it's applied throughout one's childhood,that makes religion irresistible.
In some future world,childhood religious indoctrination may be outlawed as cruel and immoral tampering with children's minds.
If we ever hope to have a rational religion-free world,the first step would be to acknowledge that deliberately brainwashing kids should stop.

"How to Not Believe in God
Five Easy Steps

1. First, you must desire to not have to follow concrete rules of morality that might mess up selfish desires."

The only implication of this claim is that TomH cannot conceive of a moral system that is not imposed upon him by a supernatural being (and accompanied by the threat of eternal punishment if he breaks the rules). It tells us much about TomH but nothing at all about people who lead moral and ethical lives without being "scared straight" by the imaginary thunderings of an ancient tribal god from the eastern Mediterranean. And there are many, many such people.

Sorry, Tom, to burst your bubble. You don't have to believe in a god to be unselfish. Or to object to the unethical misrepresentations that populate your post.

Intelligent people who understand evolution will automatically know the Bible is Fiction. (A glorified Comic Book)

To: "A Different Point of View" and others...

I think the problem in all of this is that the scope of the debate and definition of the problem have lacked sufficient clarity.

Dawkins, Harris, and others are clearly attacking the "great" monotheisms: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This is what they are attacking (and what I think most atheists on this site and others are attacking). The problem has been that this problem statement in the past has not been this clearly defined.

So for all of you Christians out there that want to use astrological arguments for the existence of your Christian "god," sorry, that's unacceptable. YOUR "god" is solely based on your holy book, the Bible. It's the core and basis for your beliefs. Your arguments must be based on your bible and proven by historical or scientific evidence. If your book can be discredited beyond a reasonable doubt, then your religion is discreted and proven false. All other arguments about a supernatural force or a general god are not up for debate. That is outside the narrow scope of your religion.

There is scientific and historical evidence that the Bible, you holly book, is complete hog wash. It was written by a group of highly uneducated herdsmen at a date and time that had very different social standards in regards to morals and acceptable beliefs. It was ok to attribute the unknown to miracles back then. That is the context in which the Bible was written.

Christianity has been proven false beyond a reasonable doubt, no matter what standard or definition of reasonable you define.

"Spirituality", I agree, does have advantageous cognitive effects in certain circumstances. This can be scientifically tested through monitoring the release of endorphins, etc. This sort of spirituality can be explained scientifically and does not simply reside in the world of theism. Spirituality can also be associated with deism or pantheism.

General spirituality and a general notion of a "creator" of the universe are seperate debates.

Edwin:

Steve B from the UK, ALL religions are poison. ALL of them. Period. Their dogma & mythology makes them irrational & infantile. A classic example of such foolsihness is the belief that Jesus resurrected & he is coming back to take to heaven those that follow a religion that he himself never endorsed nor created. Rubbish!!

Dude, there's so much ignorance in this post I dont know where to start. Hey man, whatever makes you feel better about yourself.

Steve B from the UK, ALL religions are poison. ALL of them. Period. Their dogma & mythology makes them irrational & infantile. A classic example of such foolsihness is the belief that Jesus resurrected & he is coming back to take to heaven those that follow a religion that he himself never endorsed nor created. Rubbish!!

As always, Sam Harris is right on the money!

"Tom Barnes: I am not a psychiatrist, psychologist, rabbi, priest, minister, social anthropolgist, folklorist or expert in comparative religion. I believe in God because I need to believe in God. It is pretty much that simple. Do I concede that religion is on many levels ridiculous, nonsensical, not supported by anything even remotely tangible and in many ways absolutely non empirical? Yes. Do I still need religion in my life? Yes. Why? Because I am a human and the religious impulse [is] basic to our psychology. Why? I don't know. Ask one of them. September 27, 2007 3:41 PM | Report Offensive Comments "

This is about the only comment that makes any sense in this discussion - all else is just argument among people in disagreement. Only TB's comment cuts to the actual heart of the matter - some things can be proven; some "things" cannot. Belief relies in some senses on provable facts, but it is a feeling inside. The problem (and this discussion) begins when a "believer" attempts to compel another to abide by the believer's rules. etc. Simple as that.

"An atheist assigns himself to life without ultimate purpose."

Clearly another person who knows nothing of the subject upon which he propounds so loudly. All it tells us is that this person believes that no one who thinks differently than he could find any purpose in life; it tells us nothing at all about those people who don't think like he does. A minuscule effort on his part would have taught him that this point has been answered long before he ever raised it here.

An interesting analogy: He *could* learn something about atheists and see the ridiculous nature of his statement but doesn't bother. It's more convenient to presume the whole human race is circumscribed by the "mind-forged manacles" he has imposed upon himself. Has he been equally slack in contemplating the bases of his own beliefs as he was in examining those of others? The evidence would suggest it.

God is an imaginary friend for grown-ups.

Can someone explain this?:

http://www.zeitun-eg.org/zeitngal.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitoun_apparitions

sorry, first post was mine

How to Not Believe in God
Five Easy Steps

1. First, you must desire to not have to follow concrete rules of morality that might mess up selfish desires.
2. Next, understand that not believing in God despite evidence of intelligent design is currently cool.
3. Then, realize that the human ability to ignore evidence for in God in the face of the facts that over thousands of years, believers have been concretely happier, more productive, and have started vitrualy every program known to man dedictaed to helping others, may be a sign you are enlightened beyond others.
4. Now consider any need for further looking at evidence to be a form of weakness, having decided the question. Ignore those nagging doubts!
5. Refer to steps 2-4 as acts of “reason”. Even if they're not, just say it is.

I just wish others had the same happiness in life that I do. Living for others first is a beautiful thing.

How to Not Believe in God
Five Easy Steps

1. First, you must desire to not have to follow concrete rules of morality that might mess up selfish desires.
2. Next, understand that not believing in God despite evidence of intellignet is currently cool.
3. Then, realize that the human ability to ignore evidence for in God in the face of the facts that over thousands of years, believers havebeen concretely happier, ore productive, and have started vitrualy every program known to man dedictaed to helping others, may be a sign you are enlightened beyond others.
4. Now consider any need for further looking at evidence to be a form of weakness, having decided the question. Ignore those nagging doubts!
5. Refer to steps 2-4 as acts of “reason”. Even if they're not, just say it is.

Sam Harris' view of religion as the fount of unreason is, frankly speaking, highly unreasonable.

Like Hitchens, Dawkins, and Dennett, he passionately spins religion as destructive and blind, highlighting extreme cases and ignoring the vast middle and upper ground in what appears to be an ambitious attempt to demonize all of it. The method, perhaps unwittingly, is that of the extremist preacher he correctly recognizes as irrational.

Does the soon-to-be Dr. Harris recognize the considerable danger that his militant new atheism poses? He should, given his knowledge of how religion can go wrong.

The danger is further polarization and heightened antagonisms between materialistic secular elites and those they dismiss as outside the pale of their own conception of reason. This, of course, is nothing but the traditional prejudice and sectarianism that has been widely used by religious leaders for personal benefit.

The possibility of future strife and conflict stemming from Harris’ demonization is clearly evidenced by recent history. Nothing in religion, despite millennia of history, has accomplished the massive and widespread destruction of peoples, societies, and cultures that secularism in the guise of nationalism, communism, fascism, racism, and social Darwinism has accomplished. It can happen again - and will happen again - if people spin ideas and conceptions that they emotionally disagree with as irrational. Irrational implies subhuman and dismissible, and these labels and categories are the precursors to pogroms and massacres.

Harris has pointed out, productively, the failures that blind religious belief can create. It is time that he practices the lesson that he should have learned. Tolerance and respect for others and their way of thinking, even if he is emotionally opposed to it, is the way forward. Demonization and castigation is the road to chaos, war, and destruction.

Sam has not referred to the Evangelical subset of his 6 Easy Steps.

1a. You just have to pray to God until you are insane enough to be saved.

Veronique

Matthew,

You say you've read Dawkins. Have you read "The God Delusion?" If you have, then you should be aware of how decisively he debunked Pascal's Wager.

To summarize, for those of you unfamiliar with it, Pascal states that it is better to believe in "god" because if you're right, you go to heaven, and if you're wrong, it doesn't matter anyways.

Dawkins, as he does so splendidly well, points out that an omnisicent god that truly demands your worship and devotion will very easily see that you are simply playing the odds. He, being omniscient, would know your belief is not true.

I wholeheartedly agree with the conclusion that religion has come up with many irrational and even downright foolish ideas. But lest we forget, science has done the same. Like religion, science has its own rules (observable events, repeatable by others). Both are a quest to understand the universe and beyond.

But science involves faith as well. We all believe in atoms. Yet, only a few among us have the expertise required to prove their existence. Such expertise is usually the result of 20 years of schooling starting from childhood and culminating in PhD's under the tutelage of graduate advisors. Most do not undertake this journey and rely on the words of those who have in accepting that atoms do exist and are made up of protons, neutrons, electrons and other subatomic particles. For the general public, we take it on faith that scientists are reporting the truth as we cannot prove or disprove their claims ourselves.

Why not the same for religion? There are those who spend lifetimes in strict spiritual training. Many report spiritual experiences that defy our current views of the world (out of body experience, ESP, etc.). Duke University did extensive research on these phenomena in the 1930's and the scientific evidence supporting these phenomena was overwhelming. Yet few people, as with science or even running a 4 minute mile, are willing to go through the extensive and arduous training necessary to achieve these results. Therefore, on what basis do the critics have for denying the accomplishments of spiritual people while supporting the accomplishments of scientists? I would say that unless the critic is willing to replicate the spiritual training to independently verify the reliability of the spiritual claim, the denial of spirituality is just as bigoted as religious people's denial of science. I say this by the way as someone with a PhD from an Ivy League school in a scientific discipline.

1. Define the question: Is there a personal God who hates sin and yet, loves me?

2. Gather information and resources (observe): I see all kinds of promises in God's Word about his love for me and His plan for my life.

3. Form hypothesis: God is personal to me, and loves me.

4. Perform experiment and collect data: If God has the attributes of God, he will keep his Word.

5. Analyze data: Has he kept His word with me? Yes.

6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
Publish results? There is a God who loves me and keeps his Word. Therefore, He will also keep other promises regarding punishment of sin.

7. Retest: Walking by faith every day.

In science, you must Never forget that you might be wrong.

In religion, that is the first you must do.

For scientists, a theory has little use, unless we know exactly what could prove it wrong. How many Christians have even thought about what it would take for them not to believe?

1. Define the question: Is there a personal God who hates sin and yet, loves me?

2. Gather information and resources (observe): I see all kinds of promises in God's Word about his love for me and His plan for my life.

3. Form hypothesis: God is personal to me, and loves me.

4. Perform experiment and collect data: If God has the attributes of God, he will keep his Word.

5. Analyze data: Has he kept His word with me? Yes.

6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
Publish results? There is a God who loves me and keeps his Word. Therefore, He will also keep other promises regarding punishment of sin.

7. Retest: Walking by faith every day.

I am amazed at
1) % of atheists/agnostics on this site. Maybe it feels better to hang around together?
2) the silliness that passes for the comments.

Does perpetually saying something loudly make it true? Why do people continue to throw out "science is reason, religion is faith" and "evidence [for God] has escaped the scientific community for 2,000 years", "religion panders to dummies", and long diatribes about how only smart athiests are right, while 90% of us who cannot critically think are 'delusional"

Hitchens and Harris have written books. I've read exerpts, as well as Dawkins' God Delusion. Some interesting stuff there. But some, um, lack of critical thinking too. Many books have been written in respnse. Books aimed at intelligent logical argument. How many of you have read those? How many? Or are you too busy posting "we luv Sam" here?

The scientific community has NOT concluded evidence for God does not exist. Please tell (just to stay post-Darwin for starters) William Albright, George W. Carver, Jean Henri Fabre, Sir William Huggins, James Joule, William T Kelvin, Joseph Lister, Gregor Mendel, Louis Pasteur, William Ramsey ...etc. All idiots compared to those on this site obviously.

There are oodles of books discussing reasons for God's existence or not. Many strong arguments on both sides. We used to have lots of debates on the subject (1970s era), but the athiests quit because THEY KEPT LOSING. You don't see as many debates today. Wonder why? :)

Evidence for universe's design is now strongly held in the astronomy field. Go find a few professional cosmologists. Many have converted to belief systems in the last 10-15 years, based on ... gee, the Evidence. Fred Hoyle may continue to (lonesomely!) maintain his steady state universe because he doesn't want a Creator, but he's about the only one. If he were religious we'd claim his 'belief' was making his disbelieve the evidence (tee hee).

You can ignore that side of the evidence if you wish. But maybe more people should read both sides before deciding merely based on their (probably false) impression of some religious fanatic they knew or read about. And yes, I know, much of that is "our" fault; so-called Christians
coming across as dunderheads or hypocrites. But I have tried not to let people like Dawkins, who made so many errors is his God Delusion book that it's silly, color my impresion of all of those who follow him.

Stop mocking me for my faith. Let me believe in God in peace. I brook no quarrel with your atheism. Go re-read Pascal's wager, and maybe the game theory literature on dominant strategies, and you'll discover a very compelling case for the set of procedures you just mocked. But even if there wasn't, let me be myself in peace. I read Hitchens, Dawkins, even Dement, and I enjoy it all. But after considering the arguments (I'm a philosophy/economics graduate in law school--I have to consider arguments), my faith remains. Tell me, am I an inferior species of intellect, or is it possible that you and I are just...different?

Stop mocking me for my faith. Let me believe in God in peace. I brook no quarrel with your atheism. Go re-read Pascal's wager, and maybe the game theory literature on dominant strategies, and you'll discover a very compelling case for the set of procedures you just mocked. But even if there wasn't, let me be myself in peace. I read Hitchens, Dawkins, even Dement, and I enjoy it all. But after considering the arguments (I'm a philosophy/economics graduate in law school--I have to consider arguments), my faith remains. Tell me, am I an inferior species of intellect, or is it possible that you and I are just...different?

JK:
Science is also a religion.

Indeed it is the religion that has brought us genetic research, the automobile, air conditioning, refrigeration and cures to many diseases. If you are going to say science is a religion, I don't see how you could go w/ any other in that case. The offerings & outcomes are profound.

Absolutely delectable, Mr. Harris! Even if I didn't feel a profound resonance with the content of your thinking (which I do!), I would still find your writing, here, and in all your work, to be truly divine (as we atheists define that term). The closest I will ever feel to a "religious experience" is the validation I find, in your work, for my instinctive and unfettered need for evidence, and my drive to be compassionate and inclusive not only of fellow humans, but of all my fellow Earthlings. If the animal protection movement has not already embraced you, it should do so quickly. Perhaps your affinity with Peter Singer's thinking will make that happen. In any case, please keep your words coming. To be able to read such exquisite prose is, possibly, the best reason for humans to have been blessed with the gift of language.

I see from the responses that the religious apologists have fallen back on their tired theme: That religion makes us feel that there is "a purpose" in life, or that religion makes us moral (please!).

Putting aside the serious arguments against the asserted "usefulness" of religion (I think that the millions of people that were butchered by the nice Christians for heresy and sorcery would disagree with this proposition, as would the millions that were butchered in wars of conquest that were sanctioned and justified by religious leaders who got rich from them), none of this has anything to do with whether religions are _true_. To put it simply: There was no Adam; there was no Eve; there was no Noah; there was no ark; Jesus was not born of a virgin, any more than the god Attis was; and Jesus did not change water into booze. There is not a word of truth in it; and subordinating American social welfare to a policy of vindicating these fairy tales is what gives us wars in the Middle East, and the election of greedy, racist (but Christian!) conservatives at home.

Why exactly are you writing in the religion section? It seems to me that you and Mr. Hitchens should comment on what you know and not what you patently claim that you cannot know (because it doesn't exist).

For Roy Oetting:

Unfortunately, the dangerously stupid ideas are already in their feverish little brains. I lie awake at night worrying about it.

LOL for the Angus/Agnus anogram...but I have been a lamb far to long, and watched my civil rights eroded away by bible thumping lunatics in our government. Ashcroft actually held bible studies on taxpayer time in his taxpayer funded office. Our president, George Walker Bush said publicly that the "jury is still out on evolution" (why this wasn't a deal-breaker for everyone but the most deluded in the country I will never know). So no more Agnus-like cowardice. Angus suits me better. I'll be a bull when it comes to this nonsense taking over our national dialouge. Keep superstition out of the classroom and capitol!

** it's the logic of despotism **

There are nations like Sweden and Japan where the dominant culture is secular.

Among developed nations, the U.S. is strongly anomalous in having a high percentage of persons willing to self-indentify as religious. Most of these are xians.

Otherwise intelligent people, including those who have risen to powerful positions in government, military, media, public education and business are apt themselves to be xian or support xian viewpoints. The main exception is scientists who are mainly non-religious.

Harris' iterative logic of belief stands very much to one side. Most persons in the U.S. simply end up being born into households which are nominally xian. Upbringing, with its combination of indoctrination and punishment, induces beliefs without any reasoning being applied. (Islam in Pakistan, Hinduism in India, Buddhism in Thailand are no different in kind.)

The typical American enters life disadvantaged, hobbled by irrational beliefs. Removing harmful ideas implanted early in life, reinforced by the dominant culture, demands luck and well as pluck.

Xianity, as a "voluntary" association, presents itself as a place for an extended childhood and adolescence. Fundamentalist (fundie) ideology gets spewed widely by mega-churches, radio call-in, televangelists, high-ranking military, Congress, and the White House.

American ignorance of science is a mere corollary of cultural vociferousness by contemporary right-wing fundies. The same ignorance manifests itself in basic civics and history.

Irrationality reigns because it has the power to. Power is its own logic.

bipolar2
copyright asserted 2007

Bravo! Sam.

I salute you.

http://www.zeitun-eg.org/zeitngal.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitoun_apparitions

Rock on, Sam! "Letter to a Christian Nation" is amazing, and everyone should read it.

To Bill Jones:

It's not an issue of evidence vs. proof. The basic philosophical principle behind science is that assertions must be supported by evidence. Without evidence, assertions are just stories; they can be emotionally compelling but not intellectually compelling. Religions are stories of this nature. Each one is different and as a whole they are mutually contradictory. Scientific assertions, on the other hand, have evidence as their very foundation, and a required part of their development is that anyone with a competing assertion more in line with the evidence will win the day. Religion cannot compete on these terms because it contradicts the evidence. The religious people who pretend to have a scientific basis for their beliefs are liars, and they know it. A case in point is the Discovery Institute's fraudulent "Intelligent Design" studies. I recommend reading the Dover trial court records, where the Discovery Institute was required to defend itself under oath. The world's greatest "Intelligent Design" experts actually admitted that their research was a sham.

With respect to your suggestion that atheists "have all the answers." This is entirely off the mark. Atheists explicitly DON'T have all the answers; they only have the answers that have evidentiary support. What they rail against is people who claim to have answers that have NO evidentiary support, or even more exasperating, who claim to have answers despite abundant evidence to the contrary. This is what religion offers.

Ample evidence of the ill effects that religion has on the faculty of reason exists in your post, particularly in your final sentence, where you seem to be saying that it is dogma to employ a reasoning process that doesn't admit dogma.

I am a scientist and an atheist. Despite having a proven, detailed quantitative conceptual model of reality, I don't have the slightist idea what its "true nature" is and I don't think I ever will. But I can recognize hokum when I see it.

Dennis J. Cavanaugh, the need to believe isn't an argument for believeing. There are societies on this planet besides the fundies. They get along fine without the need. You would probably make a lousy engineer because you have a negative attitude and your arguments are not thought out. Go into politics.
Angus, Don't put any dumb ideas in their heads. Why couldn't you have been an Agnus?

Michael Brothers, you state that you see evidence of God's existence every day, but in typical Christian form, you fail to state ANY of that evidence.

Please share with us this knowledge since this evidence has escaped the scientific community for 2,000 years!

Theism, the belief in god or gods, is only one form of religious expression and monotheism is one form of theism. There are other forms of theism and there are many other forms of religion besides theism. It's a mistake to equate faith only with monotheism as faith could be about anything. The question as to whether or not monotheism, or any other form of religion, is solely dependent for its continued existence on the faith of adherents is still open, as well as is the question as to whether any belief system is invalid just because it is faith based. A far better argument would be one demonstrating and showing logical inconsistencies within the tenets of the faith based belief system. The argument that a belief system is foolish simply because it is based on faith is not at all a convincing one.

Theism, the belief in god or gods, is only one form of religious expression and monotheism is one form of theism. There are other forms of theism and there are many other forms of religion besides theism. It's a mistake to equate faith only with monotheism as faith could be about anything. The question as to whether or not monotheism, or any other form of religion, is solely dependent for its continued existence on the faith of adherents is still open, as well as is the question as to whether any belief system is invalid just because it is faith based. A far better argument would be one demonstrating and showing logical inconsistencies within the tenets of the faith based belief system. The argument that a belief system is foolish simply because it is based on faith is not at all a convincing one.

Theism, the belief in god or gods, is only one form of religious expression and monotheism is one form of theism. There are other forms of theism and there are many other forms of religion besides theism. It's a mistake to equate faith only with monotheism as faith could be about anything. The question as to whether or not monotheism, or any other form of religion, is solely dependent for its continued existence on the faith of adherents is still open, as well as is the question as to whether any belief system is invalid just because it is faith based. A far better argument would be one demonstrating and showing logical inconsistencies within the tenets of the faith based belief system. The argument that a belief system is foolish simply because it is based on faith is not at all a convincing one.

Theism, the belief in god or gods, is only one form of religious expression and monotheism is one form of theism. There are other forms of theism and there are many other forms of religion besides theism. It's a mistake to equate faith only with monotheism as faith could be about anything. The question as to whether or not monotheism, or any other form of religion, is solely dependent for its continued existence on the faith of adherents is still open, as well as is the question as to whether any belief system is invalid just because it is faith based. A far better argument would be one demonstrating and showing logical inconsistencies within the tenets of the faith based belief system. The argument that a belief system is foolish simply because it is based on faith is not at all a convincing one.

Just a brief note on science: No, it isn't a religion. It's a method for generating and testing hypotheses. It relies on evidence and reason.

for JK:

science is NOT a religion:

a scientist is always willing to change his mind and paradigms when confronted with enough new experimental evidence;

a religious mind simply won't. ever.

I am not a psychiatrist, psychologist, rabbi, priest, minister, social anthropolgist, folklorist or expert in comparative religion. I believe in God because I need to believe in God. It is pretty much that simple.

Do I concede that religion is on many levels ridiculous, nonsensical, not supported by anything even remotely tangible and in many ways absolutely non empirical? Yes. Do I still need religion in my life? Yes.

Why?

Because I am a human and the religious impulse in basic to our psychology. Why? I don't know. Ask one of them.

Quite right, Sam!

Unfortunately the American educational system utterly fails to teach our children the intrinsic error in this mode of thinking - that is to say, NOT thinking.

for JK:

science is NOT a religion:

a scientist is always willing to change his mind and paradigms when confronted with enough new experimental evidence;

a religion mind simply won't. ever.

Being stocked stem to stern with incredible ideas, the world’s religions have had to find some way to circumvent reason, without repudiating it.

Being stocked stem to stern with incredible ideas, reason has found some way to circumvent the world's religions, without repudiating them.

I think the second is more accurate than the first. We're in the process of doing that right now with certain world's religions. The plan is to win the war on terror without eliminating or even outlawing terrorism. Kinda like saying we were only against Nazi extremists and even there were just bringing them to justice. If the Nazis had only known they could have held free elections and stopped the war before they lost, wink-wink.

The one who drives the getaway car is a bank robber too along with all who aid the robbers in any way.

Bill Jones, Plano, Texas
"There is plenty of evidence of God's existence"

Please sight One (1) single incident of proof of the existence of a god. It must be irrefutable. It must be 100% proof (beliefs, dreams, hitting the Lotto, etc do not count) I'll turn in my key to the non-believers locker room today.

If you can't site just ONE incident of proof of the existence of god...you must STFU.

TJ WILLIAMS, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

Steve Cornell: Someone said, “The blazing evidence for immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution.”

Wow! Does this mean my really wanting to win the lottery and not being satisfied with anything less is blazing evidence that I will in fact win?
Atheists do not necessarily believe 'there is nothing outside this universe'. There may well be multiple dimensions, multiple universes or any number of possibilities that do not imply your god.

BTW, I believe a pink bunny created the universe. But my bunny is uncreated and outside all space and time. Can you prove she doesn't exist?

Two things always jump out at me when reason and faith are compared, as in this post. First, they are treated as completely separate and oppositional constructs, when in fact reason requires faith to exist in the first place--faith that everyone else shares our definitions of reality. Second, we are asked to believe that faith in God is always in the absence of evidence. I see evidence of God's existence every day. I don't need to shake a hand or pat a shoulder of some entity calling itself God to believe in the existence or power of God. Folks spending so much time trying to debunk faith and religion should simply use that time to volunteer in their community. It would be time far better spent.

I can send the same post several times too.

I recently engaged in two lengthy discussions with door-knocking Jehovah's Witnesses, and found the experience to be rather similar to engaging in a finger-counting contest with Winston Smith subsequent to a prolonged stay at the Ministry of Love.
It became obvious to me that even these supposed moderates swaddled their reasoning ability in what amounted to nothing less than a triumph of circular logic. All challenges put to them were met by Bible references, even challenges as to the authenticity of that document's authorship. When I questioned the clarity of a willfully obscure passage from Genesis which "clearly indicates" the coming of Christ at some future time, the charming and soft-spoken gentleman at my door explained to me, with the patient and slightly pitying tone of a child explaining to his older brother that Santa MUST exist - otherwise where do all the presents come from? - that prophecy can only be understood fully once the prophesied event comes to pass.
A device for predicting that future which can only be interpreted properly FROM the future, retroactively? Well, that's brilliant.
I mention it here because it became apparent to me , through this discussion and others I have had with the religious, that since the very absence of
evidence for the existence of supernatural deities only seems to strengthen the conviction of those who believe in them, we (the rational) have but one weapon left in our arsenal - logic, reason. Unfortunately, the multitude of God's devotees seem to be equipped with a rather efficient defense mechanism - a very real gap in their ability to apply genuinely logical thought to religious matters, a kind of taught (or enforced) ability to psychologically cauterize their own thought processes.
This is the part that terrifies.

I agree with Jon Gutek above: most people don't think, they feel.

I know a man who belongs to the Kabbalah Center, which is an absurd but extremly profitable cult that promotes every form of superstition imaginable, from astrology to miracle water to animal sacrifice. When I asked him why he believes in a particular belief such as miracle water he told me a story about how he was estranged from his father for years until a teacher at the KC told him to renew contact.

I have an in-law who is Greek Orthodox who baptized her son so that his soul wouldn't be condemned to wander the Earth forever in Limbo when he dies. I asked her if it is her belief that the unbaptized souls of Hindus are destined for an eternity in Limbo, and she replied that she believes that people are free to to as they will and she doesn't judge them. I pressed her to distinguish between moral judgements vs. impersonal beliefs about the world, but the distinction simply didn't register.

What Sam Harris fails to recognize or acknowledge is the "need" that a belief in a higher power fullfils in each and every human, and the part that this "need" has played in our rise in becoming the dominant species on the planet today. Sam Harris would be more successful in bringing people to his side by showing more respect for this obvious "need" and, hopefully, a degree of understanding as to the role that it plays today.

What Sam Harris fails to recognize or acknowledge is the "need" that a belief in a higher power fullfils in each and every human, and the part that this "need" has played in our rise in becoming the dominant species on the planet today. Sam Harris would be more successful in bringing people to his side by showing more respect for this obvious "need" and, hopefully, a degree of understanding as to the role that it plays today.

BILL JONES wrote: "Some atheists are Fundamentalists, in that they share with Christian & Muslim Fundamentalists the hubris of knowing that they have all the answers. Anyone who disagrees with them is branded a fool. Whether the Religious Right or the Unreligious Wrong, they know much less than they claim to know."

Except that what you have said is simply not true. At the core of rational thinking is the acknowledgement that we DO NOT have all the answers... and that sometimes the only rational, justifiable conclusion is that "We don't know"... although, usually, there is a 'yet' tacked on to the end of that. Ultimately, though, we may NEVER know. And do you know what?... that is OK... because it is intellectually honest. At the end of the day, it is not NECESSARY that we know... it is only necessary that we keep TRYING to know. That is a basic impulse of humanity... one that Christianity has been trying to stifle and exterminate for about 1,700 years.

On the other hand, the theist position is "We HAVE TO know... and if we don't know FOR REAL, we will just make up an answer based on the supernatural, and accept it as a matter of 'faith'. Then, having fooled ourselves into THINKING that we know, we will have quelled our cognotive dissonance, achieved a warm and fuzzy feeling, and not have the need to concern ourselves with such questions, ever again."

Well... guess what, Grasshopper?... that EPITOMIZES gullibility, irrationality, willful ignorance, self-delusion, intellectual dishonesty, hypocrisy and drooling stupidity. I think that your REAL concern is that if you are forced to confront REAL knowledge, it will disrupt your warm and fuzzy feeling, and expose you to the horrors of cognitive dissonance... the uncomfortable and funky feeling that comes along when you realize that two DIFFERENT explanations for the SAME THING cannot be true at the SAME TIME... and you are afraid that if ONE of your precious supernatural delusions comes apart at the seams, your whole world is going to come unglued. Look inside yourself, and you will see that you have a deep-seated fear that your 'reality' is at risk of coming... and that your REJECTION knowledge and reason, in favor of faith (magical, wishful thinking) and belief (the ILLUSION of knowledge) is just a desperate act of self-defense and self-preservation.

Re: Derek

I agree "Reglion" *is* the only form of government.....All hail "Reglion"!

Uh oh...I hope we haven't started something here....

Will mankind now have to fear spam attacks from their Reglionite neighbors and co-workers??

What have we done?!?!?!? The humanity!!!

Sam Harris continues to speak clearly and articulately to those of us who struggle with an inherent need for spirituality in a world where religions fail to meet that need. I consider his observations and analyses to be necessary reading for any who claim a desire for the continuation (or beginning?) of civilization.

Look...either the bible is the word of god, or it isn't. You can't have it both ways. If you believe that it is the word of your god, then you had better start gathering stones. There are alot of people that: work on the sabbath; are disrespectful to their parents; who have gay sex; who are infidels. All of whom need to be stoned to death, because after all, that's what god said to do. Again...either the bible is the word of god or it isn't. If it isn't than it has no more meaning than any other poorly written, wildly contradictory, ineptly researched novel. Let's move on! It's been two thousand years of ignorance based on a ridiculous, poorly written and shamefully mean-spirited novel. Wake up.

Hey Derek,

DEAL WITH IT?
Too funny dude.
I'll deal with it when your theocracy come to power.
But I won't be holding my breath until that happens.
I'm pretty cocky and confident right now that our secular democracy is going to hold up for a little while yet.
Until then, I'm afraid it is you that will have to DEAL WITH IT!
LOL

If you needed evidence to believe it, why would it be called faith?

Criticizing faith because it believes without "evidence".... isn't that a little like criticizing water for being wet?

To Steve Cornell,

You have become quite popular on this post! All is well, I suppose, given that thick skin is a prerequisite for believing that we are all here because a snake talked some naked chick into eating bad fruit.

Thank you for letting me know that my life has no purpose and what I must conclude, believe, suppress, live with, deny, admit, etc. I have wondered about these matters on occasion, and now you've cleared it up for me. While I have your attention, oh omniprescient one, could you clear up an even more pressing matter that has conflicted me since birth.......which is *really* better, Ford or Chevy?

All in jest, Steve. I make fun of myself, and so should you. Besides, in your case you'll have at least one more thing in common with everyone you meet. Well, maybe not everyone in America......but maybe Sweden!

With respect to your comments on intelligent design, and assuming that I know which side of the evolutionary "debate" you are on (pardon me if I do not), have you actually *looked* at a monkey lately?

I only read the first half of your post because it was making my faultily-designed medulla oblongata tingle. I'll try to get to the rest later after I take it back to the store for exchange. Now where did I put that receipt.....?

Laters!

The self-delusion of religionists remind me of the Cowardly Lion in "The Wizard of Oz":

"I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks; I do, I do, I do, I do, I do I ... do believe in spooks; I do believe in spooks; I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do!"

6 steps?
I think the first two are plenty for most dupes I have met.
The most power lies in number 2.
Believe that to have faith is noble.
It is so sad that our society has made faith a virtue. What a scam.
Faith is like a carnival hucksters gimmick.

For those who believe that faith is a virtue, I have some swampland in Florida for sale. Believe me, it's going to be worth millions one day. Have faith!
lol

If ignorance is bliss, then thiests are already in "heaven". Pull your head out of your asses and just say the words : There is no god. It's very freeing, and will allow you to get on with your life, and do many wonderful things for yourself and others. Admit it, at least to yourself. You know there is no such thing as a god, anymore than there is a toothfairy, or santa claus, or (fill in with your favorie man made absurdity). It's all bs, and you know it. Be brave, be smart, be RATIONAL!!

What is faith?
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
H. L. Mencken

I haven't found any other better and shorter definition.

About your beliefs:

Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.
Thomas Jefferson

A Great man's very clever way in his time to tell religious fundamentalists to bug off.

Yah, religion causes a lot of problem, but don't we have much bigger things to be concerned about, such as: http://www.ExcaliburBooks.com/RedAlert/ It seems to me we should first worry about the biggest issues before we should seriously get down to these smaller ones. I am not saying we should not make progress on all fronts though. Just our main focus should be on the biggest issues.

If ignorance is bliss, then thiests are already in "heaven". Pull your head out of your asses and just say the words : There is no god. It's very freeing, and will allow you to get on with your life, and do many wonderful things for yourself and others. Admit it, at least to yourself. You know there is no such thing as a god, anymore than there is a toothfairy, or santa claus, or (fill in with your favorie man made absurdity). It's all bs, and you know it. Be brave, be smart, be RATIONAL!!

@ Mother:

Be careful... I think that you may be bolstering support for using drugs.

Consider the common apologist argument that being faithful feels good whether or not it's not real. How then do you argue against drug use? (I'm not - I'm simply asking)

More to your main point: We can all see the result of participating in the political process - leaders and policies are changed. Zoloft and Happy Hours are evidence that drugs can have an positive impact on a person struggling emotionally (it may be a matter of degrees). OTOH, it has been demonstrated that praying for sick people who don't know that they're being prayed for is inneffective. How exactly do we effect the spiritual (?) process in a way that can be seen? How do we know when we've infulenced the divine? How do we know when we've done something to make another person a better, more enlightened person? We don't.

Comparing 'belief in god' to 'belief in poltics' or sports is apples to oranges. Try again, if you wish, or here's an idea: THINK!

Thanks, Mr. Harris.

Please continue to beat the drum. I enjoyed your book "Letter to a Christian Nation". I have also enjoyed the work of some of your contemporaries (Dawkins, Hitchens).

Its too early to say the tide has turned, but rationalists everywhere are emboldened. What a relief.

But then again, the USA is chock-full of non-thinking boobs.

Actually, there is another method for "believing" in God- experience.

Although you are correct in the way that mind works to rationalize, then achieve the existence of God, there are methods for turning the mind "off".

In such a state (very rare to achieve, but not impossible)one has direct perception of reality.
Thus does one encounter "God".

I have had this experience, of losing all sense of self or identity, time or space, where even thought disappeared in the presence of a boundless, inexhautible energy that was profoundly blissful. A cosmic orgasm.

This is what I know to be true: you haven't destroyed your mind yet, so you only know thoughts, which rise, become clear, then fade away.

Brian S. - nicely put.
Mother, I agree with one thing, politics sucks.
George Polly, With regard to how you disprove a god my answer is this - Ask yourself what did man worship first? I would bet it was the Sun. He also worshipped the moon and the stars didn't he. Before Hinduism and a long long time before the god of the Bible man was worshipping the sun. Ask yourself, Is the sun god? I don't need to disprove god, I only have see how god was created by man many thousands of years ago. This reminds me, not that many years ago they discovered a small tribe of people in the Philippines and what did they worship? - the sun.
I can see why Sam is frustrated. We could be so much better without god.

Today I received e-mail from long-time friend which was a chain letter about angels and the promise of someone knocking on my door tomorrow with great news-blah, blah--pass it on-or else. My 1st thought was how might I remind her of my nonbeliefs without offending her. But then I realized, I'm the one who has been offended by the callousness of her messge. So I replied,"I don't do chain letters-or angels."
How else might this situation be handled? I know a lot of folks who wear their religion on their sleeve and expect that I'm naturally one too.
Do I have to confront folks?

Steven W. Cornell... OK... let me get this straight... you eschew rationality and critical thinking... and in their place, you believe that a cosmic Jewish zombie, who is his own father, can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced, by a talking snake with legs, to eat a piece of fruit from a magical tree... (etc.)... and that there is something horribly wrong with people who ARE NOT so gullible and droolingly stupid as to believe such outrageously ridiculous codswallop.

News flash... that is insane.

'Faith' (magical, wishful thinking) is a lame and pathetic substitute for 'evidence'.

Faith-based 'belief' (the internalized certainty that you are privy to the 'truth' pertaining to vital aspects of existence and reality) is a lame and pathetic substitute for 'knowledge'... in fact, it is the ILLUSION of knowledge.

Faith + belief ---> self-deception, self-delusion and willful ignorance.

'Belief' is an insidious mind-killer... it cuts one off from the open-minded and intellectually honest (willing to actively question and doubt one's own assumptions) consideration of alternative possibilities.

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance... it is the illusion of knowledge." ~ Daniel Boorstin
.

Go read about Eunomius, an early young theologian who was censured by the Cappadocian fathers for his assertion that faith had to be reasonably logical. His censure formalized the notion that religion is "above" worldly ideas like logic (logic especially).

I think Harris' criticisms of religion would be more effective if the broad term "religion" were replaced with a more specific term such as "institutionalized dogmatic religion."

As it reads now, it serves nothing to win the hearts and minds of religious people who are *not* out to oppress women or stifle rational thought.

Mind you, I'd vote for a Sam Harris ten times over before I'd vote for another George W. Bush -- but let's keep our criticisms a little more precisely directed.

http://churchstatewall.typepad.com/

What a ding-dong dairy article...Just look at what your saying...Do you believe in GOD or not, and who are you to say there is no God. Reglion is the only form of government. DEAL WITH IT!!!

What a ding-dong dairy article...Just look at what your saying...Do you believe in GOD or not, and who are you to say there is no God. Reglion is the only form of goverment. DEAL WITH IT!!!

If the flaws in all the foundations of contemporary religions were fixed, would there be any "gods" or "god reps" left??????? Jesus would definitely be downgraded to a well-meaning preacher/peasant.

And Mohammed, he would be downgraded to the warmongering, womanizing, plagiarizing, and hallucinator that he was.

Mr. Harris confuses evidence with proof. There is plenty of evidence of God's existence and His concern for people, though there is also plenty of evidence that calls it into question. But people like Mr. Harris and Mr. Hitchens demand definitive proof; absent such definitive proof, they declare that there is no evidence. Such a declaration is a cop-out - it's their way of refusing to deal with anything that would jeopardize the propositions that feed their hubris.

Some atheists are Fundamentalists, in that they share with Christian & Muslim Fundamentalists the hubris of knowing that they have all the answers. Anyone who disagrees with them is branded a fool. Whether the Religious Right or the Unreligious Wrong, they know much less than they claim to know.

Perhaps it is they who have fooled themselves into denying the full use of their reasoning faculties. When reasoning is limited to what you can prove, it becomes dogma.

Bill Jones, Plano, Texas

Sam... nice job, as usual. I think that there is a crucial bit of information that has been missing from this ongoing conversation, though... from the very beginning. By that, I mean the conversation about how to awaken 85% of the population to the fact that their world-view is largely shaped by delusions... i.e., that they are insane. That's it... there's no way to blunt that. Consider: talking donkeys, shepherd staff turning into an asp, demons chased out of people and into pigs, woman turning into a pillar of salt, friendly spirits, evil spirits, walking on water, multiplying loaves and fishes, food falling from the sky, people raising from the dead, the sun stopping in its tracks, parting the sea, people being bodily sucked up into heaven (which, by the way, lies on the 'other side' of the sky), world-wide flood that drowned the earth to a depth of 40 feet above the tallest mountain, creating people from dust bunnies and ribs, magical tree of knowledge, and an invisible, magical sky-fairy (god) speaking from a burning bush... and (borrowing Sam's excellent phrase) eating god in the form of a cracker.

(Paraphrasing Mr. Harris)... in a sane world, anybody running around spouting ANY of that nonsense, would be locked up in the State Farm for the Funny. Apparently, though, mass insanity seems to convey some sort of free pass.

"When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion." ~ Robert M. Pirsig

Anyway... as I said... they're insane, really... bug-nuts... around 85% of the population. Something that accounts for 85% of ANYTHING can be said to define what is 'normal'. But the medical profession DOES NOT COUNT the 'religion' delusion as a mental illness. Why is that? Why not? Well... in the USA at least, insanity is 'normal'... rationality is 'abnormal'... and the inmates are running the asylum. What would happen if the USA suddenly declared itself to be 'insane'?

But... that was a digression... and it's certainly not a missing piece of information... it's just a blatant fact that nobody seems to be willing to admit, out-loud. More on this later.

Anyway... I think that the missing piece of information... the KEY to this problem... REALLY lies in 'critical thinking'. It is my estimate (through personal observation... no study involved... so take these numbers with a grain of salt... they are a SWAG) that somewhere around 90% of adult population of the USA DOES NOT POSSESS critical thinking skills. (Yeah... I know that 90% doesn't jibe with the 85% that I've been tossing around. There is a reason for that... which I'm not going to get into.)

1. Most of the 90% have never even HEARD of critical thinking... so they can't do it.

2. Some of the 90% THINK that that know what critical thinking is... but they are wrong... and they can't do it.

3. Some of the 90% ACTUALLY DO know what critical thinking is... and they THINK they can do it... but not being able to make subtle distinctions in nuance of meaning, and context-realated distinctions that are necessary, their results are not valid conclusions but, rather, only end up as logical fallacies.... and they can't do it.

4. A VERY SMALL percentage of people (NOT part of the 90%) actually CAN think critically... Francis Collins comes to mind... but they also seem to be able to effectively 'compartmentalise'... i.e., they can successfully manage to employ critical thinking in a profesional capacity, but then they seem to be able to check their brains at the church door. I can't explain this... except to say that it shows that even brilliant people are not exempt from self-delusion.

Anyway... this is very simple, really... even though it's taken me decades to figure it out... mainly because I wasn't TRYING to figure it out. I have been guilty of 'projecting'. I used to think that 'critical thinking' was an innate human ability. I thought that since I did it, then EVERYBODY could do it... and DID do it.

I could not have been more wrong. Critical thinking is NOT an innate human ability. It must be LEARNED... and in order to learn it, you must have the capacity... the potential... to learn it. Part of the problem has to do with the US public education system... it is designed to create 'employees'... not 'thinkers'. It is possible to get a college degree... even a degree in one of the 'fuzzy' sciences... and STILL have not heard of 'critical thinking'. Unless you have an advanced degree in one of the 'hard' sciences, it is highly unlikely that you will have acquired any critical thinking skills through schooling. In other words, apart from the 'hard' sciences, anyone who manages to acquire critical thinking skills usually does so IN SPITE OF their schooling... not BECAUSE of it. (Note: I am aware that there are exceptions to this blanket assertion... and that there some fine public schools that DO teach critical thinking skills. But, in the broader scope, they ARE exceptions.)

"I never let my schooling get in the way of my education." ~ Mark Twain

There have been around 40 studies over the past 80 years which revel a statistically significant INVERSE correlation between intelligence and religiosity... in other words, the LESS intelligent a person is, the MORE likely that person is to harbor supernatural (religious) beliefs. Conversely, the MORE intelligent a person is, the LESS likely that person is to harbor religious beliefs.

But I think that we are misled by the word 'intelligence'. That steers us away from what the IQ tests are REALLY measuring... critical thinking ability.... or, at least. the POTENTIAL for it.

Think of the 'Bell Curve' which shows the distribution of measured IQ. The average IQ (center of the curve) is 100. We are generally conditioned to think that anybody from 80 - on - up is pretty much OK (functional), intelligence-wise, and that anybody below 70 is 'retarded'.

When we get into the 3rd and 4th deviation above average on the IQ scale, we find that VERY FEW people harbor 'beliefs' pertaining to the supernatural... and it is only when we get into the 2nd deviation ABOVE average that we start to see a significant (statistical) decline in 'belief'.

From MY observations, the CAPACITY (potential) for learning critical thinking skills does not seem to reliably express itself until you get up around an IQ of 125 - 130 or so... but having the POTENTIAL, one still must LEARN the skills... so there are a lot of FAIRLY smart people who DO NOT know how to think critically... although they COULD if they learned the skills. One could even say that if we were evaluating this in terms of critical thinking potential, then everybody under 125... not 70... is pretty much a dumbass. (I expect to get accused of some sort of egotism, snobbery or elitism, right about here. Please... don't bother. I know how it sounds.)

While it took me decades to figure this out (or not... I could be wrong), religious leaders seem to have been aware it all along... and they have been taking advantage, being careful NOT to focus their efforts on "the wise." And they take advantage by using sophisticated mental-manipulation techniques that christianity has been developing and refining for the past 1,700 YEARS or so. And GUESS WHAT? These techniques WORK! Evidence?... well, how about the fact that around 85% of our adult population is bug-nuts? Might THAT be a clue?

"There is on earth among all dangers no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason... Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and ... know nothing but the word of God."~ Martin Luther (Works Vol. 12)

Religious 'shepherds' KNOW that their 'flock' (sheeple) are scientifically ignorant and incapable of critical thinking... because they've been PROGRAMMED to be ignorant. They KNOW that they are suspicious of 'scientific' sources, and find them to be intimidating and incomprehensible... why?... because they've been CONDITIONED to distrust them. These puppet-masters KNOW that their flock (victims) will seek their 'knowledge' from 'trusted' sources... these very-same lying, misrepresenting, manipulating puppet-masters! When the sheeple hear things like 'scientists claim that humans and apes shared a common ancestor, in the distant past', they experience 'cognitive dissonance'... this information is in conflict with the 'truth' that they have believed for their whole lives. So... where do they go to get this cognitive dissonance resolved?... Scientists?... NO! They go to their 'trusted' sources... the sources who KNOW that they have been taught WHAT to think... they have not been taught HOW to think. Sources who KNOW that they can lie, obfuscate, misrepresent WITH IMPUNITY... with absolutely NO RISK that their minions will seek out independent, peer-reviewed corroborating information. On the web, do they seek out the Smithsonian for insight and commentary?... Scientific American?... Nature?... Columbia University?... NO. They go to answersingenesis.com.

People... there is an INDUSTRY (Christianity) whose BUSINESS it is to create whole generations of adults who are, at once, gullibile, irrational, willfully ignorant, self-deluded, intellectually dishonest, droolingly stupid and hypocritical... and willing to tithe 10% for the privledge of having their cognitive dissonance held in check through regular doses of pious and holy BS.

They do their jobs very well indeed... as can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xKDKq_PPbk&mode=related&search=

Here's the key thing to understand... a 'truism'...

1) religious 'belief'... the internalized certainty that specified myths, superstitions and fairy-tales are congruent with 'reality' CANNOT WITHSTAND the glaring light of knowledge, reason and 'critical thinking'.

2) over 85% of adult Americans profess religious 'belief'

3) THEREFORE, at least 85% of adult Americans have not applied critical thinking to their religious 'beliefs'. Why? Well... mostly... because they CAN'T.

OK... get this... a recap. Around 85% of the adult population of the USA is delusional... and that is a brand of insanity. So... something that can be said to account for 85% of ANYTHING can be said to define what is 'normal'. So... in the USA... insanity is NORMAL... rational is ABNORMAL... and the inmates are running the asylum... and the inmate gang leaders have access to and control over the most sophisticated arsenal on the planet... and they think that they are the 'good guys'... and they think that they are on a mission from god, charged with establishing the conditions here on earth that are foretold to presage the second coming of Christ... and they think that within a generation or two they're gonna get sucked up into heaven... Hallelujah! They don't have to worry about the national debt... because there's not gonna be anybody around to collect it. They're not worried about the environment and global warming... because in a little while, Jesus is go make 'em a NEW earth... where they'll have ring-side seats from which to gloat while all of us heretics, apostates and heathens fry.

I'd say THAT is a cause for grave concern... wouldn't you?

“My responsibility is to follow the Scriptures which call upon us to occupy the land until Jesus returns.” ~ James Watt, Former (US) Secretary of Interior, Washington Post, May 24, 1981

“We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand.” ~ James Watt, Former (US) Secretary of Interior, Washington Post, May 24, 1981

So... remembering that this is all speculation, and based entirely upon personal observation and SWAGs... no study involved. But... what if this is TRUE?... or even A LITTLE BIT true? How would this affect the way in which concerned atheists are now approaching this problem?... this conversation?

Thanks for keeping rationality in the forefront of philosophical dialogue. Only when people cease to accept religion's "mysterious ways" and realize they are worthy and capable without godly intervention will humans really feel their worth and potential. As for a god that loves us:
- why does he not love the more than 3,000,000 children who die of hunger and disease each year?
- why does "he save" one person in a calamity while countless others die? When the survivor says he was saved by god, does god "love" that person more?
- why are wars and natural calamities (aka acts of God) not mitigated? Does he really not care? Where is he? Where is the love?
- Why do otherwise intelligent people believe in something that has no more validity than the tooth fairy or Santa Claus? Why don't people think???

Oh, yeah - one more thing.

I meant to add that I wish that MORE people would read the Bible. I mean, REALLY read the Bible. If they did, I suspect that there's be far fewer Christians if they actually knew what their 'good book' says (see Brian S, above).

@George: What you're proposing is that, lacking any evidence - as you freely admit - for forming such an assumption as belief in gods, that it is reasonable to believe as there is likewise no evidence (which I dispute) that they do not. You apparently are not familiar with the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

www.veganza.org

Quick summary: You can't PROVE that I have not been touched by his noodly appendage. Therefore, it is reasonable for me to continue to worship him as it brings me great joy and satifaction and, by professing my belief, I am guaranteed an afterlife of beer volcanoes and stripper factories. I mean, no one's ever proven that his Noodly Goodness is all in my head...

Pope: Sunday Worship a "Necessity" For All
September 17, 2007 | From theTrumpet.com

Pope Benedict XVI says your life depends upon worshiping on Sunday.

"Sine dominico non possumus!" "Without Sunday [worship] we cannot live!" Pope Benedict xvi declared during a mass on September 9 at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna.

Speaking on the final day of his three-day visit to Austria, the German pope voiced a strong call for Christians to revive Sunday keeping as an all-important religious practice.

"Give the soul its Sunday, give Sunday its soul," he chanted before a rain-soaked crowd of 40,000.

Benedict said that Sunday, which he stated has its origin as "the day of the dawning of creation," was "also the church's weekly feast of creation."

Warning against the evils of allowing Sunday to become just a part of the weekend, the pope said people needed to have a spiritual focus during the first day of the week, or else leisure time would just become wasted time.

Sunday worship, he warned, was not just a "precept" to be casually adhered to, but a "necessity" for all people.

In the opening greeting, the archbishop of Vienna said a movement in Austria had been initiated to protect "Sunday from tendencies to empty [it] of its meaning."

In Austria, most businesses are restricted from operating on Sunday. However, some business groups are pressuring the government to be allowed to open, a move Roman Catholic groups vehemently oppose.

During Benedict's trip to Austria, he called for Europe to look to its Christian roots, to trust in God and to defend traditional values.

The pope has been very vocal about Europe's Christian-or Catholic-roots, and is pushing to have them included in the European Constitution. Although laws concerning Sunday worship are currently determined by individual nations, look for the European Union to eventually gain jurisdiction over the work week-which is one big reason the Catholic Church is so intimately involved with the evolution of the EU. For more on the Catholic Church and Europe, read "The Pope Trumpets Sunday" by the Trumpet's editor in chief. .

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

"Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come (the return of Christ), except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exaltheth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." 2 Thessalonians 2:3,4

"If protestants would follow the Bible, they should worship God on the Sabbath Day. In keeping the Sunday they are following a law of the Catholic Church."--Albert Smith, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, replying for the cardinal in a letter of Feb. 10, 1920.

Does the Papacy acknowledge changing the seventh-day Sabbath? It does. The Catechismus Romanus was commanded by the Council of Trent and published by the Vatican Press, by order of Pope Pius V, in 1566. This catechism for the priests says: "It pleased the church of God, that the religious celebration of the Sabbath day should be transferred to 'the Lord's day.'--Catechism of the Council of Trent (Donovan's translation, 1867), part 3, chap. 4, p. 345. The same, in slightly different wording is in the McHugh and Callan translation (1937 ed.), p. 402. "Question: How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and holydays? "Answer: By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same Church."--Henry Tuberville, An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine (1833 approbation), p. 58. (Same statement in Manual of Christian Doctrine, ed. by Daniel Ferris {1916 ed.}, p. 67.) "Question: Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept? "Answer: Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her; she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority." Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism (3d ed.), p. 174. "The Catholic Church,...by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday."--The Catholic Mirror, official organ of Cardinal Gibbons, Sept. 23, 1893. "Question: Is Saturday the 7th day according to the Bible & the Ten Commandments? Answer: I answer yes. "Question: Is Sunday the first day of the week & did the Church change the 7th day--Saturday--for Sunday, the 1st day: Answer: "I answer yes." "Question: Did Christ change the day? Answer: I answer no! Faithfully yours, "J. Card. Gibbons"--Gibbons autograph letter.

"But in vain they do worship me, teaching for the doctrines the commandments of men." Matthew 15:9

Receiving the mark of the beast or the seal of God in the mind or the hand is not a literal "mark" to be put on our foreheads or our hand but it is our consent to whom we will obey. "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey? Romans 6:16

Regarding Steve Cornell's post... Wow. You said so many things that need to be refuted that I'm sure I could spend all day typing. But since I don't want to waste my day off I will keep it short. Where to begin?

The picture you paint of an atheists existence is dreary, but that is not a description of my life. I find being an atheist to be very life affirming, and if you're curious why you can read my reasoning here: http://www.helium.com/tm/595503/atheist-because-believe-precious

You suggest that logic will inevitably lead one to religion and that the atheist must somehow deny the obvious truth of YOUR religion. That's a different argument, I must admit, a real knee slapper. I say "YOUR" religion on purpose, for even if we had to admit that there has to be a god, how do we know which god to choose? You do realize that there are just as many Muslims as Christians, and they deny the ultimate truth of your religion as easily as you dismiss theirs. Why do you believe in the miracles of Jesus and not Mohammed? Is it because your magic book (the bible) says it is true and all other faiths are not? News flash: their magic book (the Koran) makes the same claim, with similar lack of proof. Oh dear, I guess millions of people have got it wrong either way, since both of them cannot be true. I assume that this doesn't worry you in the slightest, but it really should.

You really need to read more of Sam's articles if you honestly think that the atheistic position is arrogant. Consider the fairy tale-esque claims that you make and believe: Once upon a time an all powerful Santa Claus created the entire universe, and he made it all so he could create man (don't forget the vain claim that we are created in his image) and that he cares about you and listens to your prayers and watches over you and all humans at all times. Humans apparently are the only things that really matter in the entire universe. If you worship him you will live forever and ever. The end. If you can't see how arrogant and fantastic these thoughts are, well then I'm afraid you are either really stupid (which I don't think you are) or are desperately hanging on to these beliefs because you have invested so much of your life in them and you are scared of how meaningless your life would be without them (this is the far more probable explanation)

In either case, I wish you well and hope that if you remain faithful you choose to concentrate on the many positive aspects of religion as opposed to the evil aspects that it can foster.

Catma is better than dogma!

I have asked many believers if they had read the bible, as to date I can only recall 2 who have..? I have also asked them to listen carefully to what televangelist say and why to get a point across they have to refer to several different verses. I'm not too good at expressing myself and I'm very happy to have come across this site, it is invaluble when I find it nessesary to defend myself for being rational. Thank-You

Witty and true

Proof of my point

How to believe in "Politics" instead of "God"

1. First, you must want to believe in Politics.
2. Next, understand that believing in Politics in the absence of evidence is especially noble.
3. Then, realize that the human ability to believe in Politics in the absence of evidence might itself constitute evidence for the existence of Politics.
4. Now consider any need for further evidence (both in yourself and in others) to be a form of temptation, spiritually unhealthy, or a corruption of the intellect.
5. Refer to steps 2-4 as acts of “Government.”
6. Return to 2.

Now replace the world "God" with any word you want to choose that humans have belief in, and are also accepted reality's by people like Sam, Drugs, Sports, T.V. We all know that none of these cult like belief systems offer any real solution to our modern day problems, but instead plagues us with it's falsehoods. Still we believe.

Mother

@ Patrick, Steve Cornell:

Are you freaking serious? Did you actually read what Mr. Harris or many of the commenters have written? You both need to go out and see the world. The Missing Links aren't missing (please - no more archaeopteryx BS!) and, please both of you, crack another book - any other book - and see for yourself who's denying "the validity of historical proof". Is there some proof that your god, the god of Abraham, exists? Is some body of evidence that I, and apparently millions of others, have overlooked that demostrates that Jesus was born to a virgin or that Noah gathered all the critters, two-by-two, and herded them onto a 450 foot-long boat (never mind, for the moment that some species require more than two genders and some don't require that another of your species be involved at all!) to ride out a 40 day storm that flooded the entire Earth? Of course there isn't. We have nothing to go on other than your Bible's say-so. And, of course, that whole "Judge not..." thingy doesn't seem to apply when a Christian talks about what atheists think and feel, eh? Believe in miracles? Suppress moral judgement? What a load of bullocks!

As for suppressing all notions of morality, Steve, does your Bible come already marked up like a used college text book that identifies the morality value of each statement? Does yours say "Thou shalt not kill" **This is a good moral rule; OBEY it always!** and "If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother... Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones." **okay, not so swell; DISREGARD!**? I am almost certain that it does not come so marked. So, Steve, answer me this: Who actually decides which verses are relevant and reasonable in our modern world and which are, well, part of the culture of an ancient goat-herding, animal sacrificing, misogynistic bunch of nomads? It's humans who decide that, Steve. People decide what's right and wrong, and they always have.

Come on, Steve. Who's more competently supressing logic here, huh? Who's living with the "arrogance of his position"? Man is no more a less an animal than any other. Only by our heightened sense of self-improtance are we superior any other animals. God didn't make man in his own image. Man made god in his own image.

Your Bible has no power here. Be gone!

Steve Cornell, oh it is sad how you've decided to lower the veil over your eyes. Your arguments are all typical christian reponses to atheism, and they've all been debunked. I'm sure you'll get great responses to all of your arguments here. I'd like to just speak to a few of them.

It's absolutely ridiculous that you associate morality as a product of religion, and specifically, in your case, Christianity. How ridiculous! If you read the Bible, you should be morally ok with all of the following:

rape of women
genocide
slavery
stoning of children for bad behavior
etc., etc., etc........the list goes on and on.

Let me ask you, do you think all of these things are morally right? Do you think that it was wrong to free the slaves in America?

If you think these things morally reprehensible, then your sense of morality does not come from religion!!! It comes from outside of it. I'm sad to say that if we took our standards for morality from the Bible, we would be living in a dreadfully awful world that could be describe only as being completely IMMORAL!!!

Now, lets look at this comment from you:
"The atheist must also live with the arrogance of his position. Although he realizes that he does not possess total knowledge, his assertion that there is no God requires that he pretend such knowledge. Although he has limited experience, he must convince himself that he has total experience so that he can eliminate the possibility of God. It is not easy to hold the arrogant assertions required by atheism in a society that requires blind tolerance of every ideology."

Atheists do NOT claim to possess total knowledge. I don't know of any that do. That is completely not in line with science. Science is based on KNOWN facts and theories based on evidence collected. Theories are always open to being refined based on new evidence and facts. An atheist viewpoint is also of this nature.

What is arrogant is exactly the opposite: your viewpoint that you claim to KNOW that god does exist when it is absolutely clear that it cannot be known for sure. Your stance is the arrogant one.

Here is the stance of the atheist: Your Christian god is false. The Jewish Yaweh is false. The Muslim Allah is false. The (insert theist religion created by man) (insert the name of their god) is false!!!

Maybe you should look up a few key terms: theism, deism, pantheism. We are all saying that there is SUBSTANTIAL evidence in conflict with each of these man-made religions. You Christians seem to be completely incapable of conprehending this fact: first, your concept of god is not the only one out there, and second, inanswerable questions about the universe (specifically it's origins), even IF they suggested something must have caused the big bang or created matter, it does NOT verify the correctness of Christianity or prove the existence of YOUR "god." The two statements are completely independent.

Anything that falls under the heading of theism is what atheists, by definition, are opposed to. Deism is another story. Go look it up.

Why would any human want to willingly and passionately invest in an activity that creates "reduced self-awareness and diminished contact with reality".....

Why indeed? What other activities do humans whole heartedly participate in that mirror this?

Politics, Relationships, Sports and Drugs to name some others, add them to religion and you have western humanities favorite pastimes. They all promise salvation of some form or another, salvation from a human world out of human control.

Are these activities a result of religion, a cause of religion?

Why does Sam single religion out and yet ignore parallel realities that cripple our ability to "be real" Politics is one of the biggest sham pseudo faith activities we collectively engage in. Supposedly, if we vote(like prayer) our votes/prayers will be answered. Supposedly if we choose the winning team, somehow, we become the winners, from our couches, more likely than not taking Drugs and eating ourselves to death.

Even while we loose, our vote is denied as expressed by our politicians ignorance of it, we loose our game, every game has loosers, and while playing with drugs, we find a loosing game that more people practice with belief and conviction of a better life experience than even religion.

Who is your team? Democrats, Steelers, Christians, Budweiser, what stock are you invested in that will set you free, in a world filled with lost freedoms?

Really our entire functioning reality mimics the exact same principles that Sam singles out and favors as especially rotten in religion. The one fact that makes Sam's argument mute, there is no reality that differs from it to compare it to. There truly is no other way to be human than the exact way we are all being human. We can flounder around lying to ourselves that someone, some scientist, some politician, some doctor or some drug can offer different, some philosopher has it different. All we have to do is believe it is so, against a world of evidence that it is not.

What body of belief is leading Sam to himself act so ignorant? Atheism, a lack of belief in God???

Is Sams' salvation from his own blindness possibly the very thing he claims is not real????? What is real anyways and who decided the steps of confirmation for science and reality??? Men who have escaped our religious beginnings? Or men who have rewritten our religion and called it science to grab a slot in the spotlight of human valuation???

Perhaps God has the last laugh because Sams evidence up against all the actual evidence staring us all in our disbelieving faces, is proof that he is wrong, always wrong.

This is what religion, our psychology has left us with, a biological fact that we are all living examples of. Deny your reality to create your reality. Denial as tool lost as tool to reality.

This particular stumbling block cannot be ridiculed out of our lives by imagining it exists out of our lives. This is how God himself was created.

Mother

Under "six easy steps on how to believe in God" Sam Harris writes: First, you must want to believe in God.
2. Next, understand that believing in God in the absence of evidence is especially noble.
3. Then, realize that the human ability to believe in God in the absence of evidence might itself constitute evidence for the existence of God.

Excuse me, but isn't belief in (a) God and belief that there is no such thing as (a) God (outside of supersition) two sides of the same coin? Aren't both based on unprovable premises? Wouldn't it be more logical to state that no one really KNOWS the answer to either premis AT THIS POINT, because we lack any real evidence of either, though both sides can cite make inferences from experience as "evidence" in either direction.

Sorry, but I don't think that either side in this debate has a very strong case "on the evidence".

As for Sam's comments about the frequently negative history of religion, I agree with what he has to say. And go on to say that I have the same things to say about politics.

Under "six easy steps on how to believe in God" Sam Harris writes: First, you must want to believe in God.
2. Next, understand that believing in God in the absence of evidence is especially noble.
3. Then, realize that the human ability to believe in God in the absence of evidence might itself constitute evidence for the existence of God.

Excuse me, but isn't belief in (a) God and belief that there is no such thing as (a) God (outside of supersition) two sides of the same coin? Aren't both based on unprovable premises? Wouldn't it be more logical to state that no one really KNOWS the answer to either premis AT THIS POINT, because we lack any real evidence of either, though both sides can cite make inferences from experience as "evidence" in either direction.

Sorry, but I don't think that either side in this debate has a very strong case "on the evidence".

As for Sam's comments about the frequently negative history of religion, I agree with what he has to say. And go on to say that I have the same things to say about politics.

Under "six easy steps on how to believe in God" Sam Harris writes: First, you must want to believe in God.
2. Next, understand that believing in God in the absence of evidence is especially noble.
3. Then, realize that the human ability to believe in God in the absence of evidence might itself constitute evidence for the existence of God.

Excuse me, but isn't belief in (a) God and belief that there is no such thing as (a) God (outside of supersition) two sides of the same coin? Aren't both based on unprovable premises? Wouldn't it be more logical to state that no one really KNOWS the answer to either premis AT THIS POINT, because we lack any real evidence of either, though both sides can cite make inferences from experience as "evidence" in either direction.

Sorry, but I don't think that either side in this debate has a very strong case "on the evidence".

Well argued and eloquent as usual, but I'm left feeling as always that it's all really self-evident. So why don't the Mumbo-Jumbologists get it? I guess it's because the 6 steps actually work, and in failing to hear what you say, the aforementioned MJ's prove you right.

I feel futility setting in.

Sam, will you be my dad? Sure I'm older than you, but I need you to come and beat up my coworkers who are delirious and delusional and dysfunctional in the worst way, with their miracles and gods and demons and all. Help!

I agree with Peter Gluck that religions serve as life organizers for people. I don't believe in supernatural phenomena but I do believe we need ways to celebrate births, deaths, coming of age and the passing of seasons and years. We need a mainstream secular alternative to things such as baptisms and bar mitzvahs that allow us to celebrate the events of life without pandering to the irrational.

I agree with Peter Gluck that religions serve as life organizers for people. I don't believe in supernatural phenomena but I do believe we need ways to celebrate births, deaths, coming of age and the passing of seasons and years. We need a mainstream secular alternative to things such as baptisms and bar mitzvahs that allow us to celebrate the events of life without pandering to the irrational.

I agree with Peter Gluck that religions serve as life organizers for people. I don't believe in supernatural phenomena but I do believe we need ways to celebrate births, deaths, coming of age and the passing of seasons and years. We need a mainstream secular alternative to things such as baptisms and bar mitzvahs that allow us to celebrate the events of life without pandering to the irrational.

Educated as an economist I definitely like this idea of a market of irrationality where you can swap ideas and avoid criticism (and simply enjoy the empty praise you get).

I think the article should have explored this powerful model much more instead of a, I'm sorry, rather cheap six-step ladder to God.

Thinking of this market again I would point to politics as well as one such market somewhat riddled with faith-capital. It has long seemed to me that once you get a large enough group of like-minded people together who are soooo into their ideology they simply begin to fail to think critically. It's like the choice is always this: 1. Use discomforting (self-)criticism and get wiser or 2. say exactly what the in-group has decided that we reward each other for and gain social capital and instant praise and all without the hang-over of critical thinking.

The War on Drugs comes to mind...

If Ignorance is Bliss, tis Folly to be Wise

as my dear departed mother used to say (wait - I''m departed too, arent I. and let me tell you, there is nothing out here).

Yes, religion comforts the bereft. That is nice.

Does it matter whether there is actually a God who comforts us or if it is just an illusion?

Big question, eh. My buddy Sigmund wrote "the future of an illusion." we'll see. um.

JK ("science is also a religion" X 4) masterfully demonstrates how man-made rhetorical devices are used by the faithful to validate their (man-made) religious beliefs.

Simply put, the religious gather in pep rallies to reverberate such rhetorical devices with one another ( "science is a religion, too", Pascal's wager, "there exists no transitional species", "the Soviet Union was atheistic", "that was the OLD Testament, silly!", to name only a few of the millions available) and reaffirm their faith. Time spent attempting to research and validate these devices is put to far better use listening to Betty's 3-yr old niece sing Jesus Loves Me.

After slamming a few Advil to fend off the ill-effects of a 2-hour "power-nodding" session, they return to public life -- renewed in their beliefs, re-energized and bearing full clips of rhetorical ammo -- to wax idiotic upon the masses.

JK, via his near-supernatural mastery of copy/paste/submit/repeat, has demonstrated this mass-regurgitation technique for us with aplomb. Reminds me of Beaker from the Muppets.

Mr. Sam Harris;

I agree with you. But religion is based on human need. It may be in our genes too. Ther may be a God gene in most people. Religion consoles people when their loved ones die. Ofcourse Religion not based on reason. If it is based on reason it couldn't be called religion.

So asking people to become athiests doesn't work. But we can point out violence committed in the name of religions of the middle east origin i.e. Judaism, Christianity and especially Islam. Religions like Hinduism, buddhism, Jainism don't have a history of violence. No scripture of these religions supports violence. Christ was one person who was born in middle east and was non violent. Every other prophet of middle east was violent and Muhammad was the most violent.

So we can plead with the leaders of Judaism and Islam to delete the verses or chapters that advocate violence. Wothout eliminating them we can't have peace.

Reddy

Mr. Harris

Please clarify "This is not how our minds work." I understand that there is at least one mechanism for irrational thought processes (e.g. the ever popular “sex drive”)

Further and employing the unproven Cartesian assumption, given the prevalence of religious thought now and in the past, is it not possible that there is at least an organic mechanism and possibly some internal need in the mind that triggers the religious response?

There are people who “fall for religion” and in fact, there are people who are convinced by themselves or by others to commit very heinous deeds in the name of religion. Would it not be fruitful to look at this situation in the same way that a medical doctor might look at an incurable disease?

It is true that (to my knowledge) you have never purported yourself to be Dr. Religion - more of a voice crying in the wilderness (please excuse the expression). However, is it possible that simply attacking religious behavior is tantamount to a doctor blaming the patient for his or her illness?

At the very least, I think we should acknowledge that it is likely that some sort of “religious drive” exists. There is just too much data showing a significant fraction of the human population has a tremendous variety of religious belief.

Conceptually, these various beliefs are likely to have arisen from some common source. Neglecting the historic irony and employing the Franciscan Occam’s Razor again, the most likely source is organic.

I understand that you have personally researched this concept in some manner.

Sam is my Jesus Christ/Muhammed/Insert Prophet Here of the 21st Century.

Steven Cornell, You are just kidding yourself. The first people to worship a god probably worshipped the sun. Man is still here because like the other successful species he has an innate code of behavior. That is part of survival of the fittest. I know you have just misunderstood what I said but that's your problem. Where did you hall up all that gibberish from? You pulled it off some web site didn't you? I think I've heard all the arguments before in one form or another. Jesus is history, if he is history what day and year did he die? What day was he born? (clue - they used to celebrate his birthday in January) You probably think that Moses wrote the first three books of the Bible. You probably think that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote the books of the gospel. Get educated Steven. Alexander the Great died on June 10th 323 BCE. Alexander is history. Jesus is myth.

Patrick,

The problem with your argument is the way that you've phrased it: that it is based at the very FIRST step upon assumptions. This is EXACTLY the logic that biblical fundamentalists take while arguing against atheists: they suppose the utter truth of every word in the Bible and base all arguements going forward based on quotes from that book.

Anything string of logic based on a first assumption is incorrect going forward, no matter if the subsequent steps are logical and pass the test of scientific scrutiny.

You bring up good general points, however, regarding certain aspects of the universe that just cannot be known. Why is there any matter rather complete nothingness?

I don't think any atheist would claim to know these answers and leaves room for the unknown in these cases.

What Sam is attacking is theism. I think most atheists and all agnostics leave the room open for some unknowns in the universe. Could they be explained by a higher power? Possibly. Could they be explained by a string of logic or a scientific theory yet to be worked out? Possibly? Could this world and universe simply be a huge computer simulation of an even high level of reality programmed by a higher being in another universe or dimension? Well, that is possible too, as it cannot be disproven.

I think most rational agnostics and atheists leave room open for the unknown. Sam is attacking theism, which is horrible and malicious in every incarnation. I think he's rational enough to leave deism and pantheism out of the debate.

With all due respect to Sam Harris, who wrote a book I carefully read, and who is far more intelligent than I am, I am forced to note that perhaps Mr. Harris is too intelligent to understand the common man. His opening sentence is "Reason is a compulsion, not a choice." This is true for some people but not the majority. The majority of people "feel" things; they don't use "reason" at all - ever. For example, the people who are said to believe in God "feel" that he exists and are supported by the knowledge that they are one of a vast crowd. H.L. Mencken claimed that virtually all people are not merely ignorant but credulous and superstitious to a degree that is almost impossible for the very, very small number of genuinely intelligent people to understand. Mr. Harris is in that very, very small number. He reasons and assumes that many others do also. He is wrong.

Another excellent article Sam. Thanks for the contribution.

Jimbo, you made my day with your comments.

"Read and weep witches."

hahaha rofl - love it!

Sorry about the multiple post! I was just finished wondering what was wrong with these foolish people and why they were so technically inept... and now I see my last post in multiplicity!

Another case for tolerance!

Steve Harris does a good job of describing the side effects of religion, but he misses the evolution based understanding the social primates known as humans. If humans have religion and engage in related "violent, irrational, intolerant," etc. behavior it's because in the "environment of evolutionary adaptiveness" those behaviors paid off in terms of gene survival.

Now conditions in the stone age were far from uniform. When facing bleak times and starvation, wars to take over the next tribe's resources made sense to a warriors genes because _even if he got killed_, his relatives who shared his genes had a better chance to survive and reproduce. But in conditions of plenty it would be maladaptive for genes to fight wars with neighbors.

So, like the genes that induce ducks to fly south in the fall, humans can be assumed to have genes to switch their mental state to "war mode" when they detect that war is best for their genes. (Or rather was in our long gone hunter-gatherer days.)

If you wonder why religions flourish in bad times and wither in good, it's because religions are the present manifestation of the xenophobic memes that motivated our tribal ancestors to kill neighbors when they could see "bad times a-coming." Think of them as seed xenophobic memes.

If you think wars and related such as terrorism are a bad idea, then keeping the population growth below the economic growth is a way out. It's the reason Western Europe has seen so few wars since WW II. It's the reason the IRA went out of business and it's the reason the mid east is an intractable problem.

There is more if you Google my name, origin, memes war.

Keith Henson
(or there is a link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Henson

(To Mandy Ng's point about "spiritual support systems" and Peter Gluck's declaration that religion is the only viable life-organizer):

Often comments by "The Big Three" heroes of atheism (Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, all of whom I admire immensely for their attempts at removing religion the foundation for conducting communal life and implementing intelligent public policy), can paint a grim picture of tribalism.

I point to the works of Daniel Quinn (Ishmael, The Story of B, My Ishmael) as eloquent reminders that it is precisely in a tribal construct that humans evolved... and that the tribe endured for millions of years because it was a successful way... perhaps THE successful way for man to be organized.

Within a tribe, members received cradle-to-grave security. The "business" of the tribe was tending to its needs... providing service to the community. We have replaced this with a product-oriented arrangement, where even care for children and elderly parents may be purchased.

This is not to say that tribal life was ideal, or that its members were beyond reproach. But compare it to our current construct, which promotes nothing remotely like tribal security.

Perhaps in their demeaning comments about tribalism, they refer to the skirmishes, or the "us-and-them" aspects of that arrangement (as if we have advanced beyond these!). But these skirmishes were simply ways of marinating balance between people's who were competing for commonly needed resources. They never amounted to anything like genocidal extermination... were nothing compared to our wars. A tribe would never think of "converting" a member of another tribe to their way. Tribes never thought of their way of life as being anything other than the way that worked best for them.

We may never be able to reconstruct anything similar to the organizational structure within which we evolved, but we should at least recognize that it was a) evolutionarily stable and b) did not result in the atrocities that define this current one.

I find Sam Harris's books and articles to be an inspiring and noble endeavor to fight ignorance and the irrational belief of the worlds religions which are too numerous to mention. Just think with over 28,000 religions world wide and supposing one of them to be "the one true religion" what are your odds of selecting that one true religion?

(To Mandy Ng's point about "spiritual support systems" and Peter Gluck's declaration that religion is the only viable life-organizer):

Often comments by "The Big Three" heroes of atheism (Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, all of whom I admire immensely for their attempts at removing religion the foundation for conducting communal life and implementing intelligent public policy), can paint a grim picture of tribalism.

I point to the works of Daniel Quinn (Ishmael, The Story of B, My Ishmael) as eloquent reminders that it is precisely in a tribal construct that humans evolved... and that the tribe endured for millions of years because it was a successful way... perhaps THE successful way for man to be organized.

Within a tribe, members received cradle-to-grave security. The "business" of the tribe was tending to its needs... providing service to the community. We have replaced this with a product-oriented arrangement, where even care for children and elderly parents may be purchased.

This is not to say that tribal life was ideal, or that its members were beyond reproach. But compare it to our current construct, which promotes nothing remotely like tribal security.

Perhaps in their demeaning comments about tribalism, they refer to the skirmishes, or the "us-and-them" aspects of that arrangement (as if we have advanced beyond these!). But these skirmishes were simply ways of marinating balance between people's who were competing for commonly needed resources. They never amounted to anything like genocidal extermination... were nothing compared to our wars. A tribe would never think of "converting" a member of another tribe to their way. Tribes never thought of their way of life as being anything other than the way that worked best for them.

We may never be able to reconstruct anything similar to the organizational structure within which we evolved, but we should at least recognize that it was a) evolutionarily stable and b) did not result in the atrocities that define this current one.

Th reason we are getting multiple posts is because the blog engine is really slow. Just click once to post and wait patiently.

(To Mandy Ng's point about "spiritual support systems" and Peter Gluck's declaration that religion is the only viable life-organizer):

Often comments by "The Big Three" heroes of atheism (Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, all of whom I admire immensely for their attempts at removing religion the foundation for conducting communal life and implementing intelligent public policy), can paint a grim picture of tribalism.

I point to the works of Daniel Quinn (Ishmael, The Story of B, My Ishmael) as eloquent reminders that it is precisely in a tribal construct that humans evolved... and that the tribe endured for millions of years because it was a successful way... perhaps THE successful way for man to be organized.

Within a tribe, members received cradle-to-grave security. The "business" of the tribe was tending to its needs... providing service to the community. We have replaced this with a product-oriented arrangement, where even care for children and elderly parents may be purchased.

This is not to say that tribal life was ideal, or that its members were beyond reproach. But compare it to our current construct, which promotes nothing remotely like tribal security.

Perhaps in their demeaning comments about tribalism, they refer to the skirmishes, or the "us-and-them" aspects of that arrangement (as if we have advanced beyond these!). But these skirmishes were simply ways of marinating balance between people's who were competing for commonly needed resources. They never amounted to anything like genocidal extermination... were nothing compared to our wars. A tribe would never think of "converting" a member of another tribe to their way. Tribes never thought of their way of life as being anything other than the way that worked best for them.

We may never be able to reconstruct anything similar to the organizational structure within which we evolved, but we should at least recognize that it was a) evolutionarily stable and b) did not result in the atrocities that define this current one.

You have enriched my life with an 'unbearable lightness of being' feeling which comes when I hear what I know to be truth. Having recently attended a Catholic wedding where the service included a long prayer during which attendees were expected to hold their right arm out in the style of a nazi salute. I did it with great reluctance while fighting off a desire to laugh out loud. Ever since I've been thinking about just how people of good intentions could follow such a direction. Maybe there is a Nazi/Catholic cult in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania?

It is important to preach to the choir. A large number of people are interested in the very fact that there is a choir here to be preached to. It is wonderful that Sam and Christopher and Daniel are smart and bright and brave enough to remind and educate us. And hurray for all the other responders too.
Rationalism and Humanism are important philosophical alternatives faith. However, the faith community will, ultimately, fail because of its own internal irrationality and will not be brought down by external attack. If there were no alternative, irrational faith would be the only game in town.

Sam,

Your 6-Step "How To Believe in God" program is the most concise, yet simple, description (recipe) I've read. Well done.

Many thanks,
Matt

The ancient Vikings believed that their gods sprang from the loins of glaciers, a belief that everyone not a Viking in pre-Christian times sees as a quaint but silly belief of a people with an inaccurate view of the world.

Our "modern" religions are just as silly and in the future (if there is one for humanity) our future generations will shake their head over the crazy things 20th. and 21st. century man chose to explain the world. The ancient Vikings had an excuse. They lived in the pre-scientific world. We have none and if we don't change the way we understand the world there is little hope of surviving ourselves.

Sam,

Your 6-Step "How To Believe in God" program is the most concise, yet simple, description (recipe) I've read. Well done.

Many thanks,
Matt

Sam,

Your 6-Step "How To Believe in God" program is the most concise, yet simple, description (recipe) I've read. Well done.

Many thanks,
Matt

Sam,

Your 6-Step "How To Believe in God" program is the most concise, yet simple, description (recipe) I've read. Well done.

Many thanks,
Matt

Sam ends his essay with "Enjoy!" ....?

Gee Sam, that's kinda creepy. Perhaps you meant that effect :)

My point is, if 50% of Americans believe God created humans roughly 10,000 years ago,* and this group of people is a critical voting bloc, our country is in for a rough ride. No wonder these people deny and do not fear global warming, they have faith that Jesus will come back and take the believers back to Heaven while infidels Sam and the rest of us suffer here in the swelter of their smokey sooty polluted hulk on an earth. Our political leaders of both parties are groveling in front of this pack of pious predators.

I sure wish Sam, Hitch, and Richard could forge together behind an independant US political party to counter this creepiness.... There's over 10M of us infidels (who are not afraid to admit it). We could vote the issues, not the party.

*http://www.pollingreport.com/science.htm

Sam ends his essay with "Enjoy!" ....?

Gee Sam, that's kinda creepy. Perhaps you meant that effect :)

My point is, if 50% of Americans believe God created humans roughly 10,000 years ago,* and this group of people is a critical voting bloc, our country is in for a rough ride. No wonder these people deny and do not fear global warming, they have faith that Jesus will come back and take the believers back to Heaven while infidels Sam and the rest of us suffer here in the swelter of their smokey sooty polluted hulk on an earth. Our political leaders of both parties are groveling in front of this pack of pious predators.

I sure wish Sam, Hitch, and Richard could forge together behind an independant US political party to counter this creepiness.... There's over 10M of us infidels (who are not afraid to admit it). We could vote the issues, not the party.

*http://www.pollingreport.com/science.htm

As usual a beautifully constructed deconstruction of the irrational. It has been a pleasure to read Mr Harris' words in whichever context they appear but they never ring more true than when juxtaposed with the shallow mumblings of the religious faithful. Long may he continue the fight against unreason.

Sam ends his essay with "Enjoy!" ....?

Gee Sam, that's kinda creepy. Perhaps you meant that effect :)

My point is, if 50% of Americans believe God created humans roughly 10,000 years ago,* and this group of people is a critical voting bloc, our country is in for a rough ride. No wonder these people deny and do not fear global warming, they have faith that Jesus will come back and take the believers back to Heaven while infidels Sam and the rest of us suffer here in the swelter of their smokey sooty polluted hulk on an earth. Our political leaders of both parties are groveling in front of this pack of pious predators.

I sure wish Sam, Hitch, and Richard could forge together behind an independant US political party to counter this creepiness.... There's over 10M of us infidels (who are not afraid to admit it). We could vote the issues, not the party.

*http://www.pollingreport.com/science.htm

Honestly ask oneself without resorting to faith but based on reason: what proof is there for the existence of God? the answer is :NONE

Honestly ask oneself without resorting to faith but based on reason: what proof is there for the existence of God? the answer is :NONE

Not easy to be an Atheist

An atheist assigns himself to life without ultimate purpose. Yes, atheists enjoy many smaller meanings of life– like friendship and love, pleasure and sorrow, Mozart and Plato. But to be consistent with his atheism, he cannot allow for ultimate meaning. Yet, if the atheist is honest, he will admit to feeling that there is something more to existence -something bigger. Someone said, “The blazing evidence for immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution.” According to Scripture, God has, “set eternity in the hearts of men” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). To maintain his position, the atheist must suppress the feeling that there is more to life than what is temporal. But the atheist encounters many other difficulties.

The atheist must also suppress the demands of logic. He is like the man who finds an encyclopedia lying in the woods and refuses to believe it is the product of intelligent design. Everything about the book suggests intelligent cause. But, if he accepted such a possibility, he might be forced to conclude that living creatures composed of millions of DNA-controlled cells (each cell containing the amount of information in an encyclopedia) have an intelligent cause. His controlling bias against God will not allow him to accept this.

Yet, ironically, the atheist has to believe in miracles without believing in God. Why? Well, one law that nature seems to obey is this: whatever begins to exist is caused to exist. The atheist knows that the universe began to exist and since the universe is, according to the atheist, all there is, the very existence of the universe seems to be a colossal violation of the laws of nature (i.e., a miracle). It’s hard to believe in miracles without God.

An atheist must also suppress all notions of morality. He is not able to declare any quality to be morally superior to another. Such admissions require an absolute standard of goodness and duty. Without this, there is no basis for an atheist to declare peace better than war or love better than hate. These are simply alternative choices without moral superiority. The atheist is stuck believing that morality has no claim on you or anyone else.

In fact, the atheist must conclude that evil is an illusion. For there to be evil, there must also be some real, objective standard of right and wrong. But if the physical universe is all there is, there can be no such standard (How could arrangements of matter and energy make judgments about good and evil true?). So, there are no real evils, just violations of human customs or conventions. How hard it would be to think of murderers as merely having bad manners.

The atheist must also live with the arrogance of his position. Although he realizes that he does not possess total knowledge, his assertion that there is no God requires that he pretend such knowledge. Although he has limited experience, he must convince himself that he has total experience so that he can eliminate the possibility of God. It is not easy to hold the arrogant assertions required by atheism in a society that requires blind tolerance of every ideology.

The atheist must also deny the validity of historical proof. If he accepted the standard rules for testing the truth claims of historical documents, he would be forced to accept the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The account of Jesus’ resurrection is strongly validated by standard rules for judging historical accuracy. The extensive manuscript evidence of eyewitnesses to the resurrection is presented in an unbiased, authentic manner. It is the atheist’s anti-supernatural bias that keeps him from allowing history to prove anything.

Finally, the atheist must admit that human beings are not importantly different from other animals. According to the atheist, we are simply the result of blind chance operating on the primordial ooze, and differing from animals by only a few genes. Yet, the wonders of human achievement and the moral dignity we ascribe to human beings just do not fit with the claim that we are no different than the animals. The realities of human creativity, love, reason, and moral value seem to indicate that humans are creatures uniquely made in the image of God.

The atheist’s problem with belief in God is not the absence of evidence but the suppression of it. This is what Sscripture teaches. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:20-22).

Steven W. Cornell,

The six steps seem obvious from the outside looking in, but sadly it takes a certain amount of englightment for folks to be able to look at themselves objectively. I've always equated it to a broad spectrum of information we are bombarded with. Some we obviously don't like to hear, some we do. There's unfortunately a mindset common among the irrational where you bias everything towards the things we want to hear. There can be a tsunami of "bad info", evidence contrary to what we want to hear, but as long as there's a shread of what we do want to hear, no matter how dubious, we'll give it more credit.

This mindset is a fundamental flaw in the ideological extremist.

Agreed. Fear factors: Being social animals, most people fear being considered outside the mainstream. Doing so is to encounter, and fear, loneliness. Quick fix: Flood your life with constant noise; incessant music, TV, text messages, gossiping; the search for company, those of like mind; for crowds at concerts, clubs, rallies, eateries. Become “part of”. Another rallying place: Easy to get to, family-oriented, social, well-dressed, seemingly harmless: the local House of God. Cures loneliness, cures boredom, cures being outside the mainstream. How to join this group? Just go along with what they tell you, as they themselves were. Questions? Answer: faith. Adopt the “Six Easy Steps” in “How to Believe in God”. And pass it on to the kids.

Abraham, the patriarch of 3 of the worlds' major religions, and who reputedly started monotheism, may have actually been the worlds' first atheist. He, by abandoning all religions of his day, turned and walked away from all faith, dogma and beliefs of people in the known world at that time. It is important to remember that his contemporaries made up his entire known world. Therefore not unlike Sam Harris or Christopher Hitchens, he was likely an atheist.

Mandy: The opiate for the masses does, indeed, begin with early age brain washing creating a habit that is nearly impossible to rationalize against. Kind of like eating the Western diet with all that poison at the end of the fork and no nutrition. And then like Rich said above, "...all of these "enlightened" folk, when the chest tightens, the breathing is forced, reach for the phone, dial 911 and hope that someone schooled in evolutionary biology picks up on the other end and can help them." They rely on the technology of that hated science to see them through with invasive surgery and the magic of pills.

I think Sam's comments are easily understood by atheists. I didn't have a problem with them. I really laughed at the Jolie comment because in my wildest dreams I couldn't imagine that she could admire such a substandard person as myself. I don't think Christians, Moslems, or Jews could fully comprehend Sam's comments though. Sam. I think you need to get in their face. Punch holes in the things they believe in for example if we look up Alexander the Great we can see the day he was born and the day he died. If we look up Cyrus we see when he died. If we look up Jesus or Noah that is a different story. They think Jesus was born over a five year period and that he died over a ten year period. There are no dates for Noah but if you use biblical genealogy you can come up with a time.
When you use biblical genealogy you find out the the flood was less than 4500 years ago and everyone should know that the world had many civilizations at that time. According to the Bible we are the children of the guy who invented wine - Noah. How stupid is that? Can you imagine that there are people out there who have spent their entire adult life looking for the ark? Sam has to get tough. He has to say, “Listen up you stupid religious people and admit you are fighting a religious war in the middle east. You have killed over 200,000 with hatred and in the name of your god. You should be ashamed of yourself and the leaders held responsible.“ (not just Bush) Sam you've got to change people's minds because I can't.

Point #3 of the "Six Easy Steps" is golden. Touche.

Just for a moment can we pretend that there actually is a God and that we are not omniscient about the Omniscient?
Ok, this won't injure your rational brains--I promise.
What if religion is a man made construct developed and evolved to try to deal with a Creator that is far beyond our dull minds to understand? And that people have an innate awareness that the Creator is there, but haven't quite evolved to the point where they can interact with Him?
Now let's also pretend for a moment that what we call"logic" and "rationality" and "science" are also man made constructs to soothe our dull, frightened minds into believing that we actually have an understanding of ourselves and our universe. And that logic and rationality and science are all relative and all have presuppositions based on our personal biasis and needs at the moment.
If we are honest we must admitt that the above is entirely possible.
Why can't we proceed on that basis rather than trying to foist this concept of a completely material existence on humanity, especially since we cannot prove materialism?
Is it really that easy to believe that matter created itself ex nihilo?; that there are multiple parallel universes, dark matter and dark energy; that the universe is comprises of "strings"; that black holes suck in everything then deposit it into another universe; that the universe obeys "laws" but there is no law giver; and that despite the lack of evidence we evolved from inorganic chemicals and rocks through a tortuosly slow, purposeless, Greek tragedy of Darwinian chain reactions where we are missing almost all of the links?
Doesn't this also require a lot of faith and wishfull thinking?

It is doubtful that one could name a topic that is more controversial than religion. Yet, unlike any other topic that might be considered for nomination (even those that similarly raise blood-pressure, like racial or gender discrimination, economic oppression or political orientation), it is essentially off-limits as one that may be placed on the table for discussion.

Enter Sam Harris to announce very precisely that this hush-hush, don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy must fall under virulent suspicion and be revoked, and that the universal, unspoken decision to maintain it is made at our own peril. It is time for the tolerant kit-gloves with which we handle religion to come off.

While Dawkins (The God Delusion, The Blind Watchmaker) approaches the topic very scientifically and with a tenacious albeit kindly and polite British tone, Harris is a bit more pugnacious, red-faced and scathing than his UK counterpart – perhaps a better suit to the American audience, which is at the same time less delicate and more religiously fundamental.

If like myself, you agree that there is nothing more detrimental to human thought and behavior than religion, you won’t find it difficult to forgive Harris for his frank and sometimes shocking statements. You may even find yourself cheering loudly with pride and gratitude that someone has finally arrived to champion the cause and fearlessly state what you have long felt.

Three cheers!

Fabulous reasoning and objectivity! No challenge here -- the meaning is crystal clear, as well as crystal pure!

Fabulous reasoning and objectivity! No challenge here -- the meaning is crystal clear, as well as crystal pure!

Fabulous reasoning and objectivity! No challenge here -- the meaning is crystal clear, as well as crystal pure!

Fabulous reasoning and objectivity! No challenge here -- the meaning is crystal clear, as well as crystal pure!

Well done Sam! Keep up the good work! Belief is religious literalism is masturbation.

"All religions are valid, NONE are literal." -Joseph Campbell

Common people need religion/God to lean on emotionally, they (most of them) don't care if it is irrational, they are locked into this "habit" since childhood.
The only way to reduce the spread of unhealthy belief/practice in religion is starting with children: if they are not "forced" to believe in God stuff since early age, they will not believe in any of these things later in life (when they are mature enough to think for themvelves).
And how about providing some kind of "spiritual support" system in society for common people?

As always I love reading articles by Sam Harris. So refreshing to find at least one voice that speaks out for us, the millions, that have been so maligned through the ages, but maybe never more than in this country at this time in its history.

So long as these peddlers of nonsense continue to tell people that they will live "forever", either as the individual they are now (the monotheistic path) or will somehow or someway get their "essence" reabsorbed into Mother Earth or some universal goo (as the Eastern and Pagan religions would have you believe) there will be takers for whatever nonsense is put on the platter of wishful thinking at the Diner of the Deluded.

Yet, all of these "enlightened" folk, when the chest tightens, the breathing is forced, reach for the phone, dial 911 and hope that someone schooled in evolutionary biology picks up on the other end and can help them. Then, after they are all better, they go thank god, the trees, mother earth, Buddha, the good witch of the North or what have you. I think it's the consistency of the atheist's position that bothers most religious people and the fact that, protest as they do, they still partake of the fruits of the very system they are so opposed to. Now that is a contradiction I am still waiting for the religious to reconcile. The usual answer when "the word of god" is shown to be false (Flat, non-moving earth comes to mind): "We just don't believe it anymore and the texts, while once the basis to torture and kill those who may have thought otherwise, are really metaphors and we knew that all along. Just kidding! :)" Given Sam Harris's humorous insights, the wait for a reasoned answer for this sort of behavior will be a long one.

You go, Sam!

Common people need religion/God to lean on emotionally, they (most of them) don't care if it is irrational, they are locked into this "habit" since childhood.
The only way to reduce the spread of unhealthy belief/practice in religion is starting with children: if they are not "forced" to believe in God stuff since early age, they will not believe in any of these things later in life (when they are mature enough to think for themvelves).
And how about providing some kind of "spiritual support" system in society for common people?

As always I love reading articles by Sam Harris. So refreshing to find at least one voice that speaks out for us, the millions, that have been so maligned through the ages, but maybe never more than in this country at this time in its history

Sam,

Well said but, as I have urged you previously,
you are preaching to the choir.

In order to make an effective argument to people
who HAVE INVESTED so much of themselves IN FAITH
they must be made to realize that this WASTE is
the the primary reason they resist ACTING on their DOUBTS.

Best Example: Mother Thressa

Sam, You are too comfortable arguing on this level...To have more impact on the "Faithful"
you've got to go to the next step!!
Encourage them to examine and act upon their
doubts.
Best Regards,

Norm in Boise

Thanks, Sam...

Brilliant analysis. Sam's concluding perpeptual feedback loop is redolent of a kind of reverse zugzwang, a chess term for a situation in which a player would like to make no move at all, since any move will damage his prospects, but in Sam's example serves to enable all kinds of moves, as long as they're not real and in service to faith. What a pleasure to be kindled by Sam's artful logic.

Brilliant analysis. Sam's concluding perpeptual feedback loop is redolent of a kind of reverse zugzwang, a chess term for a situation in which a player would like to make no move at all, since any move will damage his prospects, but in Sam's example serves to enable all kinds of moves, as long as they're not real and in service to faith. What a pleasure to be kindled by Sam's artful logic.

Brilliant analysis. Sam's concluding perpeptual feedback loop is redolent of a kind of reverse zugzwang, a chess term for a situation in which a player would like to make no move at all, since any move will damage his prospects, but in Sam's example serves to enable all kinds of moves, as long as they're not real and in service to faith. What a pleasure to be kindled by Sam's artful logic.

What a pleasure to read such words of common sense. If only all people could think with such a sense of reason and logic. I am amazed every day that the majority of educated people in this country fail to understand the very obvious concepts presented in this piece by Sam Harris.

Brilliant analysis. Sam's concluding perpeptual feedback loop is redolent of a kind of reverse zugzwang, a chess term for a situation in which a player would like to make no move at all, since any move will damage his prospects, but in Sam's example serves to enable all kinds of moves, as long as they're not real and in service to faith. What a pleasure to be kindled by Sam's artful logic.

Brilliant analysis. Sam's concluding perpeptual feedback loop is redolent of a kind of reverse zugzwang, a chess term for a situation in which a player would like to make no move at all, since any move will damage his prospects, but in Sam's example serves to enable all kinds of moves, as long as they're not real and in service to faith. What a pleasure to be kindled by Sam's artful logic.

Sam,

Well said but, as I have urged you previously,
you are preaching to the choir.

In order to make an effective argument to people
who HAVE INVESTED so much of themselves IN FAITH
they must be made to realize that this WASTE is
the the primary reason they resist ACTING on their DOUBTS.

Best Example: Mother Thressa

Sam, You are too comfortable arguing on this level...To have more impact on the "Faithful"
you've got to go to the next step!!
Encourage them to examine and act upon their
doubts.
Best Regards,

Norm in Boise

TRUE BELIEF sez:

"I think an important thing Sam Harris and many other atheists have failed to grasp is the nature of true belief."

Anyone who has read "The End of Faith" could not possibly make that statement. I suggest you get a copy of Mr Harris' book wherein he addresses the issue of "true belief" many times over.

So long as these peddlers of nonsense continue to tell people that they will live "forever", either as the individual they are now (the monotheistic path) or will somehow or someway get their "essence" reabsorbed into Mother Earth or some universal goo (as the Eastern and Pagan religions would have you believe) there will be takers for whatever nonsense is put on the platter of wishful thinking at the Diner of the Deluded.

Yet, all of these "enlightened" folk, when the chest tightens, the breathing is forced, reach for the phone, dial 911 and hope that someone schooled in evolutionary biology picks up on the other end and can help them. Then, after they are all better, they go thank god, the trees, mother earth, Buddha, the good witch of the North or what have you. I think it's the consistency of the atheist's position that bothers most religious people and the fact that, protest as they do, they still partake of the fruits of the very system they are so opposed to. Now that is a contradiction I am still waiting for the religious to reconcile. The usual answer when "the word of god" is shown to be false (Flat, non-moving earth comes to mind): "We just don't believe it anymore and the texts, while once the basis to torture and kill those who may have thought otherwise, are really metaphors and we knew that all along. Just kidding! :)" Given Sam Harris's humorous insights, the wait for a reasoned answer for this sort of behavior will be a long one.

You go, Sam!

Sam Harris for President!! How refreshing it would be to finally have a president grounded in science, logic and reason. A president who uses thoughtful analysis to make the policy decisions that effect the whole world. And, by the way, the Democrats aren't off the hook for this either. There isn't one major candidate running today in either party who doesn't pander to some degree to religous voters. How refreshing it would be to have a candidate state firmly that religious considerations would not under any circumstances enter into their decision making process. That facts, not magical thinking would steer policy.

How I would love to oneday be able to vote for someone brave enough to have as their campaign slogan something along the lines of "Facts...Not Fairytales" or "It's Our Country, Let's Be Smart About It" or "Religion Has No Place In Government". Ah well...probably not in my lifetime, and unfortunately I am quite young...

And, JK, science is the furthest thing from religion. One is based on experiment, research and critical analysis. The other is based on magic. I think I'll stick with the first one, thanks all the same.

Exactly Mr. Harris, exactly.

Cheers, Mr. Harris.

As always, you are brilliant.

I hope the Crystal Clear Atheism conference tomorrow finds you in good health and your usual high spirits. Though my blessing will have little other than a psychological benefit, if that, it has long been clear we need no supernatural assistance to make great strikes forward.

Sincerely,

Brian Dewhirst

Exactly Mr. Harris, exactly.

Sam Harris for President!! How refreshing it would be to finally have a president grounded in science, logic and reason. A president who uses thoughtful analysis to make the policy decisions that effect the whole world. And, by the way, the Democrats aren't off the hook for this either. There isn't one major candidate running today in either party who doesn't pander to some degree to religous voters. How refreshing it would be to have a candidate state firmly that religious considerations would not under any circumstances enter into their decision making process. That facts, not magical thinking would steer policy.

How I would love to oneday be able to vote for someone brave enough to have as their campaign slogan something along the lines of "Facts...Not Fairytales" or "It's Our Country, Let's Be Smart About It" or "Religion Has No Place In Government". Ah well...probably not in my lifetime, and unfortunately I am quite young...

And, JK, science is the furthest thing from religion. One is based on experiment, research and critical analysis. The other is based on magic. I think I'll stick with the first one, thanks all the same.

Dear Sam,

I like this and all your writings. But I think you have to understand the sources of the power
of religion(s).

First of all, religions are powerful life organizers- and people have no others.

Second- religions are protecting people against the unbearable complexity of the world. OK, they offer an other complexity, but at a much lower intellectual level. People need certainties as they need bread and water.

Third- it is about social cohesion, religion is an efficient one.

Till there are no other offers for life organizers,complexity killers, and social cement, religions will be popular.
Humans are weak and therefore Good and Evil are siamese twins.

Peter
(peter.gluck@gmail.com)

Wicca and Druidry are based as squarely on irrationality as any of the mainstream religions. The six steps still work, just replace God with forest magic, witches or any other silly superstitious drivel.

Dear Sam,

I like this and all your writings. But I think you have to understand the sources of the power
of religion(s).

First of all, religions are powerful life organizers- and people have no others.

Second- religions are protecting people against the unbearable complexity of the world. OK, they offer an other complexity, but at a much lower intellectual level. People need certainties as they need bread and water.

Third- it is about social cohesion, religion is an efficient one.

Till there are no other offers for life organizers,complexity killers, and social cement, religions will be popular.
Humans are weak and therefore Good and Evil are siamese twins.

Peter
(peter.gluck@gmail.com)

Science is a religion...true. However, it's a religion whose main tenet is to continually ask questions. There is a difference.

Wicca is a load of crap too!

Sam eviscerates New Age mythology here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/in-defense-of-witchcraft_b_53865.html

Read and weep witches.

Oh, and Tarot cards can't predict the future, crystals have no power, reflexology is massage, and Gaia will destroy you (think Katrina or a tsunami) without a care or a thought of your pathetic existence.

Rubbish. Science cannot be a religion, as it never asks anyone to believe anything without evidence.

Religion, on the other hand, depends on such, as Mr. Harris points out.

I know nothing about neopaganism, Steve B., but if it involves any supernatural beliefs then I'm afraid it's as irrational as any other myth system. It may not be as divisive or violent as Xianity et al, but it's still not rational.

I had a conversation with a Christian the other day who saw as an ingredient of a belief in God the need to 'praise him'. I asked her if the belief required such an emotional response, and she said that it does; that to not praise God despite recognizing his existence is tantamount to blasphemy. I find this troubling and I informed her of this. Why is worship the currency of one's communication with God? There seems to be something perverse about that behavior as a constant. Were I a God and I took comfort in my creation constantly on bended knees or worse, it would take little time for me to have contempt for them. And maybe deep within the mind of the true believers this is what they think: That man is a creature deserving of contempt; an innately sinful thing. Wait, that is exactly what they think.

I had a conversation with a Christian the other day who saw as an ingredient of a belief in God the need to 'praise him'. I asked her if the belief required such an emotional response, and she said that it does; that to not praise God despite recognizing his existence is tantamount to blasphemy. I find this troubling and I informed her of this. Why is worship the currency of one's communication with God? There seems to be something perverse about that behavior as a constant. Were I a God and I took comfort in my creation constantly on bended knees or worse, it would take little time for me to have contempt for them. And maybe deep within the mind of the true believers this is what they think: That man is a creature deserving of contempt; an innately sinful thing. Wait, that is exactly what they think.

Kick ass Sam! Once again you hit it out of the ball park. I am looking forward to hearing you speak on Friday.
-Staks
DangerousTalk.net

I think an important thing Sam Harris and many other atheists have failed to grasp is the nature of true belief.
People believe that, say, if they wear a certain necklace it will give them protection, they believe that if you pray for someone to get well it will make a difference and so on.
Lets ignore the bible and other books and think about actual unadulterated belief.
While myself, Harris and other atheists cannot grasp this 'delusion', it is very very real for these people, and does not require a series of mental exercises laid out in this article.

"Science is also a religion."

Yes, because of course it's my faith in gravity that makes it work. It's only a theory anyway.

Dear Sam,

Like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, you credibly argue that moral instincts are innate. Yet, often those instincts remain latent if not elicited by individuals or institutions with an interest in moral advancement.

One can easily posit that our ability to appreciate the Beethoven string quartets is innate, yet only a tiny fraction of the world's population enjoys them. As a practical matter, we should focus not on the origin of our moral instincts, but on the institutions we charge with eliciting them.

Can secular institutions do so? Perhaps. But until they demonstrate success, we must remain doubtful. Our public schools have failed to nurture moral instincts. And I see no secular institutions dedicated to moral progress beyond the confines of single-issue ideology.

A world ruled by reason might be worth our longing. But where is the proliferation of Aristotelian minds among the faithless? As long as the avatar of atheism remains the drug-addicted, thrice-divorced Hollywood nihilist, there is little incentive to disavow irrationality.

Steve Blevins

Science is also a religion.

Science is also a religion.

Science is also a religion.

Science is also a religion.

Oh and "Path"..... are you being serious?

How is it that religion has been able to fool a lot of people at the same time?!

Reason seems to have disappeared in the black hole of religion.

you intelecctuals give me grief...without religion, how will I know who can I safely hate? Next you will attack patriotisim. Without a country and patritotsm, whom can I hate?

Once again, with precise clarity, Harris cuts through the bs. Thanks, Sam, for your insight and contributions. It's nice to be in such company.

I totally agree. It's like that prick with the jesus sticker that holds up traffic to let the other car go at the intersection while traffic is moving. He thinks that god is somehow going to reward him for halting to some idiot he doesn't even know.

Reality is so twisted for some people. These religious tards sit there wanting to believe that those who they dislike will somehow be left in hell for infinity and beyond. Their belief in the freedom of expression under their ideals is what drives this country into its little ideal box.

You can't have it both ways. Good people and religious people. Most religious freaks I know have some dark evil side that they're trying to hide. By criticizing others and damning them all to hell, they are putting themselves on the pedestal with the other believers that are willing to overlook their tormented minds.

from Schmitz Blitz: schmitzblitz.wordpress.com

According to the NYT, Richard Dawkins was misled into giving an interview for the new documentary on the oppressive close mindedness of those who think lessons on creationism don’t belong in the science classroom. The documentary, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” is hosted by Ben Stein, and from the looks of the trailer, it Michael Moore-esque.

The distortion of scientific research is not a new tactic by those on the right. James Dobson and Paul Cameron have by widely criticized by the scientific community for twisting research on gay families to fit into their anti-gay ideologies.

That the distortion of scientific research is an essential part of the religious right’s strategy of promoting creationism in the public schools and their anti gay agenda. Since there is no legitimate scientific research supporting their side, they must fabricate it. I think it’s shameful that they manipulate science in order to undermine it.

As usual, practically every negative thing atheists have to say about 'religion' applies wholly to Christianity, and hardly at all to new religious movements such as Wicca and Druidry. Since these were (in many cases) deliberately set up to be counter-cultural and different, they take the opposite approach to traditional paths.

I mentioned in a previous post the Isaac Bonewits cult evaluator, which tracks the level of negative behaviours associated with religions, such as:
Internal control, External control, Wisdom or knowledge claimed by leaders, Wisdom or knowledge credited to leaders, Dogma, Recruiting, Front groups, Wealth, Sexual manipulation, Sexism, Censorship, Isolation, Dropout control, Violence, Paranoia, Grimness, Surrender of will, Hypocrisy.
Unsurprisingly, Christianity and Islam fail this test completely. Many others don't.

Again and again the accusations from atheists – of moral cowardice on letting the Church tell you what to do in any ethical situation, of believing literally in the events of an allegorical text, of not researching your own religion enough to know who the Gnostics were and which rich Romans invented parts of it and when – repeatedly we see that none of these apply to neopaganism and other new religious movements.

Not everything is a traditional monotheism, with their baggage. Not every religion is about absolute belief in a supernatural being. If you can take the step of seeing spiritual feeling as a positive thing in people’s lives (provided they’re not deliberately lying to themselves or being steered towards intolerance by it) there are plenty of paths which miss out the pitfalls Hitchens blithely ascribes to ‘all religion’.