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.